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ELECTION 2016: Can Democrats Regain Control Of The U.S. Senate?

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Here Are The Races To Watch

This year’s election contests aren’t just going to be a big day for the presidential race; there are numerous state and local officers up for election.

Because we know just how important — perhaps even more so — these down-ballot races can be, The New Civil Rights Movement is breaking down the other races and what initiatives LGBTQ people should be paying attention to as they head to the ballot box on Tuesday.

In Part 1, we looked at the states electing new governors. Now we turn to the U.S. Senate.

There are 34 Senate seats up for election this year, and Democrats need to pick up five seats in order to flip the Senate back to their control. (There are curently 24 Republican seats and 10 Democratic seats up for grabs.) Gaining control of the Senate is a particularly big deal this year because the Senate is responsible for confirming Supreme Court and other judges in addition to other nominees for other federal offices. Here are some of the most notable races we’re paying attention to this year:

Illinois: Republican Mark Kirk is one of the few GOP senators to publicly support LGBTQ rights, which originally earned him an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign, even though his Democratic Opponent, Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, has a far better record as an LGBTQ ally. Last week, though, Kirk made a racist comment about his oppenent during a debate and HRC (and many other groups) revoked their endorsement and switched it to Duckworth. Representative Duckworth has been outspoken for years on LGBTQ rights.

Florida: Republican Marco Rubio is trying desperately to hold onto his seat after his failed presidential bid. He’s being challenged by Democrat Patrick Murphy but he’s maintained a slight lead across the state. Murphy could be helped by a large turnout for Hillary Clinton and lots of campaigning from President Obama, but, as has been the case for years now, what will actually happen in Florida is anyone’s guess. It should surprise no one that Senator Rubio is no friend to the LGBTQ community.

North Carolina: Incumbent Senator Richard Burr, a Republican, is facing off with Democractic challenger Deborah Ross, the state ACLU executive director. Burr has gone on record saying that HB2 was “too broad” but also denied its economic impact. But, Senator Burr has a penchant for speaking out of turn and joked last week about shooting Hillary Clinton and vowed that if Clinton became president and he was in office, he’d do everything in his power to ensure that no Supreme Court nominee would be confirmed at all. During her entire term. Simply put: You are the worst, Burr.

Ohio: Republican Senator Rob Portman made news a few years ago when he decided to be a good father and embrace his gay son — and fight for his rights.  But over the past few years, he’s remembered that he’s an establishment Republican and has fought against women’s rights and more. He’s also on the list of politicians who endorsed and then un-endorsed Donald Trump. That move — rescinding his endorsement — has certainly helped him out in the polls against Democratic challenger Ted Strickland. 

New Hampshire: Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, is trying for a new office, challenging Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte. Ayotte, you might remember, has been all over the map on her reactions to and support of Donald Trump. At one point, she called him a “role model.” She said she made a mistake soon after — but she would still vote for him. Now she’s doing her best to link Trump and Bill Clinton, who isn’t currently running for any office and says she won’t vote for Trump. Even with all of that back and forth, the race is still neck-and-neck.

Arizona: The man responsible for unleashing Sarah Palin onto the world (and, by some theories, paving the way for Donald Trump’s absurdist campaign), Republican John McCain, is fighting to hold onto his Senate seat in the face of a challenge from Democratic Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick. The race isn’t nearly as competitive as some of the others, but for many it’s a bit of a surprise that the war hero has had this much difficulty getting re-elected, including against a Trump-supporting primary challenger. 

Indiana: Congressman Todd Young, a Republican, and former Senator Evan Bayh, a Democrat, are going head-to-head. Bayh, who also served as governor, had been up substaintially, but that lead has dwindled in recent weeks as his opponent painted him as a Washington insider and part of the establishment. 

Missouri: Democrat Jason Kander might be best known for his campaign ad depicting him assembling an AR-15 assault rifle blindfolded in only 30 seconds while advocating for background checks on gun purchasers. He’s also a military veteran and polling higher than just about anyone expected against Republican incumbent Roy Blunt.

Utah: While the Senate race in Utah is far from competitive, it’s worth noting that the Democratic nominee is Misty Snow, the first transgender nominee to run for US Senate. She’s centered her campaign around traditional Democratic policies like raising the minimum wage, criminal justice reform, and has modeled much of her platform off of Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Her opponent, Republican incumbent Mike Lee, has an almost 20-point lead, but as Snow told the Salt Lake Tribune, “A lot of people have told me whether I win or lose, I’m already making a difference just by running.”

Kentucky: Openly gay Lexington Mayor Jim Gray is taking on incumbent Republican Rand Paul in hopes of ending over a decade of Republican control. However, the recent polling has him down anywhere from 12 to 16 points. 

There are many other races going on — and plenty could end up being very important, too. Check out all of the races here.

Coming up: A look at local races and certain ballot initiatives across the country.

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News

‘Close’: Trump Claims World War III Could Erupt if He Does Not Become President Again

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July 26, 2024

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Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, Donald Trump declared World War III is “close,” and issuing a warning suggesting if he does not win re-election in November it could erupt.

Video of his full remarks was published by Florida’s WPTV. A shorter clip is below.

Trump’s meeting, criticized by some as a violation of the Logan Act, comes at a critical time for the U.S. and Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu, a Trump-supporter who is considered by some to be refusing to end the Gaza War, addressed Congress on Wednesday at the invitation of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with Netanyahu on Thursday.

In May, The International Criminal Court (ICC) filed to obtain arrest warrants for Netanyahu, alleging war crimes.

