#up election 2022 exit poll

[reasonsforhope]

"New Mexico will establish a permanent absentee voter list and remove barriers to voting on tribal lands under sweeping legislation signed into law Thursday [March 30, 2023] by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The measure also will automate voter registration during certain Motor Vehicle Division transactions and more quickly restore the voting rights of people exiting prison after a felony conviction. It was supported this year by Democratic legislative leaders and Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, after a similar measure died in the final moments of the 2022 session amid a GOP filibuster...

Republican lawmakers fiercely opposed the bill this year, too, contending automatic voter registration and other measures aren't necessary in a state that already allows same-day registration. But advocates of the legislation, House Bill 4, celebrated Thursday [March 30, 2023] as Lujan Grisham signed the bill during a ceremony at the Capitol with Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver; House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque; and others.

Native American leaders described it as critical step toward protecting the voting rights of people on tribal land, especially those without a traditional mailing address. [More details in/moved to the last key point!]

In a signing ceremony at the Capitol, Lujan Grisham said the legislation would serve as a template for other states. "We want to send a message to the rest of the country — that this is what voting access and protection should look like," the governor said...

Absentee voting: Sign up once

The legislation calls for a permanent absentee voter list to be available in time for the 2024 elections. Voters could sign up once to get absentee ballots mailed to them before every statewide election. People on the list would also get notices mailed to them seven weeks before Election Day. Any election-related mail returned to the county clerk as undeliverable would trigger the voters' removal from the absentee list.

Automated voter registration

Automatic voter registration during some transactions at MVD [DMV] offices — such as when a person presents documents proving citizenship while applying for a driver's license — would begin in July 2025. Newly registered voters would be told they've been added to the voter rolls and that they'll get a postcard in the mail allowing them to decline the registration. For MVD customers already registered to vote, their address would be updated in the voting rolls if they renew their driver's license with a different address.

Restoration of rights

The legislation will restore the voting rights of felons when they leave custody rather than after they complete probation or parole. Inmates would be granted the chance to register or update their registration before release. The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group, estimated the measure will restore the voting rights of more than 11,000 citizens.

New holiday

The bill makes Election Day a school holiday.

Drop boxes

The legislation requires each county to have at least two secured, monitored boxes for people to drop off absentee ballots. State election officials are empowered to waive the requirement or grant requests for additional containers, depending on the circumstances of each county.

Native American voting

The proposal establishes a Native American Voting Rights Act.

[Moved here from earlier in the article]

The measure requires collaboration with pueblos, nations and tribes on establishing polling places, early voting locations and precinct boundaries. It also allows members to register to vote or receive absentee ballots at official tribal buildings — a necessity, supporters said, for residents who don't receive mail at home. "It is truly monumental reform," said Ahtza Chavez, executive director of NM Native Vote and a member of the Kewa Pueblo and Diné Nation. "It requires collaboration with tribes at all levels.""

-via Albuquerque Journal, March 30, 2023

[zvaigzdelasas]

Preliminary results from Thursday’s election in Pakistan seem to show that independent candidates affiliated with Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have a chance of securing a plurality of legislative seats despite myriad irregularities, which continued through polling day, designed to hobble such an outcome.

The PTI already had its famed cricket-bat logo banned, and a nationwide suspension of cellphone networks on Thursday hindered party officials from informing supporters of their preferred independent candidate for each constituency. (The government claimed the blackout was for security reasons despite such measures being deemed illegal by Pakistan’s High Court.) In addition, exit polls were banned and the PTI complained that their agents were barred from monitoring polling stations. “The amount of rigging going on is beyond ridiculous,” Zulfi Bukhari, a former Minister of State under Khan, tells TIME.

Still, when results finally started trickling in—over 10 hours later than customary, which in itself observers say is highly suspicious—the PTI was neck and neck with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of assassinated ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in third place.

Sharif is the preferred candidate of Pakistan’s powerful military, which, despite backing his ouster thrice in the past, recently allowed the 74-year-old back from exile in the U.K., quashed his corruption conviction, and repealed his lifetime ban from politics. Sharif’s speedy rehabilitation stood in stark contrast to the generals’ Khan-and-PTI purge.[...]

Khan, 71, remains in prison and was unable to stand as a lawmaker himself. [...]

Still, the strength of PTI’s showing is a bloody nose for Pakistan’s military, which previously backed Khan before his 2018 election victory. However, the generals fell out spectacularly with the former national cricket captain and engineered his ouster in an April 2022 no-confidence vote. Since then, Khan has survived an assassination attempt and weathered a tsunami of over 180 legal challenges. In recent weeks alone, he received prison sentences totaling 31 years for corruption, leaking state secrets, and having an “un-Islamic” marriage.

Yet his popularity remained strong leading up to the vote, especially among young Pakistanis, with voters aged 18-35 comprising 45% of the nearly 130 million-strong electorate. “It's very clear that the military was nervous and then to see PTI exceed expectations is absolutely a big blow,” says Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center.[...]

On May 9, PTI supporters ransacked military premises in response to an earlier, fleeting arrest of Khan. He may remain behind bars, but Thursday’s election shows the sporting icon is far from done as a political force.

9 Feb 24

[beardedmrbean]

Sen. John Fetterman could land himself in trouble with voters after he doubled down on his claims that he is not a progressive Democrat, despite comments he made during his election campaign.

"I'm not a progressive, I'm just a regular Democrat," Fetterman said on X, formerly Twitter.

The statement was contradicted by the website's community notes feature, referencing tweets from Fetterman in 2016 and 2020 in which he clearly said he was a progressive.

Despite the contradiction, Fetterman has noticeably shifted away from the position upon which he narrowly defeated Donald Trump-endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz in the 2022 midterms.

Politicians such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent closely aligned with the left of the Democratic Party, have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, whereas Fetterman has said he supports the Israeli response to the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7 "unequivocally," despite criticism that it has been too strong.

"I just think I'm a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things. But with Israel, I'm going to be on the right side of that," Fetterman said.

The Pennsylvania senator's stance on Israel is a particular source of ire for many who consider themselves part of the progressive movement, largely younger voters.

A November 2021 poll by Pew Research recorded that 71 percent of the progressive left movement is made up of people aged 18 to 49.

It is young voters that favored Fetterman in his 2022 Senate race against Oz. According to an exit poll taken by Statista, 72 percent of voters aged 18-24 who answered said they voted for the Democrat. The figure was similar for voters aged 25 to 29, at 68 percent.

His position on Israel-Gaza could spell trouble among this voter demographic. According to a New York Times/Siena poll published on Tuesday, 45 percent of people aged 18 to 29 think President Joe Biden is "too supportive" of Israel. In the same age group, 46 percent of people who responded said they were supportive of Palestine, compared to 27 percent favoring Israel.

The same poll said that just 20 percent of all voters aged 18 to 29 believe Biden is handling the conflict well. Asked about the result on CNN on Tuesday, Fetterman said: "If you're getting your perspective on the world on TikTok, it's going to tend to be kinda warped."

He added: "Sometimes you may alienate some voters, but it is really most important to be on the right side on that. That's where I am at."

A total of 16 of his former campaign staffers wrote him an open letter, asking him to change his stance.

"It is not too late to change your stance and stand on the righteous side of history," it said.

An op-ed in news outlet PennLive was published in November by Mireille Rebeiz, Ph.D., chair of Middle East Studies and associate professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in which his position on the issue was labeled "disturbing" and saying he was "unworthy of my trust."

Fetterman has called for humanitarian aid to be sent to Gaza, but criticized pro-Palestinian protesters when they staged a demonstration outside a Jewish-owned store in Philadelphia in December, calling the gathering antisemitic.

Immigration is also a divisive issue in Congress, and Fetterman has made it clear he wants to work with Senate Republicans and says it is a "reasonable conversation" to have. The GOP has pushed for stricter measures along the southern border with Mexico.

"It's a reasonable conversation—until somebody can say there's an explanation on what we can do when 270,000 people are being encountered on the border, not including the ones, of course, that we don't know about," Fetterman said to NBC. "To put that in reference, that is essentially the size of Pittsburgh, the second-largest city in Pennsylvania."

His wife, Gisele Fetterman, arrived undocumented from Brazil as a 7-year-old and was an important part of his Senate campaign. Some accused him of throwing his wife under the bus because of his stance.

Newsweek has reached out to Fetterman via email through his Senate office for comment.

"Fetterman has never been progressive, but endorsing talks for tougher immigration laws when he's married to an incredible woman who was once an illegal immigrant and who kept his campaign alive while he was recovering from a stroke is actually sickening," said Alexandra Hunt, a former Democrat candidate for Pennsylvania's 3rd Congressional District.

