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Campaign Violations Haunt Newly-Elected Lawmaker

December 10, 2018 at 7:56 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rep.-elect Ross Spano (R-FL) “is struggling to hire office staff as he relies on a controversial adviser: one of the friends at the center of a campaign finance scandal that is rocking the Florida Republican,” Politico reports.

“Spano, an attorney and outgoing state legislator with past financial troubles, recently admitted in a letter to the Federal Election Commission that he might have committed a campaign finance ‘violation’ in failing for two months to disclose $180,000 he accepted from two friends.”

“But if the FEC deems the ‘loans’ to be campaign contributions, they would exceed legal donation limits of $2,700 per cycle, per contributor. And experts say it could constitute a criminal violation by Spano and, potentially, the two people who gave his campaign the money — Cary Carreno and Karen Hunt.”

Harris Says He Would Support a New Election

December 7, 2018 at 3:11 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Mark Harris, the Republican candidate in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District election, issued a video Friday saying he would ‘wholeheartedly support’ a new election if evidence emerges that criminal activity swayed the outcome of the Nov. 6 race, the Washington Post reports.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports Harris paid more than $525,000 to a political consulting firm at the center of a probe of possible absentee ballot fraud in the race.

O’Rourke Raised More than $80 Million

December 7, 2018 at 7:08 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) ended up raising an astonishing $80.1 million in his failed bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Dallas Morning News reports.

“The final tally, released late Thursday, is sure to intensify speculation that O’Rourke could mount a campaign in 2020 against President Trump.”

“Much of the attention on O’Rourke has focused on a frenetic campaign style that helped him come within three points of toppling Cruz — the best a Democrat has done statewide in Texas in years — and a social-media-friendly charisma that captivated liberals all over the U.S.”

Democrat Withdraws Concession In North Carolina

December 6, 2018 at 6:05 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Dan McCready (D) withdrew his concession in a North Carolina congressional race that has been roiled by accusations of fraud, the Washington Post reports.

McCready also called on rival Mark Harris (R) “to tell the American people exactly what he knew and when he knew it.”

GOP Officials Had Early Warnings of Fraud

December 6, 2018 at 2:33 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Republican officials had early warnings of voting irregularities in North Carolina congressional race that are now the subject of probes,” the Washington Post reports.

In the days immediately after the GOP primary, aides to Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), who lost the race, told the state party’s executive director that they believed fraud had occurred. GOP officials did little to scrutinize the results, instead turning their attention to the general-election campaign.

Incumbency Is Much Less Valuable Now

December 6, 2018 at 9:33 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Nathaniel Rakich: “For decades, running as an incumbent was undoubtedly a huge advantage in electoral politics. As recently as 20 years ago, holding office added an average of 8 percentage points to a candidate’s margin.”

“But in this century, experts say, the incumbency advantage has significantly diminished. Now the verdict is in for the 2018 election: According to our method of calculating it… the electoral benefit of already being a member of Congress this year was down to less than 3 points.”

Democratic Popular Vote Lead Keeps Growing

December 5, 2018 at 2:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Cook Political Report shows that the Democratic lead in the U.S. House popular vote for the 2018 midterms is now up to 8.5%.

Steve Benen: “For comparison purposes, note that in 2010 – which was widely seen as a GOP ‘wave’ cycle – Republicans won the U.S. House popular vote by 6.6%. In 1994, which was seen as a Republican ‘revolution,’ the GOP won the U.S. House popular vote by 7.1%.”

Newspaper Calls for New Election In North Carolina

December 5, 2018 at 12:12 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Charlotte Observer calls for a new election in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district:

“There may be no way, however, to know how widespread the fraud was, or whether it involved enough ballots to potentially change the outcome of the election — a 905-vote victory for Republican Mark Harris over Democrat Dan McCready. But we do know enough. Unless new evidence somehow clears the clouds hanging over this election, the Board of Elections should toss out the 9th District results.”

The 2018 Midterms Get Worse for Republicans

December 4, 2018 at 7:28 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Cook Political Report: “Just when it looked like the 2018 House outcome couldn’t get any worse for Republicans than a 40-seat loss, a deepening absentee ballot fraud scam has cast into doubt an open North Carolina seat previously called for the GOP. The scandal is now a full-blown national news story and it’s possible the state board of elections, which has refused to certify the race, could order a new election altogether.”

“It’s quite likely this race will persist in legal limbo well beyond when the new House is seated in the first week of January.”

