2020 Non-Presidential Elections 2

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh, for pity sake: "Former Trump aide George Papadopoulos was jailed for lying to the FBI. Now, he’s running for Rep. Katie Hill’s seat."

Spoiler

George Papadopoulos’s first major political role, serving as an adviser to the Trump campaign in 2016, catapulted him into the center of an international scandal and ultimately landed him in federal prison.

Now a free man living in California, Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to federal agents investigating Russian interference in President Trump’s election, is planning to make his return to politics — as a candidate for Congress.

His seat of choice? The one occupied by Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.), who announced Sunday that she is resigning amid an ethics investigation into allegations that she had been romantically involved with her legislative director. Hill has denied the charge, but admitted to engaging in a consensual three-person relationship with her now-estranged husband and a member of her campaign staff. The freshman lawmaker, who identifies as bisexual, became embroiled in controversy earlier this month after a conservative news site and British tabloid published nude photos of Hill without her consent.

On Tuesday, Papadopoulos, 32, filed paperwork to run as a Republican in California’s 25th District and is expected to formally announce his candidacy later this week, Fox News reported. The news was met with swift backlash from California State Assemblywoman Christy Smith, who is so far the lone Democrat in the race for Hill’s seat. Three Republicans are also running, the Associated Press reported.

“If he pled guilty to lying to the FBI — how do we know he’ll tell us the truth?” Smith tweeted, tagging Papadopoulos. “We deserve someone from our community serving as our voice — not @realDonaldTrump’s wannabe political hack!”

Smith later ratcheted up her criticism of Papadopoulos, sharing a video that appeared to mock the former Trump adviser over the short amount of time he’s lived in California. Papadopoulos, who is originally from Illinois, moved west with his wife after he was sentenced in September 2018.

“Hey, guess what, this is California,” Smith said in Tuesday’s video, slapping her hand on a map of the United States. “And as soon as you can identify my district on here, you let us know.”

Papadopoulos did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday, but has repeatedly mentioned Hill’s congressional seat in recent tweets.

One day before the photos of Hill were published, Papadopoulos tweeted, “California’s 25th congressional district looks like it’s for the taking.”

In another post after the photos came out, Papadopoulos slammed Hill as an “embarrassment to the great people in that district.”

“Someone has to step up,” he tweeted Sunday, following Hill’s announcement. “I love my state too much to see it run down by candidates like Hill. All talk, no action, and a bunch of sell outs.”

Papadopoulos’s political career began in 2015, not long after Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower, T.A. Frank wrote in a profile published this year in The Washington Post Magazine. His initial attempt to join the Trump campaign didn’t pan out and he ended up briefly serving as an adviser for then-presidential candidate Ben Carson, before taking a job with the London Center of International Law Practice. But Papadopoulos never gave up on his goal of working for Trump’s campaign, and eventually came on as a foreign policy adviser in March 2016, Frank reported.

“He’s an oil and energy consultant,” Trump said of Papadopoulos, according to The Post. “Excellent guy.”

Within days of starting his new role, Papadopoulos, guided by the campaign’s interest in improving relations with Moscow, was already working to get Trump a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Frank reported. Papadopoulos’s efforts led him to a London-based professor, who told him that the Russians had access to “dirt” on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, namely damaging emails. Papadopoulos stayed in contact with the professor and later communicated with Russian nationals, including a woman he incorrectly believed was Putin’s niece, The Post reported.

Then, in May 2016, the situation took a turn.

That’s when Papadopoulos made an offhand remark about the Russians and their “dirt” on Clinton to an Australian diplomat over drinks at a bar in London, according to The Post. This conversation between Papadopoulos and the diplomat, who promptly relayed the information to American officials, helped trigger the FBI investigation of Trump’s campaign in late July 2016.

About a year later, Papadopoulos was arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport — accused of making false statements to the FBI about his Russia contacts. On Oct. 5, 2017, Papadopoulos admitted to lying, becoming the first Trump official to plead guilty and cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. He served 12 days in federal prison last year.