The conversation around Fetterman has some such as left-leaning commentator Mehdi Hasan questioning if he is the "new Kyrsten Sinema," the Arizona senator who became an independent in 2022.

"Fetterman has been a pleasant surprise for his Republican colleagues and a thorn in the side of progressive Democrat," Hasan wrote in British news magazine The Spectator in December. He added: "One still has to wonder if he might follow in Sinema's footsteps and officially extricate himself from the two-party system."

Sinema cited a "deeply broken two-party system" as the reason she left the Democratic Party in 2022.

However, Heath Mayo, a conservative who founded the anti-Trump nonprofit Principles First, praised Fetterman.

"John Fetterman is testing a lot of new boundaries for the Democratic Party right now. Aggressively pro-Israel, pro-border security, anti-corruption in his own party[...]That's principled leadership and Dems should embrace it. He is speaking to a lot of us," Mayo said.

On X, Hasan said Fetterman's comments on him not being aligned with the progressive movement was "a total attack on the people who worked hard to elect him."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christian Pax at Vox:

Is Donald Trump on track to win a historic share of voters of color in November’s presidential election? On the surface, it’s one of the most confounding questions of the Trump years in American politics. Trump — and the Republican Party in his thrall — has embraced anti-immigrant policies and proposals, peddled racist stereotypes, and demonized immigrants. So why does it look like he might win over and hold the support of greater numbers of nonwhite voters than the Republican Party of years past? In poll after poll, he’s hitting or exceeding the levels of support he received in 2020 from Latino and Hispanic voters. He’s primed to make inroads among Asian American voters, whose Democratic loyalty has gradually been declining over the last few election cycles. And the numbers he’s posting with Black voters suggest the largest racial realignment in an election since the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

There are a plethora of explanations for this shift, but first, some points of clarification. The pro-Trump shift is concentrated among Hispanic and Latino voters, though it has appeared to be spreading to parts of the Black and Asian American electorate. Second, things have changed since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the Democratic ticket in late July. Polling confirms that Harris has posted significant improvements among nonwhite voters, young voters, Democrats, and suburban voters. In other words, Harris has managed to revive the party’s standing with its base, suggesting that a part of Trump’s gains were due to unique problems that Biden had with these groups of voters. Thus, it’s not entirely clear to what extent this great racial realignment, as some have described the Trump-era phenomenon, will manifest itself in November.

[...]

Why? Putting aside environmental factors and shifts in the American electorate that are happening independent of the candidates, there are a few theories to explain how Trump has uniquely weakened political polarization along the lines of race and ethnicity. 1) Trump has successfully associated himself with a message of economic nostalgia, heightening nonwhite Americans’ memories of the pre-Covid economy in contrast to the period of inflation we’re now exiting. 2) Trump and his campaign have also zeroed in specifically on outreach and messaging to nonwhite men as part of their larger focus on appealing to male voters. 3) Trump and his party have taken advantage of a confluence of social factors, including messaging on immigration and cultural issues, to shore up support from conservative voters of color who have traditionally voted for Democrats or not voted at all.

[...]

Theory 1: Effective campaigning on the economy

Trump’s loudest message — the one that gets the most headlines — is his bombastic attacks on immigrants and his pledge to conduct mass deportations. His most successful appeal to voters, though, which he has held on to despite an improving economy under Biden, is economic. Trump claims to have presided over a time of broad and magnificent prosperity, arguing that there was a Trump economic renaissance before Biden bungled it. That pitch doesn’t comport with reality, but it may be resonating with voters who disproportionately prioritize economic concerns in casting their votes, particularly Latino and Asian American voters. Polling suggests that voters at large remember the Trump-era economy fondly and view Trump’s policies more favorably than Biden’s. Black and Latino voters in particular may have more negative memories about Biden and Democrats’ economic stewardship because they experienced worse rates of inflation than white Americans and Asian Americans did during 2021 and 2022.

[...]

Theory 2: Direct appeals to nonwhite men

The political realignment of women voters has been one of the major stories of 2024; the gender gap in American politics exploded in 2016, took a break in 2020, and seems like it’s about to be historic in 2024, with a huge pro-Democrat shift among women. At the same time, though, the rightward drift of men, including men of color, is a quiet undercurrent that may end up explaining what happened if Trump wins in November. Plenty of theories have been raised in the past about what kind of appeal Trump might have specifically to men and to men of color: Does his businessman persona resonate with upwardly mobile, financially aspirational men? Is there a “macho” appeal there for Hispanic men? Could his gritty, outsider, everyman posturing and brash rhetoric resonate with Black and Latino men, particularly those living in traditionally Democratic cities?

[...]

Theory 3: Championing conservative social issues

Trump and the GOP may also have found the right social issues to emphasize and campaign on in order to exploit some of the cultural divides between conservative and moderate nonwhite voters, and liberal white voters who also make up part of the Democratic base (in addition to liberal nonwhite voters). In 2021 and 2022, that looked like fearmongering on gender identity and crime, playing up concerns over affirmative action, and campaigning on the overturning of Roe v Wade. In 2023 and 2024, the Trump focus has shifted strongly toward immigration, an issue that has divided the Democratic coalition as hostility toward immigration has grown. That’s true even for Latino and Hispanic voters — long seen as being the voting group most amenable to a pro-immigrant, Democratic message — and it’s being used as a wedge issue by Republicans among Black voters as well.

Though it was seen as a gaffe, Trump’s “black jobs” comment during the first presidential debate got to this tension — the idea of migrants taking jobs, resources, and opportunities from non-white citizens. Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, one of Trump’s go-to Black surrogates, explained the argument to me like this: “If you’re a Black man, Hispanic man, white man, you’re working hard every day, and the money you earn doesn’t go as far. That hurts your family, that hurts your kids. So they look at this situation, this immigration problem. People are saying, ‘Wait a minute. Why are illegal aliens getting food, getting shelter, getting an education, while my family and my child is struggling. It’s not right, and it’s not fair.’” And for Asian American voters, now the fastest growing ethnic segment of the electorate, immigration is also becoming a wedge issue, Zarsadiaz told me. “This feeling, ‘I’ve waited my turn, I waited my time’ — there’s long been Latino and Asian American immigrants who have felt this way. The assumption has long been that if you’re an immigrant, you must be very liberal on immigration, and that’s definitely not the case,” Zarsadiaz said. “Some of the staunchest critics of immigration, especially on amnesty or Dreamers, are immigrants themselves, and with Asian Americans that’s an issue that has been drawing more voters to Trump and Trumpism — those immigrant voters who feel like they’re being wronged.” Democrats are now moderating on immigration, but only after years of moving left. And that shift left has been true on a range of issues, contributing to another part of this theory of Trump’s gains: that Democrats have pushed conservative or moderate nonwhite Americans away as they embraced beliefs more popular with white, college-educated, and suburban voters. The political scientist Ruy Teixeira and Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini have been theorizing for a while now that a disjuncture over social issues in general — and Trump’s seizure of these issues — has complicated the idea that Democrats would benefit from greater numbers and rates of participation from nonwhite America. It may explain why conservative and moderate voters of color, who may have voted for Democrats in the past, are now realigning with the Republican Party.

[...]

There are signs that some of this shift may be happening independently of Trump. It could be a product of the growing diversification of America, upward mobility and changing understandings of class, and growing educational divides. For example, as rates of immigration change and the share of US-born Latino and Asian Americans grows, their partisan loyalties may continue to change. Those born closer to the immigrant experience may have had more of a willingness to back the party seen as more welcoming of immigrants, but as generations get further away from that experience, racial and ethnic identity may become less of a factor in the development of political thinking.

Concepts of racial identity and memory are also changing — younger Black Americans, for example, have less of a tie to the Civil Rights era — potentially contributing to less strong political polarization among Black and Latino people in the US independently of any given candidate — and creating more persuadable voters in future elections. At the same time, younger generations are increasingly identifying as independents or outside of the two-party paradigm — a change in loyalty that stands to hurt Democrats first, since Democrats tend to do better with younger voters.

Vox explores how Donald Trump made inroads with a portion of the POC vote this election: young men of color.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Jess Coleman

When, in December 2021, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin announced he would vote “no” on President Biden’s signature legislative proposal, the Build Back Better Act, the reaction boiled down to: “Well, what did you expect?” After all, Manchin, despite being a Democrat, is from deep-red West Virginia, and politicians from deep-red states simply cannot vote in favor of major progressive policies championed by the leader of the Democratic Party. That’s just politics, dummy. That Biden and his fellow Democrats even tried was treated in some circles as painfully naïve: Unless Democrats learn that basic lesson and bring centrists into the fold, they’ll never achieve a vibrant, sustainable majority. Or so sayeth the conventional wisdom.

