The Hill’s Morning Report — Midterm miracles?; takeaways from big debates

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 10/18/22 6:32 AM ET

Political analysts agree that Senate control next year will turn on the results of contests in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.

To keep things interesting, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton asked Senate watchers in both parties to identify sleeper races. They point to North Carolina, Washington and Colorado as states that could deliver potential surprises.

“There’s no question the North Carolina Senate race is the sleeper of the cycle,” said Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist based in North Carolina. He was referring to the contest between Republican Rep. Ted Budd, who is backed by former President Trump, and former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley (D). What had been a relatively quiet Senate contest is heating up as outside groups pour in more money and tensions between the candidates rise.

Monday night’s campaign debates in the Utah and Ohio Senate races and in the Georgia and Iowa gubernatorial contests offered viewers some spirited contrasts.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and challenger Evan McMullin (I) got into a heated back and forth over Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021, and Lee’s reported initial support for overturning the results (The Hill). Lee voiced his support for the Electoral College and McMullin called his comments “rich” in light of what he said were the senator’s efforts to “urge the [Trump] White House that had lost an election to find fake electors to overturn the will of the people.”

The Utah race has emerged as one of the cycle’s wild cards (The Hill).

In Ohio’s final televised Senate debate before Election Day, Republican J.D. Vance sparred with Rep. Tim Ryan (D) over abortion, immigration and the economy (The Hill). Ryan accused Vance of holding anti-immigrant and racist beliefs and Vance called the assertion “slander.” Illegal immigrants are coming into the country “through Joe Biden and Tim Ryan’s wide open southern border,” Vance argued.

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams turned in a wonkish debate with clashes over education policy, crime and election laws. Appearing together on the first day of the state’s early voting period, the pair pitched their respective appeals to undecided voters. The Hill’s Max Greenwood reported five takeaways from the event, beginning with the governor’s emphasis that he’s experienced and delivering results for Georgians. Abrams has not held public office since 2017.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who holds a double-digit lead in polls over Democratic challenger Deidre DeJear, clashed with her opponent Monday night over tax policy, education funding and abortion during the only debate of the contest (Des Moines Register).

DeJear accused Reynolds — who in 2018 signed what was at the time the most restrictive abortion law in the country before it was overturned in court — of being on a “crusade against choice” that DeJear said has harmed access to reproductive care in Iowa. DeJear said she wants to see the right to abortion codified into law.

“I believe that it is undemocratic and irresponsible for us to try to dictate in black and white this situation that has infinite variables as it relates to pregnancy,” she added.

Reynolds declined to say what additional abortion restrictions she would propose over the next four years, if elected, and what exceptions she would support.

▪ CNN: What’s going on in the Iowa Senate race, which had not been projected to be a close contest but now polls like one?

▪ Politico: Purple Colorado is the sleeper state Republicans are targeting to win the Senate.

▪ CNN: In Georgia, Senate GOP candidate Herschel Walker acknowledges sending a $700 check to a woman who alleges he paid for her abortion. He denies it was for that purpose.

In the House, oddsmakers continue to believe Republicans are poised to gain the majority (The Hill). But if Democrats defy history by holding on, speculation abounds about the future for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who previously promised to cede her leadership spot at the end of this term. The conventional wisdom that Pelosi, 82, would pack up her legacy and exit the Capitol could change if Democrats are somehow victorious.

“If she wins, she stays,” Rep. Ron Kind, a retiring Wisconsin moderate Democrat who had opposed Pelosi’s Speakership in 2018, told The Hill’s Mike Lillis.

“I expect her to uphold the promise she made,” a younger caucus member said, adding that opposition now to the idea of Pelosi’s continued leadership far exceeds those who balked in 2018. “The expectation is much broader than that group. There are a lot of people who expect her to uphold the promise that she made well beyond the group.”

In her favor: Pelosi is a prodigious fundraiser. The House Majority PAC, the outside spending group linked to the Speaker, raised more than $36 million in September and nearly $55 million since July, The New York Times reported. Pelosi has hauled in more than $210 million for the party’s campaign arm, far and away the highest figure in the party.

But it may not be enough, according to some frustrated Democrats who say outside groups are unable or unwilling to devote funds toward what they see as winnable seats. The result, Politico reported, is a shrinking battlefield for Democrats that has seen leadership and rank-and-file members pressing everyone, including President Biden, to come up with more resources to try to save the House majority.

The Hill: Rep. David Valadao (Calif.) is one of 10 House Republicans who voted to convict Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He is one of just two GOP candidates to seek reelection who went on to win a primary. His tough contest this fall is seen as a toss-up. Former Vice President Mike Pence campaigned for him on Monday.

A New York Times-Siena College poll released on Monday caught the attention of The Hill’s politics team. Independent female voters appear to be leaning toward Republicans just three weeks before Election Day, write Hanna Trudo and Julia Manchester. The poll also suggests Democrats may have lost their summer midterm momentum because of several factors, including the darkening U.S. economic outlook, writes Brett Samuels.