Hoyer Says House Will Consider Not Seating Harris

December 4, 2018 at 12:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters that there is a “substantial question” about the election in the 9th Congressional District, where Mark Harris (R) held a slim lead over Dan McCready (D), the Washington Post reports.

“State investigators are examining the work of a local operative in a growing fraud investigation that has delayed certification of Harris’s narrow win. Hoyer said unless the questions are resolved, the House should hold off on letting Harris take the oath of office on Jan. 3 when new members are sworn in.”

Voting Access Is Focus of Today’s Georgia Runoff

December 4, 2018 at 9:06 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“As a battle over the fairness of Georgia’s recent election for governor moves from the political arena to the courtroom, two men are locked in a runoff race, with far less fanfare, to oversee the future of the state’s election apparatus,” the AP reports.

“Republican state Rep. Brad Raffensperger faces former Democratic congressman John Barrow in a Dec. 4 runoff for Georgia secretary of state after neither garnered the more than 50% of votes required to win outright on Nov. 6.”

Alienation of Young Voters Threatens GOP

December 4, 2018 at 8:37 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Ron Browstein: “The sharp turn against the Republican Party by young people in the 2018 election may be only the overture to an even greater political risk for the GOP in 2020.”

“Both historical voting patterns and underlying demographic trends suggest that the biggest difference in the electorate between this election and the next one is that relatively younger voters will cast a greater share of the votes in the presidential year — perhaps a much larger share. Even with much higher than usual turnout among young voters this year, voters 45 and below are likely to increase their proportion of the total vote from just under three-in-ten this year to something closer to four-in-ten by 2020, historical trends suggest.”

Similarities Discovered Between Absentee Ballots

December 3, 2018 at 7:02 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

WSOC-TV found what “appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots” in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, “in which even the person picking them up had no idea whether those ballots were even delivered to the elections board.”

Consistently, the station “found the same people signing as witnesses for the people voting, which is very rare.”

Party Leaders Duped Voters with ‘Dubious’ Midterm Ads

December 3, 2018 at 1:32 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Newly elected members of Congress benefited from millions of dollars indirectly tied to party leaders in Washington. But much of that money was spent on ads that appeared to be from local groups,” Roll Call reports.

“The tactic is legal, thanks to campaign finance laws that have not been updated since the dawn of the digital age and Supreme Court rulings that have struck down limits on money in politics. But such strategies, laid out in the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center’s Dodging Disclosure report, represent the acceleration of ‘big money trends’ that have given deep-pocketed groups outsize influence over elections and made the 2018 midterms the most expensive in American history.”

Control of Alaska House Hinges on One Vote

December 3, 2018 at 6:55 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

NBC News: “Control of Alaska’s House for the next two years rests on the razor-thin race between Barton LeBon (R) and Kathryn Dodge (D). Following a Friday recount, LeBon held a one-vote lead over Dodge. Entering that recount, the candidates were in a dead heat with 2,661 votes each.”

“At the time, a mystery ballot marked for Dodge and found by an election worker at a Fairbanks voting precinct appeared likely to play a crucial role in determining the outcome, but that voted was tossed Friday after election officials determined it belonged to a voter who had made a mistake and then submitted a new ballot.”

No Sign of Course Correction by Republicans

December 2, 2018 at 3:41 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“With a brutal finality, the extent of the Republicans’ collapse in the House came into focus last week as more races slipped away from them and their losses neared 40 seats,” the New York Times reports.

“Yet nearly a month after the election, there has been little self-examination among Republicans about why a midterm that had seemed at least competitive became a rout.”

Massive Vote Fraud Suspected In North Carolina

December 2, 2018 at 12:07 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Raleigh News & Observer looks at data on mail-in ballots in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, where there are allegations of improperly collecting mail-in ballots and voters receiving mail-in ballots they did not request.

Across the 9th district, 24% of the requested mail-in ballots were unreturned. In Robeson County, 64% of mail-in ballots requested did not make it back to elections officials. In Bladen County, the figure was 40%.
The unreturned ballots are disproportionately associated with minority voters. More than 40% of the ballots requested by African Americans and more than 60% of those requested by American Indians did not make it back to elections officials. For white voters, that figure was just 17%.

North Carolina Elections Board Chair Resigns

December 1, 2018 at 3:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Democratic chairman of the state elections board in North Carolina resigned Saturday, saying he did not want his partisan views to undermine a widening investigation into alleged election fraud in the 9th Congressional District race,” the Washington Post reports.

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