US Politics

AnalysisTrump’s third run for the White House appears a matter of when not ifMartin Pengelly in New YorkFlurry of reports suggests former president will move swiftly after midterms to announce candidacy – but who will challenge him? As the midterm elections loom in the US and Republican hopes of retaking Congress rise, it appears it is now a matter of when, not if, Donald Trump will announce his third White House run.‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismRead moreThe former president has trailed another campaign ever since his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, a contest Trump refused to concede, pursuing the lie about electoral fraud which fueled the deadly attack on Congress and his second impeachment.In Texas last month, Trump said: “In order to make our country successful, safe and glorious again, I will probably have to do it again.”Now, a flurry of reports say Trump will move swiftly after the midterms, seeking to capitalise on likely Republican wins fueled by focusing on economic anxieties and law and order.“I’m like 95% he’s going to run,” Reince Priebus, the former Republican chairman who became Trump’s first White House chief of staff, told the Associated Press this week.“The real question is are other big challengers going to run? If President Trump runs, he will be very difficult for any Republican to defeat.”On Wednesday, Vanity Fair reported that Ron DeSantis, Trump’s nearest challenger in polls regarding 2024, and who as governor of Florida has deployed Trumpist policies and theatrics, may keep his powder dry.One Republican “briefed on donor conversations” was quoted as saying: “He’s led them to believe he will not run if Trump does.” Another said that at 44, DeSantis “can walk into the presidency in 2028 without pissing off Trump or Florida”.DeSantis does seem likely to beat his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist. Trump seems equally likely to run for president again, particularly as doing so might help him avoid or complicate multiple investigations.Trump is in legal jeopardy over attempted election subversion, in Georgia as well as around January 6; his retention of classified White House records; his business affairs, subject to civil and criminal lawsuits; and a defamation suit from a writer who says he raped her.He denies wrongdoing. But earlier this week, the Hill quoted a “veteran” Republican aide as saying: “A couple of weeks after the election, I assume that [the US attorney general, Merrick] Garland will indict Trump.”A second aide said an indictment “could actually end up helping [Trump] politically”. Trump has long presented investigations as political witch-hunts, a reliable way of whipping up his base.‘The sorts of things campaigns do’Not everyone thinks Trump will run. Michael Cohen, his former lawyer who went to prison after admitting offences including lying to Congress, fraud and campaign finance violations related to paying off women who claimed affairs with Trump, thinks Trump won’t risk a second defeat.Speaking to the Daily Beast, Cohen said: “One of the things he knows is that his popularity, even among Republicans, has diminished … people are sick and tired of the chaos he creates every single day. And I think they’re getting sick and tired of the way that the Trump 2.0-ers are doing the exact same thing.“He cannot afford, emotionally, to be a two-time loser.”Polls show Trump is likely to win the Republican nomination but have also shown most Americans do not want him to do so. One survey, by NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ, found that 57% said Trump should not run again – though among Republicans, the total fell to 26%.Cohen also said Trump may have financial reasons not to run.“If you read the fine print, he has sole discretion over 90% of all of the money that his supporters are currently giving him, that makes it into a 90% slush fund. So I bet if you look to see how he paid to fix his airplane, which was sitting on the tarmac for a long time, I guarantee it’s coming from that slush fund.”The poll that showed most voters do not want Trump to run also showed that more than 60% of Americans and 30% of Democrats said Biden should not run either. Nonetheless, the Washington Post this week reported that the president, who will soon turn 80, is “quietly” preparing to do so. A rematch of 2020 seems likely – and Trump, a relatively sprightly 76, has reportedly started recruiting.According to the news site Puck, “aides are doing the sorts of things that campaigns do in their early stages, like having those hard conversations about what worked in 2016 and did not in 2020, about hierarchy and titles, and engaging vendors”.Multiple reports have linked Chris LaCivita to the nascent campaign. The longtime Republican operative was behind the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which in 2004 took a hammer to John Kerry’s decorated service in Vietnam, holing the Democrat below the waterline in a campaign against a president, George W Bush, who memorably avoided that war.The homestretchMost observers think Trump is holding back his announcement to avoid distracting from key midterm races. Such races include Senate contests in Ohio and Pennsylvania where the Trump-endorsed Republicans, JD Vance and Mehmet Oz, are locked in tight fights that could decide control of the chamber.Herschel Walker hits back at Barack Obama: ‘Put my resumé against his’Read moreBut Trump is nothing if not a disruptor and the AP reported this week that an announcement could yet come at a rally in the midterms homestretch.The former president is due to appear in Sioux City, Iowa, on Thursday. Iowa will kick off the Republican primary in 2024.On Saturday, three days before election day, he is due to appear in Pennsylvania to support Oz and Doug Mastriano, the extremist, election-denying candidate for governor. On Sunday, he will rally in Florida. On Monday, the last day of the campaign, Trump will speak in Dayton, Ohio.A more personal motive may be in play. Tiffany Trump, the former president’s daughter with his second wife, Marla Maples, will marry Michael Boulos at Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, on 12 November.Puck reported that Trump was “factoring his daughter’s upcoming nuptials into his thinking about when he will announce his candidacy”.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansUS elections 2024analysisReuse this content More

