US Politics

Katie Hobbs defeats election denier Kari Lake in Arizona governor raceVictory for Democrat over Trump-endorsed opponent is seen as a boost to voting rights The Democratic candidate for governor in Arizona, Katie Hobbs, has defeated her far-right, Trump-endorsed opponent, staving off a major threat to voting rights in the state.Hobbs, who is Arizona’s outgoing secretary of state, defeated Kari Lake, a former TV anchor who denies the 2020 election results. Lake has refused to say if she would accept defeat this time around but tweeted “Arizonans know BS when they see it” after Monday’s result emerged. The Associated Press projected Hobbs as the winner on Monday evening with more than 95% of votes reported.Trump for 2024 would be ‘bad mistake’, Republican says as blame game deepens Read moreHobbs celebrated her win on Twitter with the message: “Democracy is worth the wait.”Hobbs rose to prominence as a staunch defender of the legitimacy of the last election and warned that Lake would be an agent of chaos. Lake’s loss adds further evidence that Trump is weighing down his allies in a crucial battleground state as the former president gears up for an announcement of a 2024 presidential run.The two candidates had been virtually tied in polls, and Hobbs’s refusal to debate Lake and her lukewarm performance in televised appearances had worried supporters in the weeks ahead of the election.Hobbs gained support and national recognition as Arizona’s top election official, defending the state’s results against a frenzy of disinformation and repeated efforts by Republicans to challenge and undermine Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, even as she became the target of death threats.Voting rights advocates are breathing a sigh of relief, as Hobbs staves off further damage to Arizona’s election systems. Republican lawmakers in the state introduced at least 81 bills seeking to restrict voting access in 2021 and 2022.Had she won, Lake had vowed to further dismantle voting norms in the state, arguing winners should be declared on election night – a rare occurrence in Arizona, where mail-in votes can take days to count – while also forgoing ballot counting machines in favor of slower and less accurate hand counts.And in recent months, rightwing activists had aggressively operated in the state. Hobbs referred several complaints of voter intimidation to law enforcement and the US justice department. And members of the conspiracy theorist group Clean Elections USA had been photographing and intimidating election workers and voters outside the Maricopa county election headquarters in Phoenix.Hobbs’s victory appears to be yet another sign that the Copper State, once a conservative bastion, has transformed into a political battleground. Demographic changes and a decade of activism by grassroots, progressive groups have helped amplify the voices of young and Latino voters, who have been helping deliver key victories for Democratic candidates.03:20Her win also marks a midterm coup for the Democratic party, who defied expectations of a “red wave” to hold onto their Senate majority, although Republicans are favored to win a majority in the US House of Representatives. Abortion rights may have also been a motivator for many voters. In a recent poll, more than 90% of Arizona voters opposed a total ban on abortion. After Arizona revived a pre-statehood ban on abortions, Hobbs made the issue central to her campaign, speaking in personal terms about the impact such a ban would have on women and families.Lake, meanwhile, ran on a deeply conservative platform, supporting a total ban on abortions and vowing to declare an “invasion” at the southern border. A staunch supporter of Trump, she had also threatened to only accept the election results if she won.Before entering politics, Hobbs was a social worker who worked with homeless youth and an executive with a large domestic violence shelter in the Phoenix area. She was elected to the state legislature in 2010, serving one term in the House and three terms in the Senate, rising to minority leader.Hobbs eked out a narrow win in 2018 as secretary of state and was thrust into the center of a political storm as Arizona became the centerpiece of the efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. She appeared constantly on cable news defending the integrity of the vote count.The attention allowed her to raise millions of dollars, and her profile, before going on to comfortably win her primary.She will succeed Republican governor Doug Ducey, who was prohibited by term limit laws from running again. She’s the first Democrat to be elected governor in Arizona since Janet Napolitano in 2006.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsUS midterm elections 2022ArizonaUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

