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TODAYS TOP HEADLINES
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Tuesday, November 6, 2018 3A
Democrats’ hopes high for House
takeover, hut nothing is certain
BY STEVE PEOPLES
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
day of reckoning for Amer
ican politics has nearly
arrived.
Voters on Tuesday will
decide the $5 billion debate
between President Donald
Trump’s take-no-prisoner
politics and the Democratic
Party’s super-charged cam
paign to end the GOP’s hold
on power in Washington
and statehouses across the
nation.
There are indications that
a modest “blue wave” of sup
port may help Democrats
seize control of at least one
chamber of Congress. But
two years after an election
that proved polls and prog
nosticators wrong, nothing
is certain on the eve of the
first nationwide elections of
the Trump presidency.
“I don’t think there’s a
Democrat in this country
that doesn’t have a little
angst left over from 2016
deep down,” said Stephanie
Schriock, president of EMI
LY’S List, which spent more
than ever before — nearly
$60 million in all — to sup
port Democratic women
this campaign season.
“Everything matters
and everything’s at stake,”
Schriock said.
All 435 seats in the U.S.
House are up for re-election.
And 35 Senate seats are in
play, as are almost 40 gov
ernorships and the balance
of power in virtually every
state legislature.
While he is not on the bal
lot, Trump acknowledged
on Monday that the 2018
midterms represent a refer
endum on his presidency.
“In a certain way I am on
the ballot,” Trump told sup
porters during a tele-town
hall organized by his re-elec
tion campaign. “The press is
very much considering it a
referendum on me and us as
a movement.”
He also contended, as he
does daily, that if the Demo
crats win they will work to
roll back everything he’s
tried to accomplish. “It’s all
fragile,” he said.
Should Democrats win
control of the House, as
strategists in both parties
suggest is likely, they could
derail Trump’s legislative
agenda for the next two
years. Perhaps more impor
tant, they would win sub
poena power to investigate
Trump’s many personal and
professional missteps.
Tuesday’s elections will
also test the strength of a
Trump-era political realign
ment defined by evolving
divisions among voters by
race, gender and especially
education.
Trump’s Republican
coalition is increasingly
older, whiter, more male
and less likely to have a col
lege degree. Democrats are
relying more upon women,
people of color, young peo
ple and college graduates.
The political realign
ment, if it solidifies, could
re-shape U.S. politics for a
generation.
Just five years ago,
the Republican National
Committee reported that
the GOP’s very survival
depended upon attract
ing more minorities and
women. Those voters have
increasingly fled Trump’s
Republican Party, turned
off by his chaotic leadership
style and xenophobic rheto
ric. Blue-collar men, how
ever, have embraced the
unconventional president.
One of the RNC report’s
authors, Ari Fleischer,
MARK HUMPHREY I Associated Press
President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd as he leaves a rally Sunday, Nov. 4, in
Chattanooga, Tenn.
acknowledged that Repub
lican leaders never envi
sioned expanding their
ranks with white, working-
class men.
“What it means to be
Republican is being rewrit
ten as we speak,” Fleischer
said. “Donald Trump has
the pen, and his handwriting
isn’t always very good.”
A nationwide poll
released Sunday by NBC
News and The Wall Street
Journal details the depth of
the demographic shifts.
Democrats led with likely
African-American voters
(84 percent to 8 percent),
Latinos (57 percent to 29
percent), voters between
the ages of 18-34 (57 percent
to 34 percent), women (55
percent to 37 percent) and
independents (35 percent to
23 percent).
Among white college-edu
cated women, Democrats
enjoy a 28-point advantage:
61 percent to 33 percent.
On the other side, Repub
licans led with voters
between the ages of 50 and
64 (52 percent to 43 per
cent), men (50 percent to
43 percent) and whites (50
percent to 44 percent). And
among white men without
college degrees, Republi
cans led 65 percent to 30
percent.
Democrats hope to elect
a record number of women
to Congress. They are also
poised to make history with
the number of LGBT candi
dates and Muslims up and
down the ballot.