So when Manchin announced last week that he is considering leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent, his rationale was hardly difficult to predict. “The brand has become so bad,” he said, drawing on the oft-repeated talking point that the Democrats have lept too far left. In other words—and in contravention of all logic, given the results of the 2022 midterms—Manchin simply cannot in good conscience remain with a party that, in substance and style, provides no room for leaders seeking to appeal to a moderate, bipartisan electorate.

Don’t be fooled. Manchin’s charade is hardly one of principle. It’s one of total desperation.

There are no secrets about Manchin’s political situation at home. After being reelected in 2018 by just 3%, in a year in which Democrats vastly outperformed expectations nationally, Manchin has an enormous hill to climb with his reelection looming in 2024. But the West Virginia Senator doesn’t seem to have much interest in taking responsibility for the electoral crisis in which he has enmeshed himself. Instead, he’d like us to believe the political forces around him have simply left him no choice: Both sides have drawn too far to the extremes, leaving no political home for the critical mass of centrist West Virginians who sent him to Washington. Hence the need to chart a new path on his own.

The framing echoes a convenient perspective that is adored by the media and political establishment: Elections are not won with base voters, but through a small slice of persuadable, moderate swing voters, perpetually lurking just outside of frame. Democrats, in turn, need to have some Joe Manchins—those politicians who embody the voters who are key to electoral success—lying around to be taken seriously. The failure to keep these soi-disant moderate saviors on hand reveals a fundamental structural deficiency for the party writ large.

But if it’s true that Manchin is such a political genius—uniquely capable of surviving as a Democrat in a deep red state—you would expect that his victory is owed to a broad cross section of voters from a variety of political camps. Alas, that’s the complete opposite of what happened in 2018. According to CNN exit polls, Manchin garnered the votes of 64% of those who identify as moderates, and just 23% of conservatives. Those numbers are roughly in line with what New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand achieved that same year: 70% and 18%, respectively. The reality is Manchin barely made it over the finish line in roughly the same way Democrats all around the country win their seats: by running up the numbers with voters on the political left—Manchin won 80% of self-identified liberals in 2018.

Indeed, as The New Republic’s Alex Pareene observed in 2021, Manchin is actually far more reliant on Democratic voters than many of his blue state counterparts. While someone like Gillibrand can afford to lose large swaths of Democrats in a state where they are in ample supply, Manchin needs to pull virtually every registered Democrat in his state to win. Against all logic, Manchin approached Biden’s first term as if the rules that governed his electoral hopes were precisely opposite to reality. Instead of rewarding his most loyal voters—dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrats—by delivering for them in Washington, Manchin has spent his latest term going out of his way to alienate his base and position himself in a political no man’s land: personally steamrolling key Democratic priorities while siding with his party on most routine issues and appointments.

In short, Manchin made a bet. He believed he could rely on the support of Democrats and spent nearly all his time trying to appeal to a tiny, if not nonexistent, group of voters who are up for grabs and have no real allegiance to either of the two dominant political parties. It hasn’t worked out the way Manchin anticipated, and this is where he now finds himself—orchestrating a last-ditch, hopeless effort to create a new political reality from thin air.

It is possible Manchin never had a shot at reelection, had fortune and circumstance not permitted him to avail himself of 2018’s political trends, we’d already have a Republican holding that West Virginia Senate seat. But the broader lesson is crucial for those in the media and elected leadership who constantly insist that disregarding the Democratic base in service of pursuing the allegedly vast rewards that come from focusing solely on the views of the so-called centrist, swing voters is the only viable path to victory in American politics. Those who subscribe to this view should explain why the two most notable Democrats who aggressively pursued this approach—Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin—are currently fighting for their political lives, while other red-state Democratic senators such as Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana have consistently survived—and remain loyal to the party’s big priorities even when their electoral hopes face massive headwinds.

Mostly, we have to understand something simple about Manchin: We are not watching a political genius at work. He’s not on the verge of revealing a masterful plan to pull off another miracle in West Virginia. This is a desperate politician squirming for his political life after making a series of catastrophic political decisions. Manchin has hardly proven that the Democratic Party is mortally wounded due to its failure to leave room for the center left. All he’s done is reinforce a very basic rule in politics: Doing the opposite of what your voters want is an idiotic election strategy.

[mariacallous]

Poland’s populist ruling party appeared to be on the brink of losing power, after an exit poll in a bitter and high-stakes national election predicted that the country’s opposition has the clearest path to forming its next government.

The poll projected that the Law and Justice party, known by its Polish acronym PiS, would win the most seats after Sunday’s vote.

But it would fall some way short of a parliamentary majority, and the opposition bloc – led by former Polish prime minister and European Council president Donald Tusk – appeared on course to gain control if it struck deals with smaller parties.

Both Tusk and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS chairman and Poland’s de facto leader, attempted to declare victory on Sunday night. In reality, however, days of negotiations may lie ahead until the make-up of the country’s new government becomes clear.

“The exit poll results give us the fourth victory in the history of our party in the parliamentary elections and the third victory in a row; this is a great success of our formation and our project for Poland,” Kaczynski told supporters.

But in an admission of the tall order facing his party, he added: “We still face the question of whether this success will be able to be transformed into another term of office of our government. And we don’t know that yet. But we must have hope and we must also know that regardless of whether we are in power or in the opposition, we will implement this project in various ways and we will not allow Poland to be betrayed.”

Tusk appeared buoyant, saying: “This is the end of bad times, this is the end of the rule of PiS.” He said his group’s supporters “have won freedom, we have won our Poland back.”

A smaller coalition called Third Way may end up as kingmakers. The centrist bloc has criticized both major parties, arguing that neither represents Poland’s best path forward. But its leader Szymon Hołownia has long lambasted the performance of PiS, and insisted he would not pursue a pact with the incumbent party.

The outcome of this election could have major ramifications for Poland’s future direction, the balance of power in the European Union and the future of the war in Ukraine.

PiS, which has been mired in bitter spats with the EU during its eight years in power, was seeking a third consecutive electoral success – an unprecedented feat since Poland regained its independence from the Soviet Union.

The party has been accused by the EU and Polish opposition figures of dismantling Poland’s democratic institutions during its time in power. PiS has brought the Polish judiciary, public media and cultural bodies under greater control, and has taken a hard line against abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights.

Tusk, by contrast, has presented himself as a leader who would restore and amplify Poland’s standing in Europe. Warsaw has earned goodwill in the West through its response to the Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and smoothing tensions with Brussels could position Poland as a major player in the EU.

During a bitter campaign, PiS shot back at Tusk’s opposition coalition, claiming the former leader would be subservient to Brussels and Berlin if he returned to power.

PiS has overhauled many of Poland’s institutions during its eight-year rule; the judiciary and public media have been brought under greater control, with state-run television outlets essentially becoming government mouthpieces.

Its critics had likened its agenda to that of Viktor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary. Should the opposition oust the party, Warsaw would be expected to reorientate itself towards the United States and Western Europe in terms of foreign policy and reverse many of the domestic changes made by PiS.

But that could be a complicated mission for a coalition government encompassing various ideological groupings. The left-wing party Lewica may be required to prop up a minority Tusk-led government, along with centrists and center-right lawmakers.

High inflation and the security of Poland’s borders have been front of mind for voters during the campaign. Developments were also watched in Kyiv, after a tense period that saw relations between the two close allies sour.

Poland has been a crucial partner to Ukraine as it fights Russian forces in its east, but Warsaw was intensely critical of Ukraine’s government during a dispute over the imports of Ukrainian grain.

Voters were electing members of both houses of Poland’s parliament, with 231 seats in the Sejm – Warsaw’s lower house – needed for a party to clinch power outright.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Red Wave?   More like Red Wedding.

* * * *

Democrats should be proud!  ::  November 9, 2022

Robert B. Hubbell

         It is 9:00 PM Pacific as I begin to write this evening’s newsletter and only a few races have been called. But this much is clear: Democrats have every reason to be proud of their battle in the midterms. Control of Congress still hangs in the balance, but it is unlikely that there will be a “red wave” at the national or state level. Yes, there are disappointments (Beto O’Rourke, Stacey Abrams, Tim Ryan, Val Demings, Cheri Beasley), but there are reasons for celebration—Senator Maggie Hassan defeating election denier Don Buldoc in New Hampshire and Josh Shapiro beating election denier Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s governor’s race. (The latter may be key in protecting the integrity of the 2024 presidential election.) Kathy Hochul became the first woman to be elected as governor of New York, and Becca Balint became the first woman and openly gay person to represent Vermont in Congress.