Since his release in December 2018, Papadopoulos has participated in a documentary series chronicling his relationship with his wife and the aftermath of the Russia investigation, and wrote a book titled, “Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump.”

Becoming a politician has also been on his to-do list.

“I will be running for Congress in 2020, and I will win,” Papadopoulos tweeted days after leaving a federal prison in Wisconsin in December. “Stay tuned.”

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I have to sign off for the night, but, boy, things are interesting. NBC is calling the KY governor race for the Dems, though there is only about a 7,000 votes difference. If Beshear does win, it's a big middle finger to the mango moron, since he's had klan rallies in KY to support Bevn.

In Virginia, all of our state House and Senate seats were up for election. The Dems need to flip one seat in the senate and two in the house. Even though votes are still being counted, it looks like it might happen. Oh Rufus, please let it be so.

[fraurosena]

@GreyhoundFan, it seems a Beshear win might have greater consequences than flipping the governorship blue.

Trump begged not to let Bevin lose:

But it turns out they did let it happen... overwhelmingly so. 

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

In Virginia, all of our state House and Senate seats were up for election. The Dems need to flip one seat in the senate and two in the house. Even though votes are still being counted, it looks like it might happen. Oh Rufus, please let it be so.

Our great Rufus granted your wish!

And I think you might like this as well...

 

[candygirl200413]

I lived in 3/4 commonwealth states and I'm so so proud of VA!! and to Kentucky I just want to bring it into the group hug because of this flip!

[Audrey2]

31 minutes ago, candygirl200413 said:

I lived in 3/4 commonwealth states and I'm so so proud of VA!! and to Kentucky I just want to bring it into the group hug because of this flip!

Amen and hallelujah! Now if they can just send their turtle back to his stream in Kentucky next year instead of the Senate...

[fraurosena]

29 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

Amen and hallelujah! Now if they can just send their turtle back to his stream in Kentucky next year instead of the Senate...

Oh, they will. The animus against Trump and especially those that keep him in office is so much greater than anyone conceives. The lie that Trump’s base, combined with heavy gerrymandering  and voter suppression is what will give the Trumpian party the win isn’t fooling anyone anymore. In fact, Trump has done more to get people to go out and vote than any single thing in the history of the US. 

The Senate’s grim reaper is dead. He just doesn’t realize it yet.

[formergothardite]

I tried to ignore the elections last night because it makes me too nervous, but this is such good news!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kentucky outcome embarrasses Trump and worries many Republicans ahead of 2020"

Spoiler

Democrats’ claim of victory Tuesday in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race, as well as the Democratic takeover of the Virginia state legislature, left Republicans stumbling and increasingly uncertain about their own political fates next year tied to an embattled and unpopular president.

Many allies of President Trump rushed to explain away the poor performance of incumbent Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) as an anomaly, while other GOP veterans expressed alarm about the party’s failure in a state where Trump won by nearly 30 percentage points in 2016 — and where he just campaigned this week.

Although Bevin was controversial and widely disliked, he was also a devotee of the president, embracing Trump’s agenda and his anti-establishment persona. And in the contest’s final days, Bevin sought to cast his candidacy as a bulwark against House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry of Trump.

But Bevin’s attempt to nationalize his cause by stoking conservative grievances about the impeachment process was not enough to overcome his problems nor was Trump’s raucous rally for the governor on Monday — raising questions about Trump’s political strength as he faces a barrage of challenges and a difficult path to reelection.

The outcome — with Democrat Andy Beshear claiming victory with a lead of several thousand votes and Bevin refusing to concede — underscored how Republicans are struggling to navigate choppy political waters as the 2020 campaign now begins in earnest. Trump continues to dominate the party, but many lawmakers are uneasy about their ability to defend his conduct and hold on to suburban support.

Yet few Republicans are willing to even lightly criticize Trump because they widely believe they will need his voters’ backing and enthusiasm in order to survive next year.

Still, the Kentucky defeat has sparked concern among the party’s donors and many longtime GOP leaders who are worried that the nonstop twists of the House impeachment inquiry and Trump’s growing fury are making it increasingly difficult for Republicans to make a clear and compelling case to voters.

