In today’s edition … Liz Goodwin and Hannah Knowles on the volatile battle for control of the Senate … Election deniers hope a hand count in Nevada offers a road map for the longer term, Amy Gardner reports … 4 latest polls for 4 swing districts … … but first …
Hanging chads v. false fraud claims — Hoyer on the difference between 2000 and today
Eight questions for … House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.): Greater than 20 years ago the Supreme Court sealed George W. Bush’s victory within the 2000 presidential election amid debates over whether chads were hanging in Florida. In response, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, laws to assist states fund and administer elections and improve voting technology.
Hoyer, then the highest Democrat on the House Administration Committee, led the bipartisan effort to pass HAVA. He desired to discuss it’s importance and modern-day election risks. While we had his attention, we also discussed the midterms and if he’ll run for a leadership position in the following Congress. This conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
The Early: What was HAVA’s biggest success?
Hoyer: It’s biggest success was I feel casting off the hanging chad technology, because that is after all what caused the extraordinary difficult situation surrounding the 2000 presidential election.
And the very first thing we discovered, the feds really never paid the states anything for technology after they run the presidential, the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, the federal elections, however the federal government had not participated in that.
And in order that was a fantastic success at getting in that case, some $3 billion to the local and state governments across the country to assist them bring their voting technology on top of things and utilize technology available to do this. And consequently, hopefully, the votes could be more accurately counted; the voter may very well be more confident that their votes could be as they express them.
The Early: How was Congress capable of address the concerns of 2020 in a bipartisan way?
Hoyer: I feel there was not a lot the sense that the election had been stolen because the election had been compromised by the failure of the voting process and the counting process. Unfortunately, [former president Donald] Trump has raised this specter of one way or the other the opposite side is stealing our votes and stealing the election, but that was not the case in 2000. So I feel there was a more bipartisan view that we need to make the technology accurately reflect the result.
The Early: Because the Help America Vote Act was signed into law, the Supreme Court rolled back key parts of the Voting Rights Act, some state legislatures have made it harder to vote. Is it outdated?
Hoyer: Unfortunately, we have now a number of election deniers running to run elections, which raises great fear that because they imagine the system is rigged, or one way or the other against them, that they need to, in effect, correct it so it’s for them. And that shouldn’t be what we’re have election officials for. They need to be neutral on the final result and captivated with the correctness
The Early: After which along with people who find themselves running you furthermore may have things like increased threats of violence against poll staff. What are you most apprehensive about?
Hoyer: I’m apprehensive about what we have seen, that an election run properly — one candidate winning and the opposite losing, and that that determination shall be rejected because it isn’t the determination anyone wanted.
Considered one of the proudest times I’ve served within the House of Representatives was sitting on the presidential inaugural podium in 2001 when [President Bill] Clinton turned over power to George W. Bush and notwithstanding the indisputable fact that we thought that but from the Supreme Court, if Florida’s vote had continued, we’d have won. There was no demonstration and there was no assault on the Capitol. We accepted the outcomes.
So my biggest fear is that irrespective of how well run, honest and transparent the election process is, losers will claim it otherwise and create the chaos that we have seen, and the sort of anger that we have seen, because people have been fed a false story that one way or the other Trump won the election.
The Early: You’re in California without delay on behalf of Democratic House candidates. Our reporting has shown that Democrats in districts Biden has won are in danger. Why?
Hoyer: I feel the voter has sticker shock, whether it’s gasoline prices or grocery prices. But it surely’s a worldwide phenomenon, however the voter doesn’t see it as a worldwide phenomenon, what he sees it as is, that is something that affects me. It’s gone up substantially since Biden was president subsequently, I’m gonna hold Biden and his party responsible. That is not an unusual phenomenon.
I do not think it’s justified, and really frankly, I feel this election is about whether or not we’ll have a nation of laws, versus law deniers in command of the Congress of the USA and protecting our democracy. I feel that is the central query of this election.
The Early: Do you think that Democrats have any probability of keeping the House?
The Early: No matter what happens within the elections, do you intend on running in your leadership position?
Hoyer: We’ll see what happens within the election before I would like to handle that query.
The Early: Have you ever been talking to members about running for leadership again?
Hoyer: I’ve talked to them about this election. The long run elections are going to maintain themselves.
