US Politics

Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?Despite hundreds of mass shootings in the US every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislation Joe Biden’s condolences to the community of Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb elementary school on Tuesday, also came with a demand for action.“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday evening. “It’s time to turn this pain into action. For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: it’s time to act.”But despite hundreds of mass shootings unfolding in America every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislation. The hurdles to enacting stricter gun laws in the US are numerous and significant, but activists say they will not give up until change is made.How often are mass shootings happening in the US?This year, 213 mass shootings, defined as incidents in which at least four people were shot or killed, have already occurred in America, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In 2021, 692 mass shootings were recorded, in comparison to 610 over the course of 2020.The US has already seen other devastating examples of mass shootings this month. Less than two weeks before the shooting in Uvalde, a gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. He fatally shot 10 people, most of them African American.What policies have been proposed to address mass shootings?Gun control advocates have outlined an extensive and specific plan to lower the number of deaths caused by firearms in the US. Those policies include mandating background checks for all gun purchases, including those overseen by unlicensed sellers online or at gun shows, and enforcing a waiting period after someone buys a firearm.Advocates have also called for expanding the restrictions on people who can legally acquire guns. They say abusive dating partners, those convicted of hate crimes and people with mental illness who pose a safety risk, among others, should be barred from buying firearms. Some have proposed prohibiting gun purchases by people under 21, which may have prevented the 18-year-old shooter in Uvalde from acquiring his weapons.Some states have already enacted stricter gun laws, but federal legislation would strengthen restrictions nationwide.Do Americans support stricter gun laws?There is broad support in the US for certain policies championed by gun-control advocates. According to a Morning Consult/Politico survey taken last year, 84% of American voters support universal background checks for gun purchases.But opinions are more varied when Americans are asked about their thoughts on stricter gun laws in general. A November poll conducted by Gallup found that 52% of Americans support stricter gun control, which marked the lowest rating on the question since 2014. Support for a ban on handguns also hit a new low in 2021, with just 19% of Americans telling Gallup that they would be in favor of such a policy.Some of that hesitation may stem from the fact that tens of millions of Americans own guns themselves. Four in 10 Americans live in a household with a gun, while 30% say they personally own one, according to a 2021 survey by Pew Research Center.Has Congress tried to enact stricter gun laws before?Yes, Democrats in Congress have repeatedly pushed to strengthen gun laws that could help lower the number of mass shootings in America. Most notably, Congress tried to pass a compromise bill to expand background checks in 2013, months after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. That bill failed to overcome a Senate filibuster, as most Republicans and a handful of Democrats opposed the legislation.After the bill was defeated, then President Barack Obama delivered a fiery speech blaming the failure on the National Rifle Association, which vehemently opposed the legislation and vowed to campaign against any senator supporting it.“Instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill,” Obama said at the time. “But we can do more if Congress gets its act together.”What is the path forward for enacting gun-control legislation?The Democratic-controlled House has already passed bills to expand background checks to all firearm sales or transfers and close the so-called “Charleston loophole”. That loophole, which would increase the amount of time that licensed gun sellers must wait to receive a completed background check before transferring a gun to an unlicensed buyer, allowed a white shooter to target a historically Black church in Charleston in 2015.But those House-passed bills currently have very little chance of passing in the evenly divided Senate. Republican senators are likely to filibuster any proposed gun-control legislation, and Democrats do not have the 60 votes necessary to advance those bills. The Democratic senator Joe Manchin also made it clear on Tuesday that he would not support amending the filibuster to pass a gun-control bill, meaning Democrats do not have the votes to create a carveout to the rule.Acknowledging this reality, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on Wednesday that it was unlikely the upper chamber would soon vote on the House-passed bills. “I believe that accountability votes are important,” Schumer said, “But sadly, this isn’t a case of the American people not knowing where their senators stand. They know.”That doesn’t mean Democrats are giving up on their efforts to strengthen gun laws. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who represents the Sandy Hook community and has fiercely criticized congressional inaction on gun control, said voters have a chance in November to oust Republicans who oppose reform.“I’m going to try all day today to try to find some compromise, but this is ultimately up to voters,” Murphy told CNN on Wednesday. “If [candidates] support the current law, if they don’t support reform [instead], then don’t send them back to Congress.”TopicsUS gun controlTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingUS politicsRepublicansUS CongressJoe BidenexplainersReuse this content More

