Author: Reporter

Nearly six years into monitoring the content of conservative media outlets for his website and newsletter The Righting, Howard Polskin has not lost the capacity for surprise. Case in point: when Donald Trump announced his 2024 presidential candidacy, and many of his long-time media allies let fly with anger and insults. Two impeachments, two years of election denials and a U.S. Capitol riot didn’t have the impact of a disappointing showing by Republicans in the midterm elections. “I didn’t expect the level of vitriol, there’s no question about it,” he said. Trump’s inauguration in 2017 started Polskin on his...

Jerry Lamb could not maneuver his wheelchair into the rows of pews at his church. It would not fit. Nor could he sit in the aisles without awkwardly blocking the way. So he adapted. It is a regular part of his new life with limited mobility that requires near-constant calculations of how to navigate a world no longer set up for him. That included his longtime church in Camden, Tennessee – one of the many U.S. houses of worship with accessibility limitations. Instead, on Sundays, he worshipped in the narthex at the back of Camden First United Methodist Church,...

Anti-abortion groups hoped and strategized for decades for a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that was delivered last June, ending a court-protected right to abortion after nearly 50 years. The fallout was immediate and far-reaching, and it is not over yet. The midyear ruling in 2022 overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established the right to abortion, shaped the national political agenda for the rest of the year and put abortion access in flux. The shifts are expected to keep coming as lawmakers, voters and judges weigh in. After the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling that left abortion up...

As Republican Tyler Kistner’s closing ad aired before the 2022 midterm elections in one of the most competitive congressional districts in the United States, Vickie Klang felt that something was missing. The 58-year-old veterinary technician and self-described independent voter watched as the 30-second spot showed grainy black-and-white images of President Joe Biden with two-term Democratic Rep. Angie Craig superimposed alongside him. The narrator ominously described life in America as “dangerous and unaffordable” because of an alliance between the two Democrats. Absent from the ad, Klang thought, was anything close to a solution beyond electing Kistner. “You’re never telling me...

Black voters have been a steady foundation for Democratic candidates for decades, but that support appeared to show a few cracks in the 2022 elections. Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the last midterm elections four years ago, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate. In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp more than doubled his support among Black voters to 12% in 2022 compared with 5% four years ago, according to VoteCast. He defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams both times. If that boost can be sustained, Democrats could face...