Category: Centrist Political Endorsements

General Election Endorsements in Georgia and Pennsylvania Senate Races

Vote in the 2022 General Elections

The Centrist Independent Voter has already endorsed Tim Ryan (D) against J.D. Vance (R) in the Ohio race for the U.S. Senate. If you would like to see our reasoning on that decision visit the blog post on the question or our full list of endorsements in the 2022 General Election.

Candidate Quality and Senate Control

Mitch McConnell was right. The U.S. Senate will probably not flip to Republican control in 2022. He was also right about the reason: poor candidate quality on the Republican side. Republicans will not control the Senate after 2022 for the same reason that they lost control of the Senate in 2020: Donald Trump.

It is almost certain that Trump’s interference in the elections in Georgia, and his efforts to discourage Republicans from voting in the runoffs that followed, cost the Republicans at least one Senate seat. It now appears that Donald Trump is about to reprise his role as spoiler in 2022, by successfully endorsing candidates in the primaries who will be unelectable in the general election.

Centrist Independent Endorsements for the U.S. Senate General Election Races

Georgia

Georgia is perhaps the most obvious case of Trump endorsing a weak candidate and discouraging potentially strong candidates from entering the Senate primary race.

Rev. Raphael Warnock is a progressive Democrat. He is endorsed by the Working Families Party (think Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). It is unlikely that, in normal times, Warnock would receive the endorsement of the Centrist Independent Voter. These are not normal times. Making sure that Donald Trump loses his control over the Republican Party, and potentially the country, is far more important than keeping a Progressive Democrat out of the Senate.

As mentioned above, Donald Trump endorsed Herschel Walker in the Republican primary in Georgia and actively discouraged other potentially more viable candidates from running. Apart from opposing Walker because he is a Trump acolyte, we also find Walker to be unqualified for the U.S. Senate. His answers on the campaign trail seem bizarre and uninformed. I have nothing against famous football players, but there is nothing about that job that qualifies you for the U.S. Senate.

You might say that there is nothing about being a minister that qualifies you for the U.S. Senate either. It is not my favorite background for a member of the Senate. Nevertheless, ministers are public speakers and they have presumably spent many years wrestling with philosophical and ethical questions. While Warnock is hardly a centrist, he has at least spent a lot of time thinking about public policy positions and articulating positions on those issues.

We, therefore, endorse Sen. Raphael Warnock to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate from Georgia.

Pennsylvania

It was by no means a foregone conclusion that we would be endorsing the Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump, by endorsing Dr. Mehmet Oz, made the endorsement of John Fetterman inevitable. Fetterman is no centrist. He is a populist Democrat. That would normally disqualify him from endorsement by the Centrist Independent Voter.

However, making sure that Donald Trump loses his control over the Republican Party, and potentially the country, is far more important than keeping a populist Democrat out of the Senate.

Apart from Trump’s endorsement, we have other concerns about Dr. Oz.

The first is his endorsement of products that appear, at best, to be controversial and possibly just scams.

The second concern is about his allegiance to the United States. Oz has dual citizenship with Turkey. He has served in the Turkish military. He defends this on the basis of his desire to be able to easily visit and care for his aging mother. Maybe there is nothing more to it than that. There is nothing inherently wrong with maintaining dual citizenship. As many as 40% of Americans may be eligible for dual citizenship and millions of Americans maintain dual citizenship. However, very few of these people have the need to handle sensitive national security information.

You might say that Turkey is an ally. Yes, they are a member of NATO, but they often take positions and actions that are inconsistent with U.S. interests. Consider Turkey’s attitude toward the Kurds during the fight against ISIS and their initial opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Even the best of allies will occasionally be at odds with U.S. national interests.

Dual citizenship, even with an ally, raises some legitimate concerns, considering that Senators are granted access to sensitive national security information as a matter of course. Oz has said he would forego any security clearances that might pose a problem, but Senators don’t need security clearances to have access to sensitive information. At the moment, there are no U.S. Senators holding dual citizenship.

In addition, I think you may all remember that in 2016 Donald Trump pledged to put his assets in a blind trust. That was an obviously meaningless pledge, since even if he did it, he would still know what actions hurt or help his business interests unless the trust was directed to sell them. In addition, we know that he never honored that pledge. What guarantee would we have that Oz, Trump’s acolyte, would honor his pledge.