Mehmet Oz campaigns at venue that bans same-sex weddingsPennsylvania Republican Senate candidate has said he supports legislation that would enshrine same-sex marriage in federal law Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for the Pennsylvania Senate seat who says he is in favour of same-sex marriage, hosted a campaign event on Wednesday at a venue that bans same-sex marriages.Oz, who has campaigned on supporting legislation that would enshrine same-sex marriage in federal law, held a campaign event at the Stone Gables Estate, a venue that only holds weddings between a man and a woman, reported the Washington Post.“We provide marriage-related services as ordained by God’s Word, the Holy Bible, that are consistent with the written truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” the venue says on its website.In July, Oz announced that he would support legislation that would codify same-sex marriage into federal law should he be elected, reported the Hill.Oz also tweeted in September about his support of gay marriage: “I’m proud to join this effort with fellow Republicans. I believe that same-sex couples should have the same freedom to get married as straight couples.”But Oz has been accused of making other anti-LGBTQ comments during his campaign specifically targeted at the transgender community. He also removed an episode of his former television show, The Dr Oz Show, about conversion therapy from the show’s website, as well as a blogpost where he said he supported the medical consensus that conversion therapy was ineffective and harmful, reported the Independent.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsPennsylvanianewsReuse this content More

US voters – what issues are deciding your midterm vote next week?Republican, Democrat or neither – we’d like to speak to people in the US ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections Americans will go to the polls next week to cast their votes in the US midterm elections.The midterms on 8 November will be voters’ first opportunity to deliver a national verdict on Joe Biden’s presidency, though his name will not be on the ballot. The constitution specifies every member of the House of Representatives and about a third of the Senate run for office halfway between presidential elections.Ahead of the midterm elections, we’d like to hear from US voters about the issues that are deciding their vote. Why are you planning on voting the way you are?Share your viewsIf 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.We 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’re having trouble using the form, click here.TopicsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsJoe BidencalloutReuse this content More

