https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2022/10/25/iowa-poll-attorney-general-election-tom-miller-brenna-bird-2022/69563197007/

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller leads challenger Brenna Bird by 16 percentage points among likely voters, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.

Forty-nine percent of likely voters say they would vote for Miller, a Democrat, compared with 33% who choose Bird, a Republican. Another 5% say they would vote for someone else, 7% say they would not vote and 6% are not sure.

Miller is the longest-serving attorney general in the country and is seeking an 11th term this year. He is running on a message that he has used the law to serve ordinary Iowans through consumer protection efforts and lawsuits against opioid manufacturers.

The former governor stacked New York’s highest court with conservatives who hijacked the state’s redistricting process.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/2022-midterms-new-york-republicans-cuomo-maloney.html

A year ago, Democrats were wise to the possibility that the midterms might get ugly, but they had high hopes for New York. Red states across the country were redrawing voting districts to a new extreme, shoring up congressional advantages for their party. New York, it seemed, could do the same for Democrats—make the state even bluer, a competitive rejoinder to a redistricting cycle that seemed certain to play to Republicans’ advantage.

The year 2021 marked the first time in a century that the New York Democrats had total control of state government, giving them unimpeded power in redistricting. Party leaders “optimistically predicted that new district lines could safeguard Democrats and imperil as many as five Republican seats,” noted the New York Times. Rumors circulated that Dems could lock in as much as a 23 to 3 advantage. Today, all of that seems like a far-off fantasy.

A startling nine of New York’s 26 congressional seats are currently in play for the GOP; party leaders are flocking to the state to help campaign for Democrats holding on by a thread. Jill Biden announced Thursday that she would campaign for one such Democrat, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who opted to run in an easier, bluer district and was put in charge of House Democrats’ entire national reelection apparatus, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He’s now on the ropes.

What the hell happened here? And who’s to blame?

Luckily, there’s an easy answer for the last question: Look no further than erstwhile Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo.

If Cuomo is known for anything beyond his miscreant behavior in office, it should be for his willingness to abet the state’s conservative forces for his personal gain, often to his own party’s disadvantage. Nowhere was this more obvious than his judicial appointments, where Cuomo routinely elevated conservative appointees—gleefully scoring points against his progressive opponents in Albany and New York City by moving the judicial branch rapidly to the right.

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