Political Journalism
House Republicans attempt to avoid 2022 letdown with new tactic on abortion: ‘We’re both pro-choice’
Republicans in the nation’s toughest House districts are making a major pivot on abortion with a surprising result — they’re starting to sound like Democrats.
GOP candidates in suburbs of places like Tucson, Des Moines and Syracuse are going public with vows never to criminalize abortion or support a national ban. Some are going further: Rep. John Duarte of California’s Central Valley, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in northern New Jersey and GOP candidate Matt Gunderson in the San Diego area have all described themselves as “pro choice” — with the latter even speaking directly to camera in his first TV ad and borrowing Bill Clinton’s phrase calling for the procedure to be “safe, legal and rare.”
In 2022, Democrats dumped a half-billion dollars’ worth of abortion attacks into pivotal races and helped prevent a GOP wave. This time, Republicans, like freshman Rep. Marc Molinaro, who is defending a tough upstate New York seat, are looking to take that issue off the table for Democrats.
Molinaro was one of the first Republicans this cycle to launch a TV ad devoted solely to his stance on abortion.
“I believe in supporting all women and the choices they make,” Molinaro says, speaking into the camera, in the ad.
Young Democrats face Gaza blowback as they try to mobilize students for Biden
President Joe Biden’s support for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza mixed with student anger over police crackdowns on anti-war campus protests is complicating the work of Democratic youth groups trying to engage classmates and other Generation Z voters ahead of this year’s election.
Polling of young voters on the Israel-Hamas War, specifically about its effect on Biden’s campaign, presents a mixed picture.
A majority of young adults (63%) in the Economist/YouGov poll said they haven’t attended any sort of political protest, rally or demonstration.
“This is a different youth electorate than we saw in 2020 and 2022, and young voters are motivated by different things,” John Della Volpe, the Harvard Institute of Politics polling director, said when the results were released. “Economic issues are top of mind, housing is a major concern and the gap between young men’s and young women’s political preferences is pronounced.”
Election officials in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida work to secure early voting amid Hurricane Helene fallout
Election officials in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida are working quickly to ensure voters can still securely cast early ballots, despite the devastating storm impacts of Hurricane Helene that have in some cases left them without power, water and cell service.
Potential solutions in the affected counties of the three states, which could determine the White House, could include extra polling places, extending early voting and making it easier to drop off mail ballots.
“We have no power. We have no water. Cell service is limited, so right now the concern is a delay in getting the absentee ballots mailed out, a delay in receiving the mail,” W. Travis Doss, Jr., the executive director of the Augusta-Richmond County Board of Elections in Georgia, told CNN. Doss said some of the county’s 43 polling locations could be “unable to be used.”
Fetterman isn’t alone: Members of Congress share their mental health struggles
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman voluntarily checked himself into Walter Reed Medical Center for inpatient hospital care for clinical depression.
Three members of Congress shared their experiences with depression and anxiety with National Journal, as well as the generosity and grace people deserve when struggling with mental health.
Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont spoke of how the specter of anxiety and depression plagued her since she was an adolescent, only growing worse over time.
“By the time I was in high school, I had several really serious bouts with depression and didn't really have the language for it,” Balint said.
“It got really acute for me my senior year in high school, when I went from being a straight-A student, president of the drama club, president of student government, to barely being able to get myself to class every day.”
House Democratic PAC plans to take lessons from special election win nationwide
The top super PAC that works to elect House Democrats plans to spread nationwide the tactics it used in the recent special election in New York as the party looks to recapture the chamber's majority in November.
This comes on the heels of Democrat Tom Suozzi's comfortable victory Tuesday night in the special election to succeed disgraced former GOP Rep. George Santos in New York's 3rd Congressional District.
Suozzi’s strategy in the special election revolved around tackling immigration head-on rather than avoiding the topic as a Democratic weakness.
House Majority PAC ran ads featuring positive messaging around Suozzi and his immigration record and used the failure of the bipartisan border deal to attack Republican nominee Mazi Pilip in the final days of the campaign.
“I can guarantee that this bill will be used in paid media in November, October … to hit Republicans on immigration…”