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What We’re Watching: Republican House, Israeli robo-guns, Poland’s back
GOP wins slim House majority
More than a week after the US midterm elections, the Republican Party finally clinched its 218th seat in the House on Wednesday, giving the GOP a razor-slim majority in the chamber. But with several races still not called, the exact margin remains unclear — the tighter it is, the harder it'll be for Kevin McCarthy, who’s expected to replace Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, to keep his caucus together. A Republican-held House effectively kills the Democrats’ legislative agenda, although retaining control of the Senate will keep extremist proposals away from President Joe Biden's desk and allow him to appoint federal judges. For the GOP, it's an opportunity to launch investigations on stuff like the origins of COVID, the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Republicans' favorite target: Biden's own son, Hunter. It might even lead to impeaching the president. On foreign policy, expect the GOP to penny-pinch US aid to Ukraine and make Congress get even tougher on China — perhaps not the best idea after Biden and Xi Jinping decided to cool things down at the G-20 in Bali.
AI-controlled guns in the West Bank
You may be worried about the implications of self-driving cars, and fair enough after that rogue Tesla went on a killing spree in China earlier this month. But now consider the challenges of self-shooting … guns. It’s not a hypothetical anymore, as Israel has now deployed AI-controlled weapons in the occupied West Bank that can fire tear gas, stun grenades, and sponge-tipped bullets at protesters. Weapons like these are, like remotely piloted drones, hailed as a way to limit soldiers’ exposure to battlefield harm. But they naturally provoke a host of legal and moral issues. Who is responsible for misfires or malfunctions? What biases are baked into the AI programs that control them? Could these weapons be hacked? And in conjunction with the use of facial recognition algorithms, do these weapons raise potentially lethal questions about privacy and what human rights activists call “digital dehumanization”? One thing seems certain: 20th-century rules of war will not be adequate for these 21st-century weapons.
What’s the view from Poland?
Poles have even more reason to watch their collective back after a missile hit the eastern village of Przewodów on Tuesday, killing two. Polish officials said the hit was unintentional and linked to Ukrainian defenses, but President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed back on Wednesday, insisting “this is not our missile.” Ukrainians want access to the impact site and have offered to help investigate — and to produce evidence of a “Russian trace.” Przewodów parents, meanwhile, kept their children home Wednesday to avoid sending them to a school located just 330 feet from the blast site. Polish border towns have been fearing spillover from the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February. While many were relieved by the prospect of this being an accident, Poland remains on high alert, and the incident has sparked renewed debate over the need for a NATO-patrolled no-fly zone to thwart Russian missile attacks. Germany rejected the idea, but Berlin is offering support to Poland’s air defenses. And although the episode highlights the risk of tripping into World War III, it’s reassuring that both Russia and the West were quick to deny this was an intentional — or escalatory — event.This was featured in Signal, the daily politics newsletter of GZERO Media. For smart coverage of global affairs that normal people can understand, subscribe here.
US House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) waves after speaking to supporters on midterms election night.
What We’re Watching: Domestic & foreign policy implications, lame-duck maneuvers, Trump 2.0?, a Lake of doubts
Probe payback incoming?
After being on the unhappy side of a raft of Democrat-led House investigations the last few years, incoming GOP House leaders are itching to launch a number of their own. Subjects may include the Biden administration’s clunky withdrawal from Afghanistan, the origins of the COVID-19 virus, the alleged politicization of the Justice Department, and of course, the GOP’s favorite target, Hunter Biden. What about impeachment? The Dems did it twice to Donald Trump. Could Republicans return the favor? Likely incoming House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the GOP would never pursue it for “political purposes.”
Will foreign policy change under a GOP House?
