Elections

The Florida governor’s victory was a result of his commanding campaign, relentless voter registration and turnout efforts, and Democrats’ utter collapse in the state.MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis steadfastly focused his re-election campaign on President Biden rather than on his Democratic opponent in Florida. But Mr. DeSantis’s runaway victory on Tuesday, while crushing to Democrats, felt more like a win over a different rival: former President Donald J. Trump.While candidates endorsed or handpicked by Mr. Trump stumbled nationally, Mr. DeSantis routed former Representative Charlie Crist by 19 percentage points, an astonishing result that Republicans in the state were still marveling over on Wednesday.“We had probably the best night you could have ever asked for,” said State Senator Joe Gruters of Sarasota, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.The party’s smashing success in Florida — among its brightest spots in a national midterm election with decidedly mixed outcomes — was a result of its relentless voter registration and turnout efforts there, Mr. DeSantis’s commanding campaign and Democrats’ utter collapse in a state in which they failed to effectively compete at all, leaving it to turn solidly red.Neither Mr. DeSantis nor any other Republicans who won statewide races made mention of how vastly they outperformed many of Mr. Trump’s preferred candidates elsewhere in the country. But their winning margins spoke for themselves. When Mr. Trump took Florida in 2020, his 3.3 percentage points over Mr. Biden seemed ample in a state that had swung back and forth between Republicans and Democrats for two decades.Mr. DeSantis’s runaway victory on Tuesday, while crushing to Democrats, felt more like a win over a different rival: Mr. Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesOn Tuesday, every Republican running for statewide office won by at least 16 points, leaving little doubt that Florida is Republican country — and that Mr. DeSantis’s political career has become supercharged.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More

Doesn’t it feel as if we’ve been watching the Senate race in Georgia since the War of 1812?It’s true that midterm vote-counting in general could go on forever. But the Democrats’ 50-50 control of the Senate might very well come down to Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.No offense, Georgians, but we’re kinda tired of spending our political lives waiting to see what you do next. Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, seems to have gotten the most votes, but Georgia requires the winner to have more than 50 percent, and this year there’s a Libertarian candidate whose 2 percent showing made that nearly impossible.On to the Dec. 6 runoff. Meanwhile, your Thanksgiving dinner conversation can feature Walker’s sex scandals. Which have sort of distracted us from the fact that he knows close to nothing about public affairs. Or pretty much anything non-footballian. ( “What the heck is a pronoun?”)Now inquiring minds will also want to discuss the situation in the House, where the distinctly less athletic Republican Kevin McCarthy might get his dream of becoming the speaker.Yeah, once we get the votes all counted, Republicans may well have control, and McCarthy could spend the next two years investigating Hunter Biden. But at best he’d have a tiny majority, giving every one of his rank-and-file members outrageous sway. McCarthy’s nights would be haunted less by powerful Democrats than crazy Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.What do you think? If you’re not obsessed with Georgia, here’s another option for analyzing the midterm returns: We’ll call it W.W.M.T.N. That is, What Would Make Trump Nuts?So far on that front we have a pretty clean sweep. One of the biggest winners of the night was Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, and possible presidential candidate in 2024. (Very, very possible, if you remember his blank stare at the camera when he was asked if he’d promise, if re-elected, to complete the next four-year term.)DeSantis certainly did win by a large margin, although you have to consider he was running against Charlie Crist, a former Republican and former independent who was Florida’s governor in between multitudinous, often-unsuccessful attempts to get elected to … something.Now, Donald Trump wants to change the subject by making what could be his running-for-president announcement next week.The timing is a sign of how miserable he is when he’s not the center of attention. As well as his all-purpose hatred for DeSantis, who he recently called DeSanctimonious. (Not actually the worst choice of an insult, given the fact that DeSantis released a campaign video in which God was mentioned more often than Florida.)Trump was pretty busy during campaign season, meeting and greeting folks at Mar-a-Lago and giving speeches, in which he