         As recently as a week ago, Republican pollsters were predicting the GOP would pick up 35 seats in the House. That prediction is in line with “conventional wisdom” that the party in power loses seats in Congress. Exit polling by CNN shows that “inflation” was the most important issue to the largest bloc of voters—an issue that (wrongly) favors Republicans. And yet—at midnight Eastern time, the most likely outcome in the House is that the majority party will maintain control by a handful of seats (per MSNBC).

         Despite heavy criticism of Democratic messaging, something must account for the fact that Democrats are overperforming as measured against conventional wisdom. That “something” is Democratic messaging about democracy, reproductive liberty, and Joe Biden’s legislative achievements, including infrastructure, climate, social benefit programs, and fighting inflation. Whether those messages are sufficient to hold the House remains to be seen—but they appear to be enough to deny Kevin McCarthy the “mandate” he believed was his divine right.

         The Senate likewise seems too close to call, but Mitch McConnell’s early (and now withdrawn) predictions of a GOP majority may come down to a run-off in Georgia between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.

         The most positive indicator for the health of our democracy is that 8-in-10 voters believe that elections are conducted in a manner that is fair and accurate. After two years of non-stop election denialism by the GOP, that is good news, indeed. Per CNN,  

Roughly 8 in 10 of voters in this year’s midterms said they were at least somewhat confident that elections in their state are being conducted fairly and accurately, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

About half said they were very confident. Only about 2 in 10 said they were not very or not at all confident.

         Even where Democrats have suffered defeat, they have fought well and kept races closer than Trump’s margin of victory in 2020. More on that in future newsletters.

         As we await the full results, it is worth reflecting on predictions that most definitely did not come true. For a period of two weeks, major media outlets were breathlessly reporting that MAGA vigilantes acting as self-appointed “poll watchers” would show up en masse on Election Day—possibly armed. In October, Steve Bannon was telling anyone who would listen that Republicans would have a 45,000 member “Army of Patriots” intimidating voters at the polls. Except for one drop-box in Maricopa County, Arizona, the armed vigilantes failed to materialize. And if the 45,000 MAGA poll watchers showed up, they did not make their presence known. See USA Today, Voting rights experts report a smooth midterm election, some glitches. (“The relative calm on Tuesday was at odds with the run-up to the election . . . .”)

          Of course, even a single armed vigilante intimidating voters is unacceptable. But at the 230,000 polling locations in the U.S., it appears that there were few, if any, incidents of armed intimidation or aggressive behavior by MAGA poll watchers. For that, we should be thankful.

         When Bannon and others touted their “45,000” member army of poll watchers, I received panicked emails from readers who assumed that those poll watchers would cause havoc, intimidate voters, and suppress turnout. That didn’t happen, but Bannon’s propaganda had its intended effect: it instilled fear and doubt in Democrats. See Yahoo News / AFP, Right-wing election 'army' sparks fear for US midterms.

         We should always take threats of voter intimidation and suppression seriously. But we should also remember that Republicans are attempting to exaggerate their prowess in order to mess with our minds. Republicans don’t have superpowers—except when it comes to deceit, depravity, and shamelessness. Let’s keep that in mind for the next few weeks when, and if, Republicans make grandiose claims of what they plan to do with any victories they achieve in the midterms.

[kp777]

by Emily Bloch

Philadelphia Enquirer

Nov 12, 2022

Democrats are thanking Gen Zers for showing up and showing out at the polls.

Numbers are still coming in, but early exit polls show that a surge in young people voting in the midterm election may have boosted overall turnout and contributed to some better-than-expected results for Democrats.

Estimates say that about 27% of people ages 18 to 29 — Zoomers and those on the Gen Z-Millennial cusp — cast ballots this November, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts.

In midterm general elections dating back to the 1990s, turnout among the same age group has hovered around 20%.

“I don’t think older generations realize how fundamentally angry we are,” said Maddie Billet, 20, a sophomore at George Washington University and Bucks County native who voted Democratic. “We’re angry with policies and practices that have set up our lives to be a struggle from day one. We were born into a world where the environment is crumbling, democracy is dying, bigotry is becoming the norm, and we’re angry about it.”

No official sources of demographic voter data are immediately available after elections. CIRCLE bases its numbers on exit polls. Figures likeHarvard University’s Cooperative Election Study, Pew surveys, and Census Bureau voting data will only drop in the coming months.

At a press conference Wednesday, President Joe Biden thanked young people for showing up to the polls in “historic numbers.” CIRCLE said its estimates place young voter turnout at its second-highest since the 1990s, below only 2018′s 31%.

And for most Gen Z voters, CIRCLE estimates indicate,their ballots went blue.

Experts say that young people’s tenacity may have been the difference between Republicans’ promised “red wave” and the actual midterm results, which saw Democrats losing fewer U.S.House seats than expected and even flipping Pennsylvania’s Senate seat blue.

CIRCLE reported that young people overwhelmingly backed Democrats for U.S. House and Senate races. Gen Z’s support of Democratic candidates including incumbent Govs. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan andTony Evers in Wisconsin, and Sen.-elect John Fetterman over Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania proved to be critical, the data shows.

Read more.

[ausetkmt]

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is defending his Senate seat against Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a runoff election in Georgia Tuesday, after days of record-breaking early voting in the state. Polls close in Georgia at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday 12/06/2022. 

What is a runoff election, and how will it work in Georgia's Senate race?   

Since Democrats flipped the seat in Pennsylvania and successfully defended the other seats in play in the November midterm elections, Democrats will retain control of the Senate, regardless of the outcome on Tuesday. But they will have more power if they control the chamber 51-49 since they will not have to work out a power-sharing agreement with Republicans. This will be the last election of the 2022 midterm cycle. 

Polls close in Georgia at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday 12/06/2022. 

Although Warnock held a narrow lead over Walker on Election Day, he did not win more than 50% of the vote, which is required to avoid a runoff in Georgia. 

According to exit polls on Election Day, voters in Georgia were split in their views of the most important qualities in a candidate: 36% said it was most important that the candidate shared their values, while 32% said a candidate's honesty and integrity were most important to them.

Ahead of the general election, Walker's campaign was rocked in October by allegations that he paid for at least one woman to have an abortion. He has denied the allegations, and national Republicans stuck by him. 

A record-breaking number of early voters have turned out in the runoff, smashing all previous records. 

Former President Barack Obama campaigned with Warnock last week, although President Biden, who flipped the state in 2020, has not visited the Peach State to stump for Warnock. Former President Donald Trump has not campaigned in person with Walker in the runoff but was scheduled to hold a tele-rally for Walker Monday night.

Georgia played a key role in the 2020 elections, when the races for both Senate seats went into special runoff elections in January 2021, ultimately flipping both seats from Republican to Democratic. Republican incumbent Sen. David Perdue led Jon Ossoff after Election Night with 49.7% of the vote, but he ended up falling short in the runoff on Jan. 5, 2021. In the race for the other seat, Warnock led incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a 21-person race on Election Day, and he prevailed in the special election to fill the vacancy left when Sen. Johnny Isakson stepped down.

[newsource21]

No poll is predictive. Every single one of them is a measure of a specific window inside a specific space. No one wins—or loses—based on the polls, and it’s often irresponsible to say that someone is winning in the polls. It’s trite, but when strategists say the only poll that matters is the one taken on Election Day, they’re not wrong.

That said, many of us can’t help but obsessively track the polls. If you check into any armchair pundits’ social media feeds, you’re going to get an overdose of polling nuggets. But so much of the chatter is admittedly superficial and wrongly assumes nuance or caution can be set aside.

Reading the polls can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing. On its own, a single survey does not really describe anything more about the race than how one group of selected voters responded to one set of questions during a moment in time. Taken en masse—and there are pollsters out there who will scream Don’t Do It!—the numbers can offer a framework for a race, especially for donors who want a clear return-on-investment proof point. (Indeed, when donors began trying to force Joe Biden to step aside after his disastrous June debate, many were responding more to polling dashboards from Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight than their own concerns about what happened on that debate stage.)

As the campaign seasons hits its final weeks and early voters begin to cast ballots, here's a guide on what to make of the polls, based on what campaign professionals consider whenever a new poll pops up on their screens.

Who conducted the poll?

There are some truly terrific polling firms working on behalf of news organizations, advocacy groups, and campaigns themselves. But there are also some pretty funky shops these days. (Not to pick on Morning Consult, but FiveThirtyEight's report card for the 2022 cycle gives them a score of 8% score in its correct-call column, although the tech firm takes issue with the evaluation because it was based on just six polls taken right before the election.)

