Heather Cox Richardson is a historian at Boston College who always offers provocative insights. Her message today: Do not despair. Ignore the pundits and the pollsters. I agree. The only poll that counts is the actual vote, and nobody knows how this one will turn out.
She writes:
This election is full of wild cards. Traditionally—but not always—the party of the president does poorly in the first midterm election. But we are in uncharted territory: never before in our history have more than half of Americans lost the recognition of a constitutional right, as the Supreme Court took from us with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision in June, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to an abortion.
Never, too, have we had to vote in an election where more than half the candidates of one of the parties deny that the president was fairly elected. Those candidates have suggested that, had they been in power in 2020, they would have put former president Donald Trump in power even though he lost the popular vote by more than 7 million and lost in the Electoral College. Their position is a profound attack on our democracy.
For all the polls showing that Democrats are going to win in huge numbers or Republicans are, no one knows how it will turn out. The polls are deeply problematic this time around, and at least some of them are attempts by Republicans to boost the hopes of their donors and to keep Democrats from voting. Perhaps even more than most elections, this one will come down to turnout.
There are, though, some stories worth following:
There has been a crazy amount of money invested in this year’s contests, much of it by a very few people. Ronald Lauder, for example, the 78-year-old heir to the cosmetics fortune, has dumped at least $11 million into getting a Trump Republican, Representative Lee Zeldin, elected governor of New York. Billionaire Peter Thiel put $30 million into super PACs backing Republican senate candidates J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona.
Today, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and the leader of the private military company the Wagner Group, who is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin, boasted that Russians had interfered in U.S. elections and continue to do so. “We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.” He added: “During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.”
Prigozhin is apparently behind the Russia-based “troll farms” that try to affect U.S. elections. Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times writes that Russians have indeed targeted the 2022 elections to make right-wing voters angry and undermine trust in U.S. elections. Their hope is to erode support for Ukraine’s struggle to repel Russian invasion by electing Republicans who side with Putin.
Republicans are not acting as if they expect big wins tomorrow. Many of the Republican candidates have refused to say they would accept the election results, and Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson is already saying that Democrats will steal the election.
Others are fighting to get Democratic mail-in ballots thrown out, especially in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Still others are trying to game the vote count already, claiming that results that are not announced by the end of the day on Tuesday are suspicious. But votes postmarked on Election Day can take days to arrive. In addition, a number of Republican-dominated states have made it illegal to count mail-in votes before Election Day, creating backlogs that take time to work through. It sounds as if they, like Trump in 2020, are expecting to lose the actual vote and to fight to steal it.
The Department of Justice will be monitoring the polls in 64 jurisdictions in 24 states to make sure those jurisdictions comply with federal voting rights laws. Officials remind voters that any disruptions at polling places should be reported to officials. Michigan secretary of state Jocelyn Benson expressed thanks to the Department of Justice for “real support for protecting voters,” which she said was missing in 2020 under the former president.
Aside from tomorrow’s election, there is an epic fight brewing in the Republican Party. Former president Donald Trump threatened to announce tonight at a rally in Ohio that he is running for president in 2024, likely because he believes such an announcement will make it harder for the Department of Justice to indict him for his theft of classified documents when he left the White House. He is also concerned that Florida governor Ron DeSantis will steal his thunder and capture the 2024 nomination, but because they are competing for the same voters, an announcement from Trump will undercut DeSantis.
Republican Party leaders urged Trump to hold off on the announcement, worrying it would energize Democratic voters before Election Day. In the end, Trump’s announcement tonight was: “I’m going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15, at Mar-a-Lago in Florida…. We want nothing to detract from the importance of tomorrow.”
Finally, for all the uncertainty surrounding tomorrow’s election, there is one thing of which I am 100% certain. Far more Americans today are concerned about our democracy, and determined to reclaim it, than were even paying attention to it in 2016. There are new organizations, new connections, new voters, new efforts to remake the country better than it has ever been, and the frantic efforts of the Republicans to suppress voting, gerrymander the country, and now to take away our right to choose our leaders indicates we are far more powerful than we believe we are. No matter what happens tomorrow, that will continue to be true, and I am ever so proud to be one of you.
—
Notes:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Today, Axios identified its selection of bellwether elections. Axios listed first, a Virginia (D.C. exurbs) race between Yesli Vega (R) and Abigail Spanberger (D). Vega is Latina and is endorsed by Catholic Vote. An audio tape seemingly shows Vega doubts pregnancy after rape. Vega supports Youngkin’s position on parental rights.
In usual fashion, Axios omits any reference to conservative religion as it describes the “biggest demographic shift, working class Hispanics.” Axios identifies the following statistic, “Democratic congressional margins among Hispanic voters were 7-9 points below 2020 levels and 17-19 points below 2018 levels.” Various media report about polls that show religious beliefs determine voting more than family, friends, ad campaigns or news media.
