First Read: “After a summer of leaders infighting, a key party committee squandering its financial advantage and its nominees struggling on the campaign trail, Senate Republicans are looking for a reset.” 

“With 63 days until Election Day — and control of the U.S. Senate completely up for grabs.”

Los Angeles Times: A hyperpolarized, deeply fragile 2022 election: Democrats’ energy over Roe blunts GOP advantage.

A.B. Stoddard: “Relinquishing incumbency is a risk. There’s no doubt about that. There’s a reason sitting presidents are hard to beat… Joe Biden is an optimist so he’d probably appreciate the glass-half-full scenario: that the Democratic party can unite after a robust primary that engages every part of its coalition. The nominee who emerges from such a debate would campaign against Trump (or his MAGA heir) to take the country in a new direction, making it both a change election and a referendum on Trumpism.”

“Going back to a geriatric criminal madman loser who works harder for Vladimir Putin than us? Nobody wants that t-shirt. And even if the GOP nominee isn’t Trump but a mini-Trump, Democrats can still campaign as change agents against the MAGA movement and their authoritarian socialists.”

FiveThirtyEight: “There are a lot of election deniers on the ballot. Out of 529 total Republican nominees running for office, we found 195 who fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election. These candidates either clearly stated that the election was stolen from Trump or took legal action to overturn the results, such as voting not to certify election results or joining lawsuits that sought to overturn the election.”

“Moreover, an additional 61 candidates raised questions around the results of the 2020 election. These candidates haven’t gone so far as to say explicitly that the election was stolen or take legal action to overturn it. However, they haven’t said the election was legitimate either. In fact, they have raised doubts about potential fraud.”

Jonathan Bernstein: “The slow fade-out of dynastic politics in the US is continuing in 2022. Just in the last few weeks, Nick Begich III was defeated for the Alaska House seat his grandfather once held; his uncle was also a senator from Alaska. And in New York, State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, whose grandfather served in the US House, failed to win a House seat.”

“Yet the most high-profile development this year is the apparent political demise of the Bush family, with Texas Land Commissioner George P. attempting to move up to state attorney general and getting squashed by a better than 2-to-1 margin in the Republican primary. It’s possible that George P. or another 4th-generation Bush will have a robust political future, but given the family’s opposition to former President Donald Trump, that isn’t so likely.”