Note: We are gradually starting to gear up for covering the 2022 Senate races. If you click the "Click for Senate" link above the map, you will go to our initial page on the 2022 Senate races. It's not much yet, as we don't know much about the races, but it will take shape gradually as time goes on. We'll change the main page to feature the Senate races sometime in the fall.

House Group Approves Senate's Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

On Tuesday, the 58-member House Problem Solvers Caucus, which is populated by centrists from both parties, endorsed the $579 billion infrastructure deal the Gang of 10/20/21 senators cooked up and which Joe Biden said he would sign. Look, bipartisan works! Isn't that great? Who said Congress is dysfunctional?

There are a few small clouds on the horizon, however. First, it currently takes 216 votes to pass a bill in the House, so another 158 House members have to sign up before it can pass the House. Second, the bill needs to get 60 votes in the Senate and its chances seem dimmer by the day, since many Republicans don't want to give Biden a victory he can crow about in 2022, irrespective of what the underlying bill actually does. Third, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has linked the bipartisan bill to a much bigger reconciliation bill and won't bring the bipartisan bill up for a vote until the Senate has passed the reconciliation bill and sent it over. Senate Democrats can do the latter alone—but only if all 50 of them agree to it, and getting them all on the same page won't be simple. Fourth, the parties haven't actually agreed to where the $579 billion is coming from. Other than these minor details, though, it's signed, sealed, and delivered.

The bipartisan bill aims to spend $1.2 trillion on hard infrastructure (roads, bridges, broadband, etc.) with the money over and above the $579 billion in new spending coming from funds that were already appropriated and which would be repurposed for infrastructure. Many Democrats, in particular, don't like the idea of taking money intended for COVID-19 relief and spending it on fixing potholes, so when push comes to shove, the financing could be a major obstacle. This is especially true since Democrats know that "taxing the rich" and "taxing corporations" poll very well, so they want to do that. Republicans are adamantly against such taxes. Maybe something will come of this in the end, but probably not until the fall at best, by which time the reconciliation bill may be ready for a vote in the Senate. That's when we will find out what, if anything, is going to happen. (V)

Trump Sues Facebook, Twitter, and Google

Yesterday Donald Trump sued Facebook, Twitter, and Google. He forgot to sue Apple, Netflix, and God somehow (of course, suing God isn't really fair, since he would have no hope of finding an attorney in heaven). Trump claims that the social media platforms' "censorship" of him is unconstitutional and completely un-American.

Let's take a look at the first claim. The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

At the trial—if it gets that far, which it won't—the tech firms' defense attorneys are going to ask: "What, exactly, is the unconstitutional law that Congress has made that restricted your freedom of speech?" Of course, there is no such law. It is true that private companies have restricted Trump, but they are not subject to the First Amendment. Trump does not have some constitutional right to use Twitter's platform, especially not if he violates the terms and conditions that he agreed to when he signed up. The case is absurd on its face and will never go to trial.

And what about Trump's second claim? Obviously, "un-American" is not a legal argument, and being un-American is not, in and of itself, the basis for either a civil or criminal claim. Still, the U.S. has a long history of non-governmental actors silencing themselves (for fear of recrimination) or others (for various reasons). There's money in porn, but you won't see it on most cable channels because they don't want to deal with potential consequences. Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov, J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck, Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison, and Harper Lee are all important American authors, but their books are absent from some libraries because some folks find the works to be offensive. Railroading a football player out of a professional football league because he doesn't stand for the national anthem is censorship. Destroying a rock band's records because one of the members allegedly claimed to be bigger than Jesus is censorship. Banning teachers from discussing critical race theory in class is censorship. And all of these are just from the last 75 years or so; the silencing of offensive, challenging, and often minority/female voices in the 19th century was even more aggressive. In short, censorship is damn near as American as apple pie.

So the whole complaint, then, is nonsense. Trump has a long history of suing people and companies to intimidate them, but generally when he was the whale, and he was taking on the smaller fish (yes, we know a whale is not a fish). In this suit the defendants are the whale, and Trump is the small fish. Facebook's revenue in 2020 was $86 billion. Twitter is a lot smaller, with a 2020 revenue of $4 billion, which is still pretty substantial. Companies that size have large legal departments and do not scare easily, especially when their lawyers tell the CEOs that the suit is probably going to be thrown out by the first judge who touches it.

