Only months after many pundits wrote obituaries for his party’s chances in the midterm elections, President Joe Biden went on the road to excoriate “MAGA Republicans” and the extreme right-wing with Labor Day appeals to swing-state union members who he hopes will turn out in force for Democrats in November.
“The middle class built America. Everybody knows that. But unions built the middle class,” Biden told Wisconsin workers following a series of stops in Pennsylvania.
The political landscape is being upended by a string of President Joe Biden’s legislative victories on climate, health care and gun violence, but Democratic prospects for victory may be more appropriately attributed to blunders made among Donald Trump’s favored candidates in electoral battlegrounds like Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Nothing has undermined the GOP’s momentum more than the Supreme Court’s decision to end abortion protections, which triggered a series of forced birth laws that have inspired a political backlash even in the most conservative states.
On top of that, one of several criminal investigations into Trump’s misconduct has surfaced evidence that the former president not only failed to comply with the Presidential Records Act of 1978 but probably violated the Espionage Act by stealing 18 documents marked as top secret, 54 marked as secret, and 31 marked as confidential.
Even Republicans who stuck with Trump after his failed coup d’etat on January 5, 2021, are starting to put some distance between themselves and the wannabe dictator in the wake of the stolen document fiasco, but the poor quality of GOP candidates is hard to dismiss as a factor that could make many of them lose.
Snake oil salesman Mehmet Oz is a celebrity doctor who used his TV show to push useless products in which he had a financial stake, but the New Jersey resident is spending a part of his fortune to win a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
“From buying crudité at ‘Wegners’ to lying about how many houses he owns to acting like everyone can afford Gucci loafers and custom Zegna suits, Dr. Oz has proven time and time again that he is out of touch with Pennsylvania,” said Joe Calvello, communications director for Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s US Senate campaign. “To put it plain and simple: Oz does not give a sh*t about the working people of Pennsylvania + doesn’t have a clue what people are going through.”
A group of almost 100 Arizona Republican and Independent business owners, elected officials, farmers, veterans, and community leaders announced their endorsement of Senator Mark Kelly’s re-election after right-wing extremist Blake Masters—who supports a national abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest and privatizing social security—won the GOP Senate primary.
Masters is trying to reboot his campaign by removing from a campaign website his views on abortion, controversial comments about the U.S. Capitol riot, an immigration conspiracy theory, and even false claims about a stolen 2020 election have disappeared.
With less than two months to go, incumbents and challengers alike so far have poured millions of dollars into the midterm election campaigns but some billionaire-backed Republicans and self-funded GOP contenders are falling behind the energized Democratic candidates.