Is all politics local? Not this election.

Democratic Rep. Marie Grusenkamp Perez didn’t hesitate when asked about President Biden’s border policies during this week’s candidate debate.

“The Biden administration’s commitment to failing border security policies is key to Congressional action on this issue,” she said. “Wanting to secure the southern border is not racist.”

A day earlier, Democratic House candidate Janelle Stelson was similarly candid in a debate when asked whether Biden’s border plan had failed.

“Yes. I think they didn’t act quickly enough,” she said.

“We have to secure our borders,” Stelson added. “We need to bring back the people who crossed illegally.”

And this is how Democratic candidate Kirsten Engel answered a similar question in a debate.

“President Biden? Let’s be real, he was slow to realize how much of a crisis it was,” she said. “We need to secure our borders.”

Issues of greatest concern to voters nationally

Mr. Perez represents a district in southwest Washington. Mr. Stelson is seeking to unseat a six-term Republican incumbent in central Pennsylvania. Mr. Engel wants to unseat a freshman Republican lawmaker in southern Arizona. All three races are among the closest in the country.

The districts are thousands of miles apart and have vastly different politics and demographics. But listeners tuning in to this week’s candidate debates may easily lose track of who’s who.

As the late House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. famously said, “All politics is local.” Forty years later, almost the opposite is true.

Local questions still come up from time to time. Mr. Perez and his opponent, Joe Kent, disagree about plans to rebuild the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River. Engel and his opponent, Republican Rep. Juan Siscomani, briefly discussed water policy.

But a combination of the decline of local news, the nationalization of grassroots fundraising, the growing power of party leaders in Congress, and the intense polarization of politics has marginalized regional differences.

Democrats shift across borders

Instead, the campaign is now focusing on smaller national issues, this year primarily on the cost of living, abortion and border issues. Candidates are guided by party strategists, using party-funded polls to test messages about electoral effectiveness, and end up addressing issues using much the same language.

That’s why Democratic candidates in battleground states are embracing tough border security measures and efforts to limit asylum applications.

Their position borrows the strategy used by Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi to win a hard-fought special election in New York’s Long Island suburbs earlier this year, and the party’s lead by 2020. This is a big departure from the position taken by the candidates.

This has caused frustration among immigration advocates, who say Democrats mistakenly accepted the Republican framework on border issues and adopted policies that create more hardship for immigrants. But the shift is consistent with a shift in public opinion that has become far less sympathetic to immigrants during Biden’s term.

Nationalizing parliamentary elections and changing border policy are two of the lessons learned from six parliamentary debates broadcast over the past week. Most of it is being rebroadcast courtesy of C-SPAN.

Extreme candidates could undermine the Republican Party

Another is that Republican primary voters are choosing to field extremist candidates in some battleground districts, continuing to hamper the party’s chances of maintaining a House majority. .

Mr. Perez’s Vancouver area in southwest Washington has been one of the clearest examples this year.

This district leans Republican. Trump led the district by 8 points in 2016 and 4 points in 2020, but Perez did well in 2022, defeating Kent 50% to 49%.

Kent, a former Army Special Forces officer, was a polarizing candidate, defeating a moderate Republican incumbent in the primary that year. He took part in a demonstration on January 6, 2021 on behalf of those convicted or accused of storming the Capitol, demanding that Anthony Fauci be indicted for murder, and criticizing Vladimir for invading Ukraine.・Supported many of Putin’s claims.

National Republican leaders had hoped that another Republican would replace Kent as the party’s nominee this time around, but Kent easily made it through the state’s top two primaries, vying with Perez. A rematch was set.

During the debate, she highlighted his inflammatory statements.

On immigration, for example, Perez used the now standard Democratic line, noting that Republicans voted down a bipartisan border security bill this year in deference to President Trump. Democrats say the former president wants to keep the border in crisis and would prefer to make it a campaign issue.

“Joe (Kent) and his allies supported killing the most conservative, bipartisan immigration bill in a generation,” she said.

But she went a step further, referring to remarks from a town hall two years ago in which Mr Kent seemed to agree with a right-wing questioner who called for a 20-year total immigration ban to prevent “the demographic turnover that is happening.” Quoted.

