Politico: “As a sign of the seriousness of the effort, the state party has enlisted Public Opinion Strategies, a D.C. area-based firm, to conduct the review of the 2022 election. Republicans said it is expected to cost $100,000.”
“Discovering the truth is one thing. Accepting it is another. And the state GOP’s ability to do just that will likely have a profound impact on whether it can help the party take back the White House in 2024.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) endorsed Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) in her newly-announced bid for U.S. Senate in California.
NBC News: “Warren’s marks the first major endorsement in the burgeoning primary battle for the California seat— still currently occupied by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Porter officially announced her intention to seek the seat on Tuesday, even though Feinstein has not yet said if she is running for a sixth term.”
“Asian Americans have typically formed a crucial and reliable voting bloc for Democrats in recent years, helping the party maintain its political dominance in liberal states like New York,” the New York Times reports.
“But Republicans shattered that presumption in November when they came within striking distance of winning the governor’s race in New York for the first time in 15 years, buoyed in part by a surge of support among Asian American voters in southern Brooklyn and eastern Queens.”
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
Failed Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) “closed the year — after his November general election and December runoff — with more than $5 million in cash on hand,” NBC News reports.
“While those still in office use their leftover cash to fund their political organization and gear up for the next bid, those who lose still have broad leeway in how they can use their leftover money. While they can’t use the money on personal expenses, they can transfer cash to other candidates, PACs or political parties, donate the money to charity, or use the money for another campaign or political purpose.”
Stacey Abrams, the two-time failed candidate for governor in Georgia and a renowned voting rights activist, says she will “likely” run for office again but did not specify for which position, The Hill reports.
Said Abrams: “I will likely run again. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. If it doesn’t work, you try again.”
Evan Coren: “In the 2022 midterms a swing of only 6,647 votes combined across the closest House races would have resulted in a Democratic majority in the House.”
“That is 6,647 votes out of over 107 million votes cast in the 2022 midterm. Meaning a movement of 0.006% of votes would have changed control of the House.”
“Due to those 6,647 vote we ended up with the current House Republican majority that is unable to unite around a Speaker.”
Conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell said he is going to Florida to audit Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) re-election victory because there is no way he could have won that big a margin.
Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) told Politico that she warned Democratic leaders of electoral losses on Long Island before the midterms.
Said Rice: “This is a blue, blue state, and it’s the reason why we lost the majority. We lost four House seats. I said, ‘You guys, don’t understand, we’re gonna lose Long Island. And we’re gonna lose some other seats, further up.’ They said, ‘No, no, no, your seat was a Biden +13.'”
Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the last midterm elections four years ago, according to AP VoteCast.
New York Times: “Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely reflected reality. But they also conducted fewer polls than in the past.”
“That paucity allowed their accurate findings to be overwhelmed by an onrush of partisan polls in key states that more readily suited the needs of the sprawling and voracious political content machine — one sustained by ratings and clicks, and famished for fresh data and compelling narratives.”
“The skewed red-wave surveys polluted polling averages, which are relied upon by campaigns, donors, voters and the news media. It fed the home-team boosterism of an expanding array of right-wing media outlets — from Steve Bannon’s ‘War Room’ podcast and ‘The Charlie Kirk Show’ to Fox News and its top-rated prime-time lineup. And it spilled over into coverage by mainstream news organizations, including The Times, that amplified the alarms being sounded about potential Democratic doom.”
Joshua Spivak: “More than 100 public officials across the United States faced the impact of recall elections year, a return to normalcy after two consecutive years in which the coronavirus pandemic inspired a huge number of recall efforts across the nation, but a drop in actual results.”
“Voters in 21 states used the recall against 108 public officials this year… Eighty-six of those officials faced recall elections, and voters gave 50 their walking papers. Just 36 survived.”
“Another 18 didn’t even wait for recalls to force them back onto the ballot. Those officials resigned before they had to face voters again.”
Attorney General-elect Kris Mayes (D) retained her lead over Abe Hamadeh (R) “in a recount in one of the tightest races ever in Arizona history, but her winning margin narrowed significantly in results announced Thursday morning,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“Mayes was certified the winner with 280 more votes than Hamadeh, but an attorney for the defeated candidate said they were weighing legal options.”
Steve Israel: “The answer is a combination of Democratic complacency, Republican extremism, and media decline in a House district that I know intimately.”
“A Maricopa County judge on Tuesday ordered Arizona Republican Kari Lake to compensate Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs for some legal fees related to the election lawsuit Lake had brought challenging her loss, but he stopped short of sanctioning Lake for filing the lawsuit,” CNN reports.
Longleaf Politics: “As Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) continues to lay the groundwork for a 2024 run for governor, his campaign is signaling that it will take an unprecedented amount of money to win.”
“In a fundraising email, the Robinson campaign said it expects $100 million to be spent on the race — which would be a North Carolina record by a long shot. ‘I’ve been told that the Governor’s race will be the most expensive we have ever seen,’ the email states, asking recipients to chip in.”
“Perhaps it’s simply fundraising hyperbole, but a $100 million governor race is definitely not out of the question. Governor races have steadily grown more expensive over the last few cycles, primarily driven by Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) fundraising prowess.”
“Pennsylvania’s top elections official fully certified results from the November vote late last week after recount petitions in some counties had delayed the process,” the AP reports.
Associated Press: “Republican House candidates nationwide won the support of 38% of independent voters in last month’s midterm elections, VoteCast showed. That’s far short of the 51% that Democrats scored with the same group in 2018 when they swept into power by picking up 41 seats. The GOP’s lackluster showing among independents helps explain in part why Republicans flipped just nine seats, securing a threadbare majority that has already raised questions about the party’s ability to govern…”
“VoteCast suggests that independent voters distinguished between the problems facing the U.S. and Biden’s culpability for them. While few independents said the economy is doing well and about two-thirds disapproved of Biden’s handling of it, independents were slightly more likely to say inflation is the result of factors outside Biden’s control than that Biden is to blame, 51% to 47%, according to the survey…”
“Some Republican strategists say the finding is a sign that messages that resonate during party primaries, including searing critiques of Biden, were less effective in the general election campaign because independent voters were searching for more than just the opposition.”
“A state judge on Saturday rejected Kari Lake’s last-ditch effort to overturn her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race, dismissing for lack of evidence her last two claims of misconduct by Maricopa County election officials,” the New York Times reports.
“The order by Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, after a two-day trial in Phoenix that ended Thursday, follows more than six weeks of claims by Ms. Lake, a Republican, that she was robbed of victory last month — assertions that echoed the false contention that was at the heart of her campaign: that an even larger theft had stolen the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump.”
“Ms. Lake and her supporters conjured up what they called a deliberate effort by election officials in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, to disenfranchise her voters. But they never provided evidence of such intentional malfeasance, nor even evidence that any voters had been disenfranchised.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.