The Chamber of Progress, a tech group that has Facebook and Twitter as corporate partners, issued a statement yesterday saying: "Right-wing extremists are turning to the courts because their own platforms have collapsed after becoming anything-goes dumping grounds for hate, hoaxes, and pornography. Now they want to turn Facebook and Twitter into another cesspool for extremism."

So if the suit has virtually no chance of going anywhere, why is Trump doing it?

• Theory 1: Trump is angry at being muzzled and when angry he just lashes out, often against the wishes of his advisers and lawyers. The lawsuits are intended to release some anger and make him feel good.
  
  
• Theory 2: It's the grift. Less than an hour after filing, Trump started sending e-mails and text messages to his supporters saying that the big tech companies are muzzling him and only through their donations can he be allowed to speak again on their behalf. The pitches will lead the sheep to a website that will have a hidden box pre-checked to make the donations repeat every month unless the sheep figure out where the box is and try to uncheck it. This might not even be possible without entering a secret password that can be obtained only by sending two Wheaties box tops and a check for $20 to some post office box in Panama.
  
  
• Theory 3: Trump wants to be in the news. He loves the spotlight. And if that is the goal, it worked. We wrote a story about him. So did the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Axios, CNN, USA Today, The Hill, and a few hundred other media outlets all over the country (and the world).
  
  
• Theory 4: Trump wants Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act overturned. This section states that companies that allow user-generated content are not liable for that content. If that provision were to be struck down by the Supreme Court and Twitter could be sued for something a user (say, Trump) posted, they would have to vet every posting before putting it up. This would make them very skittish about possible lawsuits so they would install AI software that blocked everything not relating to cute cat videos.
  
  
• Theory 5: He wants to move the Overton Window and start getting the public to believe that tech companies are liberals and unfairly censor conservatives. In a recent Supreme Court case, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that tech companies should be treated as common carriers, like phone companies, and not be allowed to censor any content. Needless to say, if that became the law, almost all websites that allow user-posted content would soon be awash in hard-core pornography, hard-core racism, hard-core hatred of all stripes, and tons of advertising, forcing the owners to turn off user commenting. For some sites, like the ones belonging to newspapers, the loss of user comments wouldn't be such a big deal, but for Twitter, whose entire reason for existence is to allow user comments, it would be the end of the road.
  

If we had to guess, it is a combination of 1 and 2, with a dash of 3. If you have a different theory, send it along for the Sunday mailbag.

As an aside, Trump's lawyers know the whole thing is just for show and is not serious, whether or not Trump does. Facebook's terms and conditions state that any lawsuits against the company must be brought in federal court in Northern California or state court in San Mateo County. Twitter's terms and conditions require lawsuits to be brought in San Francisco County. Trump brought the lawsuits in Florida, where they will be thrown out immediately on jurisdictional grounds, even before any First Amendment issues can be raised. (V)

McCarthy Is at a Crossroads

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has to make a decision about the House select committee that will soon start investigating the insurrection that happened on Jan. 6. While the committee's report may not result in new legislation, it will certainly help define the narrative about what happened, and whose fault it was, for this and future generations. If a carefully written, well-documented report states that Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government of the United States because he is a sore loser, that is probably going to cost him some votes among moderate Republicans if he runs in 2024. So the committee and the report are important, regardless of whether it leads to the passage of any new laws.

McCarthy is supposed to suggest five members for the committee, although Nancy Pelosi can veto them. Pelosi has already picked seven Democrats and one Republican (Liz Cheney, R-WY), so if McCarthy can find five candidates, the committee will have seven Democrats and six Republicans. Fundamentally, McCarthy has three broad choices:

1. Don't name anyone: McCarthy could refuse to name anyone to the committee. Pelosi could then see if she can convince any Republicans to join. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) would almost certainly say yes, and maybe she could find four others, especially among older, less Trumpy members who are retiring and have little to fear from Trump. The downside here is that if McCarthy doesn't pick anyone, the committee will have only members who are anti-Trump and are likely to issue a blistering report blaming Trump for the riot. McCarthy will condemn the report as biased, though it will still be the main document future historians and the authors of history textbooks will use when writing about the Trump period. He knows this and doesn't want to give the Democrats and Cheney free rein to trample all over Trump, especially in public hearings.
   