ExplainerFive things about Michelle Obama revealed in her new bookFormer first lady writes on love, knitting and being tall in The Light We Carry Almost four years after her memoir, Becoming, Michelle Obama is once again giving readers insight into her life. In The Light We Carry, Obama shares practical tips and wisdom about everything from overcoming fear to how exactly you can “go high”.Peppered among the advice – from Obama herself and vicariously from family members, friends and colleagues – are stories about her life.Here are five things we’ve learned about the former first lady.She took up knitting during the pandemicObama was “never one for hobbies”, she writes in the first chapter of The Light We Carry, but during the pandemic she found herself ordering a pair of knitting needles online. Knitting was “buried” in her DNA, as she is “the descendant of many seamstresses”.“This was less about passion and more about practicality; sewing was a simple hedge against falling into poverty,” she writes.The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama review – lessons in lifeRead moreWith the pandemic stripping away the structure of her days and feeling like it was “harder to access my own hope or to feel like I could make an actual difference” because of Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic, Obama says she was “in a low place when I finally got around to picking up the two beginner-sized needles I’d ordered online”.Learning to knit via YouTube videos, Obama discovered knitting narrowed her focus and allowed “my hands to drive the car for a while”.Obama began knitting while speaking on the phone, in Zoom meetings and while watching the news. Among the things she made was a “soft crewneck sweater you give to your Hawaiian-born husband who gets chilled easily in winter”.She and Barack have never been ‘everything’ to each otherObama says in her book that people often approach her “seeking relationship advice”, asking how she and the former president have “managed to stay both married and unmiserable for 30 years now”.Obama says she does not “have the answers”, but one thing she touches on in the book is how she and her husband “have never tried to be each other’s ‘everything’ in life – to single-handedly shoulder the entire load of care that each of us requires”.Instead, writes Obama, the pair “distribute the load” and are “carried by a wide array of friendships”.The Obamas have their own version of the OlympicsA few years into the presidency, Obama organised a surprise birthday trip for the president, inviting 10 of his “guy friends to Camp David for a weekend to celebrate and have some fun”.The trip saw Barack Obama “unplug” with his friends, who all “hurled themselves into every activity Camp David had to offer”.“They played basketball,” writes Obama. “They played cards and threw darts. They did some skeet shooting. They bowled. They had a home-run derby and a football toss.“They kept score on every last thing, trash-talking their way through each event, boisterously reviewing various plays and upsets late into the night.”The gathering would soon become known as “campathlon”, and is now an annual gathering the Obamas host on Martha’s Vineyard, which “has grown to include trophies and an opening ceremony”.Even Michelle Obama has been cheated onLet’s first make clear: not by Barack Obama.But prior to meeting Barack, Obama had dated “men who were less sure of themselves and what they wanted”.Among them was a “player or two”, men she describes as “nice to look at and exciting to be around, but who were often peering over my shoulder, trying to see who else was in a room, what further connections could be made”.Obama says that she had been “cheated on and lied to a few times” by “early loves”. So Barack, who was “direct and clear about what he wanted”, was different from anyone she had known before.Her height often made her feel self-consciousObama writes that many of her early memories of feeling different were connected to her height (she is 5ft 11in). She “showed up tall for the first day of kindergarten and grew steadily from there”.Michelle Obama admits to hating her appearance in new bookRead more“The attention given to my height brought about a new self-consciousness in me, a slight sense of otherness,” she writes.It was her father’s advice – that “no one can make you feel bad if you feel good about yourself” – that helped Obama to overcome her uncertainty around her height, and about other spaces where she felt she stood out for various reasons.
The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama is published by Viking (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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Michelle Obama admits to hating her appearance in new bookIn The Light We Carry, the follow-up to her bestseller Becoming, the former first lady reveals her ‘fearful mind’ and experience of depression during the pandemic Michelle Obama “hates” how she looks, “all the time and no matter what”, she has revealed in her new book.The Light We Carry, the former First Lady’s second memoir, builds on her 2018 title Becoming, and aims to be a “toolkit to live boldly”. In the new book, which was extracted in the Guardian’s Saturday magazine, Obama discusses ways to overcome one’s “fearful mind”, which she likens to “a life partner you didn’t choose”.“I’ve lived with my fearful mind for 58 years now,” she writes. “She makes me uneasy. She likes to see me weak.”This part of her mind is constantly having negative thoughts about her appearance, Obama writes. There are “plenty of mornings” when she turns on the bathroom light, takes one look at herself in the mirror, and “desperately want[s] to flip it off again”.‘Is everyone doing this perfectly but me?’ Michelle Obama on the guilt and anxiety of being a mother – and her golden parenting rulesRead moreHer appearance, and her height in particular (she is 5’11”) is something Obama has always been insecure about, she explains in the book. Always “bringing up the rear” at school “created a small wound in me, the tiniest kernel of self-loathing that would keep me from embracing my strengths”.Obama also admits to experiencing a “low-grade form” of depression during the coronavirus pandemic. “I kept with the work I’d been doing – speaking at virtual voter registration drives, supporting good causes, acknowledging people’s pain – but privately I was finding it harder to access my own hope or to feel like I could make an actual difference,” she writes. When she was approached by the Democrats to speak at the party’s national convention in 2020, she put off responding – although she eventually agreed, calling Donald Trump the “wrong president” in her speech.Any time she thought about the offer to speak at the convention, she felt “stalled out”, she has now disclosed in The Light We Carry. She describes being “caught up in frustration and grief for what, as a country, we’d already lost”.