Fact: average in-party midterm losses since 1934: 28 House seats and 4 Senate seats.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why Dems will do significantly better than average this year, especially taking into account 8% inflation & Biden approval in low 40s.
Initially, the argument was that Dobbs was a game-changer. I was skeptical of that from the beginning because, while it energized the Dem base in the short term, the data never supported the claim it would supplant the economy as the most important issue. And it hasn't. /2
The other argument was/is that GOP Senate candidates were too problematic. (BTW, that claim doesn't apply to the House, where by and large the GOP has nominated a pretty strong, diverse group of candidates.) /3
But even if you accept the argument that some GOP Senate candidates are flawed - which they are to a degree, as are some Dems like Fetterman in PA - is that enough to buck historical trends in a year like this? I suspect not, but we'll obviously know the answer soon enough.
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1) @DLeonhardt's mea culpa is infuriating on many levels. One of the 1st things we knew abt covid was that kids were at almost no risk. And many parents have been screaming from the start abt the devastating effects of locking kids out of schools.
2) The "country" did not make these decisions, public officials at the state, federal and local level did. The teacher's unions colluded with the CDC to ensure kids stayed home. Local unions & officials in blue states followed suit
3) And this was all driven and amplified by a compliant media complex - of which Leonhardt's own NY Times was a leader - that relentlessly hyped public fear about the pandemic.
This is the most biased, intentionally dishonest, and racially inflammatory story I think I've ever read. Reuters should be ashamed. Gotta 🧵, because the details matter.
Here's the story's inflammatory lede, intended to set pulses racing.
The details: Spalding County has a 5-person election board, which contained a majority of 3 black Dem women, and a black Dem woman election supervisor.
The new law stipulates the parties still get to choose 2 board members each, with the 5th member appointed by a local judge.
1) @Acosta yesterday: "As the nation grapples w/a rash of police killings of black Americans, many of them happening the same week former officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd."
2) If @Acosta was relying on this AP story to claim a "rash of police killings of black Americans," he either didn't read the story or willingly misled his viewers.
3) Even setting aside the fact that it appears in almost every one of the 6 instances from the AP article the police were confronting someone who was armed and/or dangerous, @Acosta's claim falls flat.
1. If you want a perfect example of how screwed up the news business is, take a look at these two stories today on Russia sanctions, one from the New York Post and the other from the New York Times.
2. It's all about emphasis. The NY Post wrote up a small 200-word blurb on the news, focusing on the new sanctions on hacking, and relegating the lifting of sanctions on Deripaska to a final, 25-word paragraph.
3. The NY Times went to the other extreme, writing 1,200 words almost exclusively about the lifting of sanctions on Deripaska w/ominous quotes from Dems implying this all fits into the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.