Fetterman flips PA Senate seat for Dems, GOP rolls in school board races: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Election 2022: Fetterman flips Pennsylvania Senate seat for Dems

Hear how voters leaned on Election Day in critical Congressional races. Plus, USA TODAY investigative reporter Erin Mansfield explains how PACs helped Republicans roll in school board races.

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here.

Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is 5 Things you need to know Wednesday, the 9th of November 2022. Today...

Sen.-Elect John Fetterman:

We bet on the people of Pennsylvania, and you didn't let us down.

Taylor Wilson:

Midterm elections are in the books, but plenty of races are still being counted. We have the latest.

♦

The 2022 midterms are finally behind us with several critical elections still too close to call. At stake, control of the US Senate. Georgia once again may end up as the key decider there as the contest between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker likely heads to a runoff. Pennsylvania meanwhile, also a toss up, was called for Democratic candidate John Fetterman in a tight race against Republican Mehmet Oz. Producer PJ Elliott spoke with congressional reporter Candy Woodall, who's been on the road in Philadelphia covering the race.

Candy Woodall:

I was not surprised. I also would not have been surprised if Oz won. Pennsylvania senate races are usually close.

PJ Elliott:

What do you think was the deciding factor for Fetterman winning this race?

Candy Woodall:

Inflation and economy, that was the number one issue here. Preserving democracy was number two. And what I kept hearing from voters was they were a little bit concerned that Oz, because he was backed by Trump, that he would defer to Trump.

PJ Elliott:

What was the turnout for this Senate race?

Candy Woodall:

I kept hearing from people, particularly in the suburban counties of Philadelphia, that those counties had high turnout. And tonight when I talked to an election official, they said turnout was high and that they expected it to be higher than 2018 because of mail-in ballots.

PJ Elliott:

Candy, can you talk about what some of the more important issues were for Pennsylvanians?

Candy Woodall:

I kept hearing so much about inflation, economy, democracy. People were telling me that it was in fact impacting their vote.

PJ Elliott:

What about former President Trump? How much of a role did he play in this election?

Candy Woodall:

The tease yesterday in Ohio when former President Trump said that next Tuesday he would have a very big announcement, I heard from voters who said that actually changed their decision for who they were voting for today. They said they were concerned if he had a Republican Congress what that might mean in terms of unchecked power. So they today voted, instead, for Fetterman.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

The House of Representatives meanwhile looks to be solidly in the hands of Republicans with a handful of races still too close to call. So where was this highly anticipated red wave that political pundits had been predicting? PJ Elliott spoke with USA TODAY White House correspondent Joey Garrison to find out what happened.

Joey Garrison:

This idea of a red wave election, where Republicans would overwhelmingly take control of the House and easily win the Senate, just hasn't panned out. The reason that a lot of people who analyze these things thought that it was going to tilt in a strong way towards Republicans is because voters have been saying that they have strong concerns about the economy and inflation under the president's watch and the president himself has a low approval rating. What we thought could also happen is that the abortion issue and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, that was a real motivating factor for a lot of Democrats.

PJ Elliott:

Joey, what did this election tell us about President Trump's leadership of the Republican party?

Joey Garrison:

This was not a good night for former President Trump. A lot of his handpicked candidates did not do well. I think you're seeing in some ways a repudiation on the politics of Trump. Biden elevating this race, framing it as democracy is at state, that had a lot of second guessing among even Democrats whether that was a good strategy by the president.

PJ Elliott:

So to the other side of that, how does Gov. Ron DeSantis come out looking in all of this after winning his reelection bid in Florida?

Joey Garrison:

Well, if it's a bad night for President Trump, I think it could be a stronger night for DeSantis. Florida was a bright spot for Republicans. And I'm already thinking ahead to next week where Trump has pretty much indicated that he is going to announce his reelection bid. I think it raises questions about that timing, if it's the best timing to do that. If this ends up being a bad night for Republicans overall, I don't think that's what former President Trump was wanting.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

Across the nation, yesterday's elections were marked by deep political divisions. Democrats had strongly argued that with hundreds of election deniers on the ballot, democracy itself was on the ballot. So how did democracy do? To answer this question, I'm joined by USA TODAY Deputy Managing Editor for Politics, Luciana Lopez. So Luciana, did democracy prevail last night?

