Virginia GOP Fundraising: Badly Beaten & On the Brink

WASHINGTON – Virginian’s midyear financial reports show the Republican Party and GOP candidates in full meltdown mode – on the brink of bankruptcy and badly beaten by their Democratic opponents.

In June, Democratic General Assembly candidates raised about $3.5 million – $1.1 million more than Republican candidates, who currently control both legislative chambers.

Looking at the caucus numbers, the divide widens more. The Democratic caucuses raised nearly $2 million, almost $1 million more than their Republican counterparts, in the second quarter.

The situation is direr for the GOP at the state party level. Democrats raised nearly $700,000 in the second quarter, while Republicans raised just $36,385 into their state account and closed out the month with less than $2,000 in the bank.

“A 20-year-old Toyota Camry with 95,000 miles on it is literally worth more than the Republican Party of Virginia today,” said Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee press secretary Matt Harringer.

“While we’re incredibly proud of the giant fundraising advantage our Democratic candidates have over Republicans, it’s the grassroots numbers we’re most excited about,” Harringer added. “Republican candidates are failing to attract any substantial support from real Virginians because they’ve sworn loyalty to Donald Trump and sold out to the gun lobby – and it’s going to cost them control of the General Assembly this November. ”



https://bluevirginia.us/2019/07/virginia-gop-fundraising-badly-beaten-on-the-brink

MS-GOV: Second Candidate Also Won't Meet Alone With Women

Just days after state Rep. Robert Foster, R-Hernando, said he wouldn’t be alone with a woman not his wife, even in a professional context, a second Republican candidate for governor has said he, too, follows what’s known as the “the Billy Graham rule.”

On Monday, after the Republican Women’s Candidate Forum in Jackson, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. told Mississippi Today that he would not be alone with a woman who isn’t his wife, even in a personal or professional context.

“I just think it’s common sense. I just think in this day and time, appearances are important and transparency’s important, and people need to have the comfort of what’s going on in government between employees and people. And there’s a lot of social issues out there about that. My goal is to not make it an issue so that everyone’s comfortable with the surroundings and we can go about our business,” Waller, 67, said.

Last week, Foster ignited a national firestorm after he refused a request from this reporter to spend a day riding along with him on the campaign trail, unless this reporter brought along a male colleague.



https://mississippitoday.org/2019/07/15/waller-gop-guv-hopeful-and-ex-chief-justice-cites-common-sense-in-also-not-meeting-with-women-alone/

Freshmen Dems Fortify House Advantage With Massive Q2s

Swing-seat freshman Democrats raised a collective $24 million in the second quarter of 2019, a staggering sum that will provide an early fortification for key House battlegrounds and complicate Republicans’ attempts to reclaim the majority.

It’s the latest sign that the cash influx that boosted dozens of Democratic candidates to victory last November isn’t dissipating, even with the next election still more than a year away and with some two dozen presidential candidates competing for donations.

In total, 33 freshman Democrats raised at least $500,000 from April to June, more than twice the number who crossed that threshold in the first quarter, according to National Journal analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. And 23 of them began July with $900,000 or more in the bank.

"Freshmen raising such a big amount so quickly—that causes real concern," said Doug Heye, a veteran GOP strategist. "These are some massive numbers that say this is going to be a fully funded campaign."

For comparison, just five of the 30 Republican incumbents who lost to Democrats last cycle raised more than half a million in the second quarter of 2017.

Republicans described the totals as an alarming sign of the value of the massive donor databases that Democratic candidates amassed in 2018. The party is still publicly grappling with how to match its opponent’s ability to harness grassroots donors, which has become especially problematic because the GOP’s path back runs through the most expensive media markets in the country.

About a dozen freshman Democrats raised $700,000 or more last quarter, many of them from districts that fall in those markets. The top battleground fundraisers: Reps. Katie Porter, Harley Rouda, Josh Harder, and Katie Hill of California; Max Rose of New York; Haley Stevens and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan; Sean Casten and Lauren Underwood of Illinois; and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was the highest freshman fundraiser with $1.2 million.)



https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/680169?unlock=7374M4I508C3PZUD

Fmr Justice John Paul Stevens dead at 99

News flash via CNN.

