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politics and politicians Title: Cable networks didn't tell you much about these election results & their implications for immigration policy Below in this email is quite a list of special election results that our website editor Chris Chmielenski compiled on our website through the earlier part of this very late evening. He especially looks at important House results that got little or no play on TV. You'll want to look through them for a cheery start to the morning. Lots of good news for politicians who are champions of our view on immigration policies that serve the national interests of our national community. We'll come back to you with more in-depth coverage of all of this, but let me give you some starting information, thoughts and analysis along with Chris' short reports. Overall, the results tonight have created a far better climate for improved immigration policies, even though we face immediate challenges on many fronts - - challenges that can wait a day or two. Let's celebrate the victories right now. First, a report on the only immigration ballot issue in the states: LIBERAL OREGON ELECTORATE REJECTS DRIVERS LICENSES FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS BY 2-1 This is a phenomenal victory for a bunch of regular citizens who took it upon themselves to challenge the politically correct power structure elites of their state and had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get a fair vote. But they did. And they proved a lot. Watch our home page for much more detail about this triumph of grassroots activism. Our Van Esser has been particularly involved in alerting and mobilizing our members behind the Oregon grassroots leaders who have made all this possible. WHITE HOUSE MAY HAVE COST DEMOCRATS THE SENATE BY FORCING VULNERABLE SENATORS TO VOTE FOR HIS AMNESTY IN 2013 Yes, some turncoat Senators lost their elections after abandoning their previous pro-worker immigration positions and supporting the 2013 Gang of Eight amnesty. As you may have noticed from my email to you at the start of Election Day, I am still angry at the Democratic Senators who in 2013 flipped. If they had stuck with their previous principles, the S. 744 comprehensive amnesty bill would not have passed the Senate because it was the Democrats from red states that gave the cover for several Republican Senators to defy their states' voters and give corporate lobbyists the amnesty they wanted. Voters in their states made them pay on Election Day. Democrats very well may have retained control of the Senate if national Party leaders and the White House had not pressured vulnerable Senators like Pryor of Arkansas, Landrieu of Louisiana, Hagan of North Carolina and Begich of Alaska to pass the Senate Gang of Eight's comprehensive amnesty and immigration- doubling bill. It looks pretty likely that all of them will lose their seats. (Further down, you will see my rather passionate feelings about a couple of the Senators who lost today.) In some cases their opponents attacked them strongly and directly for their amnesty vote. In others, the attacks were left to outside groups. But voters were made aware of what these Senators had done in states where it was quite clear citizens don't approve of amnesty. Republicans helped themselves capture the Senate by using massive advertising and other campaigning to tie Democratic candidates to Pres. Obama's immigration crusade. Their immigration approach fed into middle-class insecurty about increasing lifetime work permits to foreign workers in a time of declining real wages in a country with a giant labor surplus. While Republican candidates had varying approaches to immigration issues, the overall national tenor of the Republican approach was to attack the idea of giving work permits to millions of illegal aliens to directly compete with struggling Americans for jobs. For the most part, Democratic candidates -- both incumbents and hopefuls -- tried to change the subject. But none of them campaigned as champions of the Obama and Gang of Eight immigration efforts. ARKANSAS SEN. PRYOR AS CASE STUDY OF WHAT WENT WRONG FOR DEMOCRATS Sen. Mark Pryor's flip-flop on immigration is an excellent example of this year's election phenomenon of the political consequences of turning away from your state's agenda to embrace Pres. Obama's agenda. Pryor used to take a reliably pro-worker position on immigration in line with the wishes of Arkansas voters. Then in 2013 under tremendous pressure from the White House, he switched. Today, he lost his job to Rep. Tom Cotton who has aggressively taken the pro- worker, less-immigration approach that Pryor abandoned. I was shocked in 2013 when Sen. Pryor voted for Obama's pet bill that would have given lifetime work permits to around 10 million illegal aliens and would have doubled legal immigration over the next 10 years for a grand total of around 30 million lifetime work permits for foreign workers. Before last year, Pryor had been one of the Democrats that we at NumbersUSA had been able to promote as taking a traditional pro-worker, tight-labor-market immigration position. His was one of the votes that killed the Kennedy/McCain/Bush amnesty in 2007. His was one of the votes that killed Obama's DREAM Act amnesty in 2010. Between those actions, we featured him as a speaker at a NumbersUSA symposium for his concern for protecting American workers. After all of that, why would he vote for an even bigger amnesty and foreign worker increase in S. 744 in 2013, especially with an election coming up in 2014? I've always speculated that the national Democratic leaders who control the big campaign money gave the previously anti-amnesty Democrats a sense that their funding of the 2014 campaigns would be far more helpful if they switched. What we know for sure is that every one of those Democrats did switch to back Obama