▪ Bloomberg News: Amid U.S. economic worries in which high prices for gasoline figure in voters’ choices, the White House this week is planning the release of another 10 million to 15 million barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

▪ The Hill: Black advocates say some GOP narratives to voters about crime are intended to stir race-based fear.

▪ Axios: Senate GOP candidates J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona have largely avoided negatives about their respective business backgrounds as venture capitalists.

▪ Washington Monthly: In the Arizona secretary of state race, vote by mail (not to mention Democracy) is at stake.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: How the Roe v. Wade generation is bringing the fight to 2022.

▪ The Washington Post: Expense records newly obtained by Congress confirm that former President Trump charged the U.S. Secret Service “exorbitant” rates for agents to stay at his hotels while protecting him and his family members. Similar reporting appeared in 2021 (The Daily Beast).

▪ The Hill: Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, who is to be sentenced on Friday for contempt of Congress, could receive six months in jail and a fine of $200,000, if the Justice Department gets its way.

▪ The New York Times Magazine: The problem of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

50+ Women Voters and the Midterms, Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 1 p.m. ET

The midterms come at a time when inflation and the rising cost of living are squeezing American households. Powering these households and feeling the pinch are women age 50 and older, who typically turn up in large numbers for midterm elections and could be deciding the fate of the House and Senate. What are the priorities of these voters and how can they feel seen and heard by their country and their elected officials? Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), AARP’s Nancy LeaMond, UnidosUS Latino Vote Initiative VP Clarissa Martínez-de-Castro, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research’s Kate Ryan and more join The Hill to discuss what issues are top of mind as they head to the polls. RSVP today.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Southern Ukraine’s horrors worsened overnight when a Russian military jet caught fire and crashed into a nine-story apartment building’s courtyard late Monday, setting the structure ablaze for three hours and killing at least 13 people, including three children, and injuring 19 (The New York Times). The pilots ejected, according to Tass, Russia’s state-run news agency.

The U.S. will hold Russia accountable for “war crimes,” the White House said on Monday, just hours after Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with drones (Reuters).

The attacks occurred during morning rush hour, killing at least four people in a Kyiv apartment building, authorities report. In his Monday evening video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “Right now, there is a new Russian drone attack. There are [drones] that have been shot down.”

Ukrainians have nicknamed the Iran-made “kamikaze” drones “flying mopeds” because of their distinctive and noisy engines that warn people ahead of destructive, deadly explosions. The unmanned flying bombs are about 11 feet long with 8-foot wingspans and they can fly up to 1,500 miles while searching for targets. They can slip through military defenses or force the Ukrainian military to scramble defensive resources to chase them before detonation. Russia’s new reliance on Iranian drones to try to gain offensive advantage in Ukraine, including against civilian targets, has been confirmed by the Pentagon (The Washington Post).

Russia’s drone targets include Ukrainian infrastructure facilities that provide power, heat and water to vast populations. In the past week alone, more than 100 of the drones have slammed into power plants, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban areas, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry reported.

The New York Times: Resilient Kyiv patches up after attacks, but some things can’t be fixed.

The U.S. intends to further crack down on Iran for helping Russia in the war on Ukraine, a U.S. official told Politico on Monday. The penalties, which are likely to include economic sanctions and possibly export controls, would also target third parties helping the two countries.

“Are we going to do more about Iranian military sales to Russia? Absolutely, yes,” the U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “For anybody in the world who is either selling material to Iran that could be used for [unmanned aerial vehicles] or ballistic missiles, or who is involved in flights between Iran and Russia: Do your due diligence, because we are absolutely going to sanction anybody who’s helping Iranians help Russians kill Ukrainians.”

In Great Britain, Prime Minister Liz Truss is in hot water following a widely criticized budget policy that her new finance chief, Jeremy Hunt, is trying to erase.

Hunt said Monday that he would reverse almost all the Conservative government’s planned tax cuts, which marked the centerpiece of Truss’s new economic policies and were promised to reignite the U.K.’s economic growth. But the plan backfired, kicking off weeks of market turmoil for fears that they would force the government into borrowing.

The about-face spells trouble for Truss, whose political future remains in doubt as she faces criticism from opposition leaders as well as her own party (Reuters and The New York Times).

“I do want to accept responsibility and say sorry for the mistakes that have been made,” Truss told the BBC on Monday. “I did make mistakes and I’ve been upfront and honest about that.”

China on Monday announced an indefinite delay of economic data that had been scheduled for release today, including economic growth figures from July through September. Experts expected the numbers to show lackluster growth.

The delay comes as the country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, gather in Beijing this week for a Communist Party congress. Authorities have taken strict measures to prevent any disruptions (The New York Times).

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Xi is expected to pack the party leadership with allies in a show of strength.

▪ Axios: China’s shifting economic storyline.

▪ The New York Times: In Xi’s China, the business of business is state-controlled.

The Washington Post, Josh Rogin: Saudi Arabia sentenced 72-year-old U.S. citizen Saad Ibrahim Almadi of Florida to 16 years in prison for 14 tweets posted over seven years. He was seized in November in Riyadh while visiting relatives.