Mainstream news organizations spend small fortunes tracking the electorate and its trend lines, not just on the big-ticket races but also on voter attitudes toward various subjects. (Two gold-standard organizations—the Pew Research Center and Gallup—are most laudable in this space for having collected decades of longitudinal data on dozens, if not hundreds, of topics.)

Others, like advocacy groups, also conduct polling, usually for internal use. Occasionally, they’ll find a nugget that is statistically legitimate and, in their view, newsworthy. But don’t count on such data points to come to light if they threaten to set back that group’s agenda. The city pound wouldn't be touting a poll if it found people love stray puppies.

Then there are the campaigns, who always have roughly the same rebuttal to any tough question: That’s not what our internals show. That was always Donald Trump’s answer when the numbers showed him down in 2016 and 2020. And that was the case from Biden's camp earlier this year as he flailed toward his exit. There’s always a way for a campaign to slice their data to make itself look better.

What kind of voters did the pollster survey?

This is the question that’s going to be more important as we get closer to Election Day. Most polls start the cycle with registered voters, which is a broader screen than where things eventually end up in the homestretch. That’s when other filters are layered in to figure out who is actually likely to vote. Among all registered voters, Democrats historically have enjoyed an advantage. But among likely voters, Republicans often narrow that gap because groups viewed as low-propensity voters—those with lower incomes or from communities of color, blue-collar workers—show up on Election Day with less frequency, and they tend to be Democrats.

As the polls continue to tighten, you’re going to be hearing a lot about registered-versus-likely modeling. To identify the likelies, pollsters may start with the simple questions of whether someone is registered to vote and if they plan to vote this year. Others add in questions about whether the person on the line voted in the last few elections or how excited they are about the elections. Everyone cooks this sauce a little differently, which is why it’s statistically tricky to compare one poll against another.

Then, there’s the weighting. Put simply: this is a back-end system for pollsters to make sure the people who bothered to answer the questions matches what the pollsters expect turnout to look like. A basic version of this: in a 100-person survey, a pollster might adjust so the 80 women who answered have their power redacted to the roughly 55% of the electorate they comprise, while the 20 men remaining have their power amplified toss 45% of the balance. Then they might adjust for different demographics like college education, age, race, income, etc. Again, this is an oversimplification but it helps explain why oversampling on its own is not a reason to dismiss the results of a poll.

Is this a national poll, a swing state poll, or something else?

Not all polls are created equal. Sometimes, on big questions like abortion, global affairs, even pop-culture figures, a national poll is the way to go, provided there’s some controls built in for regional differences in the weighting described above. Other times—especially for presidential races—the nationwide numbers are pointless and the real battle is playing out in roughly seven universally accepted battlegrounds. And for state-based runs for Governor or Senate, that’s the whole ballgame, albeit one that’s increasingly difficult to find funding for rigorous, independent polling. 

How was the poll conducted?

For decades, most purist pollsters insisted the only reliable source for their research were live, human-to-human interviews conducted by phone. Historically, that worked because they were calling landlines and it was hard for most Americans to ignore the ringing phone hanging in the kitchen. Then came caller ID, cell phones, and, well, the Internet. Now, pollsters have begrudgingly adopted online polls as statistically acceptable with the right controls; in 2000, just one firm used online, opt-in polls but in 2022 that number rose to 46, according to Pew’s survey of peers. The same report found nine pollsters using text messaging as part of their data collection. 

Pew now does most of its polling via a tightly framed online system. Most polling houses do at least some online data collection these days, and it’s actually made, to most minds, the numbers more reliable when compared to the results from a 2016 cycle. (That might not have been a standout year in polling but was not as off as many think. People just read the headlines and ignored details.)

The online shift has increased efficiency but produced a dataset that cannot be easily compared to earlier polls that asked the exact same question. Voters’ words to a pollster and their clicks on a screen often yield different levels of honesty. So while it’s possible to track changes at this point month to month, it would be a mistake to take surveys from, say, 2000 and try to extrapolate public opinion shifts from there.

When was the poll in the field?

Context is everything, especially when it comes to polling. The surveys that asked opinions about Kamala Harris before she swapped in for Biden were touted by her naysayers who claimed she was too unpopular to get across the finish lines. That frame quickly fell apart when she became the apparent Democratic nominee. Pollsters rightly predicted a surge in Harris’ support once she became the only thing standing between Trump and the White House.

A comparable value of context on the other side of the aisle would be the chasm between the before and after figures for Trump around his failed assassination attempt. Despite years of acrimony from Democrats, he did see a bump in approval for having gone through that indefensible act of political violence.

But a reminder on big shifts in polls: they tend to return to a stasis pretty quickly. After Trump’s Access Hollywood tape came out, including his brag about sexual assault, his polling numbers went back to their norm in about three weeks. And after Obama ordered the successful killing of Osama bin Laden, his got back to regular territory in six weeks.

What is the margin of error?

A New York Times/ Siena poll released on Aug. 10 indicated Harris ahead of Trump in Michigan by a 50-46 margin. While that sounds like Harris is leading, look closely at the margin of error, which provides an estimate of how likely the result could be off, based on factors like the size of the randomly selected sample. The margin of error of the Michigan result was 4.8 points. That means Trump and Harris are actually statistically matched. Harris could actually be at 45.2% and Trump could be as high as 50.8%. 

A good rule of thumb: for someone to be leading in a poll, they need to cover twice the margin of error to be considered outside of the gray zone. So in the Michigan example, Harris would be leading if she was 10 points ahead of Trump.

Finally, there’s this grim reality: In roughly 1-in-5 cases, the polls taken in the final three weeks of a campaign are just plain wrong, according to a fascinating bit of data wonkery from FiveThirtyEight. In 2022, that universe of pollsters got the pre-Election Day call correct just 72% of the time.

How does this poll compare to the polling average?

Sometimes, a poll is just garbage. In some rare cases, the pollsters themselves say so and chuck the whole thing. The respected Des Moines Register/ CNN/ Mediacom survey did it in 2020 when folks inside the quant hive there didn’t believe what they were seeing in Iowa and decided sharing those findings would be irresponsible.

Outliers are polls that show a divergence from what others surveys are showing. They aren’t necessarily junk or the product of shoddiness; it’s just that even a by-the-books pollster can still occasionally produce a hinky poll. Even the best miss the mark.

This is where polling averages like those run by Real Clear Politics can be useful in tracking trends and momentum. But data nerds warn against making too much of them. It would be wrong to try to chart changes between a February CNN poll and a March Fox News poll. They ask the questions differently. Their back-end formula for weighing voting universes is different. It’s the kitchen equivalent of tracking the sweetness of sugar and flour just because they come from similar bags.

That said, plenty of us do look at so-called polls of polls. But like all opinion surveys, it’s helpful to remember that they should never be taken as predictive and that they’re already out-of-date by the time the data are released.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Most Americans who vow to leave over an election never do. Will this year be different? (USA Today) The idea of moving to another country to protest a presidential administration or political policy isn’t new—think the Vietnam War or even vows to move following the re-election of President George W. Bush. Even Trump once joked he might leave if Biden was elected. Typically, relatively few who vow to leave actually make the move, said Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, a University of Kent migration scholar and expert on Americans abroad. But this year, as voter anxiety hits the red zone ahead of a divisive election contest between Trump and President Joe Biden, there are signs that Americans from a cross-section of society are taking a more serious look at the exits. The percentage of U.S. citizens who would settle abroad if they were able reached 34% in a March 26 poll by Monmouth University, up from 12% since 1995. Monmouth polling officials said they believe the political rancor of recent years likely helped fuel the rise.

Beryl unleashes high winds, heavy rains in Texas (AP) Tropical Storm Beryl unleashed heavy rains and powerful winds along the Texas coast on Monday, knocking out power to more than 2 million homes and businesses and flooding streets with fast-rising waters as first responders raced to rescue stranded residents. Beryl had already cut a deadly path through parts of Mexico and the Caribbean before making a turn, sweeping ashore as a Category 1 hurricane in Texas early Monday, then later weakening to a tropical storm. At least two people were killed. The National Hurricane Center said damaging winds and flash flooding will continue as Beryl continues pushing inland. More than 2 million homes and businesses in the Houston area were without electricity, CenterPoint Energy officials said, and crews cannot get out to restore it until the wind dies down.