   
2. Name only firebrands: How's this for a list: Lauren Boebert (CO), Madison Cawthorn (NC), Louie Gohmert (TX), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Jim Jordan (OH). All of them are industrial-strength grandstanders who can whoop and yell with the best of them and say nothing in the process. Their signal-to-noise ratio would be zero. They would make the hearings must-watch television as they would disrupt the proceedings—speaking out of turn, holding up offensive signs, and generally behaving like lunatics who have taken over the asylum. The downside is that the public would see that the Democrats were trying to hold serious hearings to get to the bottom of the insurrection and the Republicans were acting like the Five Stooges. Oh, and Cheney would be the only Republican taking the proceedings seriously, so the Democrats would take her seriously and make sure her suggestions were followed wherever possible. The final report would be bipartisan in the sense that one Republican endorsed it. Politically, the country would see Democrats working seriously to understand what happened and Republicans acting like circus clowns, only less funny. Is this the way to win the votes of suburban women? McCarthy probably knows the answer already.
   
   
3. Name serious candidates: McCarthy could pick people who are serious and would be able to challenge the Democrats witness for witness and fact for fact. Steve Scalise (LA), Elise Stefanik (NY), Kelly Armstrong (ND), and other rational Republicans might be willing to do the thankless job if McCarthy asked them, although Trump would instantly begin attacking them. The goal here would be to put up the best defense possible and try to put the blame on the Capitol Police, the National Guard, and the rioters themselves—anybody but Trump. This strategy has the best chance of stopping the Democrats from blaming Trump for everything from the Trail of Tears to the murder of George Floyd, but also has the best chance of inflaming Trump and getting him to say and do things that could hurt the GOP in 2022.
   

We doubt that McCarthy will go with option 1. It allows the Democrats too much freedom and gives Cheney the power to represent all House Republicans to the public. We think he will mostly go with option 3, although he could also throw in one or two flame throwers. Jordan is the most likely since he is by far the smartest of the flame throwers. He has a law degree from Ohio's Capital University Law School, although he never took the bar exam. (V)

Biden Can Reshape the Fed

The Federal Reserve Board consists of seven governors nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Each governor serves a single term of 14 years. The board is independent of the president and sets monetary policy for the country, whether or not the president likes it. It has a dual mandate of keeping inflation in check and trying to achieve full employment. The current board is shown below, along with each member's registered political party and when his or her term ends:

Joe Biden will get the chance to shape the board in the coming months. One seat is vacant and can be filled immediately. Richard Clarida's term as governor ends in January so he can be replaced by a Democrat then. This will give the Democrats three of the seven seats.

In addition, the chair and two vice chairs are appointed for limited terms. Jay Powell's term as chairman expires on Feb. 5, 2022. Randy Quarles' term as vice chair for supervision expires Oct. 13, 2021. Clarida is vice chair and will soon be off the board. By replacing the complete leadership, Joe Biden could have a tremendous impact on Fed policy because it is unlikely the four Republican appointees would vote to overrule the three Democratic leaders, if it came to that. War within the Fed would shake up the markets big time, and the governors don't want that.

Biden could decide that he wants a Fed that looks at not only inflation and unemployment, but also issues like wealth inequality, and then make corresponding appointments. There is nothing to stop him from putting his own person in the vacant slot and then promoting him or her to chair on Feb. 5, 2022. Of course, he could also decide to give Powell another turn at the chairmanship.

Biden doesn't know a lot about high finance. It is not his thing. Fortunately, he knows someone who does: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who herself was Fed chair from 2013 to 2017. No doubt her views will get serious consideration from Biden. However, confirmation is up to the Senate and the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee is progressive Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), whose views also count for a great deal. He hasn't said how he feels about Powell getting another term as chair, but if he were to oppose that, he could kill the confirmation in the Committee. Brown definitely does not like Quarles, so he has zero chance of getting another term as vice chair, although he could stay on as governor until 2032 if he doesn't mind the demotion.

