Midterms 2022 updates: Crist denies campaign turmoil after manager departs

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s nonpartisan group One More Mission is attempting to recruit military veterans and police officers to monitor polls on election day.

Promotional materials for the organization claim veterans and law enforcement officers are the most trusted individuals in the United States, and called the move an “apolitical solution” that would protect the voting process against voter fraud.

Despite its claim at being “nonpartisan,” or “apolitical,” the organization is funded by the conservative group The America Project, which is run by Flynn, his brother, and former millionaire Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

Early voters in Maricopa County, Arizona, are reporting that they experienced harassment from people watching a ballot box.

A voter filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state stating that he and his wife were placing their early ballots at a box in Mesa on Oct. 17 when watchers began to photograph them and follow them, calling them “mules,” per the Guardian.

“They took a photographs [sic] of our license plate and and of us and then followed us out the parking lot in one of their cars continuing to film,” the complaint said.

Arizona law states that people can only drop off ballots for people in their household, themselves, or people they are caring for.

The county’s website has live video surveillance of the ballot boxes. In a press conference on Wednesday, Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates said he is hearing election workers are also being approached and photographed as they head into work.

“They’re harassing people,” Gates said. “They’re not helping further the interests of democracy. If these people really want to be involved in the process, learn more about it, come be a poll worker or poll observer.”

Maricopa County has been under severe scrutiny since the 2020 election and was the center of former President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud. The state Senate spent months auditing the 2020 election in Maricopa County.

Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Josh Shapiro emphasized his Jewish faith in attacking his opponent, Doug Mastriano, for “extremism.”

Shapiro said his Jewish faith guides his value before quickly pivoting to accusing Mastriano of antisemitism due to the Republican’s suggestion that Shapiro was out of touch for sending his children to a private school. He also suggested Mastriano was an existential threat, adding he was afraid of what he represented if he won.

“I think it’s undeniable that he courts white supremacists and racists and antisemites,” Shapiro told the Washington Post. “It’s undeniable that he makes antisemitic comments, racist comments routinely, and that, you know, that forms a big part of his coalition.”

Residents of Delaware strongly back the legalization of marijuana, according to a new poll.

About 60% of registered voters in the Small Wonder state believe the psychoactive drug should be legal, surpassing the 30% of voters who believe it shouldn’t and 10% who are undecided, per a poll from the University of Delaware Center for Political Communication.

Support was highest among Democrats, with 73% ahead of independents at 70% and Republicans at 40%. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden, perhaps the state’s most famous resident, announced sweeping plans to pardon minor marijuana federal offenses.

President Joe Biden appeared lost and did not know where he was supposed to exit the stage after giving his speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

Biden was departing the stage after giving remarks on infrastructure in the Keystone State, notably appearing alongside Senate candidate and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA).

The appearance with the Senate candidate in what has become a toss-up race is a rarity for the president this midterm cycle, who has not campaigned as much as his predecessors, likely due to his unpopularity.

Mike Christy/AP

Democratic Arizona House nominee Kirsten Engel released a campaign ad featuring a former state representative who said he was “a lifelong Republican.” But Engel’s campaign failed to disclose that since 2013, the former “lifelong Republican” has donated almost exclusively to Democrats, including Engel, records show.

“I was a lifelong Republican,” said former Republican Arizona state House member Pete Hershberger in the Tuesday Engel campaign ad. “But every time I turn on the TV, it’s like, how did we get here? First, [Gov. Doug] Ducey, and now, this new bunch. They’re not just radical. They’re dangerous.”

Hershberger, who served in Arizona’s House between 2001 and 2008, has contributed about $27,500 between 2013 and 2022 to over a dozen Democratic candidates and causes, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by the Washington Examiner. This notably includes $50 to Engel’s campaign in 2021, filings show.

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Big Tech companies such as TikTok and Facebook struggled to remove political ads containing misinformation about the elections despite their promises to protect information sharing in the 2022 midterm elections.

TikTok failed to block all but two of 20 test ads filed by a research team, according to a report released on Friday by the nonprofit group Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy at New York University. The organization filed several ads presenting false information about the elections to see if the platforms would block them as their policies stated. Facebook and YouTube did significantly better but still platformed several misinformation ads.