Kellyanne Conway asks reporter where his ancestors came from.

Conway Calls Congresswomen 'Dark Underbelly' of U.S.

Kellyanne Conway escalated attacks on the four congresswomen who have been the subject of President Trump’s racist tweets, telling Fox News that they represent a “dark underbelly” of the country.

Said Conway: “What the president is doing is, we are tired — sick and tired — of many people in this country. Forget these four. They represent a dark underbelly of people in this country of people who are not respecting our troops, are not giving them the resources and the respect that they deserve.”



https://politicalwire.com/2019/07/16/conway-calls-congresswomen-the-dark-underbelly/

Virginia is now election battleground in fight over gun laws

Deep-pocketed interest groups and activists on both sides of the long-running fight over gun laws are gearing up for a major clash in Virginia, now a key election battleground in the issue after Republicans on Tuesday adjourned a special legislative session called by the governor to consider gun-control measures in the wake of a mass shooting.

The state's off-year election will be closely watched because Virginia is the only state where control of the Legislature is up for grabs in 2019. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority.

GOP lawmakers abruptly ended the session after less than two hours and postponed any movement on gun laws until after the November election. Democrats and gun-control advocates vowed to force them from office.

"If these 'leaders' won't enact solutions that their own constituents are demanding, then we're going to fight tooth and nail for representatives who will," Kris Brown, president of the Brady gun-control group, said in a statement.

Scores of gun-control advocates gathered Tuesday outside the Capitol, jeering at Republicans like House Speaker Kirk Cox. Meanwhile, hundreds of gun-rights supporters filed through a legislative office building to meet with lawmakers and in a show of force against stricter gun laws.

National Rifle Association spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen called it "deja vu in Virginia."

"The gun control lobby says this every election cycle, and time and time again the hundreds of thousands of Virginians who support their fundamental right to self-defense go to the polls," she said. "...This year the gun control lobby is screaming louder than ever in an effort to distract voters" from scandals involving top Democrats.



https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/virginia-now-election-battleground-fight-gun-laws-64233840

Tweet of the Day

href="https://twitter.com/JacksonPercy4/status/1150844684593328128

Amid 'race card' allegations, Pelosi teaches Ocasio-Cortez a math lesson

WASHINGTON — As they feud publicly, freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is slowly learning a painful lesson about American politics at the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Power is about numbers.

Pelosi has them and Ocasio-Cortez does not.

The more Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., lashes out over the limits of her own influence, the more obvious those limits become and the more the imbalance tilts in the direction of Pelosi, D-Calif. After all, their fellow politicians are nothing if not hypersensitive to even the slightest shifts in the winds of power.

Now, they're freely dunking on Ocasio-Cortez and her allies in the wake of her not-so-veiled allegation that Pelosi is discriminating against her clique, known as "The Squad," because of their lack of seniority, their gender and their skin color.

The idea struck much of Washington as so ridiculous that the list of Pelosi's defenders included not only a legion of congressional Democrats but also Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and President Donald Trump.

"One thing we will not tolerate," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said, "is using the race question, otherwise known as the race card, on any member — especially a member who has an enviable record." If Pelosi had a problem on race, Norton added, "the whole world would know it."

Norton, 82, knows a thing or two about the obstacles young women of color face in society and politics: she attended segregated schools here, helped organize the 1963 civil rights march on Washington and served successively as the head of New York City's human rights commission and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Ocasio-Cortez said Friday that it is "stupidly untrue" to say she played the "race card" against Pelosi.

She is surely right about one thing: Pelosi has made an example out of The Squad — Ocasio-Cortez, along with Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Rashida Talib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — and helped them isolate themselves from the rest of the Democratic caucus as a party of four.

The reality is that The Squad’s influence in American politics is more than four votes in the House — but less than its members seem to think.





https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/amid-race-card-allegations-pelosi-teaches-ocasio-cortez-math-lesson-n1029536?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma

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