The Hill’s Morning Report — Last call to voters: Take charge, line up, act by Tuesday

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 11/02/22 6:30 AM ET

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Turnout. It’s all about turnout.

That was the expectation months ago and it’s still the holy grail for both major parties in the final stretch before Election Day on Tuesday.

Participation in this year’s midterm contests could set a record for a nonpresidential year. Early voting appears robust, according to the United States Elections Project, which reported 23.9 million total early votes as of Tuesday. Early voting was outpacing 2018 as of Monday across 36 states where data is available, reported Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue advocacy organizations (CNN).

Who is voting early, according to available data reported by states? Older voters more than younger, women more than men, Democrats more than Republicans and whites more than nonwhites.

Surrogates from both parties are working overtime to try to persuade the undecided, raise campaign cash and drive voters to cast ballots. President Biden was in red state Florida Tuesday to back Democratic gubernatorial challenger Charlie Crist, who badly trails Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to the latest polls.

The president’s stump speeches focus on what Democrats have done for voters in Washington while also warning about damage he thinks Republicans will do if they gain House or Senate majorities and govern in the states. Biden will appear in New Mexico on Thursday, Philadelphia on Saturday for a rally with former President Obama, and in Columbia, Md., the day before Election Day to stump for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore.

Biden’s political stop in Florida, including a speech aimed at seniors about protecting Social Security and Medicare, carried a whiff of 2024 because DeSantis is widely viewed as a potential presidential contender who might challenge the president, who says it is his intention to seek reelection.

“Charlie is running against Donald Trump incarnate,” Biden said at a fundraiser for Crist in Golden Beach, Fla., just weeks after appearing collaboratively with DeSantis in response to Hurricane Ian (The Hill). The president praised Crist, a former Republican governor who was once an independent, for his “integrity and intelligence.”

The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics says the winner of the Florida race is not in question. It’s the size of DeSantis’s victory that analysts are watching.

Some Republicans are working to encourage moderate Republicans and independents to vote for several Democratic candidates in districts carried by former President Trump.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (R), a Trump foe who lost her primary and will leave the House at the end of the year, endorsed Rep. Tim Ryan (D) in Ohio’s Senate race (The Washington Post). Ryan is campaigning to defeat Trump-endorsed Republican J.D. Vance, who once suggested Trump was “America’s Hitler” but later thanked Trump “for giving us an example of what could be in this country … and endorsing me.”

Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D), backed by Cheney at a rally on Tuesday, said the vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6, 2021, select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol is emphasizing a need to put democracy over politics (CNN). Slotkin is being challenged by Republican and former state Sen. Tom Barrett.

▪ The Guardian: Slotkin’s lead in Michigan shows abortion may be the issue that decides midterm races.

▪ The Hill: Democrats pin hopes on surrogate Obama in the final stretch.

▪ The Hill’s The Memo: The seven people with most at stake in the midterms.

▪ The Hill: Trump aims to seize credit for any GOP midterm rout. He is campaigning for select GOP candidates in the final days of the midterms with rallies in Iowa, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

▪ The New York Times: In Arizona, an election-monitoring group has been barred from taking photographs or videos of voters, posting information about voters online or openly carrying firearms near ballot boxes, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.

“I think Trump, at the very minimum, is preserving the option to run, and he’s setting himself up with a credible, believable narrative that he’s the one that put us over the edge,” John Thomas, a GOP consultant working on midterm races, told The Hill.

Ten more House districts in blue states have shifted in Republicans’ direction, according to the latest analysis by David Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.

“Republicans would only need to win six of the 35 Toss Ups [in the Cook Report assessment] to take the majority, whereas Democrats would need to win 29 of the 35 to keep control,” Wasserman wrote. “We’re sticking with our overall outlook of a GOP gain between 12 and 25 seats.”

Meanwhile, the Georgia Senate contest continues to churn out plenty of drama. Republican challenger Herschel Walker was back in the headlines when a woman interviewed by ABC News as “Jane Doe” told the network in her first on-camera interview that she decided to come forward to defend her claims that a married Walker pressured her into having an abortion in 1993 when they had a lengthy affair. She says Walker is not fit for office and that “honesty matters.”

Walker issued a statement Tuesday denying knowing the woman interviewed by ABC News. “This was a lie a week ago and it is a lie today. … My opponents will do and say anything to win this election.”

▪ The 19th: Abortion is not the top voting issue for most Americans. It’s still motivating them to turn out.

▪ The New York Times: Top Democrats question their party’s “kitchen sink” strategy as midterm worries grow.

In the Wisconsin Senate race, incumbent Republican Ron Johnson holds a 3-point lead over Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes, according to a Fox News survey of registered voters conducted through Oct. 30 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. There are enough undecided and third-party voters to shift the Senate contest either way (The Hill).

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Pelosi attack highlights risks of online violence against women in politics.

▪ The Washington Post: U.S. Capitol Police, despite camera live feeds from around Pelosi’s San Francisco home, missed the attack by a hammer-wielding assailant who allegedly told police he was on a “suicide mission.”

▪ The Hill: Why progressives are prodding Democrats on rural voters.

