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Hot mic catches Schumer delivering Biden some uncomfortable truth bombs

October 28, 2022 | | Print Article

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was caught on a hot mic Thursday delivering some uncomfortable truth bombs to President Joe Biden.

Speaking to the president on the tarmac at Hancock International Airport in upstate New York, Schumer was heard saying Democrats were “in danger” of losing a seat.

Which seat? It’s unclear.

Listen:

“It looks like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania as of today, so that’s good. … We’re picking up steam in Nevada,” Schumer continued, sharing a little bit of potentially good news.

Though FYI, the good news was off the mark, particularly regarding Pennsylvania, where Republican Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz trounced Democrat nominee John Fetterman in a debate earlier this week:

Democrats have nevertheless been publicly portraying the Fetterman/Oz debate as a win.

“Following the debate between Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Republican nominee Mehmet Oz on Tuesday, Democrats projected confidence that the party could still claim the highly competitive seat,” according to Politico.

But privately, it’s a different matter.

“[I]n private, many within the party were fretting that Fetterman’s health struggles — which were on clear display in the debate as he struggled to communicate following a stroke — could cost Democrats a key seat in maintaining their majority,” Politico reported Thursday.

Continuing his remarks to the president Thursday, Schumer said, “The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia. It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker. … But our early turnout in Georgia, huge. Huge.”

He was right about Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, a Republican, performing better and better these days.

But he was wrong to assume that the “early turnout” vote being seen in Georgia is a boon for Democrats:

Indeed, research shows that early voting tends to benefit Republicans and penalize Democrats.

“The type of voter who takes advantage of early voting – older, whiter, and wealthier – is already likely to vote, and more likely to vote Republican,” a group of researchers from the London School of Economics reported in 2018.

“Our findings confirm that early voting on its own has a negative and statistically significant effect on Democratic vote share in all three presidential elections we analyzed. The availability of early voting in isolation raises the Republican vote by about six percentage points,” the researchers added.

Schumer’s comments come as Republicans continue to gain ground in House and Senate races nationwide.

The comments also come as Republicans are gaining ground in the generic ballot. While the ballot originally had Republicans up by over 4 percentage points, their advantage disappeared practically overnight after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

But in the months since, however, Republicans have slowly regained their advantage, to the point that it was up to 2.3 percentage points as of Friday morning, according to data maintained by the polling aggregator RealClearPolitics.

(Source: RealClearPolitics)

According to some pollsters, Republicans are now projected to take both the House and Senate, as a number of races that were originally labeled “Lean Democrat” have since been relabeled a “Toss Up.”

Take the race in Arizona, where GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters is slowly catching up to Democrat nominee Mark Kelly because of a whole host of relevant factors.

“Voters’ dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s job performance and a strong campaign from gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake have helped Masters close most of the gap with Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. What we once described as a ‘Lean Democratic’ race in POLITICO’s Election Forecast is now a ‘Toss Up,’ meaning neither Kelly nor Masters has a significant advantage in the contest,” Politico reported Thursday.

In fact, this may have been the very seat Schumer had referenced in his hot mic remarks to the president.

A number of other races — some of them gubernatorial races — have also been relabeled a “toss-up” in recent days and weeks:

Vivek Saxena
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