As is generally the case with high-profile posts, identity politics play a role, even for very technical jobs like Fed governor. Black groups are pushing Biden to appoint a Black person to the vacant seat. Economists Lisa Cook and William Spriggs are both Black and are considered possible candidates. (V)

Do Republicans Really Believe the Lies They Are Telling?

Shay Khatiri at The Bulwark has an interesting opinion piece entitled "Do They Really Believe the Lies?" Most Republicans say that they think that Donald Trump won the election. Khatiri looks at the question of whether they really believe what they are saying or are just lying to stay in Donald Trump's good graces. It has been said that if you repeat a big lie often enough, eventually people will come to believe it. The question here is whether the Republican politicians who repeat the Big Lie all the time have actually convinced themself that it is true, or if they are just complete hypocrites spouting propaganda they very well know is false.

As one example, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently tweeted: "Remember when freezing military aid to Ukraine was an impeachable offense?" Of course Congress did not impeach Trump for freezing aid to Ukraine. It impeached him for extorting an ally that didn't want to get involved in a U.S. election. Most likely, Rubio probably doesn't even remember exactly what happened or why Trump was impeached. He is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and has a reputation for being lazy to boot. There are probably many cases in which the situation is somewhat complicated and the politician in question doesn't really remember or understand what actually happened and thus is not "lying" in the sense of telling an intentional falsehood that he clearly understands to be false, but does it anyway.

Probably an even better example is Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who has admitted in private that he knows Trump lost the 2020 election. But Johnson is so convinced that the left is an enemy of America that everything he says and does is directed to the goal of stopping them. He will ally himself with anyone—even Russian President Vladimir Putin—he thinks will help him achieve his goal. If Johnson then says something false in service of blocking the left, he probably doesn't consider it to be lying since it is intended to advance what he sees as the greater good.

This is actually a classic psychological process called self-deception and, more specifically, is a category of self-deception called "construction of a biased social theory." In short, a person convinces themselves that they are good and righteous, and their opponents are evil and wicked, such that saying things that may not "technically" be true is entirely justified in the grand scheme of things. This may explain a lot of the Republicans' behavior. They have so convinced themselves that the left is such a great threat to the America they love (where upstanding straight white Christian men wield all the power without being challenged) that everything they do and say is in service of this goal. It hardly matters if some particular statement is false; it is the overall goal that matters. It is similar to what Trump supporters said about Donald Trump's critics: "They take him seriously but not literally." While the media like to catch politicians uttering a sentence that is, on its face, false, the politicians' supporters may not care about the means as long as they like the ends. This may explain why politicians lie and don't even think about it. Some of them honestly believe they are serving the country better that way. It is an intriguing idea. (V)

Giuliani to Help the Democrats on Saturday

Not a typo. Only Rudy Giuliani doesn't know he's helping. On Saturday, the disgraced former NYC mayor will stump for disgraced former Missouri governor Eric Greitens in Robertsville, MO. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is retiring and there is a wild many-way race for the Republican nomination for the chance to replace him. Missouri AG Eric Schmitt is probably the strongest candidate, and if he gets the GOP nomination, he will likely hold the seat.

But Giuliani, who cares little about electability these days, and lots about loyalty to TrumpWorld, is pushing Greitens. In case you have forgotten, Greitens tied up a naked woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair and took nude photos of her against her will. Then he threatened to release them if she talked. She talked anyway. Greitens' wife is in the process of divorcing him, and the state legislature would have impeached and removed him had he not quit before they could pull it off. Now he is running for the Senate. Sounds like the best candidate the Missouri GOP has had since, say, Todd Akin, he of "legitimate rape" fame. The state party absolutely wants no part of Greitens and is probably not thrilled that Giuliani is coming to campaign for him.

