77.9 F
Mobile
73.1 F
Huntsville
72.4 F
Birmingham
52.9 F
Montgomery

7 Things: Polls tighten with a day to go, Alabama leaders see lottery and gas tax votes coming, Maddox takes money from admitted sexual assaulter and more …

7. Voting issues bubble up before the election — not just made up stories like in Alabama

— Georgia’s secretary of state, and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, is alleging that Georgia’s Democratic Party had launched a “failed attempt to hack the state’s voter registration system.” A spokesperson says they are under investigation for “possible cybercrimes.”

— Last week in Texas, four women were indicted for voter fraud and one of them alleges the money she used to pay others involved came from a Democratic Party leader.

6. Another one of Brett Kavanaugh’s “accusers” has been referred to the DOJ for lying about her interactions with Kavanaugh

— Judy Munro-Leighton has been referred for “materially false statements” about Kavanaugh raping her in the back seat of a car, turns out she never wrote that e-mail or met Kavanaugh.

— Grassley noted this was a “ploy” to oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination, saying, “She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she ‘just wanted to get attention’; (2) ‘it was a tactic’; and (3) ‘that was just a ploy.’ She told Committee investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process — including prior to the time Dr. Ford’s allegations surfaced — to oppose his nomination.”

5. Numbers indicate the economy is still booming right before the midterms

— The total number of workers and people looking for work are all up, showing the economy is still strong. It is going so well that President Barack Obama Obama is taking credit for the economy he said couldn’t happen.

— 250,000 jobs were created versus an expected 190,000. Wages were 3.1 percent, which is an increase over September’s 2.8 percent.

4. Disinformation over Amendment 2 is rampant and intentional — not accidental

— AL.com’s pre-election misinformation campaign continues as they produced a piece this weekend declaring that miscarriage and in vitro fertilization could be changed if the amendment passes.

— The amendment has no force of law. It is essentially a referendum that states a public policy position. It was a GOP get out the vote measure and nothing more.

3. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Walt Maddox took money from a guy who was spanking his employees and had to give up his newspaper

— As Democrats across the country try to build an entire movement on the sexual misconduct of politicians and celebrities, Maddox has accepted $10,000 from the former longtime publisher of the Anniston Star, Brandt Ayers.

— Ayers admitted to multiple sexual assaults in the 1970s against his employees, declared he wouldn’t step down because he “served honorably, even courageously, in the public interest,” only to then step down and hand over the reign of power to his wife.

2. Both Speaker Del Marsh and Speaker Mac McCutcheon are talking lottery, infrastructure and healthcare while all of these issues are missing in our election conversation

— In separate interviews with Yellowhammer News’ Jeff Poor, both Alabama State House leaders discussed issues that will come up in 2019’s legislative session.

— The most hot-button issues are sure to be a lottery (which Marsh says 65 percent of Republicans favor a vote) and infrastructure (which means a gas tax and a potential change from a flat rate to a percentage) will come up, but their outcome is uncertain.

1. Pollsters indicate a tight race for control of the House

— While Democrat control of the House is considered to be a major possibility by most predictors, generic balloting that was in the upper-teens is now back into single-digits.

— The main data point for the Republican argument is the economy and 65 percent of respondents view the economy favorably. The only time this number was higher was in January of 2001 when 70 percent viewed the economy favorably.

Don’t miss out!  Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.