“I felt a blanket of despondency settling over me, my mind sliding toward a dull place,” she writes. “I was less able to muster optimism or think reasonably about the future. Worse, I felt myself skirting the edges of cynicism – tempted to conclude that I was helpless, to give in to some notion that when it came to the epic problems and massive worries of the day, nothing could be done.”Five things about Michelle Obama revealed in her new bookRead moreIn The Light We Carry, Obama also reflects on the 2016 presidential election. “Whether or not the 2016 election was a direct rebuke” of her husband, who became the US’s first Black president, “it did hurt. It still hurts”, she writes. “It shook me profoundly to hear the man who’d replaced my husband as president openly and unapologetically using ethnic slurs, making selfishness and hate somehow acceptable, refusing to condemn white supremacists or to support people demonstrating for racial justice”, she adds. “It felt like something more, something much uglier, than a simple political defeat.”Later in the book, she describes watching the “devastating” 2021 attack on the Capitol, which was “perhaps the most frightening thing [she had] ever witnessed”.Since its publication, her first book Becoming has been translated into 50 languages and more than 17m copies have been sold worldwide. The Light We Carry is expected to similarly top bestseller charts. In 2020, she was named the most admired woman in America, according to Gallup’s poll, for the third year running.TopicsBooksMichelle ObamaAutobiography and memoirUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

If a president’s party can only keep one chamber of Congress, the Senate is the one to have.The Senate is tasked with approving the White House’s nominations, including cabinet secretaries, federal judges and most crucially, supreme court justices. With Democrats holding the majority for the next two years, Joe Biden is once again guaranteed the ability to get his cabinet secretaries and judges confirmed to post across the government. That will increase the chances Biden’s legislative accomplishments – and those of future Democratic presidents – survive court challenges.But if the House falls to Republicans, Biden’s days of big legislating may have come to an end, at least for now. The chamber’s GOP leadership has shown little interest in working with the president, and it’s unlikely any of their bills make it through the Senate and to the president’s desk. Control of the House also gives the GOP the ability to conduct investigations and issue subpoenas. Expect them to do that to officials involved in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, and to Hunter Biden. Prosecutors say criminal charges not expected from Giuliani raidNew York prosecutors said in a letter to a judge on Monday they do not plan to criminally charge Rudy Giuliani following a probe into his dealings with Ukrainian associates – a development Giuliani’s called “a total victory”. Prosecutors had been investigating whether Giuliani should have been registered as a foreign agent due to his dealings with figures in Ukraine in the run-up to the 2020 election.The investigation, which resulted in raids on his residence in April 2021 and seizure of a number of electronic devices, has concluded, and that criminal charges would not be forthcoming.“In my business, we would call that total victory,” Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, told the Associated Press. “We appreciate what the US attorney’s [office] has done. We only wish they had done it a lot sooner.”Read the full story here. Kari Paul here taking over for the next couple hours, stay tuned for updates. Trump wasn’t keeping all those classified documents at Mar-a-Lago for the money, The Washington Post reports.Rather, the motivation for his alleged retention of government secrets at his south Florida resort was more about Trump’s desire to hang on to keepsakes from his time in the White House, according to the Post, which cited federal investigators. That doesn’t mean he won’t face charges in the case, which is one of many inquiries the former president is involved in nearly two years after he left office. Here’s more from the Post:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell, or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.
Several Trump advisers said that each time he was asked to give documents or materials back, his stance hardened, and that he gravitated toward lawyers and advisers who indulged his more pugilistic desires. Trump repeatedly said the materials were his, not the government’s — often in profane terms, two of these people said.
The people familiar with the matter cautioned that the investigation is ongoing, no final determinations have been made, and it’s possible additional information could emerge that changes investigators’ understanding of Trump’s motivations. But they said the evidence collected over a period of months indicates the primary explanation for potentially criminal conduct was Trump’s ego and intransigence.
A Justice Department spokesman and an FBI spokeswoman declined to comment. A Trump spokesman did not return a request for comment Monday.