Giuliani's presence also implies that Donald Trump has endorsed Greitens, though he has not. But he might. Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Junior's girlfriend, is Greitens' national chair. That's two people in Trump's orbit who are backing Greitens. It would be strange indeed for Trump to back Schmitt while Junior's girlfriend and Giuliani were actively helping Greitens. If Greitens gets the nomination, Missouri Republicans are going to be tearing their hair out as he is probably the only person in the entire state (other than Akin) who could blow an easily winnable election. The Democrats don't have a top-shelf candidate yet, but if they think Greitens has a shot at the nomination, all of a sudden the Democratic nomination will become valuable and a bunch of candidates are sure to show up. Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas is interested, and while Rep. Cori Bush, former senator Claire McCaskill, and former Missouri secretary of state Jason Kander have all said they are not interested, they could change their minds if they think Greitens is going to be the Republican nominee. (V)

Beasley Raises $1.3 Million for North Carolina Senate Race

The Democrats' top pick-up possibility for the Senate is in Pennsylvania, but the #2 race is in North Carolina. If Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) jumps in to challenge Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA) in the Keystone State, that will be quite a race, but the North Carolina race is also going to be a wild and expensive one, no matter what. Democrats know that if they can find a candidate who doesn't have a zipper problem, they have a good shot in the Tar Heel state. What better way to avoid a zipper problem than to nominate a candidate who doesn't have a zipper?

For example, Cheri Beasley, a Black woman who is a former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. She would rather make laws than interpret them, so she is running for the Senate seat Richard Burr is giving up (largely due to an insider trading scandal). Beasley just reported raising almost $1.3 million in Q2 for her race. She got donations from 93 of the state's 100 counties and 90% were $100 or less. This is her first reporting quarter.

Beasley doesn't have the Black vote locked up, however, because there is another Black woman running for the Democratic senatorial nomination: Erica Smith. Smith ran for the Democratic Senate nomination in 2020 and lost the primary to Mr. Zipper. She's giving it another shot. She hasn't reported her Q2 take yet, but she raised $197,000 in Q1. Smith has the support of progressives, but Beasley has the support of Emily's List, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, and multiple other groups that support Black candidates. If Smith comes in way behind Beasley in her Q2 reporting, a lot of key Democrats may jump on the Beasley bandwagon. Also in the mix is state Sen. Jeff Jackson, who is white.

The Republican side, meanwhile, is wild and woolly. Pat "Bathroom Bill" McCrory is trying for a comeback after being kicked out of the bathroom and also the governor's mansion in Nov. 2016. Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) has Donald Trump's endorsement. Former Rep. Mark Walker (R) is also running. If the Democrats can coalesce on a single candidate quickly, it will help enormously, especially if McCrory and Budd get into a big food fight. The primary is March 8, 2022, and will be the first test of Trump's power as kingmaker. If McCrory beats Budd, it will be a huge hit to Trump's reputation: backing the wrong horse in a big swing state race that could determine control of the Senate. If Trump blows that one, he could get a second chance on May 3, when Ohio voters go to the polls to pick their Senate candidates. Trump hasn't endorsed in that one yet, but with the exciting crew of former state GOP Chair Jane Timken, author J.D. Vance, and former Treasurer Josh Mandel running, he is sure to pick one of them sometime soon. If he blows that one, his third chance will be on May 24, when his candidate, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), will face off against Katie Britt, who has the backing of popular departing Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL).

There was a time, namely Reconstruction, when Black politicians represented several Southern states in Congress. That was possible, in large part, because many white Southerners could not vote. Then there was a time, namely the (roughly) century and a half after Reconstruction, when Black Southern members of Congress became as rare as unicorns, leprechauns, and left-handed shortstops. That was possible, in large part, because most Black Southerners could not vote. Now the pendulum has swung back the other way a bit, with Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and numerous Black colleagues in the House. Whether that trend will continue will be one of the big stories of 2022, though Black Democratic candidates do still tend to need a lot of Black votes, and there are fewer of those to be had in North Carolina (21% Black) than in the similarly sized Georgia (31%). (V)

Pollsters Still Don't Know What Went Wrong in 2020

At the 2021 (virtual) conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), a task force presented a report on the 2020 elections. The report painted a dismal picture of polling in that election. Yes, most pollsters predicted that Joe Biden would be elected president, but most of them predicted a much bigger margin than he actually got. In addition, the pollsters got many of the Senate races wrong. Probably the worst of all was the Maine Senate race, in which virtually every single poll had Sara Gideon (D) ahead of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) by large margins the entire year, and yet Collins won by 8 points. The polls in Iowa, Montana, and elsewhere were also off, in all cases showing the Democrats doing better than they actually did. The report didn't have an answer to what went wrong but concluded that the data are "consistent with systemic non-response." This is pollster-speak for "When we called Trump supporters, many of them hung up the phone immediately, so we undersampled Republicans everywhere."