“It was a rough night,” said Scott Reed, the chief political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “The Republican Party is lacking message discipline, and that needs to be addressed. There is a lot of positive news around President Trump’s governing on the economy, on regulations and judges, and it seems to be overwhelmed by the drama.”

“It’s a definite shot across the bow, even though Republicans picked up the state attorney general position in Kentucky,” said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, referring to Republican Daniel Cameron, who became the first African American to ever win that office. “But losing the governorship is a smack at both Mitch McConnell and the president, sending up a cautionary note.”

Steele added, “Just because Trump shows up doesn’t mean an automatic win anymore.”

Allies of McConnell, the Senate majority leader, argued that Bevin’s loss did not indicate any looming trouble for him, who is up for reelection in 2020 and is working to hold the Senate GOP together amid the impeachment debate.

“Republicans won every office on the ballot except [Bevin’s],” Scott Jennings, a longtime McConnell adviser, wrote on Twitter. “Some unique candidate problems. GOP brand was fine elsewhere.”

Early Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted, “Based on the Kentucky results, [McConnell] will win BIG in Kentucky next year!”

Some Republicans, however, also viewed Beshear’s appeals to moderation as a sign that Republicans cannot take red-state races for granted.

Instead of drifting to the left, the son of former governor Steve Beshear railed against Bevin’s divisive style and his attempts to slow the expansion of Medicaid under former president Barack Obama’s health-care law.

“Republicans look at that and say, ‘Anything could be competitive if the Democrats are going to be on their games like they were with Beshear here,’ ” said former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (R). “You’re seeing Democrats building on what they did in 2018, running more moderate candidates and making sure those candidates are financed.”

In a statement, Democratic Governors Association Chair Gina Raimondo congratulated Andy Beshear.

“Governor-Elect Andy Beshear will restore decency to Frankfort and has spent his career lifting up every single Kentuckian,” she said. “Tonight’s victory is a major pickup for Democrats and a massive rejection of Bevin’s record of stoking chaos, undermining public education, and trying to gut health care coverage.”

On Monday night — less than 12 hours before the polls opened — Trump appeared at a rally in Lexington, Ky., to support Bevin but also made sure the crowd knew his own reputation was on the line.

“If you lose, they will say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world,” said Trump, pointing at a bank of news cameras. “You can’t let that happen to me, and you can’t let that happen to your incredible state.”

Trump’s campaigning fared better in deep-red Mississippi, where Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) defeated Democratic attorney general Jim Hood on Tuesday in that state’s governor’s race.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said in an interview prior to the race being called that campaigns in the Deep South, including the Mississippi gubernatorial contest, have drawn attention because both parties are giving them serious attention and fielding candidates with the ability to win statewide.

In late 2017, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) won a special election for U.S. Senate, giving Democrats hope of a comeback in similar states.

“We had two statewide officials running against each other and we haven’t had that in years,” Wicker said. He dismissed the suggestion that Trump’s standing could diminish. “If this race was about Trump, it’d be a 60-40 race” in Republicans’ favor.

When asked if Democrats are figuring out ways to do better in the South, Jones said earlier Tuesday: “We’re doing that, that’s pretty obvious with the way things are going. Democrats speak to voters in the South more than they have in the last two generations.”

The gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Mississippi came one year after Democrats made major inroads in statehouses, including flipping seven governorships and more than 400 state legislative seats. Many of those gains were in Midwestern or coastal states that formed the backbone of the backlash to Trump in the 2018 midterm elections. Louisiana also holds a runoff election Saturday to decide the governor’s race there.

In 2016, Trump carried Kentucky by about 30 points, Louisiana by about 20 points and Mississippi by about 17 points.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), reflecting the views of several Senate Republicans on Tuesday, said he did not see Kentucky as a bellwether for 2020 even if the president was making it sound that way during his remarks at Monday’s rally.

“It’s not a national race except in the sense the president wants to make it about him,” Cornyn said. “Nobody likes to lose, but I wouldn’t call it a bellwether for 2020. Look, if the Democrats elect Elizabeth Warren as their nominee, I think it’s going to come at a price for them.”