Pittsburgh Jews decry pro-Israel group’s support for Republican extremistsAipac is spending millions to oppose Democrat who would be Pennsylvania’s first Black female member of Congress More than 240 Jewish American voters in Pittsburgh have signed a letter denouncing the US’s largest pro-Israel group for backing extremist Republican election candidates while spending millions of dollars to oppose a Democrat who would be Pennsylvania’s first Black female member of Congress.US progressives show strength in primaries and predict more wins aheadRead moreThe letter condemned the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) for its attempts to defeat Summer Lee, a candidate for the district that includes Pittsburgh, after failing to block her during the Democratic primaries earlier this year because of her criticisms of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.The signatories said they were “outraged that at this critical moment in American history, Aipac has chosen to cast Democrats like Lee as extremists” while endorsing more than 100 Republican candidates who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.The letter suggested that Aipac does not represent the views of the majority of American Jews and is working against their interests by also endorsing Republicans who promote white supremacy, a particularly sensitive issue in a city where 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogues were murdered in an antisemitic attack four years ago.“We also condemn Aipac endorsement of lawmakers who have promoted the antisemitic ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory that helped inspire the murder of eleven members of the three synagogues housed at Tree of Life,” the letter said.“Clearly, their definition of ‘extreme’ is completely opposite to that held by the majority of American Jews – who worry about the stark rise in antisemitism and white nationalism in our state and in our country.”It is the first time Aipac has funded support for a Republican contender for Congress over a Democrat in a general election, marking a further shift away from its once more bipartisan approach.Aipac’s campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for television advertising and mailings against Lee. The group is backing Mike Doyle, who supports a federal ban on abortion and has described himself as very conservative.The UDP has posted a leaflet to voters calling Lee “too extreme” because of her positions on police, prison and immigration reform. The leaflet makes no mention of her criticisms of Israeli government policies which do not appear to be an election issue for most voters, although Aipac has previously said that its “sole factor for supporting Democratic and Republican candidates is their support for strengthening the US-Israel relationship”.Lee has drawn Aipac’s fire for her support of setting conditions for the US’s considerable aid to Israel, for accusing Israel of “atrocities” in Gaza, and for drawing parallels between Israeli actions against Palestinians and the shooting of young black men in the US.In a tweet earlier this week, Lee accused Aipac of funding extremists: “8 days from making history in PA–where Black women have never had federal representation–Aipac is funding my extreme GOP opponent. Since endorsing 100+ insurrectionists, Aipac has repeatedly shown us that democracy has never been as important as keeping progressives out.”Lee’s campaign has an additional cause for concern because her Republican opponent has the same first and last name as the outgoing Democratic member of Congress she is seeking to replace. In an apparent attempt to exploit potential confusion, Doyle’s website does not mention that he is a Republican.Aipac’s campaign against Lee is a rematch after it tried and failed to block her during the Democratic primaries earlier this year.The UDP spent more than $25m in the primaries to defeat candidates it deemed too critical, or insufficiently supportive, of Israel, including about $2.6m against Lee. Most of the candidates opposed by Aipac lost but Lee won her race by a slim margin.Much of the advertising in support of Aipac-backed candidates in the primaries played up Democratic party values such as equality. One of those opposed by the lobby group, Congressman Andy Levin who lost his primary and seat, on Wednesday tweeted that Aipac’s opposition to Lee revealed its professed support for liberal values to have been a sham.“If it wasn’t clear before, it certainly is now: AIPAC doesn’t care about our party’s values and priorities and it’s willing to empower extremists and undermine American democracy in order to defeat principled, progressive candidates,” he wrote.One of those who initiated the letter from members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community was Ritchie Tabachnick who sits on the steering committee of a more moderate pro-Israel organisation, J Street. Tabachnick said the letter speaks for the majority of the city’s Jews because they are disturbed at Aipac “supporting some of the most extreme Republicans, people who make openly antisemitic remarks promote antisemitic conspiracy theories”.“It’s quite possible to be pro-Israel and antisemitic. They often go hand in hand. Aipac have chosen to prioritise the-pro Israel and ignore the antisemitic elements that go with it,” he said.Tabachnick said he believed Aipac was attempting to shut down widening criticism of Israel in the US, a task made more urgent by the expected return of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister in coalition with far-right Jewish nationalists.“They are trying to control the narrative,” he said.But Tabachnik said he does not believe Aipac represents the views of most of the US’s Jewish community.“They are a loud, politically smart minority,” he said of the group.Aipac denies taking sides against the Democrats, saying that Lee’s views put her “outside of the Democratic mainstream”.Aipac has been approached for comment.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsPennsylvaniaAntisemitismIsraelDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

From the US to Brazil to India, deepening political polarisation is used as a frame through which to see a lot of 21st-century politics. But what can actually be done to depolarise deeply divided societies, particularly democracies? In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast we speak to a political scientist and a philosopher trying to find answers to that question.

