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midterms

Midterms are some of the most important elections in our country.

The 2022 midterm elections are here and while it may seem hard to escape the seemingly endless advertisements of candidates and ballot initiatives, some people don't understand the importance of voting. In America, we have three branches of government, designed to perform checks and balances. One branch can't work properly without the others.

No matter who is in the White House, they can't move things through without Congress.

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M.J. Hegar has thrived in the face of adversity her entire life.

The 42-year-old Air Force veteran is also an author, wife, and mother. And now she's trying to win in a Texas congressional district that to date has never elected a Democrat.

In late June, Hegar released a campaign video entitled "Doors," which highlighted her life story and her fight against sexism in the military. She won a historic legal fight that overturned the Direct Combat Definition and Assignment Rule that prevented military women from serving in a number of roles.

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Some of the March for Our Lives student activists have been traveling across several cities as part of their #RoadToChange tour, which is focused on getting people to vote in the 2018 midterm elections and support gun safety measures.

At a stop in Dallas on July 7, they were speaking to students at Paul Quinn College.

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Democratic voter turnout has been way up this year. Let's put that in a bit of historical context.

The New York Times has a great graphic showing how Democratic primary election turnout has changed between 2014 and 2018. Their analysis found that Democratic turnout is up in at least 123 congressional races. Republicans experienced a similar boost between 2006 and 2010, the year they picked up 63 congressional seats and took control of the House of Representatives.

The news in this last week of June 2018 — packed with controversial Supreme Court decisions and the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy — is in many ways the result of Republican enthusiasm in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. While a lot of Democrats are (probably rightly) feeling good about the energy they've seen so far (a trend that held up on June 27), it only matters if people actually show up in November.

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