“For years, we have seen key democratic processes undermined by disinformation, lies, and hate being spread on social media platforms — the companies themselves even claim to recognize the problem,” Jon Lloyd, a senior adviser at Global Witness, said in a statement. “But this research shows they are still simply not doing enough to stop threats to democracy surfacing on their platforms.”

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Jamie Valdez/AP

BEND, Oregon — Christine Drazan, Oregon’s GOP gubernatorial candidate, joined the ranks of prominent Republicans Thursday vowing to fight an effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to require COVID-19 vaccine doses for young children.

“Yeah, I will be pushing back against that as governor,” she said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “We’re not talking about eradicating measles. We are not talking about polio.”

Drazan’s comments came hours after the CDC voted to add COVID-19 vaccines to the list of immunizations considered standard for children attending school. A number of Republican governors, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, quickly pledged to block the measure.

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Chris O’Meara

JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Charlie Crist has downplayed speculation his bid to become Florida‘s governor again is in turmoil after campaign manager Austin Durrer announced he was leaving the team to focus on a family matter.

“Not at all. Not at all,” Crist told reporters in Jacksonville, Florida, on Thursday after an appearance with Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison.

Crist, who gave up his Gulf Coast House seat near Tampa to challenge Gov. Ron DeSantis, projected confidence about his chances despite polling an average between 8 and 10 percentage points behind the potential Republican 2024 presidential candidate.

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The Republican National Committee likes to underscore its “multimillion-dollar commitment” to organizing Latino and Hispanic voters through its community centers.

“Of our five community centers in Florida, three are designated for Hispanic outreach: Doral, Tampa, and Orlando,” an RNC spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner.

The Doral and Tampa centers, for instance, are currently instructing staff and volunteers on how to teach civics classes so permanent residents can become voting citizens by passing USCIS’ naturalization test.

“The main goal of the [Republican Civics Initiative] is to grow the Republican Party through education and engagement with those seeking full citizenship in the U.S.,” the RNC official said.

Nestled between an amateur theater company and a music store, the Tampa center, in Hillsborough County, is a simple, sparse white-walled space with a meeting table and function area.Hillsborough County is “pretty competitive,” according to University of Central Florida politics professor Aubrey Jewett.

“But it’s beginning to lean perhaps a little Democratic over in the Tampa area,” the Politics in Florida author said.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is confident Republicans are on track to hold at least 52 seats in the Senate after the midterm elections, predicting the party has a chance to gain a 55-seat majority in November.

The comments from Scott, who is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, mark a shift in confidence compared to other top Republicans in the Senate, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who conceded last month that the battle for control will be “really close either way.”

“It starts right here, we’re going to get 52 Republican senators, we have to win here,” Scott said during a campaign event with Rep. Ted Budd in North Carolina on Thursday. “I think we can get 53, 54, 55. The energy is on our side. People are fed up with the Biden agenda.”

Republicans have long had the upper hand throughout the midterm cycle because there are 19 Democratic-held seats that election forecasters have deemed vulnerable. But there are other races that could offer rare pickup opportunities for Democrats instead.

There are seven GOP incumbents who are considered to be in tight toss-up races in November, including Reps. David Schweikert (R-AZ), David Valadao (R-CA), Mike Garcia (R-CA), Don Bacon (R-NE), Yvette Herrell (R-NM), Steve Chabot (R-OH), and Mayra Flores (R-TX), according to ratings from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Of those, Republican operatives are most concerned about Valadao, Herrell, and Chabot.

President Joe Biden is expected to criticize Republicans in Congress who have challenged or otherwise rejected his student loan forgiveness plan during remarks he will make at Delaware State University on Friday.

Biden unveiled his student loan forgiveness plan in August that is expected to provide relief for 43 million borrowers, forgiving up to $10,000 for borrowers making under $125,000 annually and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. The plan has been met with staunch opposition from Republicans who say the program will cost taxpayers while doing little to address education affordability.