▪ The Atlantic, Jacob Stern: Democrats keep falling for superstar losers.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ INTERNATIONAL

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is poised for an election comeback as prime minister despite being under indictment since 2019.

With two-thirds of the vote counted as of this morning, exit polls predict Netanyahu and his right-wing allies have won enough votes to form a majority in the Knesset. The election is Israel’s fifth since 2019 (The Washington Post and The New York Times).

“We have won a huge vote of confidence from the people of Israel,” Netanyahu told supporters at his election headquarters in Jerusalem on Wednesday. “We are on the brink of a very big victory.”

Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, on Tuesday addressed his supporters for the first time after losing to left-wing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — known as “Lula” — in Sunday’s election. While Bolsonaro did not officially concede, his chief of staff said the president had authorized him to begin the transition to Lula, who is scheduled to take office in January.

In the two days since Bolsonaro’s loss, his supporters set up hundreds of roadblocks across the country, shutting down traffic and causing fuel price spikes and flight cancellations. Many worried that the president, who had claimed the only way he would lose Brazil’s election would be if it were rigged, would seek to remain in power despite Sunday’s results (CBC and The Washington Post).

Lula’s election victory is giving environmentalists hope for the future of the Amazon rainforest, write The Hill’s Rachel Frazin and Karl Evers-Hillstrom. The Amazon — considered of major importance to combating climate change — faced increased logging under Bolsonaro, whose administration saw less enforcement of environmental laws. However, the hopes of these environmentalists are also complicated by the Bolsonaro movement’s continued power in Brazil’s congress.

Russia has ordered a wider evacuation of occupied southern Ukraine in a major extension of an evacuation order that Kyiv said amounts to the forced depopulation of occupied territory.

The Ukrainian government added that the evacuations include forced deportations from occupied territory, a war crime (Reuters).

Authorities in Kyiv said water and power supplies were restored Tuesday, a day after a wave of Russian attacks on the Ukrainian capital’s infrastructure. Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced scheduled partial blackouts would continue, to manage electricity demand.

After Russia launched dozens of missiles targeting critical facilities on Monday, power and water supplies across Ukraine were left badly affected. Some say Russia’s attacks are strategic as the region heads into the cold winter months (BBC and The Wall Street Journal).

According to American officials, senior Russian military leaders recently had conversations to discuss when and how Moscow might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, contributing to heightened concern in Washington and beyond. Putin was not part of these conversations, and U.S. officials have seen no evidence of Moscow taking any tactical measures to prepare for such a strike (The New York Times).

▪ The Washington Post: Russia’s “dirty bomb” threats challenge the nuclear calculus.

▪ CNN: Iran is preparing to send additional weapons including ballistic missiles to Russia to use in Ukraine, western officials say.

▪ CNBC: More “torture chambers” uncovered, Ukraine’s police say; Russia says its economy cannot be undercut.

A North Korean missile crossed into South Korean waters for the first time since the Korean War Wednesday, triggering a response from the South’s air force (The Washington Post).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INVESTIGATIONS

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is “in discussions” with former President Trump’s lawyers about the panel’s subpoena for his testimony under oath, vice chairwoman Cheney said Tuesday. Trump faces a Friday deadline to respond to the committee’s demand for documents and a Nov. 14 deadline to deliver testimony (CNN).

“It’ll be done under oath. It’ll be done, potentially, over multiple days,” Cheney said of the committee’s preferences for Trump’s testimony. “This is not a situation where the committee finds itself at the ‘mercy of Donald Trump.’”

A day after Trump asked the Supreme Court to block the House Ways and Means Committee from getting his IRS returns, Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday issued a temporary stay. A lower court had cleared the way for Congress’s tax-writing committee to get Trump’s records as part of a long-running legal battle (The Hill).

Bloomberg News: Trump’s signature is on lease of Trump Organization’s longtime Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg shown to a jury in a criminal tax fraud trial.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), meanwhile, had less luck when he appealed to the Supreme Court with his subpoena from a Georgia probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The court on Tuesday rejected Graham’s petition to block the subpoena.

Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is seeking testimony from Graham about calls he made to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, about allegations of voting irregularities in the election (Axios and The New York Times).

OPINION

■ The right’s loudest voices have shaken off the burden of being responsible, by Philip Bump, columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3zyt2yi

■ Presidential approval, election mandates and the midterm dynamic, by Stuart Rothenburg, staff writer, Roll Call. https://bit.ly/3TYuS3F

WHERE AND WHEN

👉 YOU’RE INVITED: Have a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights? The Hill has launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

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

The Senate convenes Thursday at 10:30 a.m. for a pro forma session. Senators make their way back to Washington on Nov. 14.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden will view workforce training demonstrations by labor unions and leading companies in the State Dining Room at 2:15 p.m. He will speak about jobs and the economy in the East Room at 2:40 p.m.

Vice President Harris will travel to Boston to speak about the Inflation Reduction Act and federal assistance to help lower families’ heating bills this winter. She will deliver remarks at a get-out-the-vote event for Democratic candidate Maura Healey, campaigning to be Massachusetts governor; Kim Driscoll, the party’s nominee to be Massachusetts lieutenant governor; and Andrea Campbell, running for attorney general.