Battle for Senate control marked by volatility as midterms near
All the way down to the wire: “Lower than two weeks before the midterm elections, the trail to Senate control appears uncertain and volatile, as polls show Democrats and Republicans running neck and neck in several battleground states that hold the important thing to the bulk,” our colleagues Liz Goodwin and Hannah Knowles report.
- “Republicans this week have touted their momentum, as Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman, recovering from a stroke, struggled in a high-profile debate performance in Pennsylvania, and because the Cook Political Report moved the race in Arizona between Sen. Mark Kelly (D) and Republican Blake Masters from leaning Democratic to a toss-up.”
- “But Democrats have shown surprising strength in other races, including in red-trending Ohio. And latest allegations against the Republican nominee in Georgia, Herschel Walker, could further boost Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D). In total, polling averages show not less than seven Senate races inside the margin of error, making the battle for the Senate a real toss-up.”
- “Because the race for Senate control enters its final, candidate-by-candidate stage of the campaign, political prognosticators find themselves at a loss attempting to predict what’s going to occur. Inflation and historical trends benefiting the party out of power favor Republicans, however the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade earlier this 12 months and the first victories of some inexperienced Republican Senate candidates have kept Democrats surprisingly competitive.”
Election deniers hope a hand count in Nevada offers a road map for the longer term
Is Nevada a harbinger of future elections: “The rejection of voting machines and embrace of 2020 conspiracy theories make Nye County, Nev., — an unlimited area that boomed, then busted, on the back of gold and silver mining greater than a century ago and today thrives partially due to legal prostitution — a harbinger of the country’s future should election deniers take charge,” our colleague Amy Gardner reports.
- “Leading the push in Nevada is Jim Marchant, the GOP nominee for secretary of state … If Marchant is elected — a robust possibility in Nevada, where races for governor, attorney general, U.S. Senate and secretary of state are all neck and neck, in response to polls and campaign operatives from each parties — he would wield broad power to implement his agenda across the state.”
- “Along with championing hand counts, Marchant has promised if elected to ‘decertify’ the 2020 Nevada result because he believes Trump won. Marchant could also try and thwart certification of the favored vote within the 2024 presidential race — something he has said he would have done had he been in office in 2020. And he plans to spread his gospel across the nation.”
- “If Marchant gets his way, Nye may very well be a hand-counting model for all of Nevada — and maybe the nation. His platform as secretary of state would give him a louder voice, and maybe a much bigger stick, to encourage other counties to embrace hand-counting. He could try and block using electronic machines, a move that the majority election experts say would make all of it but not possible for the state’s largest population centers, Las Vegas and Reno, to deliver timely results. And he plans to hunt laws putting an end to early voting and mail voting — limiting access to the polls for tens of millions of Nevadans, a lot of whom work within the 24-hour casino economy in Las Vegas.”
News polls for 4 swing districts
More bad data for Dems: “A latest series of House polls by the Recent York Times and Siena College across 4 archetypal swing districts offers fresh evidence that Republicans are poised to retake Congress this fall because the party dominated amongst voters who care most in regards to the economy,” the Times’s Shane Goldmacher and Nate Cohn write.
- “The poll ends in the 4 districts — an upscale suburb in Kansas, the old industrial heartland of Pennsylvania, a fast-growing a part of Las Vegas and a sprawling district along Recent Mexico’s southern border — offer deeper insights beyond the standard Republican and Democratic divide within the race for Congress. They show how the midterm races are being shaped by larger and at times surprising forces that reflect the country’s ethnic, economic and academic realignment.”
- “In all 4 seats in Kansas, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Recent Mexico, the Democratic candidates were leading overwhelmingly amongst individuals who were more concerned with societal issues, garnering roughly 8 in 10 votes amongst voters who thought issues like abortion, guns and the state of democracy were most significant to their vote. Similarly, the Republican candidates each won around 70 percent of the vote of those chiefly focused on the economy.”
- But “voters in three of the 4 districts were more focused on economics than social issues. The lone exception — Kansas’ Third District, a suburban area outside Kansas City that’s one of the vital highly educated within the country — is the one seat where a majority of voters hold a school degree, a gaggle that is usually more insulated from economic hardship. Across all 4 districts, voters with a school degree were 11 to fifteen percentage points more more likely to prioritize social issues than those that didn’t graduate from college.”
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