The biggest immediate issue will be Ukraine, where McCarthy will try to balance the views of establishment GOP Russia hawks against those of MAGA members who want to limit aid to Kyiv. McCarthy’s already pledged to scrap what he calls a “blank check” policy and to scrutinize more closely the content and aims of US aid to Kyiv. Also, expect an even harder line against China, focusing on Beijing’s trade and industrial policies, its role in the opioid crisis, and a sharper focus on the activities of Chinese students, companies, and investors in the US. In principle, whacking China is a rare bipartisan winner.
Can outgoing Dems beat the clock?
If Democrats lose their House majority, they still control the chamber for two months of a lame-duck session before the 118th Congress begins. Expect action on two Biden administration priorities. First, Dems might try to pass a big Ukraine spending package to lock in funds for Kyiv before the GOP takeover. Second, Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling so the government can borrow more to pay its bills and avoid default. If there's no agreement, House Republicans might use the debt limit as leverage to force Biden to accept painful entitlement cuts.
Trump teases 2024 announcement
We’re officially on Trump watch. On Monday, the former president told an Ohio crowd to expect a “very big announcement” from his Mar-a-Lago home next Tuesday, and there isn’t much mystery about what he means. The big looming question is whether other viable challengers for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination will emerge, how Trump will respond to them, and how they will respond to him. In 2016, Trump’s Republican opponents tried many tactics to take him down while protecting their opportunities to win over his supporters. Will Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis succeed where Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio failed?
Raising (doubts in) Arizona
The gubernatorial race in the Grand Canyon State is too close to call, but Republican hopeful and new MAGA icon Kari Lake is already crying fraud. Lake — who's losing by two percentage points as of 6 a.m. EST — said in a fiery speech that it felt "like Groundhog Day," a reference to the 2020 presidential election that she insists was stolen from Donald Trump. If elected, Lake, a former TV anchor and anti-immigration hawk, might opt to not certify a Democratic victory in the 2024 presidential election, especially if Trump picks her as VP ...will us voters show up
The Graphic Truth: Will US voters show up?
Is Trump a demagogue or a revolutionary? Is Biden a consensus builder or a divider-in-chief? Most Americans already hold firm views of the Republican and Democratic parties, and their midterm votes have been set in stone for some time. In tight races, however, the difference will be decided by whether the politically indifferent demographic decides to vote. Getting out the vote is much easier for presidential races, which many voters see as more consequential than midterms. But that trend may be shifting. We look at voter turnout in presidential elections vs. midterms since 1980, and zoom in on the turnout in some key battleground states.
Will a GOP House speaker be able to control an unruly caucus?
The US Senate race could go either way, but most pundits and polls point to the House of Representatives turning red after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Republicans need a net gain of just five seats to flip that chamber, and they are on track to do just that, and then some. Indeed, most polls suggest a double-digit gain for the GOP – not a red wave per se but still a sizable win.
Noise: Much attention has been focused on the impending political fortunes of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican from California who is all but assured to become House speaker next year. In this role, McCarthy will be the leader of all proceedings in the lower chamber, where important business gets done, including government appropriations and impeachment proceedings.
Signal: After four years in opposition, Kevin McCarthy will be eager to take the gavel from current Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But Republicans are a divided tribe, and McCarthy will have his work cut out for him in keeping his caucus together.
This discord is in large part due to ongoing agitation from the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative bloc within the House GOP formed seven years ago in hopes of pushing the party further to the right. The bloc — currently made up of around 35 members — has already tried to alter House rules to give individual lawmakers more power.
Exactly how much power the caucus wields will depend on the size of the GOP majority, but McCarthy has already made clear that he’ll have to acquiesce to at least some of their demands. For example, while the Californian has been a proponent of aid to Ukraine, he has suggested that maintaining the current level of support may not be possible because “they just won’t do it.”
The two most recent Republican House speakers — John Boehner and Paul Ryan — were forced into early retirement due to ugly internal party politics. Will McCarthy be next?
Are US state courts the new battleground?
With Midterm Matters, we are counting down to the US midterm elections on Nov. 8 by separating the signal from the noise on election-related news.