Luciana Lopez:

I think the jury is still out on how democracy really fared. On the one hand, you did have some prominent election deniers who lost their bids for election. You have some prominent election deniers who we're still waiting to see how they did, but they're certainly not getting anything like a slam dunk. And yet at the same time, the fact remains that tens of thousands, and in some cases hundreds of thousands of Americans, still voted for election denying candidates. And so I think this is a question that is going to unfold well beyond one night or any one set of elections.

Taylor Wilson:

Here are a few of the races that went to election deniers. In Ohio, Trump-backed political newcomer JD Vance won his race against Democratic representative Tim Ryan. Vance has repeatedly said that he thinks the election was stolen from Trump. GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene easily won her Georgia US House seat against Democrat Marcus Flowers. In 2020, Greene helped organize teams of House members who would later object to certifying the 2020 election results. And finally, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy breezed to a win in California against long shot Democratic contender Marissa Wood. McCarthy was one of more than a hundred House members who signed on as an advisor in the case Texas v. Pennsylvania that challenged the results of the 2020 election.

While we don't yet know the scope of election deniers wins yesterday, what we can say for certain is this, what was once considered a fringe movement is edging closer to the political mainstream, a development that'll no doubt have reverberations for the next presidential election in 2024.

♦

The 2022 midterms were historic in some ways with plenty of firsts in races across the country. But first, turning back to you, Luciana, what issues actually got voters to the polls?

Luciana Lopez:

There was a lot of polling leading up to this suggesting that there were in fact almost multiple elections running at the same time with completely different sets of issues in each case. But I think ultimately what we saw is that a lot of people were able to vote on more than one thing at a time, which is why I don't think we had a red wave or a blue wave either way. I think people really had to think about what is the right mix of issues for them to get them where they needed to be and where they wanted to be. And I think to me, the results still show a very divided America.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. How about some of those candidates making history with those firsts?

Luciana Lopez:

Yeah, well definitely Maxwell Frost winning a seat in Congress was really notable. He is 25 years old, so he's kind of a youngin'. He's the first Gen Z congressperson we're getting, so that's really significant. We had a number of other first as well. For example, we had Maryland electing their first Black governor in Wes Moore, so that is a really big deal. In [Massachusetts], we had Maura Healey, who is a Democrat, being elected. She is the country's first out lesbian governor, because for all we know of course we have had other lesbian governors but we just maybe have not been aware of it. So it's significant that she's out.

Taylor Wilson:

You can read more about candidates making history with a story in today's show description.

♦

Republicans won big this week in school board races around the country, but how'd they pull off this wave of wins? USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Erin Mansfield joins me now to discuss. Erin, how are you? Thanks for joining me.

Erin Mansfield:

Doing great. Thanks for having me, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So Erin, how did conservative candidates win so convincingly in school board races?

Erin Mansfield:

So there's a PAC called the 1776 Project PAC. And this PAC raised about $3 million this year and they went into school board races in fairly small counties, fairly small towns; and endorsed candidates and ran ads, sent mailers out to people to try to get them to vote for their candidates. Their main issue is what Republicans often call critical race theory, which is a bit of a misnomer, but it's basically opposition to social and racial justice lessons, lessons about white privilege, lessons about racism, basically opposition to having those types of themes taught in school.

Taylor Wilson:

Erin, can you tell us a little about the group Moms For Liberty and what their aims are?

Erin Mansfield:

What's interesting about Moms for Liberty is Moms for Liberty is what a lot of wonks call a dark money group where we don't actually know how much they raise or how much they spend. They are not forced to be as transparent as the 1776 Project PAC is with the way that they try to influence elections.

A lot of these school districts are countywide. Well, if you can win a countywide election and your congressional district has maybe one or two counties in it, you're in pretty good shape to try to win that county at a higher level. Pretty much every major candidate you'll see started at some kind of local level - city council, county commissioner, school board. So they build their experience, they show that they care about their communities, they show that they care about the children in the community and they can move on. And it's really a very effective training tool to get more Republicans coming up from the grassroots up.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks to you listener for stopping by another episode of 5 Things. Thanks to our great team for their fantastic work all Election Day. And if you like what you heard, please drop us a rating and review on your favorite podcast app if you have a chance. I'll be back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fetterman flips Senate seat for Dems, GOP fills school boards: 5 Things podcast