Day: November 8, 2017

Rep. Martha McSally is still being coy about senate run

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Rep. Martha McSally continues to toy with the idea of running for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Jeff Flake, but she has yet to make a public announcement. The Arizona Daily Star reports, US Rep. Martha McSally tells House colleagues she’s running for Senate:

U.S. Rep. Martha McSally has told Republican colleagues that she’s running for Sen. Jeff Flake’s open seat next year, meaning there will be someone new representing Southern Arizona’s hotly contested Congressional District 2.

The news didn’t come from McSally but instead from U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican colleague in Congressional District 6, who confirmed to reporters for several news outlets that the retired Air Force colonel said she was planning to enter the Senate race.

McSally could not be reached for comment and has not made a formal announcement about her plans. Calls to her campaign office, as well as to her congressional office in Tucson, went unreturned Tuesday.

Geezus, she’s still hiding in the chicken bunker. Come out, come out, and face your constituents, Martha.

Former state Sen. Kelli Ward and several other Republican candidates have already announced they were running for Flake’s seat in the GOP primary.

McSally is already facing resistance from President Trump supporters. Last week, the Great America Alliance PAC put out a digital ad (Amnesty Martha) and dedicated website amnestymartha.com that criticized McSally for “supporting amnesty for illegals.”

Ward challenged Sen. John McCain last year and lost, but Trump has offered support for her candidacy even though he did not endorse her. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, however, endorsed Ward last month.

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An off-year referendum election: a rejection of ‘Trumpism without Trump’

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Tuesday’s off-year election was a referendum on Donald Trump one year after his surprise election, and it turned out to be a resounding rejection of “Trumpism without Trump” and a “blue wave” for Democrats. When Democrats actually turn out to vote, Democrats win.

Daily Kos as a good rundown of the election results in the Morning Digest:

Democrats utterly crushed Republicans in just about every major race across the country, but the exclamation point came, without any doubt, in Virginia. There, despite much fretting, Democrat Ralph Northam obliterated Republican Ed Gillespie by a dominant 54-45 margin, far exceeding the polls, which averaged out to just a 3-point Northam lead. Not only was this the biggest Democratic win in a governor’s race in the Old Dominion since 1985, it showed just how toxic Donald Trump is to suburban voters—and just how badly Gillespie’s openly racist message failed.

But the victories hardly stopped there. Democrats also held Virginia’s two other statewide posts, as Justin Fairfax won the open lieutenant governorship and Mark Herring was re-elected as attorney general, both by 53-47 margins.

Downballot, though, was the scene of an even bigger, historic, and downright epic bloodbath, and perhaps the biggest harbinger for 2018. Republicans entered the night with an enormous 66-34 advantage in the Virginia House of Delegates, but Democrats smashed all expectations and had picked up a monster 14 seats by the time we put the Digest to bed—the biggest Democratic year since 1899. That shrunk the GOP’s edge to just 51-49, and some late-breaking races could yet go the Democrats’ way [Four other races were so close that they qualify for a recount, and results will determine control of the chamber. Democrats need to win two of those four recounts to draw even in the chamber, and three of four would give them a majority. Democrats poised to make significant gains in Virginia legislature], potentially setting the party up to take over the chamber—an outcome no one could have imagined or dared to predict.

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