After big wins in Virginia and Alabama last year, Democrats are poised to make gains in this November’s midterm elections.
But first, a series of contentious Democratic primaries could shape how well the party fares in November, as well as the ideological character of the incoming Democratic elected officials.
Some of the most pivotal Democratic Party primaries to watch in 2018.
Republican Roy Moore faced serious accusations of sexual misconduct in his bid to become Alabama’s next senator. But instead of bowing down and backing out, he stayed in the race and went on the attack ― just like Trump did in last year’s presidential race. He accused the media and the establishment of orchestrating a conspiracy against him, and cast the race as pitting good against evil, Christians versus everyone else.
Both Trump and Moore bet that their conservative base would stick by them and push them to victory.
But on Tuesday, Alabama sent a message that this time it wouldn’t work, not even in a conservative state that Trump won by 28 percentage points in 2016.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
It’s been difficult to watch the Christian community embrace a person like Donald Trump. Evangelicals have had to perform mental gymnastics to pretend Donald Trump felt about religion anything close to what they claim to feel. This was supposed to be the “family values” party. Mike Pence, who won’t even have dinner with a woman other than his wife, suddenly doesn’t mind that Trump had babies with three different women and said on tape that he liked to grab women by the p***y.
Trump might be a lying, scheming, narcissistic con-artist but he doesn’t pretend to be religious. Sure, he faked it a couple of times by holding up a Bible with pages looking like they’d never been opened. He also tried quoting some scriptures but that went horribly wrong when he said “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians.” But he doesn’t claim to consult God before making decisions.
As for family values, Trump’s been married three times, dumping each wife for the woman he was having an affair with. His wives raise his kids for him. On the Howard Stern show, Trump said “I mean, I won’t do anything to take care of them. I’ll supply funds and she’ll take care of the kids. It’s not like I’m gonna be walking the kids down Central Park.” Other than his adult children who run his businesses, we never see Trump spending time with his kids. There are a couple of photo-ops with his 10-year old, Barron. But instead of golfing at his resorts, shouldn’t Trump spend time with his, um, you know, 10 year old? He also has another daughter who is around so infrequently most people don’t remember her name. Obviously, Trump will never be mistaken for the dad from Leave It To Beaver.
After months of internal squabbling and doubts, House Republicans passed their tax proposal on Thursday, a major step forward for a House GOP that has thus far been unable to deliver on any major piece of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The House passed the bill 227-205, with 13 Republicans joining every Democrat in opposing the measure, which would lower individual tax brackets, dramatically cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, and nearly double the standard deduction while eliminating a slew of smaller write-offs.
But even as Republicans celebrated the passage of their tax plan, the public perception of the bill is less than stellar. According to the most recent polling, most Americans believe they won’t see a tax cut from the GOP tax plan. In fact, only about 25 percent of Republicans believe they will pay less as a result of the measure, while 47 percent of Americans believe Trump will pay less.
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Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) led Republicans in passing their tax plan Thursday.
Even as controversy continues over President Donald Trump’s tweet of a video showing him beating up a personified version of CNN, a poll released Tuesday shows the cable news outlet edging him in trust among most Americans.
The survey also showed the New York Times, Washington Post and the broadcast television networks faring better than Trump in trustworthiness. But the poll, conducted by Survey Monkey and published by Axios, also illustrates the stark political divide in the U.S.
The poll, conducted between last Thursday and Monday, showed that 50 percent of American adults trust CNN more than Trump, with 43 percent favoring the president. Trump posted his disparaging CNN tweet on Sunday.
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CNN Has The ‘Trust’ Advantage Over President Trump
If President Donald Trump and Republicans make good on their promise to angry rural voters to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, those voters may wind up a lot angrier.
And it won’t be good for their health or for the electoral prospects of the GOP.
Democrats, at least, certainly think so, and are looking at both fresh polling data and history for evidence that the GOP’s repeal and replace effort will also repeal Republican control of Congress.
For Jill Hanauer, who runs the progressive election research and strategy outfit Project New America, the landscape is starting to remind her of Colorado in 2004, when Democrats did especially well, running in part on a health care message.
“The way we really won in Republican-leaning districts of the state legislature was talking about the specifics of health care ― particularly breast cancer and prostate cancer and other cancer screenings and other prevention,” Hanauer recently told The Huffington Post. “Thirteen years later, those same issues are, I believe, going to tear this party potentially apart if they don’t smell the coffee.”
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
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10 Democratic Primaries To Watch
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
CNN Has The ‘Trust’ Advantage Over President Trump
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
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