“Bevin’s got his own problems,” Cornyn said. “That’s unrelated to national politics.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Racist trolls targeted a Somali refugee’s campaign. She still managed to pull off a historic victory."

Spoiler

With just a week to go before the election, Safiya Khalid was in tears. She had spent the past six months knocking on hundreds of doors in Lewiston, Maine, the city where she arrived as a refugee more than a decade earlier, and where she hoped to be the first Somali-American to win a seat on the city council. Suddenly, online trolls from as far away as Alabama and Mississippi were hurling vile abuse at her, telling her that Muslims had no place in American government and she should go back to where she came from.

“I just couldn’t take it,” Khalid told The Washington Post on Tuesday night. “I was crying so bad, my eyes were completely red.”

Khalid, a Democrat, was unsettled by the fact that someone had posted her address on social media. But she was also worried that the hate-fueled attacks would become a distraction. So she deleted her Facebook account, asked friends to look out for worrisome comments, and went back to pounding the streets with her leaflets and her clipboard.

On Tuesday night, she won her race by a significant margin. The victory, she told supporters, showed that “community organizers beat Internet trolls.”

At 23, Khalid may be the youngest person to ever serve on the Lewiston City Council, as well as the first Somali immigrant. Her win on Tuesday night was one of several historic firsts across the country in local elections. In Virginia, Muslim women were elected to the state senate and the Fairfax County School Board for the first time. 23-year-old Nadia Mohamad became the first Muslim woman and first Somali elected to the city council in St. Louis Park, Minn., while Chol Majok, a 34-year-old who fled violence in South Sudan, became the first refugee elected to public office in Syracuse, N.Y.

 

But as Khalid’s experience demonstrates, running for office can be complicated when you’re a minority several times over. Though only about 36,000 people live in Lewiston, her campaign drew unwanted national attention as a photo from her high school days was shared thousands of times, and white nationalist blogs invoked fearmongering claims about the first two Muslim women in Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). Every aspect of Khalid’s identity was weaponized, she told The Post, and she was attacked for being black, Muslim, a woman, and a refugee. At times, she admits, “I honestly thought, ‘What did I get myself into?’"

Khalid is used to facing challenges. She fled war-torn Somalia with her mother and two younger brothers at the age of 7, arriving in an unfamiliar land where they didn’t speak the language and knew no one. In an interview with the Bangor Daily News, Khalid recalled that a social worker who helped her family to resettle in New Jersey filled their refrigerator with pork products, not realizing that the food was off-limits for Muslims.

Before long, Khalid’s mother decided to move the family to Maine. Somali refugees had started migrating to Lewiston, a former mill town, in the early 2000s, drawn by the abundance of cheap housing, good schools, and low crime rate. Today, Khalid says, roughly a third of the city’s population is Somali.

Khalid embraced her new home, working for the area’s best-known employer, L.L. Bean, as she made her way through Lewiston High and the University of Southern Maine. While still in college, she unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the school board. Her desire to hold public office, she told The Post on Tuesday, came from watching city leadership remain stubbornly white as the city grew increasingly diverse.

So when a seat on the Lewiston City Council opened up earlier this year, Khalid didn’t have to think hard about entering the race. She was tired of hearing anti-immigrant rhetoric from President Trump and former Maine governor Paul LePage, a Lewiston native who once claimed that asylum seekers brought diseases and were the biggest problem facing the state.

“Minority people were being attacked and felt invisible, because they did not feel represented in positions of power,” she said.

After finishing up at her day job as a youth mentor at a nonprofit that helps immigrants, Khalid would hit the streets for hours of door-knocking before it grew dark. Her campaign focused on pragmatic issues like building more affordable housing and addressing lead contamination, though she frequently spoke of the need for a “fresh perspective” in city government. Some saw that as an attack on older, wealthier white people, she said on Tuesday, but that wasn’t how she meant it.

“Any local government needs to be reflective of the community,” she said.

