CAPITOL VIEW
By Pat Nolan, NEWSCHANNEL5 Political Analyst
November 11, 2022
INSIDE POLITICS TAKES AN IN DEPTH LOOK AT THE IMPACTS OF THE MID TERM ELECTION; MY THOUGHTS ON THE MIDTERMS IN TENNESSEE; GOP PRIORITIES; NATIONAL MID TERM THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS; WHEN YOU ARE PART OF THE STORY; MAYOR COOPER’S MAJOR PROJECTS STACKING UP
INSIDE POLITICS TAKES AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE IMPACTS OF THE MID TERM ELECTION
The 2022 mid-term elections are over.
The voters have spoken, although we may not know what they said in every race for a few days, or even a week or so.
But what did they say in Tennessee and across the country?
To help figure that out, our guest on INSIDE POLITICS this week is political analyst Lisa Quigley, a former top aide to retiring Nashville congressman Jim Cooper.
Lisa also works with Tusk Philanthropies, a non-profit organization working on hunger issues.
It was great working Lisa on Tuesday night during our election coverage here on NEWSCHANNEL5.
We thank her for joining us again on INSIDE POLITICS.
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MY THOUGHTS ON THE MIDTERMS IN TENNESSEE
Tennessee has been and remains a deep-red Republican state.
That was true for GOP candidates from the top of the ballot to the bottom Tuesday night, except when they were running in Nashville and Memphis.
Governor Bill Lee was easily re-elected. That continues a now 40 -year tradition of Tennessee governors, both Republicans and Democrats, winning a second four-year term by landslide margins.
Early in the evening, the returns had the Governor winning by a record percentage of over 70%. That went down to the mid-60s in the final returns. In his victory speech, Governor Lee said the voters of the state like what he’s been doing. With a landslide 65% majority vote, it is hard to argue he doesn’t have a voter mandate to begin his second four years.
Governor Lee got over 1.1 million votes, the second most ever for a re-elected Tennessee governor. Phil Bredesen got over 1.2 million 16 years ago. But Governor Lee did not match the re-election record of his two immediate predecessors, Governors Bredesen and Bill Haslam. They carried all 95 counties to win a second four-year term. Governor Lee carried 93 counties but was soundly beaten by Democratic candidate Dr. Jason Martin in the state’s two largest counties Davidson and Shelby.
In contrast to what happened in Nashville and Memphis, there were numerous counties across the state where Governor Lee defeated Dr. Martin in with close to, or more than, 80% of the vote. Democrats have not won a statewide race in 16 years. When and what does the party need to do to be more competitive?
The Republican Super Majority will be back stronger than ever when lawmakers return to Nashville in January. The GOP will control 75 off the 99 seats in the state House and 27 out of 33 seats in the State Senate. And they did it somewhat on cruise control.
Out of the 116 seats on the ballot, well more than half, 62 were uncontested, with only one candidate running. That included 34 GOP House seats and 6 uncontested Republican Senate seats. The Democrats had 18 uncontested contests, 17 in the House and 1 in the Senate. The Republican uncontested races were all over the state, especially in Upper East Tennessee and in rural West and Middle Tennessee. All the uncontested Democratic seats were in Davidson and Shelby Counties.
For the Democrats, the same kind of “win big” in Davidson County, then lose big in other counties (except Shelby) also occurred in the three congressional districts involving Nashville. State Senator Heidi Campbell ran an aggressive campaign, outraising and outspending her Republican opponent. She beat Andy Ogles 53,366 votes to 34,176 in Nashville. But she decisively lost all the other counties in the 5th District. At one point, when the Davidson County vote was added (an hour and a half after the polls closed at 7 PM) she cut the margin to 6 points. But when all the vote was counted she lost by about 13 points, or just a few points more than former President Donald Trump won the same precincts in 2020, if that area had been a congressional district. Trump endorsed Ogles during the fall campaign.
All this is exactly the way the Republican Super Majority planned it when they divided Nashville into three separate congressional districts. The same voting pattern happened in the new 6th and 7th congressional districts. Democrat Randall Cooper beat 6th District incumbent John Rose 32,738 votes to 12,176 in Davidson County. Democrat Odessa Kelly defeated 7th District incumbent Mark Green 29,945 to 10,286. But both Democratic candidates got creamed in all the other counties in the two districts.