Comeback story (NYT) America’s so-called “left behind” counties—the once-great manufacturing centers and other distressed places that struggled mightily at the start of this century—have staged a remarkable comeback. In the last three years, they added jobs and new businesses at their fastest pace since Bill Clinton was president. The turnaround has shocked experts. “This is the kind of thing that we couldn’t have even dreamed about five or six years ago,” said John Lettieri, the president of the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank that studies economic distress in the U.S. Those counties span the nation but are largely concentrated in the Southeast and Midwest. Researchers say it’s too soon to know exactly what’s changed, but there are theories. The pandemic disrupted some long-running patterns of where Americans live and work; some people appear to have fled cities like New York for remote jobs—or for the chance to start a new company—in less expensive areas.

Is college worth it? Poll finds only 36% of Americans have confidence in higher education (AP) Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value and cost of college, with most saying they feel the U.S. higher education system is headed in the “wrong direction,” according to a new poll. Overall, only 36% of adults say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, according to the report released Monday by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. That confidence level has declined steadily from 57% in 2015. Some of the same opinions have been reflected in declining enrollment as colleges contend with the effects of the student debt crisis, concerns about the high cost of tuition, and political debates over how they teach about race and other topics.

El Salvador’s president threatens to use gang-crackdown style tactics against price gougers (AP) Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, famous for his heavy-handed crackdown on street gangs, threatened to use similar tactics against price gougers. Since 2022, Bukele has rounded up tens of thousands of suspected street gang members—often on little evidence—and filmed them being frog-marched in their underwear though vast new prisons. In a speech late Friday, he threatened to use the same tactics on wholesalers and distributors who he blamed for a recent steep rise in the prices for food items and other basic goods. It’s all very much in character for Bukele, who once described himself as the ���world’s coolest dictator.”

Can you ‘Trump-proof’ NATO? As Biden falters, Europeans look to safeguard the military alliance (AP) Growing skepticism about President Joe Biden’s reelection chances has European leaders heading to the NATO summit in Washington confronting the prospect that the military alliance’s most prominent critic, Donald Trump, may return to power over its mightiest military. NATO—made up of 32 European and North American allies committed to defending each other from armed attack—will stress strength through solidarity as it celebrates its 75th anniversary during the summit starting Tuesday. Event host Biden, who pulled allies into a global network to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion, has called the alliance the most unified it has ever been. But behind the scenes, a dominant topic will be preparing for possible division, as the power of far-right forces unfriendly to NATO grows in the U.S. and other countries including France, raising concerns about how strong support will stay for the alliance and the military aid that its members send to Ukraine.

France’s left-wing surge (BBC) Nobody expected this. When the graphics flashed up on all the big French channels, it was not the far right of Marine Le Pen who was on course for victory. It was the left who had clinched it, and Emmanuel Macron's centrists—the Ensemble alliance—had staged an unexpected comeback, pushing the far-right National Rally (RN) into third. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran left-wing firebrand seen by his critics as an extremist, wasted no time in proclaiming victory. His alliance, drawn up in a hurry for President Macron's surprise election, includes his own radical France Unbowed, along with Greens, Socialists and Communists and even Trotskyists. But their victory is nowhere big enough to govern. France is going to have a hung parliament. None of the three blocs can form an outright majority by themselves of 289 seats in the 577-seat parliament.

‘A Little Scary’: Ukraine Tries to Stay Neutral in U.S. Political Dogfight (NYT) Ukraine, which depends on American military aid for its survival, has long tried to maintain bipartisan support in the United States. That has never been easy, but it is getting harder, especially with the increased possibility that Donald J. Trump, no great friend of Ukraine, will return to the White House. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is asked in nearly every interview what a second Trump administration would mean for Ukraine. While Mr. Zelensky chooses his words carefully, sometimes the emotional weight of the assumption behind the question—that Mr. Trump could end American military assistance, allowing Russia to succeed in destroying the Ukrainian state—spills into view. Mr. Trump’s claim last week during his debate with Mr. Biden that he alone knew the path to peace is “a little scary,” the Ukrainian president said in an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News. “If there are risks to Ukrainian independence, if we lose statehood—we want to be ready for this, we want to know,” Mr. Zelensky said in a subsequent interview last week with Bloomberg. “We want to understand whether in November we will have the powerful support of the U.S. or will be all alone.”

The Killer Stalking Sri Lanka’s Men (NYT) Something odd has been happening to young men in the sultry farming and fishing communities of Sri Lanka. Since the 1990s, men in their 30s and 40s have been turning up at hospitals with late-stage kidney failure, needing dialysis or even transplants. In some communities, as many as one in five young men is affected. Their condition has no clear cause; in fact, it is called “chronic kidney disease of unknown origin.” But experts say the illness is most likely the result of exposure to extreme heat, and the resulting dehydration, as well as an overuse of toxic pesticides that have seeped into the groundwater. The trend is most striking in young men, but some women, too, seem to have the disease. And children as young as 10 already show early signs of kidney trouble.

After 9 Months of War, Israelis Call for a Cease-Fire Deal and Elections (NYT) Israelis on Sunday marked nine months since the devastating Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7 and the start of the ensuing war in Gaza with a nationwide day of anti-government protests at a time that many here view as a pivotal juncture in the conflict. Primarily calling for a cease-fire deal with Hamas that would see hostages return from captivity and for new elections in Israel, protesters brought traffic to a standstill at several major intersections in cities and on highways across the country. But many Israelis, among them the families of some of the hostages, fear that the cease-fire efforts could be torpedoed not only by Hamas, but also by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel who, they say, might prioritize the survival of his government over a deal that could topple it. The leaders of two ultranationalist parties who are key elements of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition have threatened to bring the government down if the prime minister agrees to a deal before Hamas is fully destroyed—a goal that many officials and experts consider unattainable. The far-right parties in the governing coalition “don’t want a deal,” Shikma Bressler, a protest leader, said in a social media post early Sunday, adding, “They need Armageddon.”

Nearly 1,000 homes in Cape Town destroyed by storms as city braces for a week of bad weather (AP) Nearly 1,000 homes in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, have been destroyed by gale-force winds, displacing around 4,000 people, authorities and an aid organization said as the city braces for a week of damaging storms. South African weather authorities said Monday that Cape Town and surrounding areas are expected to be hit by multiple cold fronts until at least Friday, bringing torrential rain, strong winds and flooding. The worst-hit areas are expected to be the poor, informal settlements on the edge of South Africa’s second biggest city.

Pope: We need the ‘scandal’ of faith (Vatican News) What the world needs now is “the scandal of faith,” Pope Francis said during his homily for Mass on Sunday, in the Italian city of Trieste. “We need a scandal of faith” that is not indifferent to the problems of this world, but that is rooted in the Incarnation, a faith “that enters history, touches people’s lives, and becomes a leaven of hope and a seed for a new world.” Pope Francis insisted that God is found precisely “in the dark corners of our lives and of our cities,” and among “the least, the forgotten, the discarded.” All too often, he said, we are scandalized by little things, when instead we should be outraged “in the face of rampant evil.” Like Jesus—who, despite being rejected and even tried and executed, “remained faithful to His mission”—we Christians are also called to be prophets and witnesses to the Kingdom of God, in whatever place or situation we find ourselves.

[molsons112000]

So black men have had great opportunities for great education and black Women have had the same great opportunity. For being only twelve percent of the population they receive an incredible amount of athletic scholarships.... The sad thing is they haven't focused on their education.... This is why I don't want the n f l and the n b a taking players early... And this is why they must be near completion of their degree and once they get into the NBA and n, f, l, they must finish their degree. They must finish their degree within the first year of entering the NB.A or n f l. This is the same with professional baseball and hockey. Those teams must require their athletes to finish their college degree. This is why a lot of these athletes end up in very bad positions especially if they get injured and can't play in those sports anymore. They don't have the ability to go behind the scenes and do other things like karl swerberg did with the cubs.. He was able to do all kinds of statistical recordings of the pictures and so that he could go behind the scenes and help the team as an analyst. But they need to prepare themselves for a career.Yeah they need to have an exit strategy for all their players. They need to prepare them for life after the sport whether they get injured or retire or no longer make the team.... They must have an ability for these players to move on to different careers, whether within the sport or working for a vendor for the sport or moving into a non related industry. 🤔 Just like Hollywood needs to do. These industries need to prepare their people for life afterwards, or you get Danny Bonaducci. 🤔 They feel lost and they are lost and they get hooked to drugs and all kinds of bad things happen with them.... So this is with models and every one of these industries. They need to prepare people for transition, just like CFP's and CFA's need the prepare people for transition. So part of it the NCA needs to do this with people who don't make it to the pro. Level. They need to do some type of planning for them to move on into different industries.... You can be an analyst with a CF.A and you played college basketball and you go and analyze the industry. So you can analyze companies that are involved in sports or you can analyze the industry in general .... You can even open up a mutual fund that only invest in industries related to sports.... you can create a sports related index... So the sad point that's happened in the black community with the hundred and seven all black colleges and everything is they truly didn't take advantage of the opportunities that were given to them......