READ MORE: JD Vance Suggested America Should ‘Punish’ People for Not Having Children

Trump quickly launched into an attack on Vice President Kamala Harris, who is his likely 2024 presidential opponent, telling reporters she is, “a radical left person, San Francisco, destroyed San Francisco. She’s really a destroyer. She isn’t a builder.”

“I actually don’t know how a person who’s Jewish can vote for her. But that’s up to them,” Trump added.

“Now she’s taken over and she’s worse than him. She’s actually worse than him. So we’ll see how it goes. But if it all works out. If we win, it’ll be very simple. It’s all gonna work out and very quickly.”

“If we don’t we’re going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a Third World War. You are closer to a Third World War right now than at any time since the Second World War. We’ve never been so close because we have incompetent people running our country,” Trump claimed.

Watch video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Said Some Disabled People – Including His Young Relative – Should Just ‘Die’: Nephew

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JD Vance Suggested America Should ‘Punish’ People for Not Having Children

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15 hours ago

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July 26, 2024

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Trump vice presidential running mate JD Vance, under fire for his 2021 remarks calling Democrats “childless cat ladies” and saying parents should be given more voting rights than those without children, is now being criticized after video resurfaced of him suggesting people who don’t have children should be punished, because not having kids is “bad.”

Vance, closely tied to the “broligarch” class of right-wing tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, is a venture capitalist whose memoir catapulted him to national attention, which he parlayed into a successful U.S. Senate run with the backing of his uber-wealthy mentors.

Before announcing his 2022 Senate run, Vance made numerous public appearances, including sharing his extremist views with powerful talk show host, far-right wing activist, and Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk.

“So JD,” Kirk, a member of the highly-secretive Council on National Policy asked, according to ABC News, “what are you going to do to change this conversation? Everything we have to do should be about moving ideas from unthinkable, to sensible, to popular, to policy.”

READ MORE: Trump Said Some Disabled People – Including His Young Relative – Should Just ‘Die’: Nephew

“In response,” ABC News reports, “Vance, who at the time had not yet officially launched his 2022 Senate campaign, suggested that the country needed to ‘reward the things that we think are good’ and ‘punish the things that we think are bad’ — before suggesting that individuals without children should be taxed at a higher rate than those with children.”

The full quote, contained in video (below) posted Friday by the liberal super PAC and opposition research firm American Bridge, which comports with ABC News’ reporting, is, “we need to reward the things that we think are good and punish the things that we think are bad. So you talk about tax policy, let’s tax the things that are bad and not tax the things that are good. If you’re making $100,000, $400,000 a year and you’ve got three kids, you should pay a different, lower rate than if you are making the same amount of money and you don’t have any kids. It’s that simple.”

In that same year, 2021, Vance called universal child care, “a massive subsidy to the lifestyle preferences of the affluent over the preferences of the middle and working class.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump’s Sudden Debate Withdrawal Linked to Looming Criminal Sentencing: Legal Experts

 

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‘Extraordinary Weakness’: Trump ‘Pulling Out’ of Debate Shows ‘He’s Afraid’ Buttigieg Says

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18 hours ago

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July 26, 2024

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Pete Buttigieg says Donald Trump’s decision to “pull out” of a previously agreed presidential debate is an “extraordinary show of weakness,” especially for a candidate whose “calling card” is being a tough guy. The Transportation Secretary also observed the Trump campaign has been unable to adapt to President Joe Biden withdrawing from the race and endorsing his Vice President for the top of the ticket.

“Former President Donald Trump’s campaign on Thursday said it will not commit to a debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, at least until the Democratic Party makes a formal decision on its nominee,” Forbes reports.

Trump earlier this week had said he was uncomfortable with the debate being hosted by ABC News, despite having agreed to it back in May. But late Thursday night the Trump campaign served up a different reason when announcing the ex-president’s decision: “it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.”

MSNBC’s Sam Stein Thursday night described it as “backing out.”

“It’s extraordinary,” Buttigieg said on MSNBC Friday (video below), “tough talk is this guy’s calling card and now there’s this extraordinary show of weakness. He agreed to, you know, he said, ‘anytime, anyplace.’ But more than that, he agreed to this specific debate on this specific network on this specific date. And now he’s pulling out, and of course it shows that he’s afraid, it shows that he knows if the two of them are on a stage together, it’s not going to end well for him.”

RELATED: Buttigieg Top Choice for Harris VP Among Available Candidates: Poll

Buttigieg, one of about a dozen candidates being vetted to be Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate, added that Trump’s campaign “really has struggled to be about anything but Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and I think that’s the bigger pattern that you’re seeing here and part of why the Trump campaign is having such a hard time adapting.”

“Think about it: just in a matter of two or three days her campaign adapted to literally the biggest possible change, which is a change in the top of the ticket and yet, you know, within a couple of days that support consolidated and that message was clear.”

By comparison, Buttigieg said, the Trump campaign has “been flailing in a way that shows they’re unable to adapt. And to me, it’s not just that their entire strategic apparatus was built around tearing down Joe Biden. I think there’s something deeper, which is Donald Trump cannot conceive of a campaign that isn’t about the candidates.”

Earlier this week, Buttigieg targeted Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, for his widely-criticized “childless cat ladies” comments from 2021. Vance, in part, had also claimed that the “entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

READ MORE: ‘Super Creepy’: Vance and Masters’ Belief Politicians Have to Have Kids Called ‘Repugnant’

Buttigieg had responded, saying, “it’s not about his kids, or my kids, or the vice president’s family. It’s about your family, people’s families, whose well-being will depend on whether we go into a future led by somebody like Kamala Harris, who is focused on expanding the prosperity, the freedom, the well-being of our families.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

RELATED: Trump’s Sudden Debate Withdrawal Linked to Looming Criminal Sentencing: Legal Experts

 

 

 

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