The perception that the US Supreme Court is a partisan institution has increased in recent years. Just 25% of Americans now say that they have confidence in the court, down from an average of 47% between 1973 and 2006, according to Gallup. Confidence in the court has even waned among Republicans, with less than 40% of GOP voters now expressing confidence in the court, compared to 53% in 2020.
Views on court bias and whether it plays an outsized role in politics reached fever-pitch for many this summer with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a move disapproved by 57% of Americans.
Noise: The role of the Supreme Court in US political life has been a big focus leading up to midterm elections, with many Democrats campaigning against the court itself, including President Joe Biden, who recently said, “The Supreme Court and the MAGA Republicans don’t have a clue about the power of women in this country. And they’re soon to find out.”
Signal: The US Supreme Court plays a pivotal role in the system of governance in America, but many of today’s major political battles are taking place at the state level. Consider that the US Supreme Court recently passed on several hot-button issues – including abortion, gun laws, and voting rights – to be arbitrated by the states. Given the court’s conservative bent, this judicial approach will likely persevere for years to come.
While Republicans seem to have understood this dynamic for some time, Democrats have caught up with the trend in recent years. In the 2019-2020 election cycle, a collective $97 million was spent on state court races nationwide. This cycle, parties are investing heavily in partisan judicial races in Ohio, Illinois, and North Carolina.
Looking ahead: With an increased number of election deniers on Republican ballots, debates over the nature of American democracy itself will gain steam over the next few years – and those battles will be waged in state courts. Prepare to see a lot more money enter state judicial races.
Biden warns American democracy is at risk
President Joe Biden took to the airwaves Wednesday night to appeal to American voters ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections. He blamed former President Donald Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election being stolen and called out the violent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
“We must with one overwhelming unified voice speak as a country and say there’s no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America,” Biden said.
Since 2020, there have been numerous legal challenges and recounts that tested the election results. “There’s no election in our history that we can be more certain of its results. Every legal challenge that could have been brought was brought. Every recount that could have been undertaken was undertaken. Every recount confirmed the results,” Biden said.
But he added that Republicans are threatening the sanctity of this year’s results through voter intimidation and denialism, noting how many GOP candidates are refusing to say whether they’ll accept the results if they lose. He asked Americans to help preserve democracy by voting.
“We’ll have our differences,” Biden said. “But there’s something else at stake, democracy itself.”
In response to the speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted that the president was “desperate to change the subject from inflation, crime, and open borders.”
“Now he’s claiming that democracy only works if his party wins. … Americans aren’t buying it,” McConnell added.
We'll find out exactly what Americans think after next Tuesday.
Why US partisan gridlock might be good for the economy, stupid
Thirty years ago, Democratic strategist James Carville had a simple message to get Americans to vote for Bill Clinton: "It's the economy, stupid."
Rather than ideology, Carville believed most voters picked candidates over their perceived ability to handle bread-and-butter economic issues. By putting money in their wallets, you're more likely to get votes from independents and moderates — crucial for winning tight state races.
Yet, in 2022 it's Republicans who are channeling their inner Carville to woo voters for a midterm election in which the GOP is favored to win control of the House, and perhaps the Senate too.
Why? Recent polling shows that with US inflation at its highest level since the early 1980s, the economy is the most important electoral issue for registered Republicans and independents, with abortion taking the top spot for Democrats. And the economy is priority No. 1 for all voters as a whole.
On average, voters also trust Republicans more in running the economy. The GOP claims to be the party of fiscal responsibility vs. the spendthrift Democrats, who push back pointing to how the national debt ballooned under the Trump administration.
Republicans blame inflation on Dems for spending too much on President Joe Biden’s signature legislative accomplishments: the American Rescue Plan and, to a lesser extent, CHIPS and the Inflation Reduction Act, the misnomer for Biden’s climate bill. The president, for his part, has stopped pinning sky-high prices on Vladimir Putin and is now pitching to voters that recession fears might be overblown after the US economy grew a better-than-expected 2.6% from July to September after two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.