The Federal Reserve will conclude a two-day meeting of its Federal Open Market Committee with a statement at 2 p.m. Chairman Jerome Powell will answer press questions at 2:30 p.m. The Hill’s Sylvan Lane reports what’s expected with another interest rate hike.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will arrive in Munster, Germany, for a gathering of the Group of Seven’s finance ministers. He will be in Germany through Friday.

First lady Jill Biden will travel to Pennsylvania where she will speak at 3 p.m. at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Pittsburgh. She will speak at 4:30 p.m. to the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, the Pennsylvania State Democratic Party and be joined by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. The first lady will travel to Allentown, Pa., to stump at 7 p.m. for Pennsylvania Democratic Reps. Susan Wild and Madeleine Dean for reelection.

White House senior adviser and assistant to the presidentAnita Dunn and Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s deputy chief of staff, will answer questions during a streamed Axios event with newsmakers taking place in Washington. It begins at 8:15 a.m. Information and registration HERE.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1:15 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ ENERGY, TECH

The president and vice president today plan to champion federal efforts to lower heating costs this winter with $4.5 billion in federal funds to states, territories and tribes through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The program, administered through the Department of Health and Human Services’s Administration for Children and Families, also supports energy repairs that can lower heating and cooling costs for eligible families, the White House announced.

Tech billionaire and new Twitter owner Elon Musk has been the cause of much uncertainty surrounding the platform’s future, as he fired executives, reinstated the account of at least one official accused of denying the results of the 2020 election and announced plans to monetize the site’s verification features.

After an initial report that account verification and the premium version of Twitter known as Twitter Blue would cost $20 per month, Musk on Tuesday tweeted that the new version of the feature would likely be priced at $8 per month, although the platform has yet to announce its plans to users. In his post, Musk used the word “bullshit” to describe Twitter’s “current lords & Peasants system” determining those who acquire blue verification check marks on the platform (The Hill).

Advertisers, meanwhile, are looking at the site’s new ownership with suspicion, and industry experts are predicting a possible advertiser exodus. After Musk said he would loosen Twitter’s content rules, which could lead to a surge in misinformation and other toxic content, top advertising firms are rethinking their relationship with the social media platform (The New York Times and CNN).

“I think advertisers are bracing to leave,” Claire Atkin, co-founder of the adtech watchdog Check My Ads, told CNN. “It’s very possibly a seismic shift for marketers and advertisers.”

▪ Reuters: More Twitter officials leave, gutting top management.

▪ Financial Times: Banks prepare to hold $12.7 billion Twitter debt on books until early 2023.

▪ Vox: Who’s winning, and losing, in the Elon Twitter era.

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH

After COVID-19 and the flu, a common but lesser-known respiratory virus is affecting Americans this winter: respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which has already sent thousands of children to hospitals.

RSV is a leading cause of infant mortality around the globe and especially dangerous to prematurely born babies. Worldwide, the virus led to about 3.6 million hospital admissions in 2019 and more than 100,000 deaths in children under 5, mostly in poor countries (The New York Times).

“It is, unfortunately, one of those large killers that nobody knows about,” Keith Klugman, director of the pneumonia program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told the Times. “You survive RSV if you get access to care, to breathing support and to oxygen. In the absence of those, babies will die.”

No vaccines and treatments are currently available for RSV, but after decades of stalled progress, more than 30 preventive options are on the horizon, nine of which are in advanced trials. Pfizer announced on Tuesday that its RSV vaccine showed an efficacy of 82 percent against hospitalization among infants under 90 days old and 69 percent among those younger than 6 months (The Hill).

▪ Vox: New RSV vaccines are coming. This is very, very good news.

▪ The Atlantic: The worst pediatric-care crisis in decades.

▪ The New York Times: “This Is Our March 2020”: Children’s hospitals are overwhelmed by RSV.

▪ CNBC: Long COVID-19 is affecting women more than men, national survey finds.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,070,389. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,649 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability can be found at Vaccines.gov.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🎹

Inventor Thomas Edison, who suffered from poor hearing before his death at age 84 in 1931, said he could “hear through my teeth.” He left evidence of his auditory adaptations behind in the form of bite marks on the wood of his pianos and phonographs. Pressing his teeth into the hard surfaces in which sounds resonated helped Edison experience the vibrations in his skull. To appreciate piano music as a musician played, the man who gave us the telegraph machine, a better lightbulb and a machine that recorded legislative votes, would lean in close to the instrument above the keys and bite the piano.

In Woodstock, N.Y., in September, Robert Friedman, who buys and sells Steinway pianos, showed off marks on a grand piano he bought last year once owned by Edison. Clearly visible are shallow indentations roughing up the black lacquer above the keyboard. Surprised to learn of the inventor’s unusual marks, he says he’s looking for the right home for the novel instrument with a special note in history.

“I believe that it belongs somewhere where many, many, many people can see it,” Friedman said (ABC News).

Footnote: The fascinating Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Southwest Florida (one Morning Report scribe has visited the museum) partially reopened last week after surviving the wrath of Hurricane Ian (Fort Myers News-Press).

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