AMAC Exclusive – By Barry Casselman
The now-chronic deterioration of President Joe Biden’s political standing and the voter disfavor with his administration’s policies appears to be taking a further toll on the Democratic Party’s prospects for the 2022 national midterm elections, now only eight months away.
The latest example seems to be Vermont, where recently the President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate, Patrick Leahy, 81, announced his retirement. Although this created an open seat in the November election, the initial reaction was that this was a safe Democratic seat, especially after Vermont’s lone House Member, Democrat Peter Welch, announced his candidacy to succeed Leahy.
But Christina Nolan, a former U.S. Attorney (2017-2021), has announced her bid for the GOP nomination and is a serious candidate to challenge Welch. Only 42, she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont in 2017.
As the representative for Vermont’s at-large House seat, Welch has run statewide and thus has high name recognition, but he is 74 and does not have prospects for gaining valuable seniority in a long senate career. Welch remains the clear favorite for now, but the impact of a strong opponent, and continued unpopularity of the President, could make for an upset in November.
Further complicating this senate race, and the one in neighboring New Hampshire, where Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan is vulnerable, is the curious trend of heavily blue New England states electing moderate Republicans for statewide offices.
Vermont (Phil Scott) and New Hampshire (Chris Sununu) each have Republican governors, as does Massachusetts (Charlie Baker) and as did Maine until 2019 (Paul LePage). Maine also has long-time GOP Senator Susan Collins. Leahy himself was first elected as a Republican.
New England Republicans differ from Republicans from Idaho or Mississippi on some hot button issues such as abortion, but the GOP may need them to win a majority and choose the senate leadership, thus providing a major barrier to President Joe Biden’s progressive legislative agenda.
A strong Republican showing in the Vermont senate race this fall could also have important implications for long-term political trends beyond 2022. While the northeast states usually vote Democratic in presidential elections, and did so in 2020 for Joe Biden, 2022 could mark the beginning of a shift. If so, Biden, or whoever the Democratic nominee is, could face trouble in New England in 2024 — not only because the president has lost popularity generally, but because of specific Biden policies on local issues — such as his restrictions on lobster fishing off the coast of Maine.
Biden’s extreme unfavorability is also putting wind in Republicans’ sails, making would-be longshot candidates into legitimate challengers. At the outset of the 2022 cycle, there was a widespread assessment that four races with an incumbent GOP Senator, including those in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Florida, were toss-ups. Few observers would rate them as toss-ups today. Additionally, some incumbent GOP seats had the potential to be Democratic senate pick-ups, including Ohio and Missouri, but not in a “red wave” campaign year.
Should the red wave be a historic tidal wave, and should Mr. Biden’s numbers remain at current levels, there are several “safe Democratic” senate seats which might see upsets on election day. These include Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and New York, along with Vermont.
If New York as a GOP pick-up seems at first glance to be far-fetched, it should be remembered that New York has a multi-party ballot. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer could face an intraparty challenge from the likes of House “Squad” leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has in the past criticized Schumer for not being progressive enough. A Schumer challenger could be on enough ballots to divide the Democratic vote and enable a GOP nominee to win with a plurality. An unlikely scenario now, but it could happen in a red tidal wave.
In another, more normal mid-term cycle, some of the above speculation would be fantasy. But in a year with a border crisis, runaway inflation, Afghanistan, Ukraine, supply chain disruptions, controversial pandemic restrictions, and a president with favor only in the high 30s, anything seems possible.
Didn’t Obama tell us over and over again that elections have consequences? Yes, they do. But stolen election has monumental consequences. Yes, this is the outcome.
A vote for any Democrat is a vote made by an idiot.
THE libs WILL AGAIN CHEAT IN ALL ELETIONS
Why is Biden’s agenda referred to as “progressive” when he is taking us back to the stone age. REgressive would be much more appropriate.
Weed out the “Rats” one race, one state at a time! Look for the Rats to try everything in the book to sabotage a fair election!
Progressive is an other word for Marxist. The former Communist Party of America changed their name to Progressive–
Why does our government use Union seniority as it’s guide to staffing committees?
Good grief. That is union THUGGERY! And unions are a Communist Party mechanism of control. This is shameful.
No wonder politicians act like thugs. They are.
Republicans had better be putting forward Trump-put-America-FIRST candidates, too.