When a country is deeply polarised it may feel that there’s no way back. But that’s not what history tells us. Jennifer McCoy, a political scientist at Georgia State University in the US, is studying cases of depolarisation from around the world over the past century to see what lessons they have for today. She’s found that in places that have successfully depolarised, three-quarters “happened under conditions of major systemic interruption”. That could have been an independence struggle, a civil or international war, a foreign intervention, “or it was a regime change mostly from an authoritarian to a democratic type of political government”.

Depolarisation within liberal democracies is rarer, but it does happen – and McCoy points to South Korea and Bolivia as recent examples. Her research has now begun identifying a couple of fundamental conditions that countries which have successfully depolarised, and sustained it, can think about, which she talks to us about in this episode.

Meanwhile, Robert Talisse, a political philosopher at Vanderbilt University in the US, identifies another type of division which is dangerous for democracy that he calls belief polarisation. It’s a cognitive phenomenon in which members of like-minded groups adopt increasingly extreme positions. “They become more dismissive of any countervailing evidence,” he says. “They become less willing to listen to dissenting voices, and importantly, they become more internally conformist.”

Talisse doesn’t believe polarisation can ever be eliminated – only managed. And he has a couple of suggestions for how. “Good democratic citizenship requires that we sometimes do non-political things with others, but it also requires that we sometimes do political things all by ourselves,” he says.

To find out more listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly.

This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. The executive producer was Gemma Ware. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.

You can find us on Twitter @TC_Audio, on Instagram at theconversationdotcom or via email. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here. A transcript of this episode will be available soon.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed, or find out how else to listen here. More