Kent “wants a white majority. I want a secure border,” Perez said.

In response, Kent denied supporting a white majority, but supported mass deportations of immigrants within the country without legal authorization.

He also reiterated his call for an end to aid to Ukraine, saying U.S. funding is only prolonging the war and bringing humanity “closer than ever to World War III.” .

Newscaster confronts former Freedom Caucus leader

On the other side of the country, in south-central Pennsylvania, Republicans face a similar dynamic with incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Perry.

Perry, a former leader of the House Freedom Caucus, is one of the few members of the far-right group to represent a closely divided district rather than one that is solidly Republican.

Perry has been elected five times since first being elected in 2012, but his district has become more Democratic in recent years. Republicans are losing ground on the outskirts of Harrisburg, the state capital, and across the Susquehanna River to the west, while Cumberland County’s population is growing and Democratic voters are increasing.

As the neighborhood changed, Perry felt increasingly out of place.

He played a key role in meetings with Trump advisers regarding efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot. In 2022, FBI agents seized his cellphone as part of an election conspiracy investigation. After Republicans took control of the House in 2023, he was one of 20 far-right members of Congress who repeatedly blocked Kevin McCarthy from being elected speaker.

His opponent, Stelson, worked as a television reporter and anchor for area television stations for 38 years. This made her widely known and well-liked.

“Viewers have come to see me as a trusted bipartisan voice,” she said in the debate, with Mr. Perry, whom she characterized as the “main obstructionist” in a Congress that has achieved little. contrasted with his own realism.

dobbs long shadow

Stelson, a former registered Republican, decided to run in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Care decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended nationwide coverage of abortion rights. said.

Mr. Stelson repeatedly criticized Mr. Perry, who in the past supported a nationwide ban on abortion without exception.

The decision to terminate a pregnancy should be left to the woman and her doctor, she said.

“There’s no reason Scott Pelley knows more than they do about what to do with his body in his most intimate decisions.”

Perry said he supported exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of a pregnant person, but “keep in mind that there are two lives at risk here.” “There is a need,” he added.

“I am a staunch defender of the sanctity of life,” he said.

Each debate this week featured similar back-and-forths on abortion, highlighting how the shift in public opinion since Dobbs has changed both parties’ approaches to the issue.

Democrats move left on abortion

In the 2022 midterm elections, the backlash against Dobbs helped Democrats win in battleground states.

At the time, many Republican candidates were unhappy about this issue. This time, they are largely united around President Trump’s position, upholding the high court’s ruling and arguing that abortion decisions should be made at the state level rather than nationally.

Democrats have tried to convince voters that such statements cannot be trusted and that if Democrats win a majority, Republicans will seek to restrict abortion nationwide.

Republicans counter that Democrats do not agree with any restrictions on when abortions should be allowed, and that opponents are the true extremists.

Democrats have previously avoided discussing so-called late-term abortions, or abortions performed after 24 weeks of pregnancy, typically due to fatal fetal abnormalities or risks to the woman’s life. They account for less than 1% of all abortions in the United States.

Democrats are now more comfortable resisting Republican efforts to impose restrictions.

“There is no timetable. A pregnancy can go bad at any time,” Engel said during the debate, clarifying a view that is becoming increasingly widespread within the party.

“Women are dying” because of state laws restricting abortion, she said. And even if those laws have exceptions that allow abortion under certain circumstances, “those exceptions do not work.”

“This is not something that should be left to politicians.”

Abortion, immigration, inflation: If polls are accurate, the two countries fought to a near tie on these issues. When polls ask voters which party they want to see control Congress after this election, Democrats hold an average advantage of about 1 point.

There are still enough races left to decide which party will win a majority in the House. However, as the country moves toward an increasingly parliamentary system that prioritizes local issues, here is a prediction. Whichever party wins the White House will likely control the House of Representatives as well.

What else should I read?

This week’s poll: Nearly 7 in 10 Medicare beneficiaries did not compare plans during Medicare’s open enrollment period.

Saturday’s article: Viral graphs about the gender gap don’t tell the whole story

LA Times Special: Harris leads Trump in California, but support among Latinos is softening, poll reveals

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