Former President Barack
Obama seized on the differ
ences between the parties
in a final-days scramble to
motivate voters across the
nation.
“One election won’t
eliminate racism, sexism
or homophobia,” Obama
said during an appearance
in Florida. “It’s not going to
happen in one election. But
it’ll be a start.”
Trump has delivered a
very different closing argu
ment, railing against Latin
American immigrants
seeking asylum at the U.S.
border.
With the walking cara
van weeks away, Trump
dispatched more than 5,000
troops to the region. The
president also said soldiers
would use lethal force
against migrants who throw
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rocks, before later reversing
himself.
Still, his xenophobic rheto
ric has been unprecedented
for an American president
in the modern era: “Barbed
wire used properly can be a
beautiful sight,” Trump told
voters in Montana.
The hyper-charged
environment is expected
to drive record turnout in
some places, but on the eve
of the election, it’s far from
certain which side will show
up in the greatest numbers.
The outcome is clouded
by the dramatically differ
ent landscape between the
House and Senate.
Democrats are most
optimistic about the House,
a sprawling battlefield
extending from Alaska to
Florida.
Most top races, however,
are set in America’s suburbs
where more educated and
affluent voters in both par
ties have soured on Trump’s
turbulent presidency,
despite the strength of the
national economy.
Democrats need to pick
up two dozen seats to claim
the House majority.
Caravan
descends on
Mexico City
BY SONIA PEREZ D. AND MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — Thousands of exhausted migrants
from the Central American caravan trudged along high
ways Monday toward Mexico City, where officials pre
pared a sports stadium to accommodate them as they
try to reach the U.S. border still hundreds of miles away.
The first wave of more than 500 migrants spent Sun
day night on concrete benches at the Jesus Martinez
stadium, where they were served hot meals as authori
ties prepared to receive as many as 5,000 migrants from
the lead caravan and several smaller ones hundreds of
miles behind it. Nashieli Ramirez, ombudsman for the
city’s human rights commission, said the migrants would
be able to stay at the stadium as long as necessary.
“We have the space in terms of humanitarian help,”
Ramirez said.
In a thundering voice vote late Sunday at a gymna
sium in Cordoba, in the Gulf state of Veracruz, hundreds
of the estimated 4,000 migrants in the lead caravan
voted to strike out for the capital, eager to leave a part of
the country that has long been treacherous for migrants
trying to get to the United States. Cordoba is 178 miles
from Mexico City by the shortest route, which would
be the group’s longest single-day journey yet since they
began more than three weeks ago.
But the group encountered obstacles Monday. Truck
after truck denied the migrants rides as they trudged
miles along the highway, experiencing a taste of the
colder weather of central Mexico. At a toll booth near
Fortin, Veracruz, Rafael Leyva, an unemployed cob
bler from Honduras, stood with a few hundred others
for more than 45 minutes without finding a ride.
“People help more in Chiapas and Oaxaca,” Leyva
reflected, referring to the southern Mexican states the
group had already traversed and where pickup trucks
frequently stopped to offer rides.
Migrants were seen grouping in front of tractor trail
ers, forcing the big rigs to stop so that fellow migrants
could climb aboard.
This impromptu ridesharing is precarious, with doz
ens scrambling onto vehicles at a time, and leaves some
behind. And police will force the migrants off vehicles if
the drivers complain.
Cesar Rodas, 24, had pushed a friend’s wheelchair
along with the caravan for 24 days across three coun
tries. But he couldn’t lift his friend and the chair onto
a truck bed crammed with 150 migrants. Rodas was
trying to get Sergio Cazares, a 40-year-old paraplegic
from Honduras, to the U.S. for an operation that Cazares
hopes will allow him to walk again.
Most of the weary caravan participants camped Sun
day in Cordoba, a colonial city in the Veracruz sugar
belt. But they were eager to divert toward Mexico City
from Veracruz, a state where hundreds of migrants have
disappeared in recent years, falling prey to kidnappers
looking for ransom payments. They are still more than
600 miles from the U.S. border.
They hope to regroup in the Mexican capital, seeking
medical care and rest while awaiting stragglers.
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