Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) announced he would not run for re-election next year.
Young Voters Turn Against Biden
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds 29% of adults under age 30 approve of the job President Biden is doing, while 50% disapprove.
“The net rating of -21 points is the worst for any age group. Adults aged between 30 and 44 give Biden a -17 rating; those aged 45 to 64 come in at -5; and among adults aged 65 and over, the president is eight points underwater.”
“This is a sharp reversal from the beginning of the year, when young voters gave Biden a net approval rating 32 points higher than older people did. And Biden is falling out of favor fastest with the youngest groups.”
Dina Titus Unloads on Fellow Democrats
Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) said she “totally got fucked” by the Democratic state legislature in redistricting, the Nevada Current reports.
Said Titus: “I’m sorry to say it like that, but I don’t know any other way to say it.”
“Titus was referring to a shift of Democrats away from the first congressional district, historically an ironclad safe seat for Democrats, in order to strengthen their position in the state’s two swing districts. She warned the three congressional seats held by Nevada Democrats are now at risk of turning Republican during the 2022 election cycle, under the new maps approved by the state lawmakers and the governor last month.”
She added: “You read that the Republicans are using gerrymandering to cut out Democratic seats, but they didn’t have to in this state. We did it to ourselves.”
Judge Goes On Leave After Video of Racial Slurs
“A Louisiana judge will go on unpaid leave after a video from her home captured people repeatedly using racial slurs following a burglary attempt,” NBC News reports.
Jeff Jackson Drops Senate Bid In North Carolina
Jeff Jackson (D) is walking away from the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
“The 39-year-old state senator from Charlotte is the second candidate in recent weeks to make that decision, which leaves former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley as the biggest-name candidate for the Democratic nomination.”
Trump’s Quest for More Powerful Shower Heads Ends
“Donald Trump’s pursuit of ‘perfect’ hair may be lifelong, but the former president’s hope of achieving that goal by tinkering with the country’s shower head requirements has come to an end,” the Washington Post reports.
“The Energy Department has reversed a Trump-era rule increasing how much water could be used in a shower by allowing multiple nozzles to carry equal amounts of water at once.”
Graham Says Biden’s Spending Bill Is ‘Dead Forever’
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he thinks President Biden’s social spending and climate bill, the Build Back Better Act, is “dead forever,” The Hill reports.
Mike Lindell Will ‘Spend Every Dime’ Pushing Big Lie
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told CNBC he has spent $25 million of his own money pushing the false claim that the election was stolen from Donald Trump and he plans to keep spending through the 2022 midterm elections.
Said Lindell: “I will keep spending it because there is no tomorrow. We lose our country. We either only have two paths: either it gets changed before the 2022 election or we lose our country forever. I will spend every dime I have. I will spend whatever it takes.”
Are We Past the Point of No Return?
Thomas Edsall: “Political analysts, scholars and close observers of government are explicitly raising the possibility that the polarized American electoral system has come to the point at which a return to traditional democratic norms will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.”
Select Panel Interviews Georgia Officials
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection “interviewed current and former employees of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office Wednesday about former President Donald Trump’s extensive attempts to overturn the 2020 election results,” Georgia Public Broadcasting reports.
What Bill de Blasio’s Staff Thinks of Him
New York magazine has some choice quotes about New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) from current and former staffers:
- “He wouldn’t leave me alone. He never stopped thinking about this stuff. I’m not saying he was an early riser, but the moment he woke up, he would be like a bat out of hell. Before you’d get to work, everyone would have ten emails that would destroy your morning.”
- “He was just so brutally mean to people. I can’t stand the man.”
- “An arrogant ass.”
- “Really, really hard to take. Constantly being lectured and patronized.”
Republicans Hold Edge In Redistricting So Far
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball reports there are now 26 states with congressional maps in place for the 2022 election.
“These 26 states will have a combined 169 U.S. House seats based on the new census, or about 39% of all the seats. Currently in these states, Republicans have a 96-70 edge. Based on the new apportionment, these states have collectively added 3 net seats, which accounts for the discrepancy between the number of seats these states currently have (166) compared to what they will have under the new census (169).”
“Based on our Crystal Ball ratings for the new districts in these completed states, we have 99 districts at least leaning to the Republicans, 65 at least leaning to the Democrats, and 5 Toss-ups. One of the Toss-ups is a newly-added seat in Colorado, CO-8; the other 4 are currently Democratic-held seats IA-3, IL-17, ME-2, and NC-1. So one way of looking at this is that the Republicans are up 3 seats in these states, collectively, while the Democrats would have to win all of the Toss-ups just to get to the 70 seats they currently hold in these states.”
Has Biden’s Approval Rate Bottomed Out?
Jonathan Bersnstein: “President Joe Biden’s approval ratings seem to have bottomed out for now, and may even be rising. According to the FiveThirtyEight estimate (based on adjusted averages of all the public-opinion polls), he’s up to 43.8% approval, which is 1.5 percentage points above his Dec. 2 low; his disapproval is at 50.6%, down from a 52.3% peak just before Thanksgiving. Random variation could account for some of that move, but it seems likely that Biden’s slide stopped right around the beginning of November, and that he has probably recovered a bit since then. He’s still, to be sure, below water. At least for now.”
“Biden also remains the least popular of the 14 polling-era presidents at this point, 330 days into his presidency, except for Donald Trump, who was dead last for most of his first year and close to last during most of his presidency. The good news for Biden is that he’s now closer to the tier ahead of him — Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Harry Truman — than he is to Trump.”
Chart of the Day
The difference in death rates from Covid-19 between Republican and Democratic counties is becoming even more staggering.
Most Republicans Cling to Trump’s Big Lie
A new Bright Line Watch poll finds just 27% of Republicans accept President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
The January 6 Puzzle Piece Being Largely Ignored
“As Donald Trump and his allies squeezed then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly stop Joe Biden’s presidency in the weeks ahead of Jan. 6, they used one particular tool that’s been largely ignored ever since,” Politico reports.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) sued Pence on Dec. 27, just as Trump was ratcheting up his pressure campaign against his vice president… Gohmert’s move forced Pence to publicly resist Trump’s subversion of the election, only a week before the fateful Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. When the Justice Department stepped in to defend Pence from the lawsuit on Dec. 29, it marked the first time Pence signaled he wouldn’t fold to Trump’s demands.”
“But what remains unknown is just how involved Trump was in Gohmert’s legal strategy.”
Biden’s Agenda Stalled In Senate
Playbook: “It’s a fitting end to a year dominated by two Senate Democrats at the center of pretty much everything in 2021: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have all but put the kibosh on two major proposals their own party was hoping to pass before the holiday break.”
However, from Punchbowl News: “Democrats are fighting among themselves over SALT and immigration. That’s not Manchin’s fault. And the parliamentarian hasn’t finished scrubbing the bill for possible Byrd Rule problem. And that isn’t Manchin’s fault.”
“So let’s be real. It’s not just Manchin. He’s a big problem for the leadership and White House, easily the most high profile headache, but hardly the only one. They don’t have the text of the legislation finished. The parliamentarian is still grinding away.”
How Mark Meadows Fought to Keep Trump in Power
“A small circle of Republican lawmakers, working closely with President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, took on an outsize role in pressuring the Justice Department, amplifying conspiracy theories and flooding the courts in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election,” the New York Times reports.
William Saletan: The chilling lesson of Mark Meadows’ text messages.