You will notice that I did not mention Oz’s dubious claim to be a Pennsylvania resident. I suspect there are many Pennsylvanians who care about this issue. I am not concerned. There are many cases of U.S. Senators with dubious connections to the states they represented.

To be clear, the Centrist Independent Voter endorses John Fetterman for the U.S. Senate seat from Pennsylvania.

Alaskan Primary Endorsements

Vote In the Alaskan Primary

Alaskan Top 4 Primary for U.S Senate Seat, August 16, 2022

Alaska has adopted a new method for elections. They have an open primary and the top four candidates from the open primary will run in the general election in November. The winner will be determined by ranked choice voting. The Centrist Independent Voter supports the use of ranked choice voting and open non-partisan primaries.

Centrist Independent Voter Endorsement for Alaskan U.S. Senate Primary

Sen. Lisa Murkowski is the incumbent three term U.S. Senator from Alaska. She is a moderate on a number of issues. She voted for the bi-partisan infrastructure bill. She voted for the bi-partisan gun control act in 2022. She co-sponsored an abortion rights bill with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. She voted for the bi-partisan aid package for Ukraine. She voted to impeach Donald Trump, after his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

The Centrist Independent Voter enthusiastically endorses Sen. Lisa Murkowski to return to the U.S. Senate.

For all of the Centrist Independent Voter’s endorsements during the 2022 primary season, to date, click here.

Endorsement for Wyoming Republican Primary August 16, 2022

Vote in the August 16, 2022 Primary in Wyoming

August 16th Wyoming Republican Primary for the U.S. House

It might surprise you that the Centrist Independent Voter is endorsing Liz Cheney. You could not find a more reliably conservative voter in the U.S. House of Representatives than Liz Cheney. She is no centrist. Nevertheless, she deserves to be re-elected to the House because of her devotion to the U.S. Constitution and her willingness to take on Donald Trump and the Trumpists within her party. As a result of her courageous opposition to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 Election, she lost her leadership position within the Republican Party. She has been vilified for her participation in the January 6th hearings in the House.

Trump has, of course, endorsed Cheney’s opposition. Trump would endorse anyone who ran against Liz Cheney.

Centrists are not going to get an ideologically centrist representative in Wyoming. What Wyoming centrists can get is an honest, courageous representative who respects the truth and the Constitution. If you are eligible to vote in the August 16 Republican primary, please vote for Rep. Liz Cheney.

For all of the Centrist Independent Voter’s endorsements during the 2022 primary season, to date, click here.

Opportunities to Move Politics Toward the Center.

Vote in the Primaries

Opportunities to Vote for the the Center and Against Extremists

There are a number of excellent opportunities to prune the political tree of extremists today, August 2, 2022.

On the Democratic Side

Representatives Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), both members of the so-called Squad are being challenged by more centrist Democrats in their primaries today. Please vote for the centrists. Representative Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is being challenged by Representative Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who belongs to the more centrist New Democrat Coalition in a new district created by redistricting. Please vote for the more centrist candidate, Haley Stevens.

On the Republican Side

Donald Trump has, helpfully, compiled a list of candidates to vote against. (A specific list of 25 candidates Trump endorses in today’s primaries is included in this link.) He calls it endorsements. Absent any other information simply voting against these candidates would help move American politics back to the center.

Please Vote

Please vote in the primaries. If we have no centrist candidates to vote for in the general election, we have only ourselves to blame.

June 28, Colorado Democratic and Republican Primary Endorsements

Vote in the Colorado Primaries

Colorado presents some interesting dilemmas for Centrist Independent Voters. Because Colorado allows “unaffiliated registrants” (a large voting block) to vote in either party’s primary, it provides an interesting illustration of the Centrist Independent Voter strategy. To put it as succinctly as possible we suggest: prune the field of extremists. We view this as far more important than trying to assure the victory of whichever party you favor.

The U.S. Senate

Michael Bennet is the incumbent and is running unopposed in the Democratic Primary.