on further flooding an already engorged labor market with too many workers chasing too few jobs. This year, Pryor could not escape his ties to a deeply unpopular President in Arkansas. As much as Pryor tried to campaign as somebody who was independent of Obama, his flip-flop on immigration was a glaring suggestion of the opposite conclusion. Pryor lost his Arkansas seat to Republican Congressman Tom Cotton who arrived in Congress and aggressively spoke and acted for limited immigration to protect American workers just as Pryor was abandoning that position. HOW DID OUR TRUE REFORMERS & OTHER ALLIES DO? Chris was particularly interested in victories by candidates who filled out our survey and pledged to eliminate Chain Migration, the visa lottery, birthright citizenship for illegal aliens and much more. 7:01p.m. -- In Georgia, True Reformer Jody Hice won the open seat in the 10th district. This fills the seat being vacated held by Paul Broun (B+ grade).10 7:20p.m. -- Sen. Tim Scott (R) has won the special election for one of South Carolina's U.S. Senate seats. Scott has earned an A+ grade in the current Congress. His opponent, Joyce Dickerson, supports amnesty. Also in South Carolina, Gang of Eight member Lindsey Graham has won re-election. 7:31p.m. -- Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) has won the open Senate seat in West Virginia. Shelley Moore Capito has a career grade of B+. The retiring incumbent, John Rockefeller, has an F grade and voted for the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill. 7:59p.m. -- True Reform candidate Dave Brat officially wins Virginia's 7th. Brat, of course, stunned the nation when he defeated Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the GOP primary. Also, Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Jim Inhofe (R- Okla.), and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) all win re-election. All three voted against the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill. 8:30p.m. -- Rep. Tom Cotton defeats Mark Pryor in the Arkansas Senate race. After standing on the side of wage earners, Pryor turned and supported the Gang of Eight amnesty bill. Cotton was a True Reformer when he made his first run for the House in 2012, earning a B+ during his first term. Cotton sided with American workers and against amnesty and immigration increases throughout his run for Senate. 9:10p.m. -- Former Woodville, Texas mayor and True Reformer, Brian Babin, has won the open seat in Texas' 36th district. The seat is being vacated by Rep. Steve Stockman (A-) who ran against Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP Senate primary. This keeps an already anti-amnesty, pro-enforcement seat in good hands. 9:32p.m. -- A list of pro-American worker incumbents who have won their re- elections tonight: Rep. Robert Aderholt (R,AL-04) B+, Rep. Jeff Miller (R,FL- 01) B+, Rep. Bill Posey (R,FL-08) A-, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R,GA-03) A, Rep. Austin Scott (R,GA-08) A-, Rep. Tom Graves (R,GA-14) B+, Rep. Todd Rokita (R,IN-04) B+, Rep. Walter Jones (R,NC-03) A, Rep. Robert Pittenger (R,NC-09) B+. 9:56p.m. -- E-Verify Champion, Rep. Lamar Smith (R,TX-21) has won re-election. Additionally, the following pro-American worker incumbents have won re- election: Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R,OH-02) B+, Rep. Pat Tiberi (R,OH-12) B+, Rep. Steve Stivers (R,OH-15) B+, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R,SC-03) B+, Rep. Tom Rice (R,SC- 07) A-, Rep. Phil Roe (R,TN-01) B+, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R,TX-01) B+, Rep. Joe Barton (R,TX-06) B+, Rep. John Culberson (R,TX-07) A, Rep. Bill Flores (R,TX- 17) A, Rep. Kenny Marchant (R,TX-24) B+, Rep. Michael Burgess (R,TX-26) A-, Rep. John Carter (R,TX-31) A-, Rep. Pete Sessions (R,TX-32) B+, Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R,VA-06) A-. 10:13p.m. -- Two more True Reformer incumbents have won re-election: Rep. Mo Brooks (R,AL-05) and Alan Nunnelee (R,MS-01). 10:19p.m. -- True Reformer Gary Palmer has just been declared the winner of the open seat in Alabama's 6th. Palmer replaces Spencer Bachus, who announced his retirement earlier this year. Bachus began supporting amnesty after announcing he was leaving. 10:45p.m. -- In Georgia's 11th, Barry Loudermilk has been declared the winner (he was running unopposed). Loudermilk completed a NumbersUSA survey, but took no position on two issues. The seat is being vacated by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R) who has repeatedly introduced one of our 5 Great Bills to end Chain Migration. True Reformer David Perdue has won the open Senate seat in Georgia. He's the 7th True Reformer to win tonight. Also, Sen. Pat Roberts has been declared the winner in Kansas. Roberts voted against the Gang of Eight's amnesty bill, while his opponent, independent candidate Greg Orman, embraced the legislation. (FROM ROY) Today's elections significantly increase the strength of the anti- amnesty, pro-worker immigration policies among Members of both the Senate and House. For example, Purdue is a Republican replacing Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss who was part of the 2007 Senate group that proposed the Kennedy/McCain/Bush amnesty but who withdrew after being booed at the state convention. GOP DOES BETTER AS PARTY OF WAGE-EARNERS THAN PARTY OF CORPORATE LOBBYISTS -- CHANGED IMMIGRATION MESSAGE INTEGRAL PART OF IMAGE CHANGE Republican candidates were helped by the overall messaging from Party and outside groups that used immigration policy to turn the image of the Party from one carrying water for corporate America and the wealthy to one concerned about fairness to wage-earners and their families. That is a message that will be necessary if Republicans are to attract the working-class votes necessary to win the White House in 2016. And it is one that Democrats