The analysis of Trump’s likely motive in allegedly keeping the documents is not, strictly speaking, an element of determining whether he or anyone around him committed a crime, or should be charged with one. Justice Department policy dictates that prosecutors file criminal charges in cases in which they believe a crime was committed and the evidence is strong enough to lead to a conviction that will hold up on appeal. But as a practical matter, motive is an important part of how prosecutors assess cases and decide whether to file criminal charges.The Guardian’s Kari Paul is now taking over the live blog, and will take you through the latest politics news over the remainder of the day.Another notable Republican has reiterated his support for Donald Trump, Politico reports.Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville said he will back Trump for president in 2024, if he announces:Sen. Tuberville says he will endorse Trump for president when he announces. He also says he’ll support McConnell as GOP leader— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) November 14, 2022
He also announced that he would back Mitch McConnell as Senate minority leader, the top office available for the GOP in that chamber after they failed to win control in the midterms.CNN reports that the bipartisan group of senators pushing a bill to codify same-sex marriage believes it has enough support to pass the chamber:Multiple sources say the bipartisan group working on legislation to codify same-sex marriage has the votes needed for the bill to pass and is urging leadership to put it on the floor for a vote as soon as possible.w/ @alizaslav— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) November 14, 2022
The Respect for Marriage Act passed the House earlier this year with some Republican support. Assuming all Democratic senators vote for it, it will need the votes of at least 10 Republicans to overcome a filibuster, but it’s previously been unclear if that support exists.Ahead of the release of his memoir tomorrow, former vice-president Mike Pence sat down with ABC News to talk more about his experience on January 6.Here was his reaction when asked about Trump’s tweet lashing out at Pence on the day of the attack:”It angered me. … The president’s words were reckless. It was clear he decided to be part of the problem.”— Former Vice President Mike Pence, in an ABC News exclusive as he promotes his new book, rebukes Trump’s tweet attacking him on Jan. 6th as the mob stormed the Capitol pic.twitter.com/PqnqUH7vbQ— The Recount (@therecount) November 14, 2022
In their quest to understand why they performed so poorly in the midterms, some Republicans are pointing the finger at Donald Trump, arguing he has outlived his usefulness to the party.Writing in The American Conservative, JD Vance, a Republican who just won a seat in the Senate representing Ohio, attempted to dissuade the GOP from casting blame on the former president. He argues that Trump serves as a unifying force for Republicans and can offset Democrats’ advantages in fundraising and voter turnout that are going to make it more difficult for the GOP to win House and Senate races.Here’s more from his piece:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the long term, the way to solve this is to build a turnout machine, not gripe at the former president. But building a turnout machine without organized labor and amid declining church attendance is no small thing. Our party has one major asset, contra conventional wisdom, to rally these voters: President Donald Trump. Now, more than ever, our party needs President Trump’s leadership to turn these voters out and suffers for his absence from the stage.
The point is not that Trump is perfect. I personally would have preferred an endorsement of Lou Barletta over Mastriano in the Pennsylvania governor’s race, for example. But any effort to pin blame on Trump, and not on money and turnout, isn’t just wrong. It distracts from the actual issues we need to solve as a party over the long term. Indeed, one of the biggest changes I would like to see from Trump’s political organization—whether he runs for president or not—is to use their incredible small dollar fundraising machine for Trump-aligned candidates, which it appears he has begun doing to assist Herschel Walker in his Senate runoff.
Blaming Trump isn’t just wrong on the facts, it is counterproductive. Any autopsy of Republican underperformance ought to focus on how to close the national money gap, and how to turn out less engaged Republicans during midterm elections. These are the problems we have, and rather than blaming everyone else, it’s time for party leaders to admit we have these problems and work to solve them. Meanwhile in Georgia, the midterms are very much not over.The Senate race is headed to a run-off election on 6 December, with Republican Herschel Walker challenging Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock for the seat.In a speech today, Walker attacked Warnock for using campaign funds to pay for childcare – as US election law allows:Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) criticizes Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D) parenting:”He paid himself for childcare, all that stuff — why don’t he keep his own kids? Don’t have nobody keep your kids. … I keep my own, even though he lied about me.” pic.twitter.com/C41IJUbA0F— The Recount (@therecount) November 14, 2022
Left unsaid were reports that Walker paid for two women to have an abortion, even though he supports a nationwide ban on the procedure, without exceptions. He also did not mention one of his son’s claim that he has not been much of a father.It’s just one pollster in one state, but take a look at who CWS Research found was leading among Republican candidates for the White House in 2024.Florida governor Ron DeSantis topped Donald Trump in the poll of Republicans and independents, with 43% support against Trump’s 32%. The survey was conducted from 12 to 13 November, after the midterm elections, and represents a change from a previous poll conducted in mid-October before the vote. Then, Trump led, with 46% support compared to DeSantis’ 29%.Trump is widely expected to announce another campaign for office tomorrow, but DeSantis had a far better midterm election. The Florida governor resoundingly won another term on a day when Republicans performed well in the state overall. Trump, meanwhile, saw several of his handpicked candidates for office rejected by voters in states across the country.Joe Biden’s plan to relieve some student debt has lost again in court and will remain on hold, Politico reports:NEWS – 8th Circuit has blocked Biden’s student debt relief program, siding with GOP states in a 3-0 decision. pic.twitter.com/6gn7UyxmLa— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
The panel of two Trump appointees & a GWB appointee ruled unanimously that Missouri has standing to challenge debt relief program based on injury to the state via MOHELA. pic.twitter.com/FixeqTSmAa— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
But the 10-page decision doesn’t discuss the merits of the case much — other than to say the GOP states have raised “substantial questions of law which remain to be resolved”https://t.co/2WkRX1ozkd pic.twitter.com/0Qs03zL7qh— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
The Guardian’s community team wants to hear from Americans about what they think of the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Be you Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, independent or something else, let them know your thoughts:US voters: share your reaction to the midterm results so farRead moreThe dust is settling from Tuesday’s midterm elections. Control of the House is still up for grabs, but the GOP appears on course to eke out a majority, while Democrats have won themselves the Senate for another two years. The 2024 presidential race may very well kick off tomorrow, when Donald Trump is expected to announce another campaign for the White House.Here’s what else is happening today:
Joe Biden doesn’t believe the House is winnable for Democrats, nor that there’s enough support for a measure to codify abortion rights into law.