It was only in the campaign’s final stretch that things turned ugly. During the last week of October, videos appeared on YouTube, showing what Khalid’s opponent claimed was an attempt at intimidation and harassment. They had been filmed in August, shortly after Walter “Ed” Hill decided to join the race, and appeared to show people ringing his doorbell and knocking on his door, then calling him “cowardly” and “pathetic” when he didn’t answer.

Hill, also a Democrat, told local news outlets that the culprits were members of the Lewiston Democratic Committee, who were angered by his decision to run against Khalid and showed up to demand an explanation. Because he was recovering from surgery and on painkillers, he had been unable to get up and answer the door, he said, telling the Bangor Daily News that he felt “scared and pretty vulnerable.”

Khalid’s campaign has repeatedly condemned the incident and said that they had nothing to do with it. But, as Mainer reported, the story soon spread to local right-wing Facebook groups. Commenters began mocking Khalid’s hijab and suggesting that people in Lewiston should send her back to Somalia because “we are slowly losing our city.”

Before long, trolls with no apparent connection to Maine were falsely claiming that Khalid wanted to institute sharia law in Lewiston and spamming her campaign’s Facebook page with racist comments and outright threats. Many, the Sun Journal wrote, were “too graphic and inappropriate to be published.”

Campaign volunteers went into overdrive trying to delete and report the worst of the attacks, but the harassment didn’t stop. Trolls got hold of a photo taken when Khalid was a 15-year-old high school student, which showed her making a goofy face and giving the finger to the camera, and plastered it across social media.

“This is a pic of a young lady whom is running for a position in a governmental role for the town of Lewiston, Maine,” said one tweet that was shared nearly 4,000 times in the lead-up to the election. “Make her go viral.”

Even though she knew it would make campaigning harder, Khalid temporarily deleted her personal Facebook account “for my own sanity,” she told The Post. It was crunchtime for the election, so she didn’t report the threatening messages and harassment to the police, even though she started to get nervous when someone from a neighboring town posted her address on Facebook.

“I probably should have taken that step,” she said on Tuesday, “but with the election in a few days, I felt like all my energy needed to be at the door with voters.”

When results came in on Tuesday, Khalid learned that she had defeated Hill with nearly 70 percent of the vote. The decisive win showed that Lewiston residents didn’t see eye-to-eye with the online trolls and had a different vision of the city’s future, her campaign manager, Jacob Nishimura, told The Post.

“I still feel numb,” Khalid told The Post later that night. “It’s still unbelievable that it actually happened.”

Watching a high school photo used to argue that she was unfit for office cemented Khalid’s belief that young women who enter politics are subject to extra scrutiny. But knocking on more than 1,000 doors and giving up her nights and weekends to the campaign taught her another lesson.

Over and over again, she said, people told her that they would be voting for her because she had gone to the trouble of showing up. The race was won door by door, she said, “not on the Internet.”

[GreyhoundFan]

About damned time.

[GreyhoundFan]

HA HA!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Not surprised: "Jeff Sessions, ex-attorney general forced out by Trump, plans to run for former Senate seat in Alabama"

Spoiler

Former attorney general Jeff Sessions plans to announce as soon as Thursday that he will run for his old Senate seat in Alabama, according to three people familiar with his plans, setting the stage for a potentially contentious Republican primary with President Trump at the center and control of the Senate potentially at stake.

Sessions, whose turbulent two-year stint in the administration ended in dramatic fashion when he was forced out by Trump last November, would enter with strong name recognition and deep institutional ties in the state and elsewhere. He held the seat for decades before he became Trump’s first attorney general.

But the wild card in the race will be Trump, and whether he will weigh in against his former attorney general and in favor of other Republicans who have already announced their candidacies. Trump remains popular in the state and plans to attend the University of Alabama’s football game against Louisiana State University in Tuscaloosa on Saturday.

Trump never forgave Sessions for recusing himself from the Justice Department investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, frequently berating him on Twitter for a move he viewed as a betrayal.

The president has discussed attacking Sessions with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and McConnell has shared that he also has concerns about Sessions running because it could create a messy primary contest for a seat Republicans feel they have to win, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue. Trump has repeatedly denigrated Sessions to allies and White House aides in recent days, people familiar with his comments said.