There are three candidates running in the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate: Ron Hanks, Joe O’Dea, and Daniel Hendricks (a write-in candidate). Ron Hanks holds an extreme pro-life position (no exceptions) and is a supporter of the “Big Lie” theory that Trump won the 2022 election. Joe O’Dea is reliably conservative but more moderate on abortion rights and he does not believe that Trump won the 2020 election. Hendricks is a mystery to us but he is unlikely to play a role as a relatively unknown write-in candidate. The Centrist Independent Voter endorsement in this primary goes to O’Dea.

There is a complexity here and it illustrates our philosophy with regard to voting in the primaries. There is a charge that a Super PAC, associated with the Democratic Party is trying to promote the candidacy of Ron Hanks. The theory is that this PAC believes that Hanks will be a weaker candidate against Michael Bennet in the general election because Hanks is so extreme. This strategy, which some people believe played a role in Trump’s early successes in Republican primaries in 2016, is playing with fire.

The best hope for our democracy is that we populate the general election with moderate candidates from both parties and let the chips fall where they may. There is just too much at risk to allow extremists of either the right or the left show up in the general election. A candidate’s health can change, scandals emerge, and moods shift. We are all better off if the general election ballot is a contest of moderates who lean right or left but are reasonable people.

The U.S. House of Representatives

As I have mentioned before, the Centrist Independent Voter does not, currently, have the resources to cover all congressional races. For that reason we have been concentrating on the races for the U.S. Senate. Colorado is an exception because Rep. Lauren Boebert, from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, is so extremely right wing. She is in the Centrist Independent Voter’s Rogues Gallery of candidates we could never endorse. Her involvement in the events surrounding the attack on the Capitol on January 6th were enough for her to make this list, but she also opposed aid to Ukraine, and opposed the bi-partisan infrastructure bill.

Her opponent is Don Coram. Coram appears to be a classical conservative Republican, principally focused on issues of concern for Colorado. The Centrist Independent Voter endorsement goes to Coram.

Unaffiliated registrants who vote in the Republican primary will have to forgo voting in the Democratic primary. Since Bennet is unopposed in the Senate race this does not matter. There are, however, three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for the District 3 House seat. They are: Adam Frisch, Sol Sandoval, and Alex Walker. Of these, Adam Frisch gets our endorsement. Frisch has promised to join the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House, which is a major factor in his favor.

CIVPAC Endorsement

Of course, the decision to vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary will depend on a lot of other issues, including races for other offices and ballot resolutions, if any. Putting those aside, our recommendation is that Republican and unaffiliated registrants vote in the Republican primary for Joe O’Dea for Senate and Don Coram (if you are in District 3) for the House. If you are a registered Democrat, we endorse Michael Bennet for Senate and Adam Frisch (if you are in District 3) for the House.

Endorsement for June 7, California Primary for the U.S. Senate Seat.

Vote In the California Primary for U.S. Senate

The California primary for the U.S. Senate seat will be held June 7, 2022. It is an open primary with 20 candidates including Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Socialists, and independents. The top two vote getters, regardless of party, will go on to a general election. You would think that in a field that large the Centrist Independent Voter could find a truly attractive choice. Well, actually, it is not as easy as we had thought. Many of the candidates are running just to focus attention on a pet issue. While some of these issues are worthy, these candidates are not even trying to present themselves as viable general election candidates.

Gov. Gavin Newsom selected Alex Padilla (D) to replace Kamala Harris when she became Vice President. California law requires an election to fill the seat at the next available election cycle. There are, therefore, two U.S. Senate elections going on in California this week: one to finish out Harris’ Senate term and one to succeed her.

Padilla is heavily favored to win enough votes in the primary to put him into the general election for both terms.

Among the challengers there is one candidate who, in our mind, should also be there. That is Jon Elist. A Republican, he characterizes himself as a pragmatic conservative. There is a small amount of overlap between his positions on issues and those of the Centrist Independent Voter. On those issues he does address, he takes advantage of his newcomer status to remain vague on what he actually would support. I am sure that during the general election he will be forced to be more explicit about his policy preferences. Nevertheless, we find his attempt to seek the crossover vote rather than cater to the hard right as refreshing, and would like to see him on the ballot in the general election.