Both incumbents John Rose and Dr. Mark Green won re-election two years ago with about 70% of the vote. In their new districts, including portions of Nashville, their winning percentages were lower…Rose at 66% and Green at 60%. Should they be a little concerned for 2024, a presidential year, when there is historically a much larger voter turnout, especially of Democrats in Nashville? Should Congressman-elect Andy Ogles be concerned about how much larger the Davidson County vote in his district might be in 2024? During the campaign, Ogles touted the title of being America’s most conservative mayor. On Election Night he seemed to be doubling down to win the title of most conservative in Congress.
Congressman Green has been critical of the GOP congressional redistricting, especially since he lost Williamson County. With Kelly garnering just under 40% (38.3%) of the vote, is that why Congressman Green ran an aggressive schedule of TV spots in the last weeks of the campaign? Or is he preparing to run for Governor in 4 years?
Regardless of how demographics in these districts may change in the next decade, all three of the winners Tuesday night won by landslide amounts, and for the first time in Nashville history, none of the city’s congressional representatives will live in the Capitol City just as current 5th District Congressman Jim Cooper predicted when he looked at the new districts and decided to retire.
In looking at these starkly different vote totals in Memphis and Nashville as compared to the rest of the state, is it correct to say that, while they are all Tennesseans, they live on different political planets, if not different universes?
GOP PRIORITIES
Both Governor Lee and the Republican Super Majority in the Legislature are already talking about their priorities for the next term and the next session of General Assembly.
Of course, Governor Lee plans to do more of the same, although in the area of education, I didn’t hear him specifically mention educational scholarships (vouchers) or charter schools. Strange?
He does say infrastructure will be a focus. I have talked with some top officials on the Lee team and they told me the greatest challenge facing our state is infrastructure, roads and traffic, especially for our future economic development.
Tennessee historically has funded its roads and other related infrastructure through the gas tax which is pay-as-you-go effort (no long-term bonds or debt).
The last time the state raised the gas tax (after many years), it came during Governor Haslam’s second term. It split Republican lawmakers into warring camps. The only way the gas tax hike got passed was with votes from Democratic lawmakers in the House. So how does Governor Lee plan fund his infrastructure plans?
Here is what the Governor said Tuesday night: “I commit to you that we will diligently work, tirelessly work to figure out a way to invest in our roads and bridges in this state without raising your taxes and without going into debt.”
There are still federal funds available through the bi-partisan Infrastructure Act passed by Congress last year. But Governor Lee really did not support that measure and I have never heard him speak favorably about it. I guess we will find out for sure just what he has in mind in late January or February. That’s when he unveils his budget and legislative package in his annual State of the State Address.
Republican lawmakers have already made known their top legislative priority. As soon as they could file legislation for the upcoming session (on Wednesday the day after the election) the first measure put in the legislative hopper was one to take the next step in the state and national GOP’s war on transgender people, especially teens. The bill would ban medical procedures (gender-affirming care) that "alters a child’s hormonal balance and procedures that remove their organs to enable the minor to identify as a gender different from their biological sex."
The new law has been fomented by conservative bloggers and the GOP leadership across the state has closed ranks, aiming to pass the bill quickly in the new session.
Another top bill on the GOP agenda for this coming term is one to ban public drag shows as it appears going after the LGBTQ community is also a Republican priority.
NATIONAL MID-TERM THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS
The consensus was a Republican wave was coming.
What happened? It was more like a trickle.
Everybody said inflation, high-interest rates, gas prices and rising crime would doom the Democrats Tuesday.
But did issues such as reproductive rights and democracy in peril prove important enough to help the Democrats save their political bacon at least for now?
Obviously, the final polls were wrong…again.
Can we say that at least the polling goofs are now bi-partisan, with this year’s miss on the Republican wave matched by the over-estimation of House Democrats winning several more seats than they actually did back in 2020? Or overestimating Hillary CIinton in 201? Joe Biden in 2020? And underestimating Donald Trump in both elections?
Is public polling just no longer reliable?
We won’t know for days, if not weeks who will control either house of Congress.
Which party will control the House? Most likely, the Republicans, but perhaps with a smaller majority than the Democrats had this term?
If we are headed back to divided government, how will anything pass or get done?
Who will control the Senate? It will come down to races in Arizona, Nevada and another December runoff in Georgia. With the Cook Political Report now indicating the Democrats will win Arizona, can the GOP win both Nevada and Georgia?
Will the failure of the Republican wave lead to recrimination and leadership fights among the Republicans in Congress? Can Kevin McCarthy still be elected Speaker of the House with a much smaller than-expected GOP majority in the lower chamber?