Black men are the majority of scholarship football and basketball players, and Black women are 42 percent of scholarship basketball players. But white women are by far the single-largest recipient of all sports athletic aid in Division I.Dec 23, 2022

https://prospect.org › education

Black College Students: An Endangered Species, Unless ...

According to prospect.org, 42% of college basketball players receive scholarships, and 41% of women's basketball players in 2020-21 were Black. However, white women are the largest recipients of all sports athletic aid in Division I. For example, in 2022, 69% of female student athletes in the United States were white, while 8.9% were African. 



The American Prospect

Black College Students: An Endangered Species, Unless They Play ...

Dec 23, 2022 — Black men are the majority of scholarship football and basketball players, and Black women are 42 percent of scholarship basketball players. But white women are by far the single-largest recipient of all sports athletic aid in Division I. A 2019 analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP) noted that many of ...



538 — Election Polls, Politics, and Analysis - ABC News

Title IX Didn't Guarantee Black Women An Equal Playing Field

Jun 22, 2022 — In 2020-21, 41 percent of women's basketball and 23 percent of women's track and field athletes were Black. 2. Again, limited to athletes ...



statista.com

Share of NCAA female athletes in the U.S. 2022, by ethnicity - Statista

Mar 27, 2023 — College sports are very popular in the United Stated and the championships are organized in divisions around different sports sanctioned mainly by the NCAA, the largest college sports organization. In 2022, almost 69 percent of female student athletes in United States were white, while 8.9 percent were African ...

Black men are the majority of scholarship football and basketball players, making up 55.9% of men's basketball players in the Power Five. However, the percentage of Black athletes among the nation's major-college scholarship athletes is far greater than the percentage of Black students among those schools' overall student populations. 

So this has been the problem and this is where what did rainbow push do or any of these the urban league.... There's all these black organizations and they didn't reduce the dropout rates. They didn't emphasize completing college or getting advanced degrees.....

All these industries do a very bad job of transitioning their people.... I started working with transition firms in 2001. Below government can get an idea of what's happening in industry.... I am absolutely against the LGBTQ...... We need to put in place an exit strategy for them turning straight......

Human Rights Campaign

https://www.hrc.org › resources

Corporate Equality Index 2023-2024

As the national benchmarking tool measuring policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer

No matter if a TV show is ending, these are the top transition firms that allow people to move either within an industry or between industries. These industries and associations should be helping people with transition...

What Are the Top Outplacement Firms?

Lee Hecht Harrison. Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) is one of the largest outplacement firms in the US and around the globe. ...

Right Management. ...

Global Outplacement Alliance. ...

Mercer. ...

Randstad RiseSmart. ...

Career Partners International.

Mar 20, 2024

https://careerminds.com › Blog

Top Outplacement Firms: A List for Buyers of ... - Careerminds

U.S. Department of Labor (.gov)

https://www.dol.gov › termination

Plant Closings and Layoffs

WARN makes certain exceptions to the requirements when layoffs occur due to unforeseeable business circumstances, faltering

[arpov-blog-blog]

Hopium Chronicles 

Joe Biden Is A Good President, The Rs Are Struggling

SIMON ROSENBERG JAN 25, 2024

The post-Dobbs dynamic of Dem overperformance/Republican struggle is showing up now in early 2024 as it did in 2022 and 2023. Turnout in Iowa was way below expectations and Trump only won 56,000 votes from the almost 750,000 registered Republicans in the state. Trump ran 10 points below pre-election polling in New Hampshire, and about half of those who voted in IA/NH voted against him. In both states entrance/exit polling found more than 30% of Republican voters having really serious problems with Trump if he’s convicted of a crime, and in Iowa more Haley voters said they would vote for Biden than Trump in the general election. It’s a willingness to cross over and support the other party I am not sure we’ve seen in the last 40-50 years of Presidential polling.

I am beginning to believe that something broke inside the Republican Party when Roe ended. Republican extremism and ugliness just became too much for too many Republican voters, and the party and MAGA have had serious performance issues ever since. In 2022 Trumpy candidate in the battleground states could not bring their party together after their contentious primary, and lost. Based on this early data it is very likely Trump is going to have that same struggle to bring along non-MAGAs into his coalition, and like the 2022 MAGAs will lose in the battlegrounds where the Presidential race will be decided.

These questions about broad possible defections from Trump if convicted of a crime may be the most worrisome data of all for Republicans, for juries and courts have already found that he committed extraordinary misdeeds, and there is no question about what he has done:

A jury of his peers found that he raped E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room

A court has determined he committed massive, decades-long financial fraud, and the State of New York has asked for $380m in fines and penalties

The Colorado Supreme Court has determined that he led an insurrection against the United States, and may still get barred from running in this election. Of course Trump has promised to end American democracy if he somehow ends up in the White House next year, confirming the gravity of these historic and unprecedented political crimes and why disqualification has to be a serious option

He stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI about it, and shared those secrets with others. It is may be the single greatest betrayal of the country in our history

He and his family have taken billions of dollars from foreign governments, putting all sorts of foreign governments first and Americans last and establishing a norm of corruption that has no parallel in modern American history

All of these things are facts. They have already happened; and we know from polling that large numbers of Republicans - 20%-30%-40%- would consider them disqualifying. As a matter of messaging we should stop talking about “91 indictments” and “if he is convicted” and talk bluntly and forcefully about the crimes themselves, and the judgments courts and juries HAVE ALREADY rendered. For we can say now, without hesitation, that Donald Trump is a rapist, a fraudster, an insurrectionist; that he is the most corrupt politician in modern history and has serially betrayed the country. None of this information was available to voters in 2020. It is all new. And when we share it in the months ahead there is a lot of data suggesting it will be devastating for him and Republicans more broadly."

[whatsonmedia]

The media and the strike wave: no longer speaking for their master

If Conservative Party propagandists and their press allies attempt to capitalize on the unrest in the industry this winter for political gain, they will likely find a difficult task in the run-up to the next general election. Images of picketing nurses waving placards outside of hospitals or train crews calmly protesting at railroad stops. It won't likely cause as much harm as anti-union campaigns from earlier decades. Any effort to reuse press images from the "winter of discontent" in 1978–1979—such as piles of trash in Leicester Square or coffins waiting to be buried on Merseyside—is unlikely to recall in the public's memory the determined but dignified defiance on display during the winter of 2022–2023. Countless thousands of nurses, ambulance drivers, paramedics, and teachers have consistently protested peacefully on strike days. It's an attempt to secure salary increases to keep up with rising inflation. Even the harshest tabloid critics of them have been obligated to acknowledge the reality of what their vie Two-thirds of people, according to opinion polls; have kept supporting the walkouts despite the disruption to healthcare and schools. Only one-third of the populace believes that unions have too much influence. When asked who is to blame for the impasse, the public seems to point the finger at the government, support the unions, and show support for teachers, nurses, and other members of the public sector. The cheerleaders for the Conservatives will be up against far more attractive visual reminders of collective action. Regardless of how hard they might look to the past, harkening back to the days of mass meetings in parking lots to authorize strikes or violence on picket lines. They won't be able to disregard the cumulative effects of the labor movement's dramatically altered public image. Some of the fundamental principles of industrial reporting are being rewritten. As a result of the united and coordinated campaigning of a new crop of union general secretaries. Many of the prominent labor unions in the nation now have female leaders. They have been knocking on doors with their members who are on strike. And pleading in vain for the prime minister and his Cabinet partners to negotiate. Young women have vastly outnumbered the men: Nurses, paramedics, medical personnel, and teachers holding up placards warning of an exit from their professions unless wages are raised. Christina McAnea, who is in her third year as the head of Unison, the biggest health union, has joined nurses and ambulance drivers in protesting the government's refusal to negotiate outside hospitals and health facilities. Since August 2021, Sharon Graham has served as the head of Unite, the largest union in the nation. She has already amassed a lengthy list of victories over private-sector employers during strikes. And she has also spent time canvassing neighborhoods to support Unite members. And who are participating in a strike in the ambulance service. Mary Bousted, a longtime joint general secretary of the National Education Union and a frequent target of press criticism, has made numerous appearances on radio and television to support the 200,000 English teachers who went on strike for the day. Their collective rage at Rishi Sunak and his ministers' refusal to meet with the unions. And at least debate the government's pay offers has brought home how uncompromising the opposition was. Everyone could clearly see the ministerial arrogance and obfuscation. The tabloids are being forced to recognize the legitimacy of the unions' case. And which may be uncomfortable for their longtime tormentors. The Daily Express broke ranks by supporting Pat Cullen's claim that the RCN was willing to negotiate in the lead-up to what would become the largest single walkout in the history of the NHS: "Nurses will do deal to end strikes" (December 19 2022), and a month later with a direct appeal to the Prime Minister — "Nurses: clock is ticking Rishi... do a deal for Britain" (January 11 2023). Stephen Pollard, a columnist for the Express, supported the strike with the statement "The nurses' argument is overwhelming. Make the correct decision, Rishi" (February 7 2023). Media concluded that it was once more the unions versus "the people," with leaders like Lynch serving as the contemporary equivalent of Scargill — callous, heartless, and with a radical socialist goal. The headline of Andrew Neil's column in the Daily Mail on February 4, 2023. It predicting the strikes would soon start to dissipate. "These strikes are proving the unions no longer have the power to paralyze the nation — just as I warned Mick Lynch in the summer," may have been the most eloquent example of the confusion among the anti-union commentaries. Many people would disagree with Neil's assessment of the power of the unions. Considering that a general election is coming and that two-thirds of Britons continue to back the striking nurses. The weak Conservative administration should perhaps take heed. The Conservatives cannot be certain that their supporters in the Tory press. Which will be able to deliver a sustained and effective pre-election campaign that demands another crackdown on the unions. Based on the inconsistent directions of the tabloids' response, which undoubtedly reflects their inability to ignore the size of picket line demonstrations — and the resolve of the strikers. Read the full article