We can’t keep treating talk of negotiations to end the Ukraine war as off limitsRajan Menon and Daniel R DePetrisBroaching the subject of peace negotiations invites accusations of helping Putin – but that’s misguided The war in Ukraine shows no sign of abating, let alone ending. Unable to make headway on the battlefield, Russia has been bombarding Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure in hopes of freezing Ukrainians into submission as winter looms. The Ukrainians continue to press their offensive against Russian troops, many ill-trained and poorly motivated, to gain as much territory as possible before the cold sets in.The United States continues to provide economic aid and armaments to Kyiv. Another $275m in weapons and ammunition was pledged on 27 October, taking total US financial, military and humanitarian aid to more than $50bn since January. Additional assistance is certain.Could Ukraine’s drone attack on Russian ships herald a new type of warfare?Read moreAs the war drags on, the debate back home on how the US should handle it is likely to get more pointed and accusatory. Indeed, we may have already reached that point. Today, anyone broaching the subject of peace negotiations, let alone proposing ideas for a settlement, invites accusations of furthering Vladimir Putin’s narrative or providing aid and comfort to the enemy. The Congressional Progressive Caucus learned this the hard way recently, when its letter to President Biden proposing diplomacy to end the war was immediately vilified.That’s more than lamentable; it’s harmful. It’s during times of war that serious, unfettered discussion about the stakes, costs and risks of a particular policy choice is not only appropriate but absolutely essential. Arbitrarily policing the debate not only does a disservice to free thought but potentially leads to a situation whereby common-sense policy options are dismissed. Reasoned debate becomes a casualty.Facts on the ground make clear that the likelihood of immediate negotiations are virtually nil. Ukraine’s forces are making slow but steady progress and are trying to push Russian troops out of Kherson, so Kyiv has no reason to sue for peace. Moreover, Ukraine rightly fears that a ceasefire would leave about a fifth of its territory in Putin’s hands and give him a respite to regroup his army and then resume the offensive.Alleged Russian war crimes in Bucha, Mariupol and elsewhere have made Ukraine all the more determined to win the war. Meanwhile, Putin’s unlawful annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson last month have further convinced Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that talks aren’t possible.Still, although talks may be infeasible now, they may be possible later on.War is inherently unpredictable. The side advancing today could be retreating tomorrow – or six months later. The course of this war makes this evident. Early this summer, the Russian army, using its superiority in artillery, pummeled Ukrainian positions in Luhansk and captured the towns of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk; Ukrainian troops suffered heavy losses. Two months later, Russian troops were beating a chaotic retreat and the Ukrainian army regained more than 3,000km of land in Kharkiv province within days.The tide could turn again once as tens of thousands of new Russian recruits (even if many are poorly armed, equipped and trained) join the fray and enable a Russian counteroffensive. The same Ukrainian government that now regards talks as pointless may then be open to them if it helps them avoid losing even more land. This may not happen, but the possibility that it could means that suggestions for a settlement should not be demonized.As the war continues – for months, perhaps years – the economic costs to the west in arms and economic aid to Ukraine, already substantial, will increase, particularly if Russia continues its relentless attacks on Ukrainian economic assets. Moscow’s slashing of energy exports has already contributed to an economic crisis in Europe. Germany, the EU’s largest economy, risks slipping into a recession and has had to mobilize $200bn to help consumers and businesses battered by high energy prices. France and Spain saw their GDPs contract in the July-to-September quarter. Eurozone inflation reached 10.7% in October, a record high. In the Baltic countries, the rate exceeds 22% as fuel and food prices have rocketed.If Europe’s economic conditions get even worse and a recession occurs in the US, it isn’t far-fetched to imagine calls for a settlement becoming more palpable if it helps reduce the economic burden.Moreover, there is always the possibility that the war could escalate, potentially drawing Russia and Nato into a direct confrontation. Hence proposals to prevent this denouement through diplomacy should be welcomed.Many dismiss the risk of escalation and Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling as empty rhetoric. Perhaps it is. But none of us can know what Putin would do if Russian conventional forces continued to lose ground or were facing a complete defeat. Policymakers don’t have the luxury of planning for the best-case scenario or hoping Putin will respond the way we expect him too. We should be humbler about our powers of prognostication: two years ago, who would have foreseen Europe witnessing its worst war in nearly eight decades?None of this means a deal with Putin should be cut behind Ukraine’s back. Nor should the US necessarily lead the process; simple geography suggests that Europe should play a larger role on all fronts in addressing the gravest threat to its security in a generation.The notion that offering proposals for ending the war betrays Kyiv and aids Moscow is absurd. We need constructive discussions about diplomatic solutions. One day, they will be needed.
Rajan Menon is the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities, a professor emeritus at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York, and a senior research fellow at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He is the co-author of Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order
Daniel R DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek, among other publications
TopicsUkraineOpinionUS politicsForeign policyUS CongressVolodymyr ZelenskiyVladimir PutinRussiacommentReuse this content More

‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismThe former local news anchor – and former Democrat – is in a neck-and-neck race for governor in key swing state of Arizona Local news anchor Kari Lake resisted announcing that Joe Biden had won Arizona on election night two years ago. Now, she’s the telegenic new face of Maga Republicanism, poised to possibly become the state’s next governor.With early voting under way, polls show Lake in a dead heat with her opponent Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state. The contest will test the strength of Donald Trump’s enduring influence on the Republican party and its supporters. And the entire enterprise of free elections in Arizona hangs in the balance.If Lake wins, her administration will oversee the 2024 elections in a key state that could help determine who wins the presidency. She could work with the likes of Mark Finchem, the far-right Oath Keeper who is running to become the state’s top election official. Already, she has said she will only accept the 2022 election results if “fair, honest and transparent” by her standards, declining to say whether she would accept defeat.‘The Trump playbook’: Republicans hint they will deny election resultsRead moreOn the night Lake won the Republican primary, she walked on stage carrying a sledgehammer and vowed to use it on electronic voting machines if elected governor. Instead of machines, Lake wants to use hand counts to tabulate elections – a method that is both more time-consuming and less accurate – while also insisting that results should be declared on election day. She has threatened to punish journalists for publishing content she disagrees with and imprison her opponent over fictional accusations of election rigging.“We’re dealing with a really dangerous candidate,” said Alejandra Gomez, co-director of the progressive advocacy group Lucha. “This election is incredibly consequential for the future of our democracy.”For 22 years, Lake was a familiar face on local TV – delivering the evening news at Fox 10 Phoenix in her smooth, deep voice. But on election night in 2020, she resisted calling the election for Biden, as her co-anchor awkwardly insisted that they follow protocol.In recent years Lake had joined the far-right social media platform Parler, and left an online trail of implicit endorsements of rightwing positions and conspiracy theories, much to the consternation of her station’s management. But it was her seemingly sudden and dramatic resignation that laid the foundations for her future political career.“I found myself reading news copy that I didn’t believe was fully truthful,” she said in March 2021, announcing that she was quitting. “I’ve decided the time is right to do something else.”A few months later, Lake said she was running for governor – almost immediately launching herself into rightwing stardom.In August, she defeated her GOP establishment-backed opponent to win the primary, and has since managed to gain the support of the outgoing Republican governor, Doug Ducey, and the state’s big Republican donors.Instead of network crews, it is now her husband, Jeff Halperin, who serves as her videographer. An independent producer, Halperin trails Lake and captures practically her every move, including combative exchanges with reporters to promote on social media.Lake’s platform in the race now contradicts her own from just a few years ago. In 2008, Lake was a registered Democrat and donated to the Democratic presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama. In 2016, Lake proposed a plan to provide amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Today, she says she would declare an “invasion” at the southern border and evoked the white supremacist “great replacement” theory in describing immigrants.She once considered a local drag queen a friend and often attended performances, but now runs ads featuring an extremist homophobic pastor and attacks drag performers as a threat to children.On abortion, too, she has been inconsistent. The vast majority of Arizonans believe that abortion should be legal in at least some cases. Lake has called abortion “the ultimate sin” and has endorsed Arizona’s pre-statehood ban, though, in recent weeks has provided muddled messages about her stance. Lake also told a conference of young, conservative women that “God did not create us to be equal to men.”Lake’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, and declined to respond to specific questions about her past politics. She told Time magazine that she previously supported Democrats in protest of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.Lake’s broad appeal has surprised both Democrats and moderate Republicans, especially given that many of her espoused views are more fundamentalist and rightwing than those held by most Arizona voters.Star powerFormer co-workers and friends have said they have been alarmed by her sudden conversion to Maga Republicanism while political pundits have speculated over whether this transformation is genuine or a shrewd career calculation.Regardless, it seems to be working. Her almost daily campaign events have become a sensation. In recent weeks, her intimate receptions with donors, and her rallies alongside fellow rightwing politicians from across the country have drawn supporters across demographic groups.US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead moreOf all the far-right, Trump-endorsed Republicans on the ballot this election cycle, Lake might just have the most star power. Trump himself has told other candidates to be more like her. Republican insiders are already speculating that she could be Trump’s vice-presidential nominee in 2024, or run for president herself.“You can call me Trump in a dress any day,” she told cheering crowds at a recent rally, embracing comparisons between herself to the former president.Over the past few months, Hobbs’s quiet, at times stiff demeanor has been no match to Lake’s larger than life persona. At a town hall event hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Lake reportedly positioned herself in the front row in an apparent stunt designed to rattle her opponent. She was eventually booted out of the room – but it seemed to work. Hobbs delivered an uneven performance, fumbling on softball questions.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The fight for democracyArizonaRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpfeaturesReuse this content More