“He will … call out Republican Members of Congress attacking his efforts to give middle-class families some additional breathing room even as these very officials had hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own pandemic relief loans forgiven by the Federal Government,” a White House official told the Hill. 

Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., rejected claims from Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake that her father would be an “American First” Republican if he was still alive today.

“What you share here is false and dismissive of Daddy’s seminal work and beliefs,” Bernice King said in a tweet.

Her response comes after comments from Lake at a campaign event earlier this week when she suggested that MLK, along with other prominent politicians, would support the “America First” platform championed by former President Donald Trump.

“I’m a true believer that if MLK, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, if JFK were alive today, if our founding fathers were alive today, they would be America First Republicans,” Lake said.

The race for a new Montana congressional district has taken on a reptilian feel.

In a campaign ad for the state’s new 1st Congressional District, Democratic nominee Monica Tranel calls Republican rival Ryan Zinke a “snake.” It’s one of the world’s oldest and most degrading insults, hearkening back to biblical references about a “serpent” who triggered the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

In the political realm, Tranel is making a George W. Bush-era movie reference to later ethics investigations of Zinke, a House member from 2015 to 2017 who later became former President Donald Trump’s first interior secretary — as in Snakes on a Plane, the 2006 Samuel L. Jackson camp action flick about an FBI agent who takes on a plane of deadly snakes meant to kill a witness against a mob boss.

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is focused on touting the Biden administration’s policies as strengthening the country’s “long-term economic well-being” as inflation continues to top voter concerns ahead of the midterm elections next month.

Yellen is scheduled to appear at an event at a research and development business park alongside Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Friday in order to talk up the Biden administration’s efforts to improve the country’s infrastructure and upgrade nationwide manufacturing. The event is part of Yellen’s nationwide tour as administration officials attempt to ease voter concerns about rising inflation ahead of Election Day.

“We have advanced an economic plan that finally puts innovation and technology at the forefront of our national agenda,” Yellen will say, according to prepared remarks obtained by the Associated Press. “Together, our efforts are raising our economy’s aggregate production capacity. And in turn, we are raising America’s long-term economic outlook.”

ORLANDO, Florida — After 2017’s Hurricane Maria, Florida overtook New York as the state with the largest Puerto Rican population. Now, the community, which tends to tilt more liberal, will have a critical role in Charlie Crist and Rep. Val Demings’s (D-FL) Democratic gubernatorial and Senate campaigns, respectively, if they can run up their margins of victories in counties, such as Orange and Osceola counties.

“You should also look at central Florida because of the importance of the Puerto Rican vote in places like Orange County along the I-4 corridor and the supporters of Val Demings,” University of Florida politics professor Sharon Austin said. “Is she motivating them to have a high turnout? This will make a difference in whether she wins or loses.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a son of Cuban immigrants who is seeking a third term against Demings, has also made direct appeals to Puerto Ricans in Florida.

“I get things done for the Puerto Rican community whether they live here in Florida or on the island,” he told the Washington Examiner. “The Paycheck Protection Program, which I wrote, allowed small business owners to keep employees on the payroll, saving over 39,000 small businesses in Puerto Rico as well as the small businesses of those here in Florida.”

Patrick Semansky/AP

President Joe Biden warned voters that Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, would support “undoing everything we have done” if elected to Congress, criticizing the candidate for several of his policy standpoints.

During a campaign event on Thursday as Biden was stumping for Democratic candidate John Fetterman, the president used the rally to denounce who he refers to as “MAGA Republicans” — meaning GOP candidates who have centered much of their campaign around former President Donald Trump.

“It’s a choice: what direction do you want to see this country going?” Biden said during the event. “The folks running this party are the MAGA Republicans … They have a very different view about the government role.”

Voters in Illinois will decide on Election Day whether to enshrine collective bargaining in the state constitution, a strategy that labor organizers might try to replicate in other states.

Amendment 1, also known as the Workers’ Rights Amendment, would amend the state constitution to block the legislature from promulgating right-to-work laws in the future. Right-to-work laws, which are in place in about half the states, allow workers to decide whether to join a labor union.

Unions in the Prairie State, which already is known for the powerful grip that organized labor has over its workforce, strongly support the measure.