Sessions has not spoken with either Trump or McConnell about his plans to run, according to people familiar with the matter. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sessions is scheduled to appear on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program on Thursday.

“This is a nightmare for D.C. Republicans,” said Dan Eberhart, an oil industry executive and GOP donor who plans to back Sessions. “This is going to tie Trump and McConnell in knots.”

The Alabama race could factor heavily into determining which party controls the Senate following the 2020 election. Republicans are defending 23 seats, compared to just 12 for the Democrats. They hold a 53-47 advantage and have long been hoping to oust Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. They are wagering that his defeat will help offset any losses in other battleground states and protect the GOP’s majority.

Jones delivered the GOP a stunning setback by flipping the seat 2017. He defied the state’s strong conservative tilt with a victory over Republican Roy Moore, who faced allegations that he made sexual advances on teenagers when he was in his 30s.

A representative for Jones declined to comment on Sessions Wednesday, citing a desire to wait until he officially enters the competition.

Jones’s defeat of Moore was seen as one of the low points of Trump’s first two years in office, demoralizing party leaders and straining the relationship between the president and McConnell. Top Republicans have had their eye on reclaiming the seat ever since.

But first, they will have to settle their nomination fight, the contestants for which will soon be finalized ahead of the Friday filing deadline.

The field already includes Rep. Bradley Byrne, who had been seen as a leading candidate. In a written statement, Byrne signaled that he would not be deterred by the entrance of Sessions and foreshadowed a line of attack against the former attorney general.

“From the Mueller investigation to this impeachment sham, President Trump has been under constant attack,” said Byrne, referring the former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation. “I won’t sit back and watch them destroy our country. Alabama deserves a Senator who will stand with the President and won’t run away and hide from the fight.”

Also running for the Republican nomination are former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, state Rep. Arnold Mooney and Moore, who has acknowledged interactions with the women who accused him but denied any sexual contact. Tuberville and Byrne have led in public and internal GOP polling.

But Trump looms larger over the contest than any other Republican. He has even joked to senators and White House aides that he would move to Alabama and primary Sessions himself, two people familiar with his comments said.

Sessions and Trump were once staunch allies. As a candidate, Trump drew a massive crowd at a campaign rally in Sessions’s hometown of Mobile in 2015 and brought Sessions on stage. The event was seen as a key early demonstration of Trump’s popularity in the Deep South.

But the relationship soured over time due to Sessions recusal from the Russia probe and its detoriation became a nasty public spectacle that played out on Trump’s Twitter feed. Professionally, it officially ended a year ago when Sessions resigned at Trump’s request after a dispute with the president that had erupted into public view.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said he spoke with Sessions this week, but that the former senator and attorney general did not indicate to him directly whether he would run. Shelby said he spoke about Sessions’s potential candidacy with Trump two months ago, and “he was not exactly on board.”

“He’ll be a factor,” Shelby said of Trump. “But I think if Sessions runs, he’d be a formidable candidate. But you have to win it on the battlefield.”

Sessions has largely stayed out of the public eye since his dismissal last fall. But he spoke at Northwestern University earlier this week, where he declined to directly criticize the president and praised the administration's policies, according to the school’s student newspaper.

“I had never watched [Trump’s] program on TV, I didn’t know how many people he’d fired — maybe I’d have been more careful,” Sessions said, according to the Daily Northwestern. “The president is allowed to fire you, but fortunately he doesn’t get to shoot you.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because lying, cheating, and stealing are the repug motto:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Virginia and Kentucky have gotten the most attention, but Dems did well in many local elections throughout the US. Here's an example:

 

[fraurosena]

On 11/7/2019 at 2:19 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

But the wild card in the race will be Trump, and whether he will weigh in against his former attorney general and in favor of other Republicans who have already announced their candidacies. Trump remains popular in the state and plans to attend the University of Alabama’s football game against Louisiana State University in Tuscaloosa on Saturday.

Trump has weighed in. It looks like Sessions' sycophantic ad hasn't paid off. 

