Nov 7, 2017 9 min read

Winners and losers of the top U.S. races

Voters on Tuesday headed to the polls to elect two governors, some big-city mayors and one member of Congress in an election dominated by local and state races.

A rundown of the top races around the country:

Two governors

Voters in stakes were high as both parties sought momentum ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Democrats haven’t won any special elections for Congress this year and the next Virginia governor will have a major say in the state’s next round of redistricting, when Congressional lines are drawn. Republicans were looking for a boost as their party is beset by intraparty turmoil between Trump and key Republicans in Congress.

Big-city mayors

Democrat Bill de Blasio won a second term as mayor of heavily Democratic New York City. He easily defeated Republican state lawmaker Nicole Malliotakis and several third-party candidates.

In Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh won a second four-year term by beating City Councilor Tito Jackson after a low-key campaign.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan are competing to succeed term-limited Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. If the top vote-getter doesn’t win more than 50 percent, the race would require a runoff on Dec. 5.

Two women – 54-year-old urban planner Cary Moon and 59-year-old former U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan – are vying to lead Seattle, a city dealing with the benefits and problems of an economy booming for some more than others. Former Mayor Ed Murray dropped his re-election efforts – and then resigned – amid accusations of sexual abuse by multiple men.

Charlotte, North Carolina, is getting its sixth mayor since 2009. Mayor Pro Tem Vi Lyles, a Democrat, beat Republican City Councilman Kenny Smith.

Medicaid

Maine voters won a special election to replace U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who resigned earlier this year. In an expected victory in the heavily Republican congressional district, John Curtis beat Democrat Kathryn Allen and third-party candidate Jim Bennett.

Philadelphia district attorney

Philadelphia’s flips to Democrats in a special election, Washington will join Oregon and California with total Democratic rule in both legislative chambers and the governor’s office.

Lawsuit challenging GOP maps advances

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A panel of judges has denied a motion to quash a federal lawsuit charging that Pennsylvania’s congressional maps give Republicans an unfair electoral advantage.

The judges issued the ruling Tuesday after lawyers for the state’s Republican leaders asked them to dismiss the case brought by five Pennsylvania voters against the governor and elections officials.

Attorneys for House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati said the legislative districts are lawful. But lawyers for the voters argue they were illegally drawn to favor one party over another.

Republicans won 13 of 18 congressional seats in the 2014 and 2016 elections despite earning a little over 50 percent of the vote.

The lawsuit also seeks to redraw lines before the 2018 midterm election. It’s scheduled for trial in December.

GOP blocks efforts to boost tax benefits

WASHINGTON (AP) – House Republicans on Tuesday blocked Democratic efforts to secure bigger tax benefits for parents’ costs of raising or adopting children, as they drove toward wrapping up their tax overhaul by week’s end.

The daylong debate by the Ways and Means Committee came as the Senate’s tax bill started to take shape. That version is expected to completely repeal the federal deduction for state and local taxes, a flashpoint of contention for Republican lawmakers from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey, as well as Democrats. Concessions were made in the House bill with a partial repeal.

The Senate measure also would retain the medical expense deduction, which the House plan eliminates. And the Senate would retain today’s seven personal income tax brackets, not collapse them into four like the House bill.

Republicans hope to get Democratic support for their politically necessary legislation, and President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn met with Senate Democrats on Tuesday as Trump phoned in from his Asia trip.

Democrats weren’t buying Trump’s argument that the emerging GOP tax bill is “terrible for rich people.” Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown said Trump made that claim during the call.

But Brown said the Democrats adamantly disagree, telling reporters, “This bill is clearly overwhelmingly serving the rich.” Brown said Trump likes Democratic ideas such as boosting the earned income and child tax credits for working families, but GOP leaders don’t seem interested in them.

The House tax-writing panel voted 23-16 along party lines to reject Democratic amendments affecting parents. In its second marathon day of amendments and votes on the sweeping, nearly $6 trillion bill, the committee also rolled over other Democratic proposals, including one that would have forced businesses to suffer the same loss of the deduction for state and local taxes as individuals.

The GOP plan calls for repealing the adoption tax credit, a move roundly condemned by Democrats. One of the defeated Democratic proposals would have restored the adoption credit and allowed it to be fully refundable.

The proposal’s sponsor, Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said its aim was “so that more families can benefit and more waiting children can be adopted.”

Davis said that In 2014, more than 73,000 U.S. households claimed the adoption tax credit, with an average value of $4,802. However, he added, nearly 60 percent of the credit went to families with annual incomes over $100,000.

The GOP plan also includes an increase in the child tax credit, to $1,600 from $1,000 per child. The amendment by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., that was defeated would have added a $3,600 credit for families with children under age 6.

Trump and the Republicans need to show the tax bill – it would be the first major revamp of the tax code in 30 years – as a solid legislative accomplishment after a year of failure. At least one House Republican was blunt about the pressure from campaign-money donors to produce. “My donors are basically saying get it done or don’t ever call me again,” Rep. Chris Collins. R-N.Y., told reporters.

Collins’ comments prompted a pointed retort from a fellow New Yorker, Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley.

“We know who’s watching, we know who you’re all catering to today,” Crowley lectured Republicans on the Ways and Means panel.

Numerous issues were in play, including the precise levels for a mortgage interest deduction and whether the legislation would serve as a vehicle to repeal the “Obamacare” requirement for nearly all Americans to carry health insurance. A repeal would raise more than $400 billion to help pay for the tax measure, because the government would no longer be paying as much in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Trump has called for repealing the individual mandate, but after a press conference Tuesday with congressional Republicans, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brushed aside a question about whether the president would accept a bill that didn’t contain that provision.

“I’m not going to comment on that issue specifically. Again, the president wants to get a deal that will be signed,” Mnuchin said. “Nothing is more important to the president’s economic agenda than tax reform and tax cuts.”

Republicans are working overtime to present their legislation as a boon to the middle class, citing beefed-up child tax credits and overall decreases in the tax burden across all income levels in the next several years. Democrats call it a gift to corporations and the wealthy, and point to a nonpartisan congressional analysis showing taxes would actually go up beginning in 2023 for some 38 million taxpayers, or families, making $20,000 to $40,000 a year.

The legislation would add $1.5 trillion to an already ballooning national debt. It would deliver a major tax cut to corporations and repeal the estate tax, which would benefit a tiny percentage of the wealthiest families in the country.