The Senate plans to vote on a measure to codify same-sex marriage rights this week, after a conservative supreme court justice raised the possibility of the court reconsidering its ruling establishing the rights.
The January 6 committee is cleared to access the phone records of Arizona’s Republican party chair after the supreme court quashed a challenge to the lawmakers’ subpoena.
Mo Brooks was once one of Donald Trump’s closest allies, but has since joined the ranks of those who have fallen out with the former president.The Alabama Republican congressman will retire at the end of this year, and in an interview with AL.com called on the party to dump the former president.“It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” said Brooks, who was the first congressman to object to the certification of the 2020 election. “Donald Trump has proven himself to be dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans. Even a candidate who campaigns from his basement can beat him.”The bad blood between the two men stems from Trump’s withdrawn endorsement of Brooks for Alabama’s Senate seat, which was won last week by Republican Katie Britt. Brooks said Trump asked him to remove Joe Biden from office and elevate the ex-president back to power, which the congressman told him was illegal. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports on a new justice department filing in the Mar-a-Lago case, which claims Donald Trump kept classified documents at the resort, even after he left the White House:Donald Trump retained documents bearing classification markings, along with communications from after his presidency, according to court filings describing the materials seized by the FBI as part of the ongoing criminal investigation into whether he mishandled national security information.The former US president kept in the desk drawer of his office at the Mar-a-Lago property one document marked “secret” and one marked “confidential” alongside three communications from a book author, a religious leader and a pollster, dated after he departed the White House.The mixed records could amount to evidence that Trump wilfully retained documents marked classified when he was no longer president as the justice department investigates unauthorised possession of national security materials, concealment of government records, and obstruction.Court files show evidence Trump handled records marked classified after presidencyRead moreMike Pence will on Tuesday release a memoir detailing his time in the Trump White House, and Martin Pengelly takes a look at what the former vice president reveals:In his new book, Donald Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, protests his loyalty to his former boss but also levels criticisms that will acquire new potency as Trump prepares to announce another presidential run and the Republican party debates whether to stay loyal after disappointment in last week’s midterm elections.According to Pence, Trump mishandled his response to a march staged by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August 2017, a costly error that Pence says could have been avoided had Pence called Trump before a fateful press conference in which Trump failed to condemn “the racists and antisemites in Charlottesville by name”.Also in Pence’s judgment, “there was no reason for Trump not to call out Russia’s bad behaviour” early in his term while beset by investigations of Russian election interference on Trump’s behalf and links between Trump and Moscow.“Acknowledging Russian meddling,” Pence writes, would not have “somehow cheapen[ed] our victory” over Hillary Clinton in 2016.Pence does not stop there. Among other judgments which may anger his former boss, he says Trump’s claimed “perfect call” to Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in 2019, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment after he withheld military aid in search of political dirt, was in fact “less than perfect” – if not, in Pence’s judgment, impeachable.Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookRead moreThe January 6 committee can access the phone records of the chair of Arizona’s Republican party after the supreme court turned down an attempt to block the lawmakers’ subpoena:NEW: Supreme Court rejects bid by Ariz GOP Chair Kelli Ward to block a Jan. 6 committee subpoena for her phone records. Thomas and Alito dissent. pic.twitter.com/g3IoSuuRuk— Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) November 14, 2022
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are two of the court’s most conservative justices, and objected to the court’s order.Arizona was one of the states targeted by Donald Trump and his allies in the weeks after the 2020 election, as part of their effort to tamper with Joe Biden’s election victory.Later this week, Republicans in the House and Senate are set to vote on who their leaders will be for the next two years, but the party’s weak showing in the midterms has sparked calls to delay the election.It appears rightwing lawmakers are trying to punish top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell for failing to retake the chamber, and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy for the party’s weak showing there. According to Axios, conservative figures outside of Congress will soon release a letter backing the calls for a delay: Per source: collection of prominent conservative movement figures — incl Heritage President Kevin Roberts — will be releasing a letter calling for delay to House and Senate leadership elections. pic.twitter.com/ON8c1dvIyl— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 14, 2022
Among the signatories: Ginni Thomas, wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. She’s a prominent denier of the facts surrounding Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, and was interviewed by the January 6 committee earlier this year. Lawmakers on the panel said she didn’t have much to offer, and there wasn’t evidence she played a significant role in the insurrection. More