 

[fraurosena]

? And another one gone, another one gone, another one bites the dust. ?

Longtime GOP Rep. Peter King announces retirement

Quote

Longtime GOP Rep. Peter King announced on Monday he will not seek another term in office, becoming the latest in a growing list of Republicans who are not seeking reelection in 2020.

King, a former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is perhaps best known for his outspoken calls for strict anti-terrorism measures. He's represented part of Long Island in Congress since 1993 and said Monday he plans to finish out his current term.

King, 75, said he was retiring so he can live full-time in New York and spend more time with his family.

"This was not an easy decision. But there is a season for everything and Rosemary and I decided that, especially since we are both in good health, it is time to have the flexibility to spend more time with our children and grandchildren," he said, adding that his "daughter's recent move to North Carolina certainly accelerated my thinking."

King's retirement comes as his party inches closer to an election in which they could lose a number of vulnerable seats in the House, including his own. Earlier this year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a strategy memo that the New Yorker is "at the top of the retirement watch list" and included his district on a list of "targeted districts."

Republicans have struggled in suburban districts during President Donald Trump's time in office, a trend recently on display last week in Virginia, where Democrats seized control of the state legislature.

So far, 16 House Republicans and five Democrats have announced they won't seek reelection next year.

King, who twice served as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, held controversial hearings in 2011 about what he called the radicalization of Muslims in the US. The hearings, which he said at the time were "absolutely essential," ignited protests and anger against him, and accusations of bigotry.

King, who is of Irish decent, has also been outspoken about Ireland and voiced support for the Irish Republican Army in the 1980s. In 2011, the congressman defended his support, telling CNN, "I knew what was happening in Northern Ireland, and with the IRA. The IRA was a legitimate force, they'd been there for 40 years, 60 years, any way you want to look at it."

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I was so happy to read about King's retirement. He's a real tool.

[fraurosena]

Holy Rufus!  That's 42% of republicans in the House alone that have left since Trump took office.  

 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Holy Rufus!  That's 42% of republicans in the House alone that have left since Trump took office.  

 

Let's go for 100%! Preferably in both the house and senate.

[GreyhoundFan]

I guess this is someone else for Devin to sue:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

When you lose #MoscowMitch: "Even Mitch McConnell Is Telling Kentucky’s GOP Governor To Get Over His Election Loss"

Spoiler

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday he was “sorry” the governor of his home state lost his reelection bid to a Democrat last week, but suggested it was time to move on and accept the results.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) appears to have lost the election to Democrat Andy Beshear by a mere 5,000 ballots, but he has so far refused to concede. Instead, Bevin has demanded a recanvass of the votes, citing vague voting “irregularities” without evidence.

McConnell didn’t seem to be having it during an event on Monday, saying Bevin had a “good four years,” but the election result was unlikely to change.

“Barring some dramatic reversal on the re-canvass, we’ll have a different governor in three weeks,” the Senate leader told reporters, per The Associated Press. “My first election was almost the same number of votes that Beshear won by. We had a recanvass, added them up, it didn’t change and we all moved on.”

The recanvass Bevin requested is scheduled for Thursday.

Beshear has declared victory in the race, which could have dramatic implications for the state ranging from voting rights to public education. His inauguration is scheduled for Dec. 10.

McConnell refused to say Monday if he was concerned about the blue wave that led to Bevin’s poor showing, simply saying “we’ll find out.”

Democrats have already begun planning their campaign to unseat McConnell, who is up for reelection next year.

“All I have to say is: Mitch, you’re next,” Amy McGrath, a retired Marine pilot who is running to unseat him, said in a fundraising email just hours after Beshear declared victory.

I so hope that one year from today, we'll be telling #MoscowMitch to get over his loss.

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

When you lose #MoscowMitch: "Even Mitch McConnell Is Telling Kentucky’s GOP Governor To Get Over His Election Loss"

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday he was “sorry” the governor of his home state lost his reelection bid to a Democrat last week, but suggested it was time to move on and accept the results.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) appears to have lost the election to Democrat Andy Beshear by a mere 5,000 ballots, but he has so far refused to concede. Instead, Bevin has demanded a recanvass of the votes, citing vague voting “irregularities” without evidence.

