The Spectator

A provision to require automobiles built after 2026 to contain technology capable of limiting or preventing the vehicle’s operation will go into effect after Representative Thomas Massie’s move to block funding for the Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 for one year failed last week. Nineteen Republicans defied Massie and voted against his budget amendment, along with 210 Democrats, though two Dems — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — voted Yes to Massie’s bill.

Immediately after longtime West Virginia senator Joe Manchin bowed to political reality and called it quits on his re-election, Republicans celebrated that it virtually guarantees their party an elusive win next year.  In fact, some were already proclaiming that the state’s First Pup, Babydog, and her owner, Governor Jim Justice, are cruising to victory next November.  But that’s not necessarily the case — it’s not next November that Justice should be concerned with, but rather next year’s GOP primary. Justice, who finally secured Donald Trump’s valuable endorsement, faces Congressman Alex Mooney and a field that may now swell given the GOP’s virtual certainty to pick up the seat.

Republicans no doubt woke up Wednesday morning incredibly disappointed by last night’s election results. Democratic governor Andy Beshear won re-election in Kentucky, the GOP lost control of the Virginia House of Delegates, and Ohio voters opted to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. Political consultants and commentators quickly lashed out at the party’s perceived failure: Republicans either talked too much or not enough about abortion and the GOP will never win again with Trump at the top of the ticket or Trump is vital to its success, depending on who you ask.Abortion obviously mattered Tuesday night; the Ohio referendum results made that clear.

We’re almost exactly one year out from what increasingly looks like another Trump v. Biden showdown. Former president Donald Trump leads his second-place opponent by more than forty percentage points nationally, and has a thirty-point advantage in Iowa. President Joe Biden avoided a primary challenge from RFK Jr., who is now running as an Independent, and no one thinks Representative Dean Phillips’s campaign is serious, especially considering his refusal to acknowledge the objective reality that he’s even running against Biden. Although Phillips doesn’t seem to be the guy for the job, more Democrats are waking up to the idea that Biden doesn’t have what it takes to win a second term. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Democrats don’t want Biden to run again.

The political left isn’t content to secretly smelt statues of Robert E. Lee or remove a plaque honoring the Confederate general’s horse, Traveller. Apparently, the Democratic Party’s own history is too problematic to bear.  Over the years, the Democratic Party’s official website has undergone some curious changes. The Spectator previously reported on the Democrat logo changing from sky blue to royal blue after President Joe Biden took office. It seems the “Our History” page is also getting whitewashed.  Since 2019, the history page has neglected to mention anything about the Democratic Party prior to the 1920s.

On Tuesday, Kentuckians will vote in the state’s highly publicized — and very expensive — governor’s race. Democrat incumbent Andy Beshear is facing off against current Republican attorney general Daniel Cameron. Polls throughout the race have shown Beshear leading by double digits, but GOP consultants I’ve spoken to are cautiously optimistic about Cameron’s chances, noting that his numbers have been rising over the past couple of weeks and that many Kentucky voters remain undecided, which is usually bad news for the incumbent. Trump also reupped his endorsement of Cameron this week in an attempt to disrupt Beshear’s relatively high approval rating among Trump supporters.  Cameron’s recent rise has inspired some late-stage nastiness.

President Joe Biden has put himself in an awkward position as the 2024 Democratic primary inches closer. The Democratic Party voted last February to change its primary calendar, honoring South Carolina as the first state to vote and demoting Iowa and New Hampshire. The DNC spun a yarn that South Carolina should vote first because it has a larger black population, but that seems a neat excuse to cover up the fact that really they are rewarding South Carolina for being the state that revived Biden’s 2020 campaign after humiliating defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire.Either way, the new primary schedule may come back to bite Biden and the Democratic establishment.