What can Biden do to tame inflation and gas prices? In short, not much. Dems have little appetite to cut spending or raise taxes while they’re still running Congress.
Now that it’s no longer “transitory” and the inflation cat is out of the bag, the administration has passed the ball to the Federal Reserve, which is trying to cool down the economy by raising interest rates. Meanwhile, releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has brought down gas prices to under $4 a gallon from $5 just a few months ago.
However, Dems are "far more likely to increase spending in the lame-duck session of Congress to compensate for the reduced purchasing power the federal government is seeing due to inflation," Eurasia Group's US Managing Director Jon Lieber says on US Politics In 60 Seconds. That demonstrates "how important it is that the Fed be given the political independence to ensure price stability, even if it means job losses,” he adds.
And what might a Republican-led House do? Also not much, especially if Democrats keep the Senate. That’ll stop the most partisan legislation from reaching Biden’s desk (not to mention that the president would veto it anyway).
Still, the GOP has hinted at picking a fight over the debt limit when America hits it about a year from now. When the US Treasury needs to boost the amount of money it can borrow to keep paying its bills, Republicans might use the threat of default — and the economic catastrophe it would trigger — as leverage for Dems to accept painful cuts on entitlements like Social Security or Medicare. But that strategy backfired in 2013 — and could be a shot in the foot for a party that hopes to win the White House in two years.
Thought bubble: Who wins in a deadlocked Congress on economic matters after the midterms? The Fed. If the two main parties can't agree on anything, they also won't be able to meddle in the central bank's efforts to rein in inflation. And less politics is exactly what the Fed needs to do its job.Overturning a US election ain't that easy
With Midterm Matters, we are counting down to the US midterm elections on Nov. 8 by separating the signal from the noise on election-related news.
A leading concern for many American voters on the left is that many candidates on next Tuesday’s ballots say the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. That’s not just because they find that opinion indefensible and willfully dumb; it’s because some of these candidates are running for offices that give them access to the processes by which future elections will be held and votes counted.
Noise: The stats are out there. A study by FiveThirtyEight found nearly 200 office seekers “fully deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election.” More than 60 others have publicly raised questions about it, and many more refuse to say what they believe.
These aren’t fringe candidates. FiveThirtyEight’s 2022 midterm election forecast says “116 election deniers and eight election doubters have at least a 95% chance of winning” seats in the US House of Representatives.
At the state level, where presidential elections are conducted, seven election deniers are running for attorney general and seven more for secretary of state. These are the officials who oversee election administration in most states. A secretary of state can refuse to certify an election. A governor can try to submit electoral votes that favor his party’s candidate, and senators and representatives of that party could then vote to count those fake electoral votes.
Signal: These are serious concerns, and the candidacies of election deniers bear close watch. But we shouldn’t oversimplify the processes by which elections are conducted and votes are counted and reported.
There are many people involved in oversight of each state’s elections, and disputed results can be resolved in court — as all of former President Donald Trump’s charges of fraud in the last election were resolved. We should also not assume that every candidate who cries fraud to win votes today will actively seek to overturn elections tomorrow.
The upshot: The election of candidates who cried fraud at the last election is a serious issue we’ll be tracking for the foreseeable future. But no one should pretend it will be easy for anyone to overturn the result of an American election.
The Graphic Truth: Don't bet on it
Will bookies be better than pollsters at predicting the results of the upcoming US midterm elections? We'll find out soon enough, but what we do know now is that bettors give the GOP better odds of both retaking the House and winning back control of the Senate. Oddly for a country crazy about sports betting, political gambling in America remains illegal for US citizens — although startup Kalshi is leading the charge for legalization. We compare how election forecasters and bookies view the chances of Democrats keeping the Senate.
Check out more coverage of the US midterms here.
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