Howie Klein
Oct 29, 20223 min
A new poll released by Pew yesterday shows a great many of our fellow citizens outside the mainstream of historical American thought. “Growing numbers of religious and political leaders are embracing the ‘Christian nationalist’ label, and some dispute the idea that the country’s founders wanted a separation of church and state.” About 27% said the Bible should take precedence over U.S. law and 45% said the U.S. should be a Christian nation. The Republican candidate for the New Hampshire Senate seat, Don Bolduc, has repeatedly claimed that schools are teaching children to be cats and providing them with kitty litter boxes instead of toilets. “Identifying as a cat,” complained Bolduc, “hissing at other students, meowing during tests, licking themselves like cats do to clean themselves. Very, very disruptive behavior, very unnecessary behavior, and behavior that doesn’t belong in the classroom. And nobody can do anything about it. The teachers can’t do anything about it, everybody’s hands tied and they have to facilitate this type of behavior which detracts from the discipline required in a classroom, the regimentation required in a classroom, and people’s ability to learn. Very, very distracting.” According to 538, Bolduc has closed much of the gap between himself and Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan, now 51.3% to 46.9%.
Yes, people are voting for these crackpot candidates. And as far as I can see many of the people— most?— who are, are crackpots themselves. How else do you want to explain this polling in Georgia?
The American Prospect noted that all the Republican self funders are a massive midterm boon for the darkside, especially in swing district House seats. Yesterday, Austin Ahlman wrote that “of the 68 competitive House races this cycle— defined as the 50 races FiveThirtyEight deems most competitive, as well as other seats where national party PACs have invested money— indicates that Republicans have substantially padded their financial advantage by recruiting a jaw-dropping number of wealthy nominees. Thirty-six of the 68 Republicans running in competitive races have loaned their campaigns money. And 21 of those 36—nearly a third of the Republican nominees in tight contests—have given their campaigns more than $100,000. Democrats, meanwhile, have only six candidates in close races who have loaned money to their campaign committees. Of those six, only three have given themselves $100,000 or more.
In Oregon, scandal-plagued millionaire Mike Erickson has spent over a million dollars to put his race against state representative Andrea Salinas for the new Sixth Congressional District into the toss-up column. A similar story is unfolding in Illinois’s Springfield-based 13th District, where Democratic nominee Nikki Budzinski is struggling to secure a clear lead over millionaire self-funder Regan Deering in a seat President Biden won comfortably. And Democratic incumbent Andy Kim, whose Central New Jersey seat was thought to be shored up after redistricting, has found himself locked in a tight battle against Republican nominee Robert Healey, who has also given his campaign over a million dollars.
Of the Blue America House candidates who made it through the primaries only two are up against self-funders: In a suburban district west of Pittsburgh, Chris Deluzio’s opponent, Jeremy Shaffer, spent $1,007,858 of his own. And in Oregon’s 5th, south of Portland and east to Bend, Jamie McLeod-Skinner’s opponent, Lori Chavez-Deremer, spent $416,903 of her own. Our candidates have outraised the self-funders significantly. But in both cases, McCarthy has stepped in to smear the 2 progressives with expensive ad campaigns. He spent a mind-boggling $6,111,231 against Jamie and a massive $4,541,305 smearing Chris.
That said, both races are incredibly close. Chavez DeRemer leads Jamie by 0.6% and Chris is besting Shaffer by 1.2%. Both candidates can definitely make good use of any last minute contributions that come in over the weekend. Chris’ closing ad went up on TV today: