Fox News is reporting that early voting numbers could spell trouble for Republicans heading into the midterms, but it also might fire up conservatives, especially in the West, where Democrats are hoping to make big gains.
The report appears based on what is happening in Nevada, where Fox says early voting results “indicate a strong Democratic showing across the board.” Democrats are voting early in Nevada’s Washoe County, which encompasses Reno. The report has once again raised the specter of a “blue wave” that could wrest control of Capitol Hill, putting Nancy Pelosi back in as Speaker of the House and opening the door for everything from reversing tax cuts, which she called “crumbs” while middle class recipients considered them financial shots in the arm.
Pelosi also called the tax cuts “unpatriotic,” according to Fox Business. She boasted Monday that if the election were held now, Democrats would win the House, according to the Washington Times.
But this pre-election rhetoric just might stir Republican voters to head to the polls, or simply return their mail-in ballots out in Washington State. Those ballots began arriving late last week and Second Amendment activists are returning them in quick order because of a gun control initiative on that state’s ballot.
Initiative 1639 is the only gun control measure on a ballot anywhere in the United States this fall. It would make Washington gun laws among the most restrictive in the nation. The fight has stirred up a vigorous grassroots campaign that is operating on less than ten percent of the total already spent by the gun prohibition lobbying group behind the measure.
Across the country, many congressional seats are up for grabs due to retirements, and many pundits are looking for the House to change hands. It’s not gun control but health care that appears to be a dominant issue among voters this year, according to a new Rasmussen survey.
According to Rasmussen, 87 percent of likely voters “consider health care at least somewhat important to their vote” and 55 percent consider it very important.
“The biggest gripe for many Americans when it comes to health care is cost,” Rasmussen learned, “and most voters (56%) think more free market competition between insurance companies will do more to reduce health care costs than more government regulation. Twenty-nine percent (29%) think more government regulation will do a better job of reducing costs, but another 15% are undecided.”
If the House does change hands, in addition to the tax cuts being at risk, there could be new gun control legislation, and the door could be opened to an attempt to impeach the president and remove Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court, some conservatives fear.
However, Kavanaugh’s treatment by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee could still bring a wave of conservative voting by people who were angered by the spectacle.
