Morning Headlines - Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022

U.S. and World Headlines

'Going To Be Ugly': All Signs Point To Republican Landslide In Florida

Florida Democrats are bracing for a very bad night on Nov. 8.

Less than two weeks before the election, Democrats are signaling that key races are slipping away from them. They point to ominous signs and missed opportunities, including the party’s message on abortion rights and gun control that isn’t resonating and a lack of coordination between the campaigns of Rep. Val Demings, who is vying to unseat Sen. Marco Rubio, and Charlie Crist, who is challenging Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Most worrisome for Democrats, national organizations and donors have all but abandoned their candidates — setting off fears that Florida is no longer viewed as competitive.

The Midterms Could Set A New Record For Female Governors — And Send Fewer Women To Congress

For political candidates from underrepresented groups, progress can be uneven — and the 2022 midterms could be a great example of that, at least when it comes to women candidates.

On the one hand, it looks like we’re heading for a record-setting year for women in governors’ races. According to our forecast, there are 12 female gubernatorial candidates who have at least a 50-in-100 chance of winning in FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe forecast, as of Tuesday at 12 p.m. Eastern. If each were to win their election, it would be historic. Up until now, only nine women have simultaneously occupied governors’ mansions. And two of the most competitive governors’ races — in Oregon and Arizona — have only women as major candidates, which increases the odds that the record will be broken this year.

But the outlook isn’t so good for women running for Congress. Several of the most vulnerable congressional candidates are women, including many Democratic House candidates who flipped seats in 2018. And it’s quite possible that the number of women in Congress will decline after the November elections.

Parents Differ Sharply By Party Over What Their K-12 Children Should Learn In School

As the midterm election approaches, issues related to K-12 schools have become deeply polarized. Republican and Democratic parents of K-12 students have widely different views on what their children should learn at school about gender identity, slavery and other topics, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

They also offer different assessments of the influence parents, local school boards and other key players have on what public K-12 schools in their area are teaching. Republican parents with children in K-12 schools are about twice as likely as Democratic parents to say parents don’t have enough influence (44% vs. 23%, including those who lean to each party). And Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say school boards have too much influence (30% vs. 17%). These parents also differ over the amount of input they personally have when it comes to what their own children are learning in school.

Israel, Lebanon Sign US-Brokered Maritime Border Deal

Israel and Lebanon have officially approved a historic United States-brokered agreement laying out their maritime boundary for the first time, which opens up the possibility for both countries to conduct offshore energy exploration.

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun signed a letter at the presidential palace on Thursday morning that will be submitted to US officials at Lebanon’s southernmost border point of Naqoura later in the day.

Top Lebanese negotiator Elias Bou Saab said the deal, which ends a long-running maritime border dispute in the gas-rich Mediterranean Sea, marked the beginning of a “new era”.

Israel’s government also ratified the agreement on Thursday, a statement from Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s office said.

Lapid said the deal was a “political achievement” for Tel Aviv as “it is not every day that an enemy state recognises the State of Israel, in a written agreement, in front of the entire international community”.

Tech Giants Wage War With Apple Over App Store Guidelines

Spotify, Meta and other Big Tech rivals are putting Apple in their crosshairs for what they say are unfair and anti-competitive practices meant to bolster Apple's business at the expense of their own.

The industry backlash towards Apple has been increasing as the tech giant pushes to make more money from its software services, like App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple News, Apple TV+ and Apple Pay.

Spotify on Tuesday spoke out against Apple after the launch of its new audiobooks feature.

Wisconsin Headlines

Waukesha Strong: City Glows Blue Following Darrell Brooks' Guilty Verdict

Waukesha glowed blue overnight after a verdict came in and the trial of Darrell Brooks reached its end.

Sentencing is next on the agenda, with Judge Jennifer Dorow scheduling Monday as the next time Brooks will be back in court to set up that date.

The verdict came down early Wednesday morning with the jury deliberating for just over three hours before finding Brooks guilty on all 76 counts, including homicide, in the Waukesha Christmas parade attack. Throughout the three-and-a-half-week trial, the process was everything but smooth with Brooks' repeated outbursts and being sent to another courtroom, as the judge attempted to keep the trial moving on schedule. But yesterday, during the reading of the verdicts, Brooks showed not anger, but defeat.

Thousands Of Eligible Wisconsin Voters Face Ballot Barriers In Jail

Within a few years of returning from two traumatic combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, David Carlson lost his voting rights.

He spent about four years in prison on felony charges that in Wisconsin result in disenfranchisement.

What Carlson didn't realize is that while he sat in jail prior to his conviction, he could have cast a ballot. Only, he said, no one told him he was still eligible.

While tens of thousands of Wisconsinites are legally barred from voting because of felony convictions, thousands more eligible voters in local jails face persistent barriers to casting a ballot.

Advocates with Demos, a progressive think tank, call this "de facto disenfranchisement."

"Disenfranchisement is, in my opinion, a violation of our constitutional liberties, especially individuals who are eligible to vote and the only barrier is the fact that they're in a jail that doesn't have a well defined process," said Carlson, now a community organizer and law school student.

As Test Scores Reveal Nation's Worst Racial Gap, Evers And Michels Offer Starkly Different Solutions

As staffers handed out 'Parents for Michels' signs before a rally here Wednesday, it became clear education would be a big theme when Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin visited to boost Wisconsin's GOP candidate for governor, Tim Michels.

Youngkin raised eyebrows across the U.S. last November when he was elected in a commonwealth that President Joe Biden won by 10 percentage points in 2020. He ran a campaign that largely focused on giving parents more control over what's taught in schools.

The rally came two days after national test scores revealed Wisconsin had the nation's biggest performance gap between Black and White students.

Wisconsin's racial gap was the worst in the U.S. among both fourth and eighth graders in both reading and math. The results did not include every state; 13 did not include racial data. 

While the size of that gap varied by category, both Michels and Democratic incumbent Gov. Tony Evers said the results were still alarming. How they proposed going about addressing the disparity was a sharp contrast.

Evers, Michels Add Political Firepower To Campaigns

The race for governor in Wisconsin is tight, and each candidate is bringing in big names to help get them over the top.

“You need to get out and vote for my friend, Governor Tony Evers,” former President Barack Obama says in a new television ad.

“Thirteen days left. This thing is tied. Deadlocked. Whoever works the hardest down the stretch is going to win, and I can tell you, that’s what happens,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said, stumping for Tim Michels in Green Bay.

Evers announced TV and radio ads featuring President Obama last week, touching on the topics of funding for public education, voting rights, and access to abortion.

Wednesday, Michels went to the people of Waukesha and Green Bay. He brought in someone a lot like him: Virginia’s Gov. Youngkin. Both were businessmen when they decided to run for governor, and Michels now hopes to have the same result Youngkin did: Winning.

How To Tell If A Political Poll Is Legitimate

Your phone keeps ringing, buzzing. The calls and texts are coming from unknown numbers. Most of the time, you ignore them. But when you answer, there's a complete stranger on the other end, peppering you with questions.

Welcome to Wisconsin, a swing state where every vote really does seem to count and where campaigns, consultants and media outlets hire pollsters to find out what people are thinking in the weeks and months before Election Day.

Not everyone wants to answer those calls, but Angie Jaramillo does.

"I want to show that not everyone where I live is thinking one way," Jaramillo said. "I actually think a different way."

Jaramillo, a self-described independent voter from Brookfield, said polls remind her of when she was a kid in school taking a vote on something in class.