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Voters who live in the Midwest are the least trusting of U.S. institutions compared to any other region in the country, according to new data released by the Edelman Trust Barometer.

The poll surveyed voters’ trust in four core areas of U.S. institutions: businesses, nonprofit organizations, the media, and the government. For Midwesterners, they reported the least amount of trust in all four categories, with only 40% reporting they trust the government and 42% trusting the media, according to the data.

An allegation that a voter was intimidated while dropping off their ballot at a drop box in Mesa, Arizona, as early voting is underway in the Grand Canyon State became the focus of a referral to the Justice Department.

The Arizona secretary of state’s office received a report alleging the voter was accused of being a “mule” by a group of people near the drop box at the Maricopa County Juvenile Court on Monday, according to the complaint obtained by ABC15.

“There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the complaint said.

A spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office told the New York Times it has referred the incident to the Justice Department and the state’s attorney general.

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Popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake (R) on Thursday after building up to the conversation in his monologue.

Lake, a former journalist backed by former President Donald Trump, is running against Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D).

Lake leads Hobbs by 1.6 percentage points, per the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Watch the video below:

Former President Donald Trump announces two endorsements on Thursday, less than three weeks out from the midterm elections.

Nick Langworthy, candidate to be the congressman for New York’s 23rd Congressional District, and Rich McCormick, candidate to become representative of Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, got the nods, per emails from Trump’s Save America PAC.

Langworthy is facing Democrat Max Della Pia in the newly drawn 23rd District, and McCormick has a rival in Democrat Bob Christian.

President Joe Biden slammed Republicans who may move to scale down funding to support Ukraine in fending off a monthslong invasion by Russia.

The war in Ukraine will have “serious consequential outcomes,” Biden said during his remarks at a fundraiser for Senate candidate John Fetterman (D-PA) in Pennsylvania.

“They said that if they win, they’re not likely to fund, to continue to fund Ukraine,” Biden said, according to a White House press pool report. “These guys don’t get it. It’s a lot bigger than Ukraine. It’s Eastern Europe. It’s NATO. It’s really serious, serious consequential outcomes.”

He also slammed the GOP as having “no sense of American foreign policy.”

“These guys on the other team don’t get it. They don’t get it that how America does is going to determine how the rest of the world does,” Biden said.

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Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D), who hails from northern Virginia, faced her GOP challenger Hung Cao in a debate hosted by the Loudon Chamber on Thursday.

Topics that came up included financial support for Ukraine and infrastructure spending, according to the Associated Press.

Watch the debate below:

During a Wednesday debate, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) made an off-the-cuff invite for leaders of the state’s 39 tribes to meet with him on Thursday.

Ultimately, he was stood up, according to Secretary of State and Native American Affairs Brian Bingman.

Media crews gathered at the state Capitol on Thursday in anticipation that Stitt and tribal leaders might come together for a 10 a.m. meeting after a debate moderator asked Stitt on Wednesday when he would meet tribal leaders to “rebuild your administration’s strained relationship with tribes and tribal citizens?”

Bingman told a reporter that Stitt was in his office but “nobody showed up,” according to a recorded conversation provided to the Washington Examiner by a spokesperson for the governor.

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President Joe Biden is not focused on rallies to gin up excitement for Democratic candidates ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

His chief of staff, Ron Klain, argued that the rally strategy espoused by Biden’s predecessors — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — didn’t pan out for their respective parties, and so the sitting president is trying something new.

“Both President Obama — I was here. I’ll share responsibility for it — and President Trump got walloped in the midterms. So I don’t think it should be a surprise to anyone that we’re not using the strategy that failed in 2010 and the strategy that failed in 2018,” Klain told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday.

Instead, he said, Biden is traveling to visit with Democratic elected officials and candidates, like he did Thursday with Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is running for a Senate seat against Dr. Mehmet Oz.

“And he is talking about the issues that really impact people,” Klain added. “Infrastructure, costs, choice, a long line of issues that he’s talking about. So I don’t think rallies have proved effective for candidates in the midterms. And So we’re trying something different that we think will be effective.”