The report is disappointing. An all-star crew of pollsters didn't figure out what went wrong and certainly doesn't know how to "fix" the problem. Response rates to pollsters are below 10% now, but there has always been an assumption that non-responders have roughly the same views as responders, so their lack of participation doesn't affect the results. If the truth is that non-responders are systematically more Republican, or systematically more a particular type of Republican (e.g., Trumpers) than the responders are, figuring out how to deal with this is going to be tough. All pollsters can do is hope and pray that the effect is present only when Donald Trump is on the ballot. In 2018, the polls were reasonably good, so maybe that is the case. But if Trump is deeply involved in the 2022 midterms, maybe the differential non-response effect will be present then, too.

A similar problem occurred with the 2016 election. In the autopsy, pollsters discovered that there were a surprisingly large number of "undecideds" in the samples. It turned out that many of these were Trump supporters who said they were undecided but really were decided. They just didn't want to say that. That wasn't the case in 2020. Then, it appears that the reluctant Trump supporters just didn't take the calls at all. The 2016 polls did not correct for educational level, which hurt their accuracy, but the 2020 polls did, so that wasn't the problem in 2020.

One thing that pollsters learned in 2020 is that how the voters were contacted didn't make any difference. In particular, well-done online polls performed as well as telephone polls. This conclusion will no doubt lead to new ways of trying to contact voters. Getting a truly random sample isn't so important if post-poll corrections can make sure that the sample is massaged to make sure that the right number of men, women, whites, Blacks, Latinos, rich people, poor people, college grads, high school grads, and every other demographic is weighted correctly. Of course, this requires a really good model of the electorate, which brings in its own problems.

Another thing the report said is that identifying the "likely voters" is critical. In 2020, 240 million people were eligible to register and vote (that is, they were over 18, citizens, and not disenfranchised by law). Of these, 215 million were registered to vote and 160 million actually voted. So the turnout among registered voters was 75% and among the voting-eligible population it was 67%. Clearly, every pollster is first going to ask if the respondent is a registered voter. Even if they pass that screen, one out of four is not going to vote, and their questionnaire shouldn't be counted. But how can a pollster figure out which of the four should be discarded? It is a hugely important question with no clear answer. The task force was stymied because all pollsters regard their likely voter screen as their secret sauce and keep it tightly guarded. Studies show that the error introduced by different likely voter screens on the same data set can be as much as 5%. And now, people who plan to vote and even try to vote may fail to do so on account of all the new anti-voting laws, creating even more problems for the pollsters.

A key part of what pollsters need to do in 2024 is figure out some way of accounting for the nonresponders. It could be as simple as adding 3 points to the Republican total, but that is hardly a scientific way of going about it. So the report is far from satisfactory, but here we are anyway. (V)

Garcia and Wiley Concede

It's all over, including the shoutin'. Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley have graciously conceded their loss in the race for mayor of New York City. Garcia trailed Adams by only 8,400 votes, but she admitted that she lost. Wow, a politician loses a race and admits it? What is the country coming to? She also noted that in 400 years, no woman has ever been elected mayor of NYC, but now the glass ceiling has at least been cracked even if it's not broken. Maya Wiley also mentioned the glass ceiling in her concession speech.

In contrast, Eric Adams, who is now officially the Democratic nominee for mayor and unofficially the next mayor, went on all the morning television shows and announced that he was the new voice for blue-collar workers and that the Democratic Party was no longer run by the elite. He dismissed any notion that he would hire Garcia in his administration. He also took a potshot at the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, saying that Sliwa is a one-trick pony and that running city hall requires a mayor who can handle many complex issues at once. Adams, who is virtually certain of being elected in November, will be the city's second Black mayor, after David Dinkins, who served from 1990 to 1993, and lost his reelection bid to Rudy Giuliani. (V)

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