Newly minted Vice President Kamala Harris swore in Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff (D) and Raphael Warnock (D), who defeated Sens. David Perdue (R.) and Kelly Loeffler (R.) in Georgia‘s runoff elections on Jan. 5.
Harris also swore in her successor as California senator, former California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who will hold the seat through the scheduled end of Harris’s term in 2022.
The race between Perdue and Ossoff is much closer, with the candidates separated by about 3,000 votes and taking turns in the lead throughout the night.
Neither Loeffler nor Warnock reached the 50 percent threshold needed to win the general election in November, sending the race into a runoff. Warnock, who benefited from then-Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) running in the nonpartisan blanket primary alongside Loeffler, garnered roughly 33 percent of the vote at that time. Loeffler brought in around 26 percent.
House Democrats started this month hoping, and preparing, to gain seats in the election. Instead, their once-robust majority in the House has dwindled, and Democrats are on track to begin next year with the slimmest majority in decades.
Now members on the progressive left and Democratic Party moderates are again at odds over whose policies won in 2020 and how they should govern as a party.
The party’s 2024 hopefuls are set to blanket the Peach State ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff elections, but GOP senators say they hope that Trump, who is locked in a myriad of legal challenges surrounding the presidential race, is able to lend his megaphone to help hold onto the Senate majority.
(05.11.2020)
The clash between the ideological wings of the caucus reflects the high levels of frustration among Democrats of all stripes following a demoralizing turn at the polls on Tuesday.
Heading into the elections, party leaders had predicted they would pick up seats, even in deep red districts won soundly by Trump in 2016. Instead, they saw Republicans knock off at least seven Democratic incumbents, most of them first-term lawmakers who had helped deliver the party’s House majority just two years ago.
Three progressive groups are ramping up their efforts to help Democrat Kara Eastman defeat incumbent Republican Rep. Don Bacon in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, a crucial battleground that also yields its own individual Electoral College vote. Eastman, who’s going up against millions of dollars from the Republican side, represents one of the left’s best chances at flipping a swing district this cycle.
(21.10.2020)
In an era of increasing partisanship, split-ticket voting continues to be rare in U.S. politics. With control of the Senate at stake on Nov. 3, just 4% of registered voters in states with a Senate contest say they will support Donald Trump or Joe Biden and a Senate candidate from the opposing party.
Equity: Ensuring that everyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from, has the same opportunities and capacities to live their own idea of a good life.
Reverend Raphael Warnock grew up in Kayton Homes public housing in Savannah. The family was short on money, but long on faith, love and humor. Raphael and his eleven brothers and sisters were taught the meaning of hard work.
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While the world’s attention is on Donald Trump’s attempt to win re-election as president over challenger Joe Biden, the battle for the US Senate that will culminate on 3 November is equally dramatic.
Even if Biden defeats Trump, he will be unable to pass legislation on key issues such as healthcare, immigration and climate change unless the Democrats simultaneously seize the Senate, where the Republicans now have a 47-53 majority.
Campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters they would “put the nail in the coffin” for Biden in Pennsylvania, and possibly Ohio and Minnesota.
Biden and Trump are also locked in a tight race in Texas, a state Democrats have long dreamed of taking but one in which the comments could prove damaging.
Sen. Bernie Sanders gives his thoughts on the latest stimulus negotiations and shares his concerns with the proposal being floated by the Trump Administration.
“If the Democrats gain control of the Senate, the first order of business will be a massive stimulus bill to protect desperate working people throughout this country,” Sanders said on Hill.TV’s “Rising.”
The remarks come as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin press on in their negotiations on COVID-19 aid. Pelosi has stuck to her position that a stimulus package must total at least $2.2 trillion, while the administration has inched up to $1.8 trillion.
Former Rep. Beto O‘Rourke (D-Texas), whose 2018 Senate campaign was credited with a massive surge in turnout across the state, on Sunday called for former Vice President Joe Biden to visit Texas.
„Texas could win this for Biden and end the nightmare on election night. Texans are doing their part. We’d sure like to see @JoeBiden visit us and spend more resources here,“ wrote O‘Rourke on Twitter.
Republicans are hopeful that they can get Barrett confirmed to the high court before Election Day.