will need to learn again if they are to stop Republicans from making long-term in-roads into a traditional part of the Democratic base. OBAMA'S IMMIGRATION POLICIES IMPORTANT PART OF HIS FAILURE TO FULFILL PROMISES ABOUT THE MIDDLE CLASS As for the trouncing of Pres. Obama's Party in the elections, a large part of the blame surely rests on his failure to followup on his promise after the 2012 election to use this term to stabilize the middle class and help those trying to rise to the middle class. Most exit polling showed that concern about the economy was the top one for voters. Pres. Obama undercut all his efforts to fulfill his promises to the middle class not only by continuing to support adding a million more lifetime work- permit immigrants each year (as required by current law) but by breaking federal law and giving out hundreds of thousands of temporary work permits to younger illegal aliens and by stating that one of his highest goals was to pass a bill that would give out around 30 million lifetime work permits over the next 10 years. Immigration wasn't the main issue on voters' minds. But it contributed greatly to the malaise voters felt about the economy. Plus, massive polling by the Republican Party played up the connection, as did a million-dollar ad campaign by NumbersUSA in the Senate battleground states. You didn't hear that analysis on Fox, CNN or MSNBC through this night, did you? TV PUNDITS NEARLY TOTALLY MISUNDERSTAND WHAT THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE IS ABOUT It seemed like nearly every pundit in this long Election Night was claiming that now that Republicans have power they must use it to pass some kind of amnesty and immigration increase. It was if the promises made by the winning candidates and the arguments made in their ads, and the will of the people who voted for the winners, doesn't count for anything. What the pundits missed tonight was how Obama's obsessive years-long talking about the need to give work permits to tens of millions more foreign workers feeds into his image as a President who has no sense of what it is like for most Americans to be stuck in a decades-long wage depression. How could any of the 18 million Americans who want a full-time job but can't find one think this is a President who wants to make it easier for them to be comfortably middle class? And how could the millions more Americans who have seen real wages declining for everybody but college graduates think the President's Party cares about their middle-class status when every single Senator of that Party voted to give out 30 million lifetime work permits to foreign citizens over the next 10 years? OBAMA COULD HAVE SAVED THE SENATE IF HE HAD ISSUED EXECUTIVE AMNESTY IN SEPTEMBER? Rep. Gardner's big Republican win over Democratic Sen. Udall in Colorado is big enough that nobody can claim that any anticipated drop in Hispanic voting was the cause. Pro-amnesty pundits all day have been spinning the idea that if Democratic Senators lost tonight it would be because too many Hispanic voters stayed home as a protest against Obama for NOT giving out his executive amnesty BEFORE the election. At this moment, we don't know that there was any drop-off in the percentage of Hispanic voting compared to the last mid-term in 2010. But if there was a drop-off, it is almost impossible for it to have been big enough in Colorado to have caused Udall to have lost by such a big margin. And Colorado was the only state with a large enough Hispanic voter registration for that demographic to be a factor. SEN. UDALL'S BETRAYAL OF HIS CONSERVATIONIST ROOTS MAY HAVE COST HIM HIS SEAT Colorado Sen. Udall is yet another Democrat who went off the cliff for Obama's massive increase in foreign labor. Sen. Udall comes from a distinguished family of conservationists who have a long history of preserving national natural wonders and resources for future generations. We at NumbersUSA have tried since his entry into the Senate to persuade him to stop the federal government's coercive population growth program in which immigration policy has been the main factor in the U.S. population growing by some 25 million while Udall was in office. Not only has Udall supported current immigration policies that will double U.S. population to more than 600 million the end of this century but he has consistently voted to increase that rate of growth. Udall's immigration policies will arguably contribute to more natural habitat destruction this century than all the nature that his family has been a part of saving in the past. A very sad tale, but one that too many environmentalists are part of because of blind adherence to a high-immigration ideology. One wonders how much better Sen. Udall would have done today if he had told Coloradoans that he would fight for an immigration policy that would greatly slow the rapid population growth that currently is destroying the quality of life in Colorado that most citizens there value the most. THOSE MISLEADING MEDIA EXIT POLLS Expect to see an attempt from many open-borders advocates and pundits to use exit poll questions about immigration to suggest that voters really prefer amnesty despite voting so heavily for a Party that strenuously opposed amnesty during the campaign. Generally, the polling made the usual error by giving people a choice only between a path to citizenship for illegal aliens or deporting all of them. Very different results come from offering people the option of encouraging illegal aliens to go home by denying them jobs and benefits. But you aren't likely to see that in the exit polling this week. Keep in mind also that exit polling is not scientific. Keep an eye out for polling that is done Wednesday of people by phone who say they voted on Tuesday. Those will be scientific. But the wording of questions will remain central. ROY BECK
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