In France, trade union workers began a nationwide strike today, asking for higher salaries. The strike will primarily affect public sectors such as schools and transportation. It’s an extension of the weeks-long industrial action that disrupted the country’s major refineries and put gas stations’ supply in disarray (Reuters).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ENVIRONMENT

In the Southwest, compounding fires and floods are posing a dire threat to drinking water supplies, The Hill’s Saul Elbein and Rachel Frazin report.

Ricardo González-Pinzón, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico, said fires change the composition of the soil, making it more likely to repel water. This worsens flash floods that can carry detritus and ash into vital drinking sources.

Officials in Alaska recently canceled the Bering Sea snow crab season for the first time after scientists discovered a historic dropoff in crab numbers. The primary suspect for the decline is climate change (Bloomberg News).

“We’re still trying to figure it out, but certainly there’s very clear signs of the role of climate change in the collapse,” said Michael Litzow, a shellfish assessment program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which runs an annual survey of Bering Sea snow crab numbers.

▪ The New York Times: Great Lakes storm brings snowfall and possible 20-foot waves.

▪ The Washington Post: Historic October heat shatters records in the Pacific Northwest.

OPINION

■ The odds of the Democrats holding the Senate are getting smaller by the day, by Douglas E. Schoen, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3eKfGYx

■ The uncomfortable truths that could yet defeat fascism, by Anand Giridharadas, guest essayist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3yJZkGc

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at 9 a.m. for a pro forma session. Members are scheduled to return to the Capitol on Nov. 14.

The Senate convenes at 11:30 a.m. for a pro forma session. Senators make their way back to Washington on Nov. 14. The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights will hear from the Justice Department at a 2 p.m. hearing about presidential executive privilege.

The president will deliver remarks at 12:15 p.m. about reproductive rights during a political event at the Howard Theatre in Washington D.C.

Vice President Harris will travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco this morning to join the hosts of climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees”this afternoon at the Cowell Theater. The vice president will speak at a Democratic National Committee finance event at a private residence at 5:10 p.m. PT. Harris will fly from San Francisco to Washington this evening and arrive early Wednesday morning.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will join Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) during a political event at a private residence in Denver at 11:30 a.m. MT. At midday, he’ll join a roundtable discussion about voting rights at Pipefitters Local 208. Emhoff will join Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D-Colo.) at 2:45 p.m. MT for a grassroots volunteer event at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s local field office. He will rejoin Griswold at 4 p.m. MT for a donor reception held at a private residence in Boulder.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1:45 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH

The COVID-19 booster market is starting to look more like the annual flu season than it did in the first two years of the pandemic, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told Yahoo News, noting that in the future, not everyone might need an annual booster.

“I think it’s going to be like the flu,” he said. “If you’re a 25-year-old do you need an annual booster every year if you’re healthy? You might want to … but I think it’s going to be similar to flu where it’s going to be people at high risk, people above 50 years of age, people with co-morbidities.”

▪ Science News: A sneaky group of omicron variants could cause a COVID-19 surge this fall.

▪ The Hill: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said on Monday he will end his state’s COVID-19 state of emergency in February, a time period that will allow the healthcare system to move beyond any surge in virus cases during the winter and the holidays.

▪ The Hill: How the COVID-19 pandemic affected life expectancy.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations today report that women’s and children’s health has suffered globally as the impacts of international conflict, COVID-19 and climate change converged. Researchers describe “regression across virtually every major measure of childhood wellbeing” between 2019 and 2021 (Bloomberg News).

An estimated 25 million children, or 6 million more than in 2019, were unvaccinated or under vaccinated in 2021. Researchers report in “Protect the Promise,” released today in Berlin, that millions of children missed out on school during the pandemic, many for more than a year, while approximately 80 percent of children in 104 countries and territories experienced learning loss because of school closures. Since the start of the pandemic, 10.5 million children have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19, according to the data.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,065,441. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 313, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

THE CLOSER

© Associated Press / Kevin Wolf | Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, and HSUS employees carried beagles rescued from a medical research company into a Maryland rehabilitation center in July.

And finally … Who didn’t pay attention this summer when 4,000 beagles bred by an overcrowded research company in rural Virginia were ordered by a judge to be released into the care of the Humane Society of the United States, and many other groups from around the country, for rescue and rehoming?

The largest animal welfare seizure in the Humane Society’s history caught the attention of Americans everywhere. Animal lovers quickly donated $2.2 million and clamored to give the dogs and puppies new homes to replace the horrific conditions inside Envigo, which agreed to shut down its breeding operation in Virginia.

“Their lives had been spent on concrete or wire grating, according to USDA reports and Humane Society officials. Their teeth were rotted. Their bodies were scarred. They’d never worn a collar or walked on a leash. They’d never heard music or felt the crunch of an autumn leaf underfoot. They’d never even stepped on grass.”

The Washington Post followed Nellie, Uno and Fin, just a few of the dogs adopted by caring new owners who needed patience to match their good intentions.

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