I’m a coal miner’s daughter and granddaughter. I’m not a millionaire. I’m regular-working West Virginian who knows what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck and fight to put food on the table for my children. I’ve seen first hand what struggle and poverty means for me, for my neighbors and for our communities.
We are a people powered movement that does not take corporate cash, so we need your help to power us through this election.
We know our futures are dependent on winning races like ours all across this country.
I am proud to be part of the WV Can’t Wait movement because I know that it will take all of us to build a West Virginia that works for all of us.
Natalie Cline is the Democratic nominee for the United States Congress in West Virginia‘s 1st District. As West Virginia’s 1st District next Congresswoman, Natalie Cline will be focused on checkbook issues, reducing unemployment, making sure there is access to affordable health care for every West Virginian, and working hard every day to ensure that our children and grandchildren have opportunities for jobs locally so they can stay close to home.
Despite the concerns, Senate Republican leaders say they want to move ahead with confirmation hearings for Barrett, which are slated to begin Oct. 12. Both Lee and Tillis are members of the 22-member Senate Judiciary Committee that will hold the hearings and ultimately decide whether his confirmation will move forward for a vote in the full Senate.
Two Republican senators on the pivotal Judiciary Committee have tested positive for the coronavirus after attending White House events last week announcing Mr. Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, throwing the future of her Supreme Court confirmation hearings into question.
But by Friday evening, with the White House and Congress in turmoil and two Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, among those announcing they had tested positive for the virus, it was clear that the challenge had grown steeper.
Top Republicans insisted they would move ahead at an uncommonly swift pace to hold hearings on Judge Barrett’s nomination by Oct. 12, send her nomination to the full Senate by Oct. 22 and confirm her as soon as Oct. 26, eight days before Election Day — even if it meant breaking Senate norms and considering a lifetime judicial nomination by videoconference.
An already chaotic and corrosive presidential campaign was jolted anew Friday night by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as a sudden vacancy on the Supreme Court just 46 days before the election immediately galvanized both political parties.
Today, President Donald J. Trump announced the following additions to his Supreme Court List:
Trump warnte im Fall seiner Wahlniederlage im November vor einer Übernahme des Obersten Gerichts durch „radikale Linke“. „Unglücklicherweise gibt es eine wachsende linksradikale Bewegung, die das Prinzip der Gleichbehandlung vor dem Gesetz ablehnt“, sagte Trump im Weißen Haus.
Mr. Markey, who was first elected to Congress in 1976, was able to outflank Mr. Kennedy with progressives, leaving the heir of Massachusetts’s most storied political dynasty little opening.
The 71-year-old Neal — the longest-serving member of the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation — defeated 31-year-old Morse, seen as a political rising star after becoming one of Massachusetts’ youngest and only openly gay mayors since becoming chief executive of Holyoke in 2011 at age 22.
Groups like the Sunshine Movement and Our Revolution Massachusetts have gone all-in for progressive insurgent and Holyoke, Mass., Mayor Alex Morse (D), who is taking on House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.).
DISTRICT 23
Debbie Wasserman Schultz ran away with competition, beating out Jennifer Perelman with ease. The eight-term incumbent will face either Michael Kroske or Carla Spalding as it’s still too close to call the Republican winner.
(14.08.2020)
As the primary in Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District turned into a national story following allegations of misconduct against Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, the state Democratic Party declined to weigh in, citing its policy to remain neutral in contested primaries.
But behind the scenes, the state party had been coordinating with the College Democrats of Massachusetts to launch those very allegations, according to five sources within the state party and connected to the CDMA, a review of messages between party leadership and CDMA leadership, and call records obtained by The Intercept.
(13.08.2020)
The leadership of the University of Massachusetts Amherst College Democrats began discussing an operation they believed could sink the campaign of Alex Morse for Congress as far back as last October, a plan they then helped engineer and which came to fruition on Friday, after the College Democrats sent a letter regarding Morse to the Daily Collegian, the school’s student newspaper.
(06.08.2020)
While the Biden wing of the Democratic party bets on centrism, progressives keep scoring wins. We take a look at a party marching in two directions toward November.
