During a recent interview, Hillary Clinton, in step with her out-of-touch style, joked about how African-American men “all look alike,” referring to former Attorney General Eric Holder and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ). Even worse, her supporters laughed it off.
“The biggest skill I can bring to the table is a thorough understanding of the budgeting process and understanding the flows of money and an ability to work with the people to accomplish what our priorities and needs are,” said Joe McNamara, the Republican candidate in the 8th District House of Delegates race that will determine if the GOP holds on to their majority in the state legislature.
Building on a district-first approach to Washington politics, Congressman Rob Wittman (VA-1) in his re-election bid has been focused around building up the U.S. military and helping the booming economy grow, while advocating for better infrastructure planning for rural communities.
Nate Silver is now saying that it is “extremely possible” that the Republicans could maintain control of the lower chamber.
“She’s excellent. She’s been with us a long time. She’s been a supporter for a long time. And she’s really excellent,” President Donald Trump said. “We’ll probably make a decision next week. We have a lot of people that want the job and they’re a lot of really great people.”
The problem for the polls highlighting the district is that it sees through a national looking glass, which has biases of its own – that is the true understated total error. Considering Tom Garrett won by a very hefty margin in the previous election cycle and Trump still has the good graces of many in VA-5, do not be surprised if Republican Denver Riggleman wins by a pretty sufficient margin.
Although the news is good on the job creation front, the bigger story is with wage growth, which has languished in the years since the Great Recession of 2008. Average hourly earnings increased by five cents an hour for the month and 83 cents year over year, representing a 3.1 percent gain.
The former Navy SEAL and Iraq combat veteran said his primary goals upon getting to Washington in January 2016 were to expand the military, help veterans through post-active duty care and other areas, and to help improve the Virginia Beach and Eastern Shore economy. Responding quite categorically to his mission, he said, “We’ve done just that.”
Although Republican-based economic policies may not get a credit they deserve in the news cycles, the markets are responding much differently.
Larger companies, those with 500 employees or more, have more resources available to provide the competitive wages and strong benefits prospective employees desire. To combat increased employment costs, employers in the small business sector have been looking to non-salary measures like insurance and benefits packages to retain workers, but may have to start increasing wages to attract and retain talent going forward.