David Drucker, the Washington Examiner’s senior political correspondent, is in Las Vegas, Nevada on the campaign trail.

Both incumbent Dem Sen. Catherine Cortez Mastro and her Republican opponent Adam Laxalt are doing their bit to woo the Hispanic vote in a very competitive race.

Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, fresh from disavowing her ex-party, is now in the business of endorsing Republicans.

Gabbard put her name behind Tudor Dixon, the Republican running to unseat incumbent Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

She’s also heading to Michigan next week.

We aren’t even done with the 2022 cycle, but some eyeballs are already on the 2024 presidential race.

While former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have sucked up most of the headlines when it comes to the possible Republican ticket, one dark horse candidate is former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

During an interview on CBS News, although Pompeo wouldn’t be drawn on if he was definitely running, he left it very open-ended.

Outgoing Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) has stopped off in Utah to voice his support for independent Senate candidate Evan McMullin.

“All across the political spectrum Utahans are uniting to send a wake up call to extremists,” Kinzinger tweeted along with a picture of him and McMullin. “Was proud to support as he actually defends the constitution by defeating Mike Lee.”

The latest poll, by OH Predictive Insights, for what it’s worth, puts McMullin at 32%, while incumbent Sen. Mike Lee is at 47%.

Charlie Crist (D-FL) provided a glimpse of his plan of attack on Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) before they go head to head next week in their only debate before Election Day.

The former governor and congressman ripped DeSantis for not supporting abortion access or addressing the rising cost of living. During a get-out-the-vote rally with the Democratic National Committee, he asked the small crowd gathered in an IBEW Local 177 parking lot in Jacksonville, Florida, whether they have had enough of the “bullying” from someone he described as “arrogant,” a “clown” and a “divider.”

“I was raised with three sisters,” Crist said Thursday of abortion access. “I understood … the respect that women deserve as a little boy. He hasn’t figured it out as a man.”

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) released a new ad taking aim at his Democratic opponent, Charles Booker, over previous comments in support of defunding the police.

In the 30-second television spot titled “Strife,” a clip of Booker on MSNBC was included in which he stated, “I think now is the time that we need to actually do that work,” when questioned about whether he supports defunding law enforcement.

The ad also includes Jerry Stephenson, who leads the Midwest Church of Christ in Louisville, accusing the Kentucky Democrat of “aligning himself with a fringe element that has no place in the African American community. The only thing that it does is divide and bring strife in the community.”

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Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist’s campaign manager exited the team less than three weeks out from the midterm election.

Campaign manager Austin Durrer is leaving to focus on a “family matter,” and Sydney Throop, who previously worked on Crist’s congressional campaigns, will take up the mantle, a spokesperson told Florida Politics.

“I’ve never seen this happen 20 days before an election. I hope he is OK,” Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) reelection campaign, wrote on Twitter.

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Senate candidate John Fetterman ditched his trademark hoodie and jeans and opted to wear a suit and tie during a rally where he appeared alongside President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania on Thursday.

“So nice of Fetterman to dress up for me,” quipped Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) in a tweet.

Biden appeared alongside the Democratic candidate for Senate as he prepares to face off against Dr. Mehmet Oz for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). The tight race has become one of the most closely watched Senate elections this midterm cycle as it will help determine which party will take control of Congress in November.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) offered guidance to his party, advising Democrats to lean into social issues ahead of the midterm elections.

Cuomo, himself ousted from office due to in-party political pressure, told Democratic candidates they should “show, don’t tell” their commitment to liberal policies by forcing the GOP into awkward political stances in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

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Nearly 40% of voters say they are more likely to vote for a candidate of the opposite party if they make reducing healthcare costs a top priority of their campaign, according to a poll.

Healthcare has emerged as a prominent concern among voters nationwide, with 87% of voters saying plans to reduce healthcare costs are a top priority when considering candidates, according to a Gallup/West Health poll released Thursday. About 86% of those voters say plans to lower prescription drug prices are especially important.

The issue is somewhat split along party lines, with 96% of Democrats saying a candidate’s healthcare plan is an important factor when evaluating their campaign compared to 77% of Republicans, the poll shows.

