Subterms
With just 11 days until the US midterm elections, Democrats need a net gain of four seats to reclaim CongressWith just 11 days until the US midterm elections, early voting data is rolling in nationwide. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to reclaim the majority in each chamber of Congress. Here is where the numbers stand as of Friday: Continue reading… More
Republican senator faces critical re-election battle in state where president’s trade war has outraged voters Donald Trump dropped some of the US’s tariffs on Canada on Friday to “better serve the public interest” the White House said, handing a win to Susan Collins, the embattled Republican senator for Maine, as she faces a tight re-election campaign that will help determine whether Democrats can flip control of Congress.Collins announced that the exemptions would apply to nine agricultural products, including blueberries, potatoes, apples and seaweed. She added that many of the state’s farmers rely on specialized equipment and materials from across the border that are “unavailable from American suppliers or cannot be replaced without incurring significant expense”. Continue reading… More
Donald Trump told rally-goers on Thursday evening that he had ‘the right to run again’ for president, invoking a claim he has repeatedly made that he may seek a third term despite it being unconstitutional Continue reading… More
Republicans are resorting to childish taunts to defend an uncommonly dishonorable state attorney generalIt’s a bit like Lucy with the football. Every few years, Democrats convince themselves that a Texas Senate seat might finally switch from red to blue. On paper, it makes sense. Texas is a large and urbanizing state with an increasingly educated – and increasingly non-white – population.Other one-time Republican strongholds that have undergone similar demographic shifts have turned purple or even blueish – think Georgia, for example. The border counties along the Rio Grande valley, with their deep poverty and big Latino populations, were long thought to be fertile ground to nurture a kind of anti-Trump populism that could be converted into pro-Democratic sentiment. The state Democratic party is anemic there, but a few talented candidates have emerged.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading… More
Byron Donalds removed mentions of the president from his website and has barely uttered his name – will his ploy prove successful in a tight governor’s race?It took Byron Donalds, addressing a wildly supportive crowd at a rally in Florida’s bluest county, some time to list those he blamed for any “affordability” issues they might be experiencing.Joe Biden, and the radical policies of the Democrats, were at fault, the Republican nominee for Florida governor insisted in his stump speech at Broward county’s Green Glades West ranch, even though neither has wielded power in Washington for almost two years. Continue reading… More
The US president is portraying Zelenskyy as the villain as he strives for Russia’s approvalIf Donald Trump could, he would fly to Munich to sign away Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, and return to wave the document as “peace in our time”, hoping to claim at least the second Fifa peace prize.Whatever the complicated motives of Neville Chamberlain, his well-grounded fear after the carnage of a world war of another apocalypse and his wishful thinking that Hitler would be satiated after carving up Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had not sent his son-in-law and former golf partner and real estate partner in advance to cut back-end deals with the Nazis to profit for his family and cronies.Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of the Court of History podcast Continue reading… More
An old idea springs anew as a chorus of influential voices predicts that AI may trigger crises of vast magnitudeIn a preface to his book Capitalism and Freedom, the American economist Milton Friedman famously observed that a crisis can propel once-fringe ideas into the political mainstream.“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around,” he wrote. The job of intellectuals, thinktanks and economists, he argued, is to refine the quality of these ambient ideas, so that good ones are ready when disaster strikes. Continue reading… More
To reclaim control of the Senate, Democrats need to retain all the Senate seats they have and flip four more in the 2026 midterm elections. Shrai Popat, the Guardian’s US politics reporter, explains which are the key races to watch in November. Continue reading… More