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Where do these morons get the idea that there can’t be pregnancy after rape? Do they think that God reaches into wombs and extracts sperm from egg? How, exactly, is this supposed to happen?
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Bob.
Your knowledge seems infinite to me so I was going to pose the question to you, where did the canard about the unlikelihood of pregnancy resulting from rape originate and what groups or individuals that a woman like Yesli would encounter promotes the falsehood?
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The Guardian posted an article by Moira Donegan today, “The U.S. made women 2nd class citizens. Now we must give a stinging rebuke.” Despite the reference to Roe’s overturn, there wasn’t one mention of conservative Catholics and evangelicals in the article. I could probably, accurately, speculate the reason.
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Here is a perspective from an anti-Trump writer that this blog’s far Left readers would do well to heed. Try to respond without employing the ad hominem that is a staple of this blog.
https://unherd.com/2022/11/why-im-voting-republican/
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We have come to such a point that people who defend, for example, having democratic elections or are horrified by attempts to overthrow the government or to send the military against peaceful protestors are called the “far Left.”
In other words, we have entered the alternative facts Twilight Zone of Fascist conceptualization and ideology.
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Trump called the Democratic Party a party of far-left radicals, socialists, and Communists when he spoke in Miami to a Hispanic audience. Joe Biden? Twilight Zone indeed.
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AND BTW, let’s talk about incarceration in America. We have almost a THIRD of our adult population in prison, in jail, or on parole–under some sort of penal supervision. That’s the highest rate IN THE WORLD. Think of the most repressive society anywhere. We imprison people at a higher rate than they do. And our crime rates, ofc, are related to the breathtaking inequities in our society. Sales of luxury goods are soaring while ordinary Americans go without dental care and food.
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But evidently, having the highest incarceration rate in the world isn’t enough for folks with authoritarian proclivities who love their authoritarian leaders. They always want more. We need to get tougher here, they say, strutting about the stage, pounding the podium, turning red in the face like a radish.
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YIKES. I meant to write “almost 3 percent,” not “a THIRD,” obviously.
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I think I’ll decline any “heed” from Bill Kennedy. A few questions for Bill from someone in Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower and Jefferson’s camps who Bill labels “far left”-
Republicans want White over Black, men over women, conservative Christians (they love an authoritarian patriarchy) over all others and, straight over gay, does that sum up your views. Bill?
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Can you vote for a party that pledges to put Marjorie Taylor Greene in a leadership role?
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Just curious Bill- if you’re married, do you direct your wife’s vote? If you have a wife, does she belong to a patriarchal religious sect that influences her vote?
My husband and I are both proud to be Democrats. We came to our views independently, decades ago. Our adult daughter and her husband respect us for our political positions. My husband and I raised our daughter to be economically independent, modeling her mother and grandmother.
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I like the way you casually use the term “ad hominem,” then characterize this blog’s readers as the “far Left.” Logician, heal thyself.
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The one hope is that the new Republican majorities in both houses will make such ——es of themselves during the next two years that people will wake TF up and boot them all in 2024. But if they hang onto both AND win the presidency, democracy is done. Stick a fork in it.
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“Never, too, have we had to vote in an election where more than half the candidates of one of the parties deny that the president was fairly elected.”
Oh come on! In 2018, the entire Democratic Party was united in the belief that Trump was “elected” by Russia. And you people still continue to believe that even though it has been debunked. https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/11/06/new-york-times-still-burying-on-russian-hack/
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Trump was elected by Putin. The Soviets began cultivating him in the 1980s. They knew he was easy to manipulate: flatter him and he will do whatever you want. Did you ever see the photos of Trump looking worshipfully at Putin?
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I’m not going to distract from the serious events of the day by arguing with you about whether the Russian government interferes in the 2016 election. Every American intelligence agency agrees that they did by creating fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
As for the Russians cultivating Trump over many decades, read this account in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/russias-prigozhin-admits-interfering-us-elections-2022-11-07/
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You must have missed the story about the bipartisan Senate report agreeing that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election:
https://apnews.com/article/d094918c0421b872eac7dc4b16e613c7
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About the 2016 election;
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday affirms the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a far-ranging influence campaign approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin and aimed at helping Donald Trump win the White House.
The report rejects Trump’s claims that the intelligence community was biased against him when it concluded that Russia had interfered on his behalf in the election. It says instead that intelligence officials had specific information that Russia preferred Trump in the election, that it sought to denigrate Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and that Putin had “approved and directed aspects” of the Kremlin’s influence campaign.
The heavily-redacted report from the Senate Intelligence Committee is part of the panel’s more than three-year investigation into Russian interference. Intelligence agencies concluded in January 2017 that Russians had engaged in cyber-espionage and distributed messages through Russian-controlled propaganda outlets to undermine public faith in the democratic process, hurt Clinton and aid Trump, who ultimately became president.