occasionally managed to stop talking about himself long enough to mention the Republicans he was there to support.When it came to endorsements, our ex-president had a pretty clear idea of how important his blessing was: “I think if they win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all,” he said in an interview.He certainly hates hates hates to be connected with any of the week’s failures, like Mehmet Oz, who lost what was probably the biggest Senate race of the season to John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. “Trump is indeed furious,” tweeted our Maggie Haberman, “ … blaming everyone who advised him to back Oz, including his wife, describing it as ‘not her best decision,’ according to people close to him.”OK, folks. Think about people Melania Trump has decided to align herself with over the course of her life and tell me whether you think Dr. Oz was the worst selection.We’re not going to know the total, complete outcome of the elections for ages, but there’s already plenty to mull. For instance, Senator Chuck Grassley got re-elected in Iowa at the age of 89. He makes Joe Biden look like a spring chicken. Or at least an early-fall rooster. If the Republicans win the Senate, Grassley will be president pro tempore, third in line for the presidency. Biden will turn 80 this month, and second-in-line Nancy Pelosi is 82. I’m extremely happy to see age discrimination getting a whack, but gee whiz.What do you think is going to happen next on the political front? Well, you may finally be able to look through your texts and messages without stumbling over several dozen requests for campaign contributions. Although if you’re on Trump’s mailing list, things will just keep on coming.“Do you want President Trump to run in 2024?” demanded one of his many, many missives on Wednesday. Another began, unnecessarily, “If you want me to run in 2024,” then asked, “who should my Vice President be?”Hmm. How about Dr. Oz? He doesn’t seem to have anything else to do.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Joe Biden took a cautious victory lap following the 2022 midterm election results, describing Democratic successes despite expectations of large Republican gains. ‘While the press and the pundits were predicting a giant red wave – it didn’t happen,’ the US president said, adding that many results in key races were still being tallied.
With ballots still being counted, Democrats were hopeful about holding the Senate while Republicans felt they were on course to win the House – but by a much narrower margin than widely predicted

Senate control still a toss-up as key midterm races remain uncalled
US politics: latest updates More

Trump said Pence was ‘too honest’ over January 6 plot, says ex-vice-president in bookPence also seems to blame anti-Trump Lincoln Project for angering former president with political ad, fueling Capitol attack Shortly before the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump warned Mike Pence he was “too honest” when he hesitated to pursue legalistic attempts to stop certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and would make Trump’s supporters “hate his guts”, the former vice-president writes in his memoir.The winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald TrumpRead morePence also seems, bizarrely, to blame the anti-Trump Lincoln Project for enraging Trump with a political ad, thereby fueling the anger that incited the Capitol attack.Pence’s book, So Help Me God, will be published in the US on Tuesday. An extract was published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.Describing a conversation on New Year’s Day 2021, five days before supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” stormed the US Capitol, Pence writes that he and Trump discussed a lawsuit filed by Republicans, asking a judge to declare the vice-president had “‘exclusive authority and sole discretion to decide which electoral votes should count”.Pence says Trump told him that if the suit “gives you the power, why would you oppose it?”Pence says he “told him, as I had many times, that I didn’t believe I possessed that power under the constitution”.“You’re too honest,” Trump chided. “Hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts … People are gonna think you’re stupid.”In the end, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanting that Pence should be hanged. Nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides, have been linked to the riot.Pence’s book emerges as he seeks to establish himself as an alternative to Trump in the Republican presidential primary for 2024.Trump has indicated he will announce his third consecutive run soon, a plan possibly delayed by midterm elections on Tuesday in which the GOP did not succeed as expected and high-profile Trump-backed candidates failed to win their races.