Democrats were basking in a midterm defeat that felt like a big win Wednesday after an electoral all-nighter that remained on track to buck the modern-day U.S. trend of voters punishing the party in the White House.
President Joe Biden was making phone calls and texting congratulations to a number of Democratic winners and still-to-be-declared leaders before an afternoon news conference, a victory lap few would have predicted 24 hours earlier.
“That is our spirit: ordinary folks who accomplished extraordinary things while facing seemingly impossible odds,” said newly re-elected Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“Michigan’s future is bright, and we’re about to step on the accelerator.”
The odds of Democrats emerging from the 2022 midterms in triumph weren’t exactly impossible, but they were certainly long, given Biden’s unpopularity and the winds of economic uncertainty that were filling Republican sails.
Whitmer’s win was one of the few outcomes with a direct impact on Canada: the Democrat and staunch Biden ally has been — and will remain — the driving force behind the effort to shut down Canada’s cross-border Line 5 pipeline.
Whitmer narrowly bested Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, a Donald Trump-endorsed steel industry insider-turned-conservative commentator, who tried to use Canada’s defence of Line 5 against her Democratic rival.
Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “the most radical environmentalist in the entire world,” is opposed to shutting down the pipeline, Dixon said during her debate with Whitmer last month.
But as the end grew nearer — it was still not clear at midday Wednesday how the balance of power on Capitol Hill would shake out — what was obvious to most political experts was that the Republicans had squandered a golden opportunity.
“In recent memory, the Republican performance last night was the most epic example I can think of, of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” said Mac McCorkle, a public policy professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C.
“It’s almost inexplicable that the Republicans did not do better, except for maybe one word: Trump.”
Indeed, a number of Trump-endorsed Senate candidates in key battleground states went down to defeat, notably in Pennsylvania, where TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz conceded defeat to John Fetterman, the state’s hoodie-clad lieutenant governor.
Others prevailed, however, including venture capitalist and “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance in Ohio and congressman Ted Budd in North Carolina. In Nevada, Adam Laxalt was nursing a three-point lead over incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
It took until mid-afternoon eastern time Wednesday for Republican Sen. Ron Johnson to be declared the winner in Wisconsin, edging out up-and-comer Mandela Barnes, another state lieutenant governor, by fewer than 30,000 votes.
That left the GOP just two seats away from wresting control of the Senate from the Democrats, with only Nevada, Arizona and Georgia still to be settled.
In the latter case, it will be a while.
Controversial former NFL star Herschel Walker, a close friend of Trump’s, is narrowly trailing incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock. But the leader failed to reach the 50 per cent vote threshold, sending the pair to a Dec. 6 run-off.
But perhaps the worst news of all for Trump was in his beloved state of Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis romped to a 20-point win over Democratic rival Charlie Crist — a substantial platform from which to launch a bid for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Exit polls suggested that as many as three in 10 voters cast their ballots in House races “as an expression of opposition to Donald Trump,” said Asher Hildebrand, one of McCorkle’s colleagues at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
“That, combined with Ron DeSantis’s very strong showing in the Florida governor’s race, is probably going to increase pressure among Republican elites to find another standard-bearer in 2024.”
Florida was just one of 506 gubernatorial, House and Senate races that came to fruition Tuesday in a midterm showdown that pollsters and pundits had expected to be a bruising indictment of Biden’s administration.
Hildebrand acknowledged being one of the pundits who initially questioned the Democratic strategy of pivoting late in the race to portray many of the Republican candidates as election deniers who would pose a threat to American democracy.
In the end, it’s a strategy that appears to have paid off, he said.
“President Biden’s decision to campaign on the issue, which was very much criticized by me at the time, was actually smart politics,” Hildebrand said. “Generic appeals to the importance of democracy, and the importance of protecting it, were effective with voters.”
Not all of them went down to defeat, however.
In Arizona, former news anchor Kari Lake, who has leaned heavily into Trump’s brand of scorched-earth, media-bashing politics, seized on reports of faulty voting machines to resurrect the spectre of imagined electoral fraud.
Election officials in the state insisted that the technical problems, which affected about 20 per cent of the machines in populous Maricopa County, merely delayed the counting process and did not prevent anyone from casting a ballot.
But that didn’t stop Lake from spoiling for a fight.
“When we win, first line of action is to restore honesty to Arizona elections,” Lake told supporters as she trailed Democrat Katie Hobbs, the state’s top election official, by a margin of 12 percentage points with half of the polls reporting.
“When we win — and I think it will be within hours — we will declare victory and we will get to work turning this around — no more incompetency and no more corruption in Arizona elections.”
Since then, Lake has indeed closed the gap with Hobbs, pulling to within less than 12,000 votes with two-thirds of polls reporting, a margin of less than a single percentage point.
If the Republicans take control of the House, presumptive Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be presiding over a smaller caucus than he might have hoped, giving a taller pedestal to some of the party’s more extremist elements.
That’s sure to complicate life in Congress, where Republicans have already vowed to make things as difficult for Biden over the next two years as Democrats did for Trump.
And that perception of gridlock and chaos may, in the end, be the part of the midterms that impacts Canada the most, said Eric Miller, president of the D.C.-based Rideau Potomac Strategy Group.
“Even if the blowout is not as big as one thought it would be, you now have a situation where the endless commentary in Canada — how the U.S. is heading for dissolution, or a civil war, or can’t be trusted, and so on — is only going to get amplified,” Miller said.
“The system begins to not function the way it should, there is no ability to deal with the big picture problems, there’s no ability to pursue serious bilateral relationships.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9. 2022.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