Now that the dust has begun to settle from the explosive Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June, Republicans appear to have come out stronger in polling than they were prior to the bombshell ruling.

In generic congressional ballot polling, Republicans had a roughly 2.8-point edge over Democrats, 44.3% to 41.5%, according to the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate. After Dobbs, their support began to collapse and Democrats briefly gained the edge in September.

However, over recent weeks, the GOP enjoyed a rebound and now has a 3.3-point lead over Democrats, 48.1% to 44.8% in the aggregate, indicating that abortion backlash may not hamper their midterm election prospects.

Numerous polls have indicated that economic woes such as inflation overshadow voter concerns about abortion.

WASHINGTON SECRETS — Weeks of reporting that the Republicans are poised to take control of the House, and maybe the Senate, have sunk with voters who now mostly agree that the November elections should show Democrats the door.

In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, just shared with Secrets, likely voters expect the Republicans to win control of the House. And it’s not even close, with 67% agreeing to 17% who don’t. Even 56% of Democrats expect their party to lose control of the House.

As for the Senate, it’s closer, with 58% of likely voters believing it’s likely the Republicans will edge out the Democrats. Just 25% don’t agree. Among Democrats, the split is even, 42% agree and 42% don’t.

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If the GOP sails to victory in the midterm elections, the party should use the debt limit next as a pressure point for negotiations with the Biden administration, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said Thursday.

Banks chairs the Republican Study Committee and is seen as a candidate for the House majority whip, the No. 3 Republican spot in the House if Republicans gain a majority.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) recently mirrored that sentiment during an interview with Punchbowl News and lamented the current high levels of government spending and deficits.

Both Banks’s and McCarthy’s remarks could foreshadow a looming government shutdown standoff next year if Republicans take the House.

The battle for control over Nevada’s governorship and open Senate seat is neck-and-neck, according to a poll.

Republican Adam Laxalt has a narrow lead over incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), 49% to 48%, in a CBS News/YouGov poll. Meanwhile, Democratic incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak and Republican challenger Joe Lombardo are polling at an even 48% in the race for governor.

In both races, candidates are in the margin of error, which was 4.4 percentage points. The poll was conducted among 1,057 registered voters from Oct. 14-19.

Nevada has recently stoked renewed interest from national Republicans in their quest to recapture the Senate, given Laxalt’s strong performance against Cortez Masto.

Laxalt currently maintains a 1.2 percentage point edge over Cortez Masto in the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate.

With Republicans unleashing a torrent of cash in tight races, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is imploring Democrats in safe races to ramp up donations to the party campaign arm.

Hoyer will give $100,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he explained in a letter to House Democrats emphasizing the importance of beefing up the party’s war chest as the midterm elections loom.

“Once again, I urge my colleagues to pay their dues to the DCCC,” Hoyer said, per the Hill. “If you also believe our democracy is imperiled and seek to remain in the majority next Congress, paying your dues is imperative. … These dangerous times necessitate that none of us hold back resources.”

Recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told colleagues in a letter that she planned to match dues paid to the campaign arm by Oct. 25.

During the third quarter, the DCCC raised $56.5 million, eclipsing the Republican House campaign arm by $14 million.

Hoyer and Pelosi have previously contended Democrats will keep the House in the midterm elections.

The Republican candidate for the Maricopa Community College District Governing Board has suspended his campaign following a citation for public sexual indecency.

Randy Kaufman was arrested earlier this month after a police officer at Rio Salado College’s Surprise campus found him masturbating in his vehicle in the parking lot, according to AZCentral. Police said that Kaufman was in full view of a child care center, where children were outside on a playground.

The candidate said in a statement written Tuesday and obtained by the Associated Press that “a personal legal matter has recently arisen and I need to step out of the race to focus on personal affairs.”

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OPINION — Stacey Abrams is running for governor of Georgia mostly on the grounds of abortion.

“While abortion is an issue, I would assume it nowhere reaches the level of interest for voters of the cost of gas, food, bread, milk, things like that,” Mike Barnicle on MSNBC said to Abrams. “What could you do as governor to alleviate the concerns of Georgia voters about those livability daily, hourly issues that they’re confronted with?”