Republicans and Democrats spend big on ads for US midtermsThe rival parties have outspent the 2020 presidential election on ads addressing abortion, crime and the economy As the US midterm elections loom, Republicans and Democrats have spent almost $10bn (£8.6bn) so far on ads. It’s a staggering figure, one that exceeds even the spending on the 2020 presidential election, and is almost triple the amount spent during the last midterms.Both parties – and their dark money backers – have splashed exorbitant amounts on TV, digital and print advertising, but their focus has been very different.For Democrats, abortion has been a key issue. The party has spent almost 20 times more than it did on abortion-related ads in the 2018 midterms, NPR reported. For Republicans, there have been different messages: that inflation, crime and taxes are out of control.The result has been a whirling atmosphere for the average American, where to turn on the TV is frequently to see the two parties, and their candidates, talking straight past one another about different things.AbortionAfter the conservative-dominated supreme court overturned the federal right to abortion in June, the issue of who should have control over women’s bodies has been front and center in many midterm races.Democrats have run more than 240 ads related to abortion rights, seeking to draw attention to the extreme positions of many Republican candidates. These largely centered the personal stories of women who have had abortions. One of the most powerful ads has run in South Carolina, where Joe Cunningham, a Democrat, is bidding to defeat Henry McMaster, the state’s Republican governor.In the ad, a woman named Fran explains that she was raped by two men when she was 12 years old. She later found out she was pregnant. Fran was able to have an abortion due to Roe v Wade, then recently decided, which legalised abortion in the US.“Roe versus Wade gave me the opportunity to become an educator, a mother and grandmother,” Fran says in the ad.“I did what was best for an 88-pound 12-year-old with no other options. I am a survivor of rape: my body is not yours, and it is not the state’s, it’s mine – yet our governor, Henry McMaster, wants to ban all abortions.”In Pennsylvania, Democrats have repeatedly targeted Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor running as a Republican for the US Senate, over his opposition to abortion, and an ad launched in mid-October features a Pennsylvania doctor describing how, pre-Roe v Wade, he was trained to treat the victims of “back-alley abortions”.“Too often, women died. I thought those days were long behind us. But not so, with Mehmet Oz,” the doctor says.One of the most harrowing ads of the entire election cycle comes from Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman for California.It shows a family eating dinner at home when two police officers to arrest the mother for “unlawful termination of a pregnancy”. When her partner attempts to intervene, the officers draw their guns on him, prompting screaming from the couple’s young children as the woman is handcuffed.“Elections have consequences,” a voiceover says. “Stop Republicans from criminalizing abortion everywhere.”Republicans, by contrast, have spent a fraction of the Democrats’ total on abortion ads. When candidates have addressed the issue, there has been a two-pronged approach: commercials have claimed, often spuriously, that their Democratic opponents are too extreme on abortion, and that the Republican candidates themselves are moderate.An ad that aired in Arizona in September, where Republican Blake Masters is hoping to win Mark Kelly’s Senate seat, managed to combine both.His ad, prosaically titled Arizona’s Mark Kelly Supports Painful Late Abortions, is full of mistruths and dishonest statements – a theme that has run through a majority of TV ads nationwide during the election campaign – claiming wrongly that Kelly supports abortion “right up to the due date”, and stating that Masters himself has sought “compromise” on the issue, despite the Republican having backed proposals that would ban all abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest.Cost of livingThe big spending from Republicans has come on cost of living issues, including taxation and inflation, which reached a 40-year high of 9.1% in June and was at 8.2% in September. Across the country, Republican ads have sought to blame Joe Biden for the rise, frequently citing the $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill he signed in March 2021 as the cause.In September, ads on inflation accounted for 32% of all pro-GOP advertising, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, and in South Carolina, Republican Nancy Mace has tied the rise in price of everyday items not just to Joe Biden, but Nancy Pelosi, too, in a TV ad called Eggs.The ad shows Mace, a Republican congresswoman, pouring a glass of milk and cooking some bacon. The price of both has increased, she notes, adding: “I have had it with crazy inflation.”As the ad continues, Mace offers her plan to bring down the cost of living. It is an unusual plan.