The following stories are examples of this week's Election Roundup of 43 down ticket stories covering Sunday 9/30 through Saturday 10/6.
(CA-22) Fresno BEE recommends Andrew Janz by ybruti
Today, in a hard-hitting editorial on-line For the good of the 22nd District and the nation, the choice is clear: Andrew Janz, the Fresno Bee did something it hasn’t done since before 2002 — it is recommending a candidate for Congress “who is not Devin Nunes.” The editorial will be in the print version tomorrow.
The Bee says Janz will attend to the issues in his district and seek bipartisanship in Washington, D.C. For example, Janz wants to work with Republicans to develop a new source of water for Valley farms. While Nunes has done some work on water issues….
Nunes has also alienated Democratic representatives with his never-ending name-calling of environmentalists as leftists, socialists, even Communists. With no ground left for compromise, little has been accomplished. Janz will have a better chance of dealing with Democrat peers from elsewhere in the state on the water issue. Nothing will happen without compromise. (More Nunes here and here)
(GA-Gov) Brian Kemp Campaigns at Site of Infamous Lynching by Cole The Philosopher
On April 23, 1899, Sam Hose was tortured, filleted, and burned in front of an audience of 2,000 people a mile from my house in Newnan, Georgia. This was not an unknown event. The Atlanta Constitution (one of the fore-runners to today’s Atlanta Journal and Constitution) covered the story relentlessly- itself stoking the passions of the towns-people. Then, the mob, whipped into a furor, cut off this man’s body parts to keep as trophies or to sell. They tied him to a pine sapling, and lit him afire, on a Sunday afternoon while the entire town watched. Nothing was left of this man. “Small pieces of bone sold for 25 cents and a bit of liver crisply cooked sold for 10 cents.” Even the charred stake was taken as a trophy. On a tree pinned nearby was the placard “We must protect our Southern women.” This was the first of three lynchings that day by this mob.
Today, October 2nd, 2018, Brian Kemp, Georgia’s candidate for governor , campaigns on this very spot. He is famous for his commercial where he promises to round up “illegals” in his pickup truck. Of course, he may say this is a joke, but the intent is still there. The purpose of such commercials and rhetoric is to create the conditions for mob action. Kemp may be joking about rounding up “illegals,” but Citizen’s Militias may have different plans. Already, one Kemp Supporter has spewed all over Facebook about how he is going to become a Citizen Deputy and take it upon himself to arrest “illegals” until they can produce ID or ICE picks them up. These are the passions being whipped up in our anti-immigrant fervor. These passions are being whipped up in a land rich in history of mob violence and trees bearing strange fruit.
(TX-Gen) Voter Registration Boom: something is going on in Texas by Davey1107
Probably the best registration metric to use if we want to try to gauge enthusiasm (given the limited data the Texas SoS provides), we probably want to first look at the percent of voting age residents who registered to vote. As with most state, this figure ebbs and flows as elections approach. Presidential years tend to encourage more eligible residents to register than midterm years. But let’s look at past elections:
Percent of VAP (voting age population) registered: 2004: 81.5% — 2006: 78.5% — 2008: 76.5% — 2010: 71.0% — 2012: 74.6% — 2014: 74.2% — 2016: 78.2%
Now: 78.4% (with registrations streaming in)
This seems notable. The Houston Chronicle reports that over 400,000 new registrations came in between March and the state primaries, and election officials are saying that they are buried in registration requests as the deadline approaches. They should be on track to have the highest levels of registered voters since 2004 (when a favored son and no-longer-the-worst-President was on the ballot).
(More Texas here and here.)
Sunday 9/30 - Saturday 10/6
Stories: (43)
Senate: (5) posts, (3) states
House: (14) posts (9) states (10) districts
State and more: (16)
Polls: (8)
Rescues since 2006 (13,135)
Welcome to Election Roundup, formerly known as Election Diary Rescue. Look for this down ticket collection every Monday through the election. The Roundup team has compiled and linked down ticket stories since 2006. Archives
Election Roundup gives down ticket stories a second chance for exposure and hopefully encourages people to write about contests that interest them, knowing their stories from the previous week will be listed every Monday. The ER team scans every DK post and republishes applicable stories to our Election Diary Rescues list which only contains down ticket work. We have been republishing since early this year so there is a wealth of writing there, please enjoy.
Format and Tags
Writers can help the ER team and readers by identifying the race in the beginning of the title like this:
(NY-Sen) (FL-14) (GA-Gov) (AZ-StSen) (MN-StHs-07). Readers will be scanning a list of stories and this standard method of quick identification is really helpful.
This edition of Election Roundup was made possible by the following: eeff, Jax Dem,
Joieau, zentrainer, turbonerd and randallt.
Click below for the collection, thank you for reading and writing!