Abrams went back to abortion, though. “Let’s be clear, having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas. It’s why you’re worried about how much food costs. For women, this is not a reductive issue. You can’t divorce being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy from the economic realities of having a child.”

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Arizona Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D) is receiving extensive financial support from House Democrats as the midterm election nears.

O’Halleran is facing GOP candidate Eli Crane, who the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called “too radical” in a broadcast campaign ad released earlier this week. It will run until Oct. 24 and is costing the committee $680,000, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm per Politico.

The ad uses footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and states that Crane supports a ban on abortion and promotes white supremacists. As an alternative, the DCCC presents O’Halleran as an “independent voice.”

O’Halleran is considered to be the most endangered incumbent among the Democrats. The House GOP caucus has spent significant money in O’Halleran’s district on Crane’s campaign. Up until this week’s DCCC ad, O’Halleran was left to release ads on his own money.

Some of the top midterm races in Arizona have now been deemed as statistical ties, particularly the Senate and governor’s races.

Sen. Mark Kelly leads Republican challenger Blake Masters by an average of 2.5 percentage points, with the race being rated as a toss-up, according to RealClearPolitics. Meanwhile, Trump-backed Kari Lake narrowly leads Katie Hobbs by an average of 1.6 percentage points.

The doctor who cleared John Fetterman for “full duty in public office” and reported that the Democratic Senate candidate’s health is improving since suffering a stroke in mid-May has donated more than $1,300 to his campaign, according to public records.

Dr. Clifford Chen, who works at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and has been overseeing Fetterman’s recovery, released a medical report on Wednesday that shows the Senate candidate “is recovering well from his stroke and his health has continued to improve.” Fetterman’s stroke has been used as a frequent line of attack from Republicans who argue it threatens his ability to perform the duties of a senator if elected.

Chen has donated $1,330 to Fetterman’s campaign over the last year, contributing four times between June 17, 2021, and July 28, 2022, according to records from the Federal Election Commission. The doctor has also made donations to the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), and Val Demings, who is running for Senate in Florida.

In total, Chen has donated $2,945 to Democratic candidates or committees over the last year.

Morry Gash/AP

With just under three weeks until Election Day, nearly a quarter of Hispanic voters are still unsure who they’ll vote for in the midterm elections, underscoring the influence the large electorate group has over the U.S. swing vote.

Although Democrats have historically benefited from a majority of the Latino vote, that advantage has continued to slip over the last four years to reach its lowest point since 1994. While 33% of Latino voters say they’ll vote for Democrats, and 18% say they’ll back Republicans in the midterm elections, another 23% say they still have not decided, according to a recent Axios-Ipsos Latino poll.

“Latino Americans feel relatively cool toward both political parties,” said Cliff Young, president of Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs. “While they give Republicans a slight advantage on being better on the economy, and Democrats on sharing their values, the fact is that roughly a quarter, or more, believe neither side is handling the issues they care about well. This makes them, in many ways, the swing voters of the 2022 election.”

To borrow a phrase from former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party didn’t “send its best” when it nominated a slate of general election candidates to compete for the Senate majority in the midterm elections.

But the GOP’s struggle with candidate quality in Arizona and Georgia, some might say Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire — others might throw in North Carolina — is nothing new as we pass the three-week point until Election Day. Lesser discussed are a couple of clunkers nominated by the Democrats who might cost them an opportunity to hold their 50-seat Senate majority despite the political headwinds the party is having to deal with.

I’m talking about Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Wisconsin’s Mandela Barnes, both of whom were elected lieutenant governor of their respective states in 2018.

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(AP Photos)

ASHBURN, Georgia — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is trying to beat Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams at her own game.

The Republican governor has spent the past two weeks crisscrossing the state on a big black-and-red bus with “Join the Fight” emblazoned on the side. He’s been shaking hands, taking pictures, and listening to rural voters he hopes will turn up at the polls for him on Nov. 8.

At Carroll’s Sausage & Country Store in Ashburn, a group of right-leaning Georgians recently lined up to meet the governor and his wife, Marty.

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