Trump for 2024 would be ‘bad mistake’, Republican says as blame game deepensAlabama congressman Mo Brooks, a once-zealous Trump ally, comments after party fails to retake Congress in midterms Alabama congressman and once-zealous Trump supporter, Mo Brooks, has a remarkable new stance on the political future of his former hero. “It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” he said.Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookRead moreThe stark judgment from Brooks was indicative of the deepening and brutal blame game among Republicans which continued on Monday, nearly a week after the party failed to retake Congress in the midterm elections and a day before Trump’s expected announcement of a new presidential campaign.Speaking to AL.com, Brooks, an Alabama congressman, added: “Donald Trump has proven himself to be dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans. Even a candidate who campaigns from his basement can beat him.”That was a reference to Joe Biden and his precautions against Covid in the 2020 election the Democrat won by more than 7m votes and 306-232 in the electoral college.Brooks did not accept that result. On 6 January 2021, he donned body armor and spoke to Trump supporters at a rally near the White House. Repeating Trump’s lie about electoral fraud, he said: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” The mob then attacked the Capitol, a riot now linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.The election subversion Brooks supported is under investigation by the House January 6 committee, the Department of Justice and state authorities. But Brooks broke with Trump earlier this year, when the former president rescinded his endorsement for US Senate, because Brooks publicly urged him to stop re-litigating 2020.Trump’s eventual endorsee in Alabama, Katie Britt, won a Senate seat. But elsewhere last Tuesday high-profile Trump-endorsed candidates failed, ensuring Democrats held the Senate and stayed on course to hold the Republicans to a tight House majority.Trump is almost certain to announce his 2024 run at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday. But the fire from his own party keeps coming, the barrage widening to include shots at leaders in both houses of Congress.In the Senate, Marco Rubio of Florida, who retained his seat against a highly-rated Democrat, Val Demings, tweeted: “The Senate GOP leadership vote next week should be postponed.”Josh Hawley of Missouri, a potential challenger to Trump in 2024, added: “Exactly right. I don’t know why Senate GOP would hold a leadership vote for the next Congress before this election is finished.”That was a reference to the runoff for the last Senate seat to be decided, in Georgia and between the Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker, a controversial former NFL star, and the incumbent Democrat, Raphael Warnock. Warnock won a tight vote last Tuesday but did not pass 50%, teeing up the runoff.Victories in Pennsylvania – the only Senate seat to flip so far – Arizona and Nevada mean the Democrats will control the Senate even if Warnock loses, thanks to the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris.The other Florida senator, Rick Scott, is under pressure after leading the Republican election effort. The party leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is also feeling the heat.On Tuesday, Josh Holmes, a Republican operative who was formerly chief of staff to McConnell, told the Wall Street Journal the Senate campaign “was run basically as a Rick Scott super Pac, where they didn’t want or need to input any Republican senators whatsoever. That’s a huge break from recent history where members have been pretty intimately involved.”Democrats seized on an “11 Point Plan to Rescue America” Scott issued earlier this year, in which the senator, widely thought to have presidential ambitions of his own, proposed that more Americans pay federal income tax and said Congress could “sunset” social security and Medicare within five years.Holmes said McConnell told Scott: “When you are in leadership you don’t have the ability to do something like this without other people carrying your water.”In the House, the defeat of the Trump endorsee, and election-denier, Joe Kent in Washington state quickly came to seem symbolic of Republican failures.In the primary, Kent defeated a six-term incumbent, Jamie Herrera-Beutler, who suffered for being one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol attack. Kent went on to lose the seat, to the Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez.‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Read moreThe House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, faces a growing threat from the far-right of the party, jeopardising his hopes of becoming speaker should Republicans take control of the House.Andy Biggs of Arizona, another congressman investigated for his support of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, is reported to be teeing up a challenge to McCarthy.Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, like Herrera-Beutler a Republican who voted to impeach Trump, announced his retirement rather than face a primary defeat then went on to sit on the House January 6 committee.Amid post-election recriminations on Capitol Hill, he tweeted: “To GOP’ers: if Kevin McCarthy had not gone to Mar-a-Lago, had the Senate convicted, or had any more congressmen actually stood on principle, likely we would have no Trump, the alt-right would be a sick memory, and you could look in the mirror.“Just FYI. Maybe start now.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS CongressUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