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

As Gen Z headed to the polls this week, conservative commentators had a message for young voters: please stop.

Tuesday’s midterm election saw Gen Z come out strong for Democrats, including for their generation’s first U.S. representative: Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat from Florida. The young blue bloc left Fox News personalities dismayed, with other conservative voices suggesting that the minimum voting age be raised from 18 (currently enshrined in the Constitution) to 21 or 28.

“The fact that these youth voters are coming in so strong in an off-year is very concerning,” Fox News commentator Jesse Watters lamented on Wednesday night. “It looks like they’ve been brainwashed. This new generation is totally brainwashed ’cause a lot of these single women [who] vote 37 spreads for Democrats, are teaching all of our younger generation in these schools and they’re polluting their minds and then they grow up and they’re in their twenties and then they vote for leftists.”

Exit polling shows strong youth support for Democrats, typically on issues like climate change, reproductive rights, and guns. Voters aged 18-24 (all of whom fall into Gen Z) voted 61% for Democrats, while the 25-29 age group, some of whom are Gen Z, voted 65% blue, exit polls show.

Research by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), suggests 27% of people ages 18-29 voted in the election. It’s the second-highest youth turnout in midterm history, Al Jazeera reported.

Frost, the newly elected representative from Florida, said his generation is fired up over the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and economic issues like student debt.

“We see that young people see the economy through a very specific lens, looking at things like crushing debt, not because we live beyond our means, but because we’ve been denied the means to live,” Frost told The Daily Beast. He pointed to President Joe Biden’s student debt relief program as a win with young voters.

Other Fox stars acknowledged the right’s weakness with young people. “We have to win over voters outside of our traditional base,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said on her program Wednesday night. “That means young people too.”

Young voters’ support for Democrats actually softened between 2018 and 2022, exit polls suggest. Democratic support among the 18-29-year-old age cohort dropped seven points between the two elections, according to a CNN analysis of exit polls. But virtually all demographics swung right this election, with Democratic backing taking a larger hit in other age groups like 30- to 44-year-olds.

Other conservative voices were less rosy on winning the youth vote. In a now-viral series of tweets, anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel suggested barring America’s youngest voters from the polls.

“Raise the voting age to 21,” Gabriel tweeted, immediately after noting that “We were promised a red wave and we got a red puddle.”

She went on to tweet that “Generation Z thinks doing drugs in the street should be legal. Generation Z also thinks speech that offends them should be illegal.”

Though Gabriel didn’t specify which drugs, a Gallup poll last year found that 68% of Americans (including 50% of Republicans) support legalizing marijuana. And despite a strong push by Republican legislatures to ban educational material about race and gender issues, Gen Z students overwhelmingly favor strong free speech rights, 2022 polling shows.

Not to be outdone, conservative radio personality Peter Schiff suggested cutting out current Gen Z voters altogether. “Let's raise the voting age to 28. If I was still 18 I'd support this,” the 59-year-old tweeted.

The current 18-year minimum age for voting is guaranteed by the Constitution’s 26th amendment, which passed, in part, because the Vietnam War draft was conscripting people too young to vote.

Frost said he wasn’t shocked to hear talk of disenfranchising young voters. He likened the talk to existing measures that make voting more difficult for people of color.

“When voters don’t vote in their favor, what do they look to do?” he asked. “Change the votes, change the electorate, change the people who can vote. That’s why we see these horrible voter suppression laws championed by the GOP to suppress the votes of Black and brown people, to put it bluntly.”

“I think the GOP's doing the calculation,” Frost added, “‘half these people can’t vote yet. What does this mean for us in the future?’”

[mariacallous]

The Supreme Court’s decision to reverse nearly fifty years of precedent and send the abortion issue back to the states sent shock waves throughout the country. During the summer months the implications of that decision were widely held to be helping the Democrats in what had been shaping up to be a dismal midterm election year. In some states voter registration of women surged. But by Labor Day the conventional wisdom had swung back. No, insisted most pundits, abortion wouldn’t drive many votes, but inflation would.

How wrong they were.

The first indication came early on election night in CNN’s exit polls. To the obvious surprise of the on-air talent, abortion came in a close second to inflation: 31% said inflation was their top issue but 27% said abortion was. Despite late pre-election polls showing abortion sinking to third or fourth place or disappearing, there are several reasons why the issue never really went away.

First, there are a lot of women in America, they are evenly distributed across the country, and they consistently vote more often than men—as the following table from our colleague Bill Frey here at Brookings illustrates.

This year was no different. According to CNN exit polls, women constituted 52% of the vote and men 48%. That is an enormous difference. Let’s assume that turnout in 2022 ends up being about the same as the record 2018 turnout—roughly 116 million votes. The women’s share of that vote? 60,320,000. Exit polls also show that 53% of women voted Democratic. That’s 31,969,600 votes—a big number. Hillary Clinton, who clearly shares our frustration with those who discounted the women’s vote, tweeted out the following clearly sarcastic comment: “It turns out women enjoy having human rights, and we vote.”

Apart from the sheer magnitude of the women’s vote is the issue of intensity. Unlike men, women spend a great deal of their lives thinking about reproduction. They have no choice. Even in the 21st century, pregnancy is still a dangerous business, and women’s health care is no place for government bureaucrats. No wonder that women think abortion is a lot more important than men do. As the election season entered its final stretch, and many Republican candidates got a crash course in obstetrics, some pulled back and/or softened their previous hard lines on abortion.

The importance of the issue was seen most clearly in the Senate debate in Pennsylvania. Although the Democrat, John Fetterman gave a halting performance because he was still recovering from a serious stroke, his opponent, Republican Mehmet Oz, managed to make what had to be one of the most damaging comments on abortion ever: “I want women, doctors, and local political leaders…” to make these decisions.

The sheer absurdity of that comment went a long way towards distracting voters from the issue of Fetterman’s health and reminded many that government shouldn’t be making those decisions.

Finally, abortion is fundamentally different from inflation. Inflation is unpopular with both parties—there is no pro-inflation and anti-inflation party. In fact, if we’ve learned anything about politics in our polarized time it’s that voters see almost all issues through their partisan lens. Democrats worried about inflation could think that Joe Biden was dealing with it and Republicans that Joe Biden caused it. But abortion is different. One party is clearly in favor of keeping it legal in most or all circumstances and the other is not.

If you put together the sheer size of the women’s vote, the intensity of the issue and the fact that, unlike inflation or the economy, the two parties have stark differences on the issue, you get a powerful driver of the vote. There were five states with abortion referenda on the ballot and in every single one—including the deep red state of Kentucky—the pro-choice position won. In Michigan, where the abortion referendum won by 13.4 percent, it is not far-fetched to assume that it helped the Democrats keep several congressional seats. And in Pennsylvania, where abortion topped inflation by 9 points, Democrats picked up the only Senate seat so far.

The following table shows the percentage of voters in each of the crucial states and how they rated inflation and abortion. In most cases abortion was a close second; in Michigan and Pennsylvania it was far ahead of inflation.

Central to the story of the 2022 midterms, then, is an issue central to women’s lives, powerful enough to snatch victory from the Republicans, and durable enough to send a message about the future.