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and a much stronger rival to Trump in polling than Pence, provided a bright spot for Republicans with a landslide win that thrust his name back into the spotlight.In hearings held by the House January 6 committee, Pence has been painted as a hero for refusing to attempt to block Biden’s win, even after his life was placed in danger.In the extract published on Thursday, Pence said the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump conservative operatives, angered Trump with an ad which said Pence would “put the final nail in the coffin” of his re-election campaign by certifying Biden’s win.Rick Wilson, a Lincoln Project co-founder, told the Guardian: “It’s no secret that the Lincoln Project has lived rent-free in Donald Trump’s head since 2019. Mike Pence telling this story is one more powerful testimony to just how our ‘audience of one’ strategy unfailingly disrupts Trump world.”On Twitter, Wilson linked to the ad.On the page, Pence describes events inside the Capitol as Trump’s supporters attacked. His account parallels reporting by news outlets and testimony presented by the House committee, to which Pence has not yet testified.The devoutly Christian Pence gives his version of a call with Trump on the morning of 6 January in which Trump has widely been described as calling his vice-president a “pussy”.Pence writes: “The president laid into me. ‘You’ll go down as a wimp,’ he said. ‘If you [don’t block certification], I made a big mistake five years ago!’”Pence describes his refusal, also widely reported, to get in a Secret Service vehicle, lest his protectors drive him away while the attack was in motion.He describes meetings with Trump after the riot, when Trump’s second impeachment was in train. On 11 January, Pence writes, Trump “looked tired, and his voice seemed fainter than usual”. He says Trump “responded with a hint of regret” when he was told Pence’s wife and daughter were also at the Capitol during the deadly attack.“He then asked, ‘Were you scared?’“‘No,’ I replied, ‘I was angry. You and I had our differences that day, Mr President, and seeing those people tearing up the Capitol infuriated me.’ He started to bring up the election, saying that people were angry, but his voice trailed off. I told him he had to set that aside, and he responded quietly, ‘Yeah.’”Pence claims the Capitol rioters, more than 900 of whom have now been charged, some with seditious conspiracy, were “not our movement”. He says Trump spoke with “genuine sadness in his voice” as he “mused: ‘What if we hadn’t had the rally? What if they hadn’t gone to the Capitol? … It’s too terrible to end like this.’”Pence may risk angering Trump by presenting something approaching presidential contrition. Trump claims to regret nothing about his actions on 6 January, denying wrongdoing in the face of multiple investigations, pursuing the lie that his defeat was the result of electoral fraud and presenting rioters as political prisoners.Pence also describes a meeting on 14 January, “the day after President Trump was impeached for the second time”.“I reminded him that I was praying for him,” Pence writes. Trump, he says, answered “Don’t bother” but added: “It’s been fun.”Pence said he told Trump they would “just have to disagree on two things” – January 6 and the fact Pence would “never stop praying” for Trump.Pence says Trump smiled and said: “That’s right – don’t ever change.”TopicsBooksMike PenceDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

Maura Healey, the nation’s first openly lesbian governor; Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the first Generation Z member of Congress; Wes Moore, the first Black person elected governor of Maryland; Katie Britt, the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama.Sophie Park for The New York Times; Giorgio Viera/A.F.P. — Getty Images; Pete Marovich for The New York Times; Charity Rachelle for The New York Times The first Generation Z member of Congress. The nation’s first openly lesbian governor. The first Black governor of Maryland.All of them, and more, made history on Tuesday, emerging victorious from a field of candidates that was in many respects more diverse than in previous years — with more women nominated for governorships and state legislatures, more Black people nominated for the Senate and more L.G.B.T.Q. people nominated for the House than ever before.Here is a look at some of the “firsts” from the midterm elections. This article will be updated as more races are called.Nationwide firstsMaura Healey, the incoming Democratic governor of Massachusetts, is the first openly lesbian governor elected in any state. Voters previously elected a gay man as governor (Jared Polis of Colorado, who was re-elected on Tuesday) and a bisexual woman (Kate Brown of Oregon), both of whom are Democrats.Before Tuesday, no state had ever elected women to serve as governor and lieutenant governor at the same time. Now, two states have done so: Arkansas, which elected two Republicans, Sarah Huckabee Sanders for governor and Leslie Rutledge for lieutenant governor; and Massachusetts, which elected two Democrats, Ms. Healey and Kim Driscoll. (Ms. Huckabee Sanders is also the first woman elected governor of Arkansas.)Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat who won in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, will be the first member of Congress from Generation Z, whose oldest members were born in 1997. (Another member of Gen Z, Karoline Leavitt, a Republican, lost her race in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District.)Robert Garcia, a Democrat who won a House seat in California’s 42nd District, is the first openly gay immigrant elected to Congress. Mr. Garcia’s family immigrated to the United States from Peru when he was a child, and he was undocumented before obtaining citizenship as a young adult.State firstsBecca Balint, a Democrat who won Vermont’s at-large House seat, is the first woman and the first L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to Congress from Vermont — the only state that had never previously sent a woman to the Capitol.Katie Britt, a Republican, is the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama. (The state has previously been represented by women who were appointed to the role.)Wes Moore, a Democrat, is the first Black governor of Maryland, and only the third Black governor elected since Reconstruction. Aruna Miller is the first woman of color to be elected lieutenant governor there, and the first Asian American woman elected to any statewide executive office in Maryland.Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is the first woman elected governor of New York. She has held the office since last year, when she rose from the lieutenant governorship after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s resignation.Andrea Campbell, a Democrat who won the race for Massachusetts attorney general, is the first Black woman elected to statewide executive office in Massachusetts.Leigh Finke, a Democrat, is the first transgender person elected to the Minnesota Legislature, and Zooey Zephyr, also a Democrat, will be the first transgender state legislator in Montana.Delia Ramirez, the Democratic winner in Illinois’s Third District, is the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress from the state. More

Who will control the Senate and the House? Settle in for a long wait.For the second Election Day in a row, election night ends without a clear winner.It could be days until a party is projected to win the House of Representatives.It could be a month until we know the same for the Senate.Here’s the state of the race for both chambers and when — maybe, just maybe — we’ll know the outcome.The HouseRepublican control of the House was all but a foregone conclusion heading into Tuesday, but Democrats outran the polls and projections.Republicans will have to claw their way to a majority, seat by seat. The Needle suggests Republicans are likelier than not to win the House, but it is no certainty. As of 5 a.m. Wednesday, there was only enough information to have them projected to win 197 seats — 21 short of the 218 needed for a majority.They’re nowhere close to being called the winner in many of these races — in many of these states, late mail ballots have the potential to help Democrats. It will take days to count these ballots.Meanwhile, Democrats lead in another group of races where Republicans might wind up mounting a comeback.The SenateThe fight for control of the Senate will come down to four states: Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona.Wisconsin is the only one that could be resolved by early this morning. The Republican Ron Johnson led by just over one percentage point at 7 a.m. Eastern, with 94 percent of the vote counted. A handful of counties might still have a modest number of absentee ballots to report, which could let the Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes close some of the gap. Either way, the number of absentee ballots should be ascertained fairly quickly. They ought to be counted fairly quickly as well.On the other end of the spectrum is Georgia, which seems unlikely to be resolved before a Dec. 6 runoff election. A New York Times analysis of the results by precinct and state absentee files suggests that Senator Raphael Warnock (who leads) is unlikely to reach the 50 percent necessary to avoid the runoff, barring an unusual number of provisional or late mail ballots. Unlike in 2020, there weren’t many absentee ballot requests this year.If Wisconsin goes for Mr. Johnson and Georgia is stuck in runoff purgatory, there’s only one way for the Senate to be decided quickly: One party wins both Arizona and Nevada. It appears neither will do that soon.Of the two, Nevada is the clearer case. Still, the race is too close to call. The Republican Adam Laxalt leads the Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto by 2.7 