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US Senate Tag

I'd say I can see Sen. Kamala Harris's (D-CA) 2020 presidential aspirations go down the drain, but something tells me this won't affect her. During the confirmation hearing for Ronald Vitello, the acting ICE director, to become the permanent director, Harris asked him if he sees any parallels between ICE and the KKK after she cited a tweet he sent in 2015 where he claimed "the Democrat Party was comparable to a 'liberal-cratic' or 'neo-Klanist' entity."

As the mandatory recount kicks off in Florida, insults and accusations fly between Democrats and Republicans. As of Sunday morning, Governor Rick Scott (R) leads Senator Bill Nelson (D) by 12,562 votes (by 0.15%) in the Senate race.  Representative Ron DeSantis (R) leads Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum by 33,684 votes (by  0.41%)) in the gubernatorial race.

Attorneys for Democrat candidate for Florida governor Andrew Gillum and Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) objected Saturday to the exclusion of a vote by a non-citizen. Despite their objections, the vote was not counted, and the Nelson campaign has disavowed their own attorney, claiming that the attorney "was not authorized" to make such a decision and iterating that "non-citizens cannot vote in U.S. elections.”

From joy and relief to oh-em-gee. Florida's Republican Secretary of State has been forced to order a recount of Tuesday's election results for both the Senate and the gubernatorial races.  The recount is mandatory and automatically triggered when the vote margin is less than 0.5%, as it has become since initial results were announced. The recount results are due by 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 15th, 2018.  If there is a margin of less than 0.25% following this recount, there will be a second recount, this time by hand. The results of this second recount (which seems likely in the Senate race since the margin is already less than 0.25%) will be due three days later, on the 18th.

It's hard to believe, but the midterm election is less than two weeks away.  This is a high-stakes midterm election, the likes of which in terms of national import we've probably not seen since the 1994 or 2010 midterms.  Both Democrats and Republicans are keenly aware of the stakes, and there have been more than a few developments over the past few days that are worth noting. We have separate READER POLLS as to whether Republicans can hold the House and Senate.

Earlier this week, James O'Keefe's Project Veritas revealed that Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) conceals her actual position on issues such as gun control in order to get elected. McCaskill is now demanding that state Attorney General Josh Hawley open an investigation into O'Keefe's investigative journalism, charging that Project Veritas engaged in "fraud" under Missouri's Merchandising Practices Act.

I wonder if the Democrats will react the same way they did when Christine Blasey Ford accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. It looks like the Democrats have the same situation on their hands because Rep. Jim Renacci (R-OH), the man running against incumbent Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, said that "multiple women" have told him that Brown allegedly sexually assaulted them in the late 1980s.

Fresh off his victory in confirming Brett Kavanaugh, Mitch McConnell forced stalling Democrats to agree to 15 more federal judicial confirmations in exchange for putting the Senate in recess so vulnerable Democrats could return home to campaign.

Midterm elections are only a few weeks away so we're watching the polls closer each day. I found that polls for the Senate races in Missouri, Arizona, North Dakota, and Tennessee have the Republican candidates in the lead. Democrat incumbent Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is only down a point, but Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally slightly raised her lead as she tries to take over retiring Sen. Jeff Flake's seat.

Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, 50-48. He has been sworn in, with a ceremonial swearing in likely Monday. He will take the bench Tuesday.