Biden admits Democrats unlikely to maintain control of HousePresident at G20 says ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it’ after Republicans triumph in key races and stand on brink of majority Joe Biden on Monday expressed doubts that Democrats can maintain their majority in the US House of Representatives after Republicans won key races over the weekend.US midterms 2022: Democrats’ hope of keeping House fades as counting continues – liveRead more“I think we’re going to get very close in the House, but I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Biden said at a press conference, dedicated to his meeting with China’s Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, in response to a question about abortion legislation following the midterms. Before the midterms, Biden said that the first piece of legislation Democrats would pass if they kept control of both congressional chambers would codify abortion rights established in Roe v Wade.“I don’t think they can expect much of anything other than we’re going to maintain our positions [on abortion],” he said. “I don’t think there’s enough votes to codify unless something [unusual happens] in the House.”Democrats are still largely reveling in their performance in the midterms after retaining control of the US Senate, since many believed the elections were going to favor Republicans. But some sobering news for Democrats has come as more House races were called over the weekend.As of Monday morning, Republicans have won 212 races and are six seats away from taking on a majority. Democrats have 204 seats, and there are 20 races that still need to be called. On Sunday, Republicans won three key toss-up races in Arizona and California. More races in those states, along with Colorado, New York and Oregon, still need to be called but are predicted to go to Republicans.“Dems’ dreams of holding the House majority probably died tonight,” Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman tweeted on Sunday night.Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “We’re still alive. But again, the races are close.”Pelosi still praised Democrats’ overall performance in the election.“Who would have thought two months ago that this red wave would turn into little tiny trickle, if that at all,” Pelosi said.Democrats cinched a slim majority in the Senate, after two key wins in Arizona and Nevada, where incumbents Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto won their races respectively.With 50 seats, along with Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote, the Democrats have a majority in the Senate for the next two years. Still, a runoff election in Georgia between incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will determine whether Democrats will win a true majority of 51 seats. The runoff is slated for 6 December.Far from celebrating what could be their reclamation of the House, Republicans have been experiencing infighting in the days after the election.Some in the party have started to point their fingers at Donald Trump, who is slated to announce that he will try to retake the Oval Office in 2024. On Fox News, Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, called the former president an “800lb gorilla”.The lieutenant governor of Virginia, Winsome Earle-Sears, once an advocate for Trump, told Fox Business that “the voters have spoken, and they said they want a different leader”.Discord has also been seen in both chambers of Congress, where Republican leaders have been coming under criticism over the election. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, is slated to run for speaker on Tuesday. But a small fraction of pro-Trump lawmakers said they will withhold their support for leverage.These conservatives want McCarthy to push for a swath of investigations into Biden, including a potential impeachment proceeding, which McCarthy has shown no interest in. McCarthy will need 218 votes to secure the speaker position.Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has also been facing attacks from fellow Republicans, including senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Florida senator Rick Scott, another Republican, told Fox News on Sunday that McConnell failed to have a plan beyond “talking about how bad the Democrats are”.“Why would you do that? What is our plan? What are we running on? What do we stand for?” Scott said. “We’re just going to run it on how bad the Democrats are, and actually then they cave in to the Democrats.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsJoe BidenDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

US voters: share your reaction to the midterm results so farWhether you voted Democratic, Republican or neither, we’d like to hear from voters in the US as the final votes are tallied Democrats have retained control of the Senate, while the Republican party looks likely to narrowly gain the balance of power in the House of Representatives.As the votes from the US midterm elections are tallied, we would like to hear from voters about their reaction to the results announced so far.Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or neither, we would like to hear your thoughts as the future of Congress hangs in the balance. Has the party you support done better or worse than you expected so far?What are you hoping for?Share your experiencesWe will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature. We will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For more information please see our terms of service and privacy policy.If you are 18 years or over, you can get in touch by filling in the form below or contacting us via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding +44(0)7766780300. Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. One of our journalists will be in contact before we publish, so please do leave contact details.If you’re having trouble using the form, click here.TopicsUS politicscalloutReuse this content More