(05.08.2020)
Joe Biden, first elected to the Senate in 1972, is in many ways a throwback to a bygone era. He has described himself as a transitional figure who can help build the next generation of Democrats. Biden may be the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, but Clay’s defeat underscores the deeper sea change underway in the party’s activist ranks and foreshadows some of the potential governing challenges facing the former vice president should he win in November.
(07.08.2020)
(07.08.2020)
Despite being outraised 250-1 by her establishment-backed opponent, progressive environmentalist Marquita Bradshaw scored a stunning upset victory in the Tennessee Democratic primary for an open U.S. Senate seat on Thursday after running on a platform that included Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
(06.08.2020)
Neal is facing off against Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse on Sept. 1 in the Democratic primary, with Morse running hard to Neal’s left in another safe seat for Democrats. The liberal group Fight Corporate Monopolies, a new PAC formed after the end of the Sanders presidential campaign this year, has funded at least $300,000 in ads going after Neal for a history of financial support from corporate PACs.
(25.07.2020)
Last year, Morse in an interview with Mother Jones aligned himself with the group of four young Democratic congresswomen of color nicknamed “the Squad” — Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
“Those four members of Congress in particular represent very courageous and progressive voices in our party, so it would be an honor to get to Congress and work alongside them,” Morse said.
Bush’s primary win essentially guarantees her a seat in Congress representing the heavily Democratic St. Louis area. Missouri’s 1st Congressional District has been represented by Clay or his father for a half-century. Bill Clay served 32 years before retiring in 2000. William Lacy Clay, 64, was elected that year.
Clay didn’t face a serious challenger until Bush.
In a stunning upset, Black Lives Matter activist Cori Bush has defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, according to the Associated Press. Bush, a minister and registered nurse, has been heavily involved in protests against police violence since the 2014 Ferguson protests
Senior Democrats had sounded alarms for several members after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) stunned House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley (D) in the 2018 primary. Justice Democrats, the group behind Ocasio-Cortez‘s upset, eyed several other long-serving members who had not faced serious challenges in years or even decades.
(20.06.2020)
Embattled congressman Eliot Engel, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has bragged that he sits down with the rightwing pro-Israel organization AIPAC on “every piece of legislation coming out of the Foreign Affairs Committee.”
In a 2018 speech to an AIPAC gathering in his NY district, Engel noted that he and Rep. Nita Lowey had both been in the House 30 years and were soon to assume chair positions that they could use to help Israel.
(30.06.2020)
The city board, like its equivalents throughout the state, has been swamped with an unprecedented volume of absentee ballots and is currently working on sorting through them. Final totals for the number of mailed in-ballots should be available later this week. Ryan said that “more than 10 times” the number of such ballots expected under normal circumstances had been sent out.
(30.06.2020)
With potentially as much as 50% of the vote being cast by mail this year because of the coronavirus, absentee ballots could decide the primary election. Under state law, counting may begin Wednesday, but it could take several days to complete in some counties.
(01.07.2020)
I still support McGrath no matter what though.
(24.05.2020)
Voters were locked out of the Kentucky Expo Center after a backup of traffic into the fairgrounds left people waiting in line past 6:00.
(24.06.2020)
Voters in Louisville banged on the windows of the city‘s only polling center, demanding to be let in to cast their ballot after it had initially closed. It was later reopened to allow them in.
(01.07.2020)
Saagar Enjeti and Ryan Grim evaluate Amy McGrath‘s victory in the neck and neck Kentucky primary race against progressive challenger Charles Booker.
(01.07.2020)
(30.06.2020)
Former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath won a Democratic primary to become the nominee for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky, fending off a strong late challenge from a state legislator whose rise to prominence reflected the renewed energy of the progressive movement.
Ms. McGrath, who had the backing of the Democratic establishment, defeated state House lawmaker Charles Booker, according to Associated Press projections.
Progressives energized by last week’s congressional primaries have another high-ranking House Democrat in their sights: Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal of Massachusetts.
Neal, 71, is facing a challenge from Alex Morse, a 31-year-old mayor who was born just a few weeks after Neal began his first term in Congress.
Regardless of the official „outcome“, Booker fucking won. They‘ve spent the past 6 days just trying to fudge the numbers.
Bowman‘s unseating of Eliot Engel shows that neither the power of incumbency nor the backing of the Israel lobby is enough to win an election.