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Even for you, Dienne, this is pretty looney.
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She does lie as confidently as any republican!
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I agree with a qualifier
“Their hope is to erode support for Ukraine’s struggle to repel Russian invasion by electing Republicans who side with Putin.”
I think Putin’s motive is far broader. Democracy is an infection that can be deadly to kleptocracy, to authoritarianism . Ukraine was never Putin’s goal . Diminishing Western Democracies more likely his goal. Which is why he has allies from Saudi Arabia to Iran . Strange bedfellows to say the least . But the enemy of their enemy is their friend. And perhaps that is where Biden has failed the most. We are in a proxy war and that point hasn’t been driven home enough.
At the same time the supposedly “Liberal media” has done their best to bring Democrats down . Most of us on this blog are old enough to remember what real inflation looked like . It was not 8.2% driven mostly by external supply chain issues from Asian shut downs to a war. It was not driven 54% by Corporate greed and price gouging enabled by the expectation of inflation created in the media,
In 1981 inflation was 15.75% a wage price spiral ,driven 70% by wage increases . Wage increases 9-10 months ago when there were worker shortages and they were higher only accounted for 8% of inflation increases. The 3 month average now of wage increases is a mere 3.9% annualized . As Dean Baker points out they were 3.4% in 2019 and the inflation rate was 1.8% for the year . But even better the media has managed to convince people that times are as bad as 1981 . Why not only do we have run away inflation we have we are in a recession with 3.7% unemployment . 1981 we had 10.8% unemployment .
Yet I hear from the elite of the Blue collar working class daily that we are in a recession . I wonder why ? Oh the Markets are down! Using the Dow as a gauge,down from where? Down from an irrational high in January of this year before the Russian invasion . But the Dow is up 1600 points since the inauguration Jan 20 2021 . And as Republicans pointed out; markets are forward looking, so election day is where Trump counted the gains from. Bidens gain would be a 3600 point gain, 12% in two years . Mission accomplished by the ” Bad News Media ” as Leonhardt of the NY Times called them.
And don’t even get me started on Crime , Murders in NYC down 15% this year will be lower than 2012 when Bloomberg called NYC the safest big City in America . Robbery and Burglary lower than 2013 his last year. But murders will not only be lower than 2012, they will be substantially lower than every year going back from there to 1960.,
Democrats lost the messaging war going on defense where Republicans would have gone on offense. It was only last week that Adams who ran on bringing crime down went on National TV to point out that the perception of crime is far higher than the reality .
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If Michael Moore is correct and there is a blue wave, Traitor Trump and his MAGA RINO supporters will use the polls as their evidence that the Democrats cheated and they won, without mentioning that the polls were wrong in 2016 by reporting that Hillary was going to win by a vast margin.
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I should have added, that I have read that Moore predicted in 2016 that Trump would win, even though Moore didn’t support Trump. Moore was right then. I hope he’s right now.
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Is this the same Heather Cox Richardson that wrote an article titled “Russian Military Intelligence Put Bounties on American Soldiers,” on June 27, 2020?
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Is this the same James Eales that thinks both parties are the same when one is pro-democracy and the other is Charles Koch’s?
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Linda, yes.
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Charles Koch wasn’t even among the top ten donors in the midterm elections. The top ten were Richard Uihlein, Kenneth Griffin, Jeff Yass, Timothy Mellon, George Soros, Sam Bankman-Fried, Fred Eychaner, Stephen Schwarzman, Peter Thiel, and Larry Ellison. Together, these ten individuals donated approximately $540 million in this year’s election. As per usual, oligarchy won in all fifty states! So, yes, Linda. I believe both parties are pretty much the same.
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James,
Does it matters to you that one favors reproductive rights, acting to control climate change, and gun control, while the other party opposes all three and wants to eliminate public schools?
Or would you say those differences don’t matter?
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Party platforms differ significantly. (You’d never catch me voting for a Republican!) Sadly, there’s a huge difference between the Democratic Party’s platform and its legislative voting record, causing me to wonder who’ll serve as the designated villains and scapegoats for inaction (e.g. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) now to 2024. As Paul Wellstone said, ““If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them.” Indeed, AOC said, “Are you all ready to make a ruckus? Are you all ready to fight for our rights? Everyone deserves justice, and everyone deserves equal protection and prosperity in our country…..Justice is about making sure that being polite is not the same thing as being quiet. In fact, often times, the most righteous thing you can do is shake the table.” It’s easy to criticize Republicans. It’s more difficult to criticize the Democratic Party’s “leadership.” Rather than protect Democrats from criticism, we must push them to live up to their promises. The U.S. doesn’t need two pro-war, anti-worker political parties.
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