Will the House Democrats fight among themselves over leadership whether they cling to a majority or go back into being a minority?
What role will current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (supposedly she is stepping down from leadership) play in the next term, after Democrats did much better than expected in the midterms?
After escaping the mid-term rath of the voters experienced by most first-term presidents, will Joe Biden run again in 2024 despite election day exit polling saying 2/3 of voters don’t want him to? The President, who sounded like a candidate this week, says he will make a final decision by March.
Will the October Consumer Price Index report released on Thursday mark the turning point for inflation beginning to ease? Or will the small decline be yet another blip or puzzlement on how to read or understand our crazy post-Covid economy?
After having a terrible mid-term election Tuesday night, with the candidates he endorsed doing poorly, will Donald Trump still announce next week he is running for president one more time? Will he still win the nomination in 2024?
Will Trump campaign for his Senate candidate, Herschel Walker, in Georgia? Given the difficulties the former president has had there, dating from the two Senate races he helped lose there in 2020 and the ongoing grand jury investigation into his role to try and flip the presidential vote in the Peach State, will his presence be more hurtful than helpful?
Will 2024 be just as crazy an election year as 2022 has been? And 2020 before that? Or will 2024 be even more vexing?
WHEN YOU ARE PART OF THE STORY
Tennessee has gotten high marks, and even won national recognition for the good job it has done running elections.
But these past 10 days have been tough for the Metro Nashville Election Commission with a bogus ballot scandal, involving hundreds of voters, being exposed in the media, followed by election day confusion over who should vote at what precincts and complaints from some voters the ballots they received still didn’t have all the races.
As long as I have been in the news business, I have tried to report the story, not be in the story. But this week I didn’t get that choice as my name and my wife’s were among the hundreds of those getting a wrong ballot during early voting.
I did not go to the Election Commission to cast a provisional ballot because I thought it would be a waste of time. Provisional ballots are only counted if the race is close enough for a recount or an audit. I knew that would not be the case in these congressional races. I also felt casting a provisional ballot would just be disenfranchising myself a second time in the same election.
I did nothing wrong. I think any vote, fairly and legally cast, provisional or not, should be counted whether the race or races involved are a blowout, or decided by a one or two vote margin.
MAYOR COOPER’S MAJOR PROJECTS STACKING UP
In a week when the Tennessee Titans released another round of “pretty picture” renderings of the proposed new $2.1 billion roofed stadium on the East Bank, the project backed by Mayor John Cooper continues to be peppered with questions from members of the Metro Council about whether the new facility is really a better deal than remodeling the current facility ,and just what the city really owes the Titans under its current lease to keep the stadium up to NFL standards. Councilmembers don’t think a new independent study really addresses that issue. Meanwhile, the city’s Sports Authority has set a December 1 date to vote on its part of the stadium funding.
This week another of Mayor Cooper’s major projects took a step forward. The renovation and expansion of the Fairgrounds Raceway, along with bringing NASCAR racing back to Nashville, was presented to the Metro Fair Board. The project was first announced in January but has been delayed by vacancies on the Fair Board and other delays. Now it still faces challenges with approvals needed not only by Fair officials but also the city’s Sports Authority and the Metro Council.
Because of an amendment to the Metro Charter added back in 2011, any changes at the Fairgrounds require a super majority 27 votes for approval. That could be problematic given opposition so far from the councilmember who represents the Fairgrounds area. There has also been some opposition from the surrounding area.
Another ticklish point could be $12 million in state funding which could get caught in any continuing crossfire between the Metro Council and Republicans in the state Legislature over the city declining to host the 2024 Republican National Convention or so far seeming to not pursue the 2028 GOP convention.
Similar issues could crowd the state’s financing piece for the new Titans stadium. It is believed this is why Mayor Cooper is pushing for local approvals of both the stadium and the raceway as soon as possible.
And that may not be only large city project in line before the Council soon. In March the Council approved a tentative plan to buy the old Hickory Hollow Mall for $44 million, then lease it to Vanderbilt Medical Center to transform the property into a hybrid medical and community hub, similar to one now at the old One Hundred Oaks Mall.
But reportedly, lease negotiations with Vanderbilt have bogged down raising questions whether this project will be on go before next summer’s Metro election where Mayor Cooper is expected to be seeking a second term?
That’s ditto for both the roofed Titans stadium and the Fairground speedway.