No more McCains, grahams, Romneys, etc. Give us HONEST CONSERVATIVES.
Patriots, Pray that the Republicans can take back the House or the Senate or both. Remember we need massive voters at the polls to overcome voter fraud.
“God can make a way where there is no way “
This is off topic but, why are our leaders rushing to the Ukrainian border and not our southern border. I guess we will have to start shooting guns, not people, just guns.
We couldn’t conceive the fact that people in our government would cheat to get what THEY want, not what we want. Such is how the Deceiver works. Now since we know that they know we know, they will do whatever it takes to keep themselves in power, blatantly cheating and breaking our Constitutional laws to do it. These people are the truly deceived, they’ve been brainwashed and groomed by former ‘Socialists’ like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Socialists installed the Univercity and College Professors to fill our kids heads with the rot.
I also believe these traitors in our government aren’t inviting into our country the family types, and instead deliberately drawing in the worst of other countries people.
I’m continuing to pray God will help us out of this mess and that all those ruining our country will be dealt with however He sees fit.
I simply cannot fathom how or why ANYONE could EVER vote for a demon-crat. I can understand it if we voted for a RINO, who fooled us the FIRST time, but there are no excuses for those who continue to vote for RINO`s, OR Demon-crats. Dear God, please save our Republic!
Ya know what I think? Brides were too late to arrive in the early colonies, and sex with fowl, natives and pigs deteriorated the gene pool
I sure hope Vermont comes to their senses and throw out all the marxist democrats!
America First Always!
Defeat marxist anti American democrats every time they run!
Too funny when outsiders who know absolutely zero about the political climate in New England. First of all, every (R) Governor mentioned in Vt, NH and Mass, are supreme RINOs and have been lock step with the illegal Vaxx and Mask Mandates. Sununu is in check due to a nearly 50/50 D and R legislator. Vt has nearly 70% Communists/Democrats in theirs and Im sure Mass is close to that figure. Scott is bought and paid for by the Pharma cartel and supported Biden while seriously disenfranchising true Republicans. Ive never voted for this man who has a stronger pro abortion record than his D opponents.
Anyone who votes for a Demorat now has to be a fool.
FOLKS….Talking and LEARNING about this COMMUNIST Democratic party is a very good thing.
Wait for it…However, Just not enough! DO one thing a day to improve our country. ANYTHING…IE: call your congress rep OR go to your school board meeting OR sign up for election board OR OR OR….Get the point. A lot of little things add up!
Note to AMAC: the print in the comments section is very light. Is there anything that can be done about this? I realize that I can make it bold but it seems an unnecessary step. Thanks for reading.
We don’t know how what the true election totals were in New England in 2020.
As usual well written. Would like to suggest future write-ups like this spotlight ACTUAL advocates for AMAC in EITHER chamber of Congress, i.e. any Rep or Senator genuinely interested in our issues who’s working on them regularly. Right now many like me are of the opinion that politicians are ALL ALIKE. Any evidence out there to counter that would interest me. Thanks. P.S. – If someone could monitor the Comments and strip out the naked website advertisement below, that would be nice.
Hopefully those voters in Vermont have enough intelligence to figure out what is best for our nation and their state. I say hopefully they have enough intelligence because as we all know, far too many democratic voters think their party is for the working man just like when their parents thought the same and voted democrat. It seems they haven’t accepted the reality of the “new” socialist democrat party. The one that’s currently destroying our country.
I don’t think the dems care about the election results, if they lose, they will claim it was stolen by election reforms, then turn out their minions, called BLM and ANTIFA, to run rampant over the country. So the president can declare a national emergency, activate the U.S military and turn them lose to quell the riots, as well as to find excuse to confiscate citizens fire arms, as well as round up those rotten Republicans that “illegally”voted to replace democratic control. Unless of course they can create some type of incident to accomplish the same action (such as the truck convoy, so that they can even cancel the coming election in November
Didn’t Obama tell us over and over again that elections have consequences? Yes, they do. But stolen election has monumental consequences. Yes, this is the outcome.
A vote for any Democrat is a vote made by an idiot.
THE libs WILL AGAIN CHEAT IN ALL ELETIONS
Why is Biden’s agenda referred to as “progressive” when he is taking us back to the stone age. REgressive would be much more appropriate.