How Gen Z agencies wooed Democratic voters: ‘Young people are nervous to trust politicians’ Gen Z voters have faced crisis after crisis. In the midterms, peers helped candidates connect with themDemocrats avoided a predicted “red wave”, and they have Gen Z to thank. Tuesday night’s big wins can largely be attributed to young voters, who showed up en masse and overwhelmingly voted blue.Exit voting polls found that one in eight midterm voters were under 30, and 61% of those between the ages of 18 and 34 voted for Democrats. The results pushed the Fox News pundits Jesse Watters and Laura Ingram to suggest that the legal voting age should be increased to 21.Partly responsible for high youth turnout was a new generation of political consultants who had been stumping behind the scenes for months, challenging the generalization that Gen Z is too lazy or disillusioned to bother casting ballots.First Gen Z member elected as midterms could usher in a more diverse CongressRead moreSome of these strategists are essentially hipper and more digitally savvy startup versions of their more entrenched Beltway counterparts. Like traditional consultants, Gen Z research firms are hired by campaigns to target voters. But they are specifically tasked to reach young voters where they are. And, often, that’s TikTok.“Gen Z is ageing into the electorate every single day. It can be a daunting new audience for traditional candidates to face and figure out,” said Ashley Aylward, who leads research at Hit Strategies, whose website boasts of “competency with communities of color, women, LGBTQ+, and younger audiences”.The Democratic gubernatorial contenders Mandela Barnes and Chris Jones tapped Hit Strategies to work on their campaigns. The Washington-based group has also worked with movements such as Black Lives Matter and various ACLU chapters.Aylward said Gen Z cared more about the issues than aligning themselves to a particular candidate. “Young people are a little nervous to trust politicians on delivering their promises,” she said. If you want to speak to jaded youth, Aylward recommends sticking to the script that details their unique challenges: school shootings, the climate crisis, debt and the reversal of Roe v Wade. “One thing that really helped [Democratic candidates] was having abortion on the ballot, even if those measures were in other states,” she said. “We advised our clients to really make sure that they talked about it.”But candidates also have to change the way they speak to young voters. One candidate who did this particularly well, according to Aylward, was John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s next senator.Fetterman, who spent spent $12m on communications consultants, posted lighthearted content online throughout his campaign. He jumped on TikTok’s Teenage Dirtbag trends and invited Jersey Shore’s Snooki (AKA Nicole Polizzi) to make fun of his opponent Mehmet Oz’s Garden state roots. “There were memes and humor, and that really penetrated the social media market for young people who feel overwhelmed about the amount of political problems they’re facing,” Aylward said. “He was able to use the language of young voters while still having a plan and being serious.”Young voters hailed as key to Democratic successes in midtermsRead moreGen Z strategists aren’t just working directly with candidates but also alongside political action groups and non-profits. Antonio Arellano is the vice-president of communications for Next Gen America, an advocacy group founded in 2013. Before the midterms, the 32-year-old Texan recruited 164 influencers to talk to their followers about issues that would bring them to the polls: climate, gun control, reproductive rights. The effort reached an audience of 65 million. The influencers were paid and had to declare so, but, crucially, Arellano still gave them a lot of latitude on what they said.“We gave the influencers high-level talking points about issues and why they’re important, and then said, ‘Incorporate this into your content in whatever way you want,’” said Arellano. “If you’re a comedian, make a joke about it. If you’re an actor, do a skit. We didn’t tell them what to say. We really leaned into their voice and genuine lived experience to drive the message home.“If an influencer is angry, frustrated, upset, we want them to use their voice and express it that way.”Rage works, but Arellano suggests reminding Gen Z at every opportunity just how much their actions can shape elections. “What we saw overwhelmingly when we were out on the campaign is that young people weren’t aware of how much their contributions to 2020 delivered substantial wins,” he said. “We have the Inflation Reduction Act, investment in climate change, student debt relief and conversations about marijuana reform. Let’s own and claim these victories for Gen Z. It’s about bragging better about our accomplishments, not just after the midterms but in the lead-up to elections, too.”Aylward conducts focus groups and surveys where she’s found that reminding young people of times their bloc helped sway the results of an election  “helps remind them as an individual that they’re part of a larger group that can make change”.“It helps get through the high level of anxiety young people feel, because they’re so overwhelmed at the high amount of issues they have to tackle,” she said.Not everyone in the field is certain these strategies are effective. Ziad Ahmed, CEO of the Gen Z-staffed firm JUV Consulting, still believes Gen Z needs to focus on more traditional get-out-the-vote tactics on the ground.He says Beto O’Rourke and Val Demings were the two candidates who showed up most in his TikTok #ForYouPage. But both lost their races. “I’m not necessarily convinced that content always translates into results. A lot of content on TikTok from people is from people who are not in the states where I lived. I loved those candidates, but they were thousands of miles away. Social media is not often localized enough to impact voters.”The States of Change project predicts that Gen Z and millennials will be the largest voting bloc by age in 2024, responsible for 45% of all ballots cast. Baby Boomers will account for 25%. Aylward expects to consult with more candidates on how to target the youth. She admits that some of her advice, like getting on TikTok, seems a little bit “obvious”.“The reason why is because we don’t have people who are interested in reaching out to young voters,” she said. “Sometimes the obvious answers are the right answers; people just aren’t using them. I hope people will try to engage more in the future.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsfeaturesReuse this content More