Biden to sign police reform executive order on George Floyd anniversaryPresident to take action regulating federal law enforcement agencies after failure of attempts to legislate Joe Biden will on Wednesday sign an executive order meant to improve police accountability.White House officials said the signing would mark the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, who died when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.Minneapolis police engaged in pattern of racial discrimination, inquiry findsRead moreThe order, drafted in the absence of legislative action, directs federal agencies to revise use-of-force policies, banning tactics such as chokeholds and restricting practices like no-knock warrants.It also calls for the creation of a new national standard for accrediting police departments; establishes a national database to track police misconduct; further restricts the transfer of military equipment to police departments; and requires agencies to implement new tools to screen for inherent bias among officers as well as recruits, including those who promote unlawful violence or harbor white supremacist views.The order, which will apply to more than 100,000 federal law enforcement officers, is a reflection of a delicate balance Biden is attempting to strike on policing, as advocates and progressives push him to fulfill a campaign promise to hold police accountable and Republicans seize on such calls to paint Democrats as anti-law enforcement.Officials said the order was written after more than 100 hours’ work and as many meetings with stakeholders including law enforcement officials, lawmakers, civil rights and civil liberties groups and families of victims of police violence. After outcry over a draft version, some major policing organizations have endorsed the order.Pressure has been building on the White House since the collapse of negotiations over a police reform bill named in Floyd’s honor. His death, on 25 May 2020, ignited a national movement against racial injustice and dramatically shifted long-held views on racism and policing.Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in prison. Three other former officers were convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights.Family members of Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed when police executed a no-knock warrant at her apartment in 2020, will join Biden at the White House on Wednesday afternoon for a ceremony in which the president will speak and sign the order. Police officers and civil rights leaders will also be in attendance.“We know full well that an executive order cannot address America’s policing crisis the same way Congress has the ability to but we’ve got to do everything we can,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who will attend Wednesday’s signing ceremony, said in a statement.“There’s no better way to honor George Floyd’s legacy than for President Biden to take action by signing a police reform executive order.”The order applies only to federal agencies. Biden does not have direct authority over state and local agencies. But White House officials said the order incentivizes all law enforcement agencies to participate in the police registry and to adopt the new accountability standards and de-escalation policies.Less than six months before the midterm elections, Democrats are navigating a complicated political landscape. Republicans have sought to blame Democrats for rises in violent crime in some cities, attributing it to calls from activists after Floyd’s death to slash police funding.As a candidate and as president, Biden has denounced efforts to “defund the police”, repeating, to the frustration of some in his party, that departments need more funding, not less.On a call with reporters on Tuesday night, White House officials said the order was no substitute for legislative action.“We started with the backbone of the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act,” a senior White House official said. “In some places, we went beyond what was in the act based on feedback we heard from stakeholders. In other aspects we were constrained by the inherent limits of executive authority.”When a draft version of the order was leaked earlier this year, some law enforcement groups found some of the language objectionable. Particularly offensive to them, according to a February report in the New York Times, was a reference to “systemic racism” within US criminal justice.A White House official said the text had been revised and improved based on input from stakeholders but would not say if the document made explicit reference to systemic racism.The official said the order “does not hide from the truth that we need reform in policing and in our larger criminal justice system, and that includes addressing systemic racism”.TopicsUS policingJoe BidenUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

US reels after massacre in fourth-grade classroom leaves 21 deadAmerica tries to absorb attack on elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook a decade ago More