We, therefore, endorse Jon Elist in the June 7, 2022 California primary for the U.S. Senate.

2022 Utah Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate

2022 Utah Republican Primary for U.S. Senate

The Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat is scheduled for June 28, 2022.

Mike Lee, the incumbent U.S. Senator from Utah, has gone from a Trump skeptic to a Trump enabler.

If the Utah Republican Party nominates Lee for the U.S. Senate race in 2022, it is likely that the Centrist Independent Voter will endorse his independent opponent, Evan McMullin, in the general election. The Utah Democratic party has chosen to forego nominating a candidate and has endorsed McMullin. McMullin is a center-right candidate and is attempting to forge an alliance of Democrats, independents, and disgruntled Republicans. If Lee wins in the primary this strategy might well succeed, as noted in this article in the Economist.

The other Republican candidates for this seat , according to Ballotpedia, are Becky Edwards and Ally Isom. Of these, Becky Edwards appears to have the stronger chance of defeating Lee based on polling data.

Edwards is reliably conservative and hardly a centrist, but she does not have Trump’s endorsement and has the best chance of defeating Lee. The Centrist Independent Voter, therefore, endorses Becky Edwards in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat from Utah.

To see other Centrist Independent Voter endorsements in the primaries visit 2022 Primary Endorsements. To see Centrist Independent Voter endorsements for the general election visit 2022 General Election Endorsements.

The Pennsylvania 2022 Primaries

The Pennsylvania 2022 Primary: May 17, 2022

The race for the U.S. Senate seat from Pennsylvania, currently held by Pat Toomey (R) is heating up. Toomey is not running and there is a big field in both the Republican and Democratic primaries.

The Democratic Primary

The four candidates in the Democratic primary are: Conor Lamb, Alexandria Khalil, Malcolm Kenyatta, and John Fetterman. Khalil, Kenyatta, and Fetterman all seem to be competing for the progressive vote. Conor Lamb is reliably left of center on most issues. He is also a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, which earns him our endorsement in the Democratic primary. The Philadelphia Inquirer, also, identifies him as the most moderate candidate in the race.

The Republican Primary

The seven candidates in the Republican Primary are: Kathy Barnette, Jeff Bartos, George Bochetto, Sean Gale, David McCormick, Mehmet Oz, and Carla Sands. Oz managed to secure Donald Trump’s endorsement which excludes him from our endorsement. Oz has no political or public policy experience and he would not have gotten our endorsement even if Trump had not endorsed him. While there isn’t anyone remotely centrist running for this seat as a Republican, the least extreme candidate appears to be Jeff Bartos. On the basis of this dubious distinction Bartos is able to garner our endorsement for the Republican primary.

Our overall recommendation is, therefore, to vote for Conor Lamb in the Democratic primary, if you can. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania is a closed primary state and you have to register by May 2, 2022. If you have to vote in the Republican primary, our recommendation is Jeff Bartos.

For an up-to-date summary of all Centrist Independent Voter endorsements to date for the 2022 primary season visit the Candidates page.

The Georgia 2022 Primaries

Georgia Primary Election May 24, 2022

The Centrist Independent Voter endorsed candidates for the Georgia May 24, 2022 Republican primaries today.

CIVPAC did not endorse anyone in the Democratic primary. At this point, Raphael Warnock and Stacy Abrams are running, essentially, unopposed for the Democratic nominations for the U.S. Senate and Georgia Governor positions respectively.

CIVPAC may or may not endorse candidates in the general election in Georgia.

The Centrist Independent Voter endorsed Brian Kemp for the Republican nomination for Governor and Brad Raffensperger for Secretary of State. This endorsement is, more than anything else, a reward for having stood up to Donald Trump when he attempted to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia.

CIVPAC endorsed the field, i.e. any one other than Herschel Walker, for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. Herschel Walker has no experience that suggests that he would make a good U.S. Senator. He does have one huge liability that suggests that his election would be damaging to the political environment in the U.S. He has Donald Trump’s endorsement. Those on the right, left, and center who would like to see Donald Trump disappear from the American political scene would be well advised to vote for a candidate that does not have Trump’s endorsement, to demonstrate just how toxic that endorsement is.