percentage points at this hour, but most of the remaining vote is expected to be Democratic-leaning mail ballots and provisional ballots, including from same-day registrants.The Needle suggests a close race, but much remains uncertain, as the exact number of outstanding ballots is unclear. The turnout in the state appears fairly low, suggesting that a large number of ballots might remain. It is also unclear how long it will take to count them. Last time around, Joe Biden was projected to win only on Saturday, even though he won by a fairly comfortable two points and seemed poised to gain in the late ballots. At this point, such a clear path to victory seems unlikely for either candidate.The situation in Arizona is even less clear, but here there is at least a chance of a quick resolution. The Democrat Mark Kelly leads by six percentage points, 52 percent to 46 percent, with most of the Election Day and early votes counted. Most of the remaining vote is the mail ballots that were returned to the state near the election, including on Election Day, along with provisional ballots.These days, mail and provisional ballots are typically good for Democrats. But this is not a normal case. A large majority of voters cast ballots by mail in Arizona, so the mail ballots are not nearly as favorable toward Democrats. Instead, a strange pattern has emerged in recent years: Democrats mail in their ballots well ahead of the election, leaving Republicans to turn in their ballots near the election or simply prefer to vote in person. In 2020, Donald J. Trump won the ballots counted after Election Day by a wide margin here, turning a four-point lead for Mr. Biden at this hour in 2020 into a race won by less than a point.This time, the Republican Blake Masters will need to mount an even larger comeback — at least as measured in percentage point margin. It may seem daunting, but it may not be quite as challenging as it looks: There might be about twice as many outstanding mail ballots, as a share of all voters, as there were at this time in 2020.Mr. Kelly seemingly has a healthy lead from the early vote, but there is no hard evidence that a Masters victory is impossible. We’ll probably begin to get a sense of whether these mail ballots look like 2020’s mail votes as soon as today. More

Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe votes are still being tallied across the country — but we’re starting to get a picture of what these midterms were all about, and where American politics might be headed. Astead Herndon joins Michael Barbaro, host of “The Daily,” to sift through early midterm election results.Photo Illustration: The New York Times; Photo: Anna Watts for The New York TimesOn today’s episodeMichael Barbaro, host of “The Daily.”Additional resourcesFollow live updates on the midterms and results from top races.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman beat Mehmet Oz after a rocky campaign in Pennsylvania, surprising the G.O.P. and even Democrats.Election skeptics are winning races across the country. So far, nearly 200 Republicans who questioned or denied the results from 2020 have been elected.CreditsThis episode of “The Run-Up” is hosted by More

The race as of Wednesday morning was too close to call in Colorado’s Third Congressional District, where Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican who heckled President Biden during his State of the Union speech, was locked in a surprisingly tight contest with Adam Frisch, a Democrat.Ms. Boebert, 35, was elected to Congress in 2020 and has attracted attention for embracing spectacle. Along with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — who was reelected — Ms. Boebert has represented a vocal component of the Republican Party that is loyal to former President Donald J. Trump, and keen on provocation.She ignored mask rules and security checks while entering the Capitol last year. She falsely claimed on Twitter that she was allowed to carry her gun inside the Capitol complex, and she boasted of carrying it to Washington. She showcased her appreciation of conspiracy theories, and her belief in the lie that the 2020 election was rigged.She also faced some demands to resign last year after she posted on Twitter information about some lawmakers’ locations during the violent siege at the Capitol. This year, Ms. Boebert shouted at Mr. Biden as he referred to the death of his son during his State of the Union speech.Before she won her seat in Congress, Ms. Boebert ran a gun-themed restaurant in Colorado’s ranch country — the Shooters Grill — where she encouraged staff members to carry firearms and defied restrictions by staying open during the Covid pandemic.In 2020, she defeated Scott Tipton, a five-term incumbent, in the G.O.P. primary before winning in the general election. But she faced a stiffer challenge in this year’s general election from Mr. Frisch, a businessman and former Aspen, Colo., city councilman. More