“Here’s what I’m going to do to Biden’s tax and spend agenda,” Mace says. She then cracks an egg and tips the contents into a frying pan.Other ads have been less avant-garde. An ad running against Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s Democratic senator, also features a clip of some bacon, along with a gas pump, as a breathless voiceover claims Georgia has been “hit hard by sky-high inflation”.Economists tend to agree that the American Rescue Plan did worsen inflation, Vox reported recently, but there are varying estimates as to how much, and others note that the plan did improve the economy.Democrats, meanwhile, haven’t done much in the way of pushing back. Wesleyan said inflation makes up only 8% of the party and its backers’ ads, and some Democratic leaders themselves agree that their message has been unconvincing.The party seems to be picking up the idea up, though, and has released ads on the economy in the last week, including one in New Hampshire which is undermined slightly by some rather unconvincing acting:The Party bossesIn a neat symmetry, both parties appear to be running from their leaders. According to the Washington Post, since early September Democrats have spent just $3m on ads centering Joe Biden, and Republicans have spent a mere $807,000 on ads highlighting Trump.Each party has, though, run plenty of ads focusing on their opposing party’s bosses. Republicans have blasted out ad after ad criticizing Biden, mostly over spending during the pandemic. Mindful of Biden’s low approval rating – which is currently averaging about 42% – Republicans have sought to tie Democratic candidates across the country to the president.That effort contributed to possibly the daftest ad of the entire campaign season: a singsong affair titled Hidin’ Biden that ran against Democratic congresswoman Sharice Davids in Kansas:Complete with lyrics like: “Sharice Davids, what’s she hidin’, Sharice Davids, she’s hidin’ Biden”, the piano-driven tune highlights that Davids has frequently voted for Biden-backed policies.It’s a similar but less jaunty story in New Hampshire, where voters are warned that Maggie Hassan, the incumbent US senator who is being challenged by Don Bolduc, a Republican and an election denier, “votes with Joe Biden over 96% of the time”:Republicans are clearly banking that Biden is unpopular enough to turn voters away from candidates who have even the loosest connection to the president. The GOP, as FiveThirtyEight pointed out, has replicated this format in Colorado, Michigan, Ohio and Arizona.CrimeCrime is the only issue where Republicans and Democrats come close to equal spending, according to the Washington Post. Republicans, frequently pushing a dystopian vision of cities ridden by murder and violent crime, have spent $49m on ads discussing crime since early September, compared to $36m invested by Democrats.The number of murders in major cities has fallen so far in 2022, but remains above the numbers in 2019, and a survey by the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that violent crime had risen 4.2% through the first six months of this year compared with 2021.That has given Republicans plenty of fodder to paint Democrats as soft on crime, in some cases, with racist overtones. “In states as disparate as Wisconsin and New Mexico, ads have labeled a Black candidate as ‘different’ and ‘dangerous’ and darkened a white man’s hands as they portrayed him as a criminal,” the New York Times wrote of the trend.Mandela Barnes is the subject of the Wisconsin ad, which ends with Barnes’s face positioned next to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – all women of color – while the words “different” and “dangerous” flash across the screen:In Pennsylvania, Oz has run several ads on crime, claiming: “Today’s kids aren’t safe in our communities.” One spot, titled Crazy Dangerous Ideas, accuses Fetterman of “emptying our prisons”, which, according to the ad, would lead to “more hardened criminals on our streets”:Democrats, for their part, have run ads featuring themselves with police officers in an effort to rebut Republican claims that the left will defund police forces.Fetterman has created ads highlighting the work he did to bring down violent crime in Braddock, where he spent 13 years as mayor, with one featuring a local sheriff. Barnes, meanwhile, recruited a retired police sergeant for an ad in September:“I worked on the force for 30 years,” the retired officer, called Rick, says.“I’ve seen plenty of politicians. But Mandela, he’s the real deal. Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police. He’s very supportive of law enforcement.”With less than a week to go until America votes, it remains to be seen which of the party’s strategies will have the most impact.In the weeks following the supreme court’s Roe v Wade decision, abortion rights became one of the most important issues for voters – and with Democrats’ huge investment in abortion-related ads, the party has been counting on it turning out the vote.But as inflation and gas prices have risen, polls show that the economy has emerged as the key issue for voters.Over the past couple of weeks some Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, have urged their party to focus on plans for economic recovery, and late-running ads could reflect voters’ concerns. As the election looms, Democratic supporters will be hoping it’s not a case of too little too late.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022AdvertisingUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More