POLITICAL TRENDING NEWS NOVEMBER 2021

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 President Joe Biden said Monday he will reappoint Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as head of the U.S. central bank, opting for continuity in the government’s most powerful economic post as the specter of rising inflation looms in an election year. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul is maintaining a healthy lead over her toughest challenger, state Attorney General Tish James, in her bid to win a term in her own right next year, according to a new Data for Progress poll shared with POLITICO.  Hochul leads James 36-22 when the poll includes former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in August and has made no moves to reclaim his old seat. When he is omitted from the poll, the 15 percent support he received is fairly evenly divided among Hochul, James and others trailing the frontrunners. 

It also angered lawmakers who had given the airline industry more than $50 billion in pandemic relief money over the last year and a half — based on the carriers’ promise that the cash would help them be ready for travelers' return to the skies. Now Congress is demanding answers about why airlines have been so unprepared for the inevitable upswing in passenger demand, a question with big implications for the holiday travel season that kicks off this weekend.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s primary challenger landed former President Donald Trump’s endorsement before she even officially launched her campaign. Now, she’s cashing big checks from Trump’s biggest donors — including tech billionaire Peter Thiel.  Thiel has contributed the maximum-allowed, $5,800 check to Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed attorney running against Cheney in next year’s Republican primary. The former president has made Cheney, an outspoken critic who voted for his impeachment in January, his top target in the 2022 election, and now big-money benefactors like Thiel are piling into the race. 

 Zinke, 59, right now appears to be the leading candidate to represent Montana’s newly designated 2nd congressional district. He has Trump’s endorsement and strong name recognition. But his opponents have seized on a weak point for a politician running as a son of Montana. As a candidate, Zinke already has his share of questions to answer: It’s been almost three years since he resigned from the Interior Department amid a series of ethics scandals and federal investigations, some of which were referred to the Department of Justice. But in Montana, perhaps the most acute question now is about exactly where he lives.

As Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin are preparing to face off in Virginia’s second gubernatorial debate on Tuesday night, political watchers are keeping an eye on themes that could also play out on the campaign trail in 2022.  Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia, is vying for another shot at leading the commonwealth, a place which bars governors from serving successive terms. 

Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars in 2020 to keep Democrats from painting more of Texas blue. Now, the GOP is trying to fireproof its districts with a new map that contains the suburban damage they've suffered.  The Texas state Senate is on the verge of releasing new congressional lines that could very well determine the balance of power in the House for the next decade. While the precise boundaries are still being finalized, the new map is likely to shore up all of the state’s GOP incumbents by packing Democrats together in three new deep-blue seats in the biggest metro areas: Austin, Houston and Dallas, according to several sources close to the redistricting process. 

 Republicans are hand-wringing over former President Donald Trump’s hand-picked candidate Herschel Walker entering a critical Senate race. Surprisingly, Mitch McConnell isn’t one of them.  After vowing earlier this year to tangle with Trump if necessary to nominate electable GOP candidates in must-win Senate primaries, the Senate minority leader is tacitly blessing many of Trump’s endorsements. As McConnell surveys Trump’s picks in Senate battlegrounds, he's concluded that “I don't believe they're troubling.” 

 Prosecutors plan to call former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt — the frontrunner for the GOP nomination in a crucial 2022 Senate race — to testify in the upcoming criminal trial of Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who became a central figure in the 2019 impeachment of President Donald Trump.  Laxalt’s unsuccessful 2018 campaign for governor was among the recipients of two $5,000 donations from another Giuliani associate, Igor Fruman, that the Justice Department alleges were straw contributions from a Russian businessman not permitted to fund U.S. campaigns. And prosecutors say Laxalt’s testimony will show he was deceived into believing the donation was legitimate.