McConnell didn’t seem to be having it during an event on Monday, saying Bevin had a “good four years,” but the election result was unlikely to change.

“Barring some dramatic reversal on the re-canvass, we’ll have a different governor in three weeks,” the Senate leader told reporters, per The Associated Press. “My first election was almost the same number of votes that Beshear won by. We had a recanvass, added them up, it didn’t change and we all moved on.”

The recanvass Bevin requested is scheduled for Thursday.

Beshear has declared victory in the race, which could have dramatic implications for the state ranging from voting rights to public education. His inauguration is scheduled for Dec. 10.

McConnell refused to say Monday if he was concerned about the blue wave that led to Bevin’s poor showing, simply saying “we’ll find out.”

Democrats have already begun planning their campaign to unseat McConnell, who is up for reelection next year.

“All I have to say is: Mitch, you’re next,” Amy McGrath, a retired Marine pilot who is running to unseat him, said in a fundraising email just hours after Beshear declared victory.

I so hope that one year from today, we'll be telling #MoscowMitch to get over his loss.

And Donnie Dummkopf as well.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a Trump ally, concedes reelection bid"

Spoiler

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin conceded his race for reelection on Thursday, clearing the way for Democrat Andy Beshear to be sworn into office next month after he defeated the incumbent by about 5,000 votes.

Appearing at a news conference, Bevin (R) said the recanvass of the election results that he requested last week was unlikely to change the outcome of the race.

“We’re gonna have a change in the governorship based on the vote of the people, and what I want is to see the absolute best for Kentucky,” Bevin said. “I am not going to contest these numbers that have come in.”

Bevin, who was seeking to become Kentucky’s first two-term Republican governor, lost to Beshear after a hard-fought election contest that in part hinged on allegations that the governor had an abrasive personality.

During his four years in office, Bevin repeatedly clashed with teachers and other public workers over efforts to revamp the state’s chronically underfunded pension system. Bevin had also campaigned as a staunch ally of President Trump, who traveled to Lexington, Ky., on the eve of the election to campaign for him.

In the presidential race three years ago, Trump carried Kentucky by about 30 points. But Beshear, the state’s attorney general and the son of a former governor, racked up huge margins in Kentucky cities while also flipping two suburban counties outside of Cincinnati. Beshear also won several counties in rural, eastern Kentucky, including some Trump had won by nearly 50 points.

In hours after the Nov. 5 election, Bevin refused to concede while raising concerns about possible vote “irregularities.” Bevin demanded the state recanvass the results.

That recanvass began on Thursday morning, but did not uncover any major shifts in the vote totals, Bevin said.

In conceding, Bevin said he hoped to work closely with Beshear to assure a smooth transition before the Dec. 10 inauguration.

“I truly want the best for Andy Beshear as he moves forward,” Bevin said. “I genuinely want him to be successful. I want this state to be successful. I want this state to rise continuing on the trajectory that it is — above and beyond every stereotype, beyond every shortcoming we’ve had in the past.”

In a brief statement posted on Twitter after Bevin’s concession, Beshear said Bevin “and his team have already begun a smooth transition.”

“It’s official — thank you,” Beshear wrote. “It’s time to get to work.”

Beshear’s victory comes one year after Democrats picked up seven governorships in the 2018 midterm elections. In addition to Kentucky, governor’s races were also held this year in Mississippi and Louisiana.

In Mississippi, Republicans kept control of the governorship after the state’s lieutenant governor, Tate Reeves, was elected to replace Gov. Phil Byrant (R), who was term-limited. Reeves defeated Democrat Jim Hood, the state’s attorney general, by about 5 points.

The outcome of the Louisiana governor’s race will not be known until at least Saturday when a runoff election is held.

In that race, incumbent John Bel Edwards (D) is fending off a challenge from Republican businessman Eddie Rispone, who has also campaigned as a strong ally of Trump.

Buh-bye