Weed out the “Rats” one race, one state at a time! Look for the Rats to try everything in the book to sabotage a fair election!
Progressive is an other word for Marxist. The former Communist Party of America changed their name to Progressive–
Why does our government use Union seniority as it’s guide to staffing committees?
Good grief. That is union THUGGERY! And unions are a Communist Party mechanism of control. This is shameful.
No wonder politicians act like thugs. They are.
Republicans had better be putting forward Trump-put-America-FIRST candidates, too.
No more McCains, grahams, Romneys, etc. Give us HONEST CONSERVATIVES.
Patriots, Pray that the Republicans can take back the House or the Senate or both. Remember we need massive voters at the polls to overcome voter fraud.
“God can make a way where there is no way “
This is off topic but, why are our leaders rushing to the Ukrainian border and not our southern border. I guess we will have to start shooting guns, not people, just guns.
We couldn’t conceive the fact that people in our government would cheat to get what THEY want, not what we want. Such is how the Deceiver works. Now since we know that they know we know, they will do whatever it takes to keep themselves in power, blatantly cheating and breaking our Constitutional laws to do it. These people are the truly deceived, they’ve been brainwashed and groomed by former ‘Socialists’ like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Socialists installed the Univercity and College Professors to fill our kids heads with the rot.
I also believe these traitors in our government aren’t inviting into our country the family types, and instead deliberately drawing in the worst of other countries people.
I’m continuing to pray God will help us out of this mess and that all those ruining our country will be dealt with however He sees fit.
I simply cannot fathom how or why ANYONE could EVER vote for a demon-crat. I can understand it if we voted for a RINO, who fooled us the FIRST time, but there are no excuses for those who continue to vote for RINO`s, OR Demon-crats. Dear God, please save our Republic!
Ya know what I think? Brides were too late to arrive in the early colonies, and sex with fowl, natives and pigs deteriorated the gene pool
I sure hope Vermont comes to their senses and throw out all the marxist democrats!
America First Always!
Defeat marxist anti American democrats every time they run!
Too funny when outsiders who know absolutely zero about the political climate in New England. First of all, every (R) Governor mentioned in Vt, NH and Mass, are supreme RINOs and have been lock step with the illegal Vaxx and Mask Mandates. Sununu is in check due to a nearly 50/50 D and R legislator. Vt has nearly 70% Communists/Democrats in theirs and Im sure Mass is close to that figure. Scott is bought and paid for by the Pharma cartel and supported Biden while seriously disenfranchising true Republicans. Ive never voted for this man who has a stronger pro abortion record than his D opponents.
Anyone who votes for a Demorat now has to be a fool.
FOLKS….Talking and LEARNING about this COMMUNIST Democratic party is a very good thing.
Wait for it…However, Just not enough! DO one thing a day to improve our country. ANYTHING…IE: call your congress rep OR go to your school board meeting OR sign up for election board OR OR OR….Get the point. A lot of little things add up!
Note to AMAC: the print in the comments section is very light. Is there anything that can be done about this? I realize that I can make it bold but it seems an unnecessary step. Thanks for reading.
We don’t know how what the true election totals were in New England in 2020.
As usual well written. Would like to suggest future write-ups like this spotlight ACTUAL advocates for AMAC in EITHER chamber of Congress, i.e. any Rep or Senator genuinely interested in our issues who’s working on them regularly. Right now many like me are of the opinion that politicians are ALL ALIKE. Any evidence out there to counter that would interest me. Thanks. P.S. – If someone could monitor the Comments and strip out the naked website advertisement below, that would be nice.
Hopefully those voters in Vermont have enough intelligence to figure out what is best for our nation and their state. I say hopefully they have enough intelligence because as we all know, far too many democratic voters think their party is for the working man just like when their parents thought the same and voted democrat. It seems they haven’t accepted the reality of the “new” socialist democrat party. The one that’s currently destroying our country.
I don’t think the dems care about the election results, if they lose, they will claim it was stolen by election reforms, then turn out their minions, called BLM and ANTIFA, to run rampant over the country. So the president can declare a national emergency, activate the U.S military and turn them lose to quell the riots, as well as to find excuse to confiscate citizens fire arms, as well as round up those rotten Republicans that “illegally”voted to replace democratic control. Unless of course they can create some type of incident to accomplish the same action (such as the truck convoy, so that they can even cancel the coming election in November