Katie Britt: GOP will enjoy ‘year of the parent’ midterm red wave
Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Katie Britt is predicting a red wave for the upcoming midterm election, declaring this “the year of the parent.”
In an interview with the Clay and Buck radio show Tuesday, Britt, who would be the only Republican woman senator with school aged children, said she believes her party is expanding their base by appealing more to parents in both local and national elections.
“When you look across the nation, we have parents getting off the sidelines. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about a school board election or all the way to the United States Senate, because we see the country that our children are growing up in and we know the country that we grew up in. And honestly, while it’s not too far apart, it right now seems worlds and worlds away,” said Britt.
“We believe if our generation of parents don’t step up and fight for our children, then we don’t know what’s going to be left for our kids to fight for. And we are seeing this on every single front. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the border. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about crime within our communities. If you’re talking about education, we see the real effects on the day-to-day lives of our children and parents are saying enough is enough.”
Britt, who is likely to win her November contest and enter the senate with a surplus of donations, is touching on issues such as crime, education and inflation that are driving a recent swing in the polls towards Republicans.
“We are the party of parents … we are the party of hard-working Americans,” Britt said.
“We may leave our children with less freedom and less opportunity than we have and, make no mistake, when the government takes one of your freedoms they are never giving it back.”
According to polling released last week by Monmouth University, Republicans are showing a slight edge in races for congressional control – a shift that began in August when Democrats held a 50% likelihood of maintaining power in both the Senate and the House.
Inflation, election and voting issues and crime were identified by Monmouth as the three biggest areas of concern for voters with voters saying they wished President Biden would pay more attention to “issues that are important to your family.”
“Inflation has become even more front and center than it already was. On one hand, the partisan shift on this issue could result in more enthusiastic Republicans and less motivated Democrats. On the other hand, the effect of this issue may be capped among more persuadable voters,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, in their latest release.
“Inflation, immigration, and crime continue to spur GOP voters, along with an increased concern about elections and voting. The House committee calling the former president to testify about the U.S. Capitol attack may have helped raise the salience of this issue among voters who continue to falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen.”
Democrats are continuing to try to galvanize voters around the issue of abortion after the fall of Roe v Wade this summer, with Biden pledging to codify Roe if the party holds onto the House and increases their majority in the Senate.
Candidates are also pointing to falling gas prices and are hoping to make the case that right-wing education policies like book bans and critical race theory are alienating independent and moderate voters, although polls have yet to show any traction on those fronts.
The election will be held Nov. 8.
Alabama does not allow early voting, but the state offers absentee ballots for those who are not able to vote in person so long as the return ballot is received by noon on election day.