Five key takeaways: the US midterm electionsRaces from Georgia to Texas were a litmus test of Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican party with some significant losses Blow to Donald Trump as a political kingmakerBrian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, defeated former Senator David Perdue, who had been endorsed by Donald Trump. Perdue’s loss marked a significant defeat for Trump’s reputation as a kingmaker in the Republican party, as the former president has used the power of his endorsement to wield influence over candidates and lawmakers.Perdue’s defeat raises questions about the impact of Trump’s endorsement, particularly for candidates challenging incumbents. In November, Kemp will face off against voting rights leader Stacey Abrams, who won the uncontested race for the Democratic nomination.Key race for Georgia secretary of state signals defeat for ‘big lie’ candidateBrad Raffensperger defeats Trump’s effort to oust him as Georgia’s top election officialRead moreBrad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who attracted Trump’s ire for refusing to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, is projected to win the Republican primary for his position. Raffensperger is above 50% in his race against Trump-backed candidate Jody Hice, who has embraced the former president’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and is expected to avoid a runoff and advance to the November general election.But Trump acolytes performed better in Arkansas and TexasBut Trump acolytes performed better in Arkansas and Texas. Trump’s former press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, secured the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Arkansas, meaning she will likely follow in her father’s footsteps to become governor. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, who filed a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 election, also easily defeated land commissioner George P Bush in his runoff race. Bush’s loss will have long-lasting repercussions for a political dynasty that has produced two presidents and helped shape Texas for several decades.Elementary school shooting casts pall over the nightA shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, cast a devastating shadow over Tuesday’s primaries. At least 19 children and two adults were killed when a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary school. Joe Biden expressed outrage over the tragedy, calling on Congress to pass stricter gun laws. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” Biden said.Lucy McBath, who is the Democratic winner in Georgia’s seventh congressional district, said she has been forced to deliver a very different victory speech than she had planned.“Because just hours ago, we paid for the weapons of war on our streets again with the blood of little children sitting in our schools,” said the representative, who entered politics after her son was shot and killed in 2012. “We cannot be the only nation where one party sits on their hands as children are forced to cover their faces in fear. We are exhausted.”Democratic races also hold interestCongresswoman Lucy McBath defeated fellow House Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux to win the nomination in Georgia’s seventh congressional district. McBath currently represents the sixth congressional district, but she chose to run in the neighboring seventh district after Republican redistricting altered the state’s congressional map. McBath’s victory had particular resonance in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. Since her son’s death, McBath has staunchly advocated for stricter gun laws in honor of his legacy.A winner has still not yet been called in the closely watched runoff race between Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar and Jessica Cisneros in Texas’ 28th congressional district, which pitted a longtime centrist incumbent against a progressive challenger. Progressive groups had rallied around Cisneros, attacking Cuellar over his opposition to abortion rights as the country prepares for the likely reversal of Roe v Wade. But organizations backing Cuellar had spent heavily to help the vulnerable incumbent, and he currently leads Cisneros.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansGeorgiaArkansasTexasDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

Brad Raffensperger defeats Trump’s effort to oust him as Georgia’s top election officialThe secretary of state had been excoriated by many in the GOP for refusing to help overturn the 2020 election Brad Raffensperger defeated congressman Jody Hice on Tuesday in a closely watched Republican primary for Georgia secretary of state, a significant victory for a politician who has been scorned by his own party for refusing Donald Trump’s request to overturn the 2020 election.Wins for Kemp and Carr in Georgia show Trump’s grip on GOP slippingRead moreIn a surprise, Raffensperger avoided a runoff and won an outright victory over Hice, getting more than 50% of the vote, according to the election monitoring website Decision Desk HQ. The race was called by the Associated Press and other outlets late on Tuesday night.Raffensperger’s victory is the biggest rebuke so far to Trump in this election season. There have been few other Republicans who have attracted the former president’s wrath for refusing to overturn the election result. Two other Republicans, Georgia governor Brian Kemp and attorney general Chris Carr easily fended off Trump-backed challengers Tuesday evening.There was a record turnout going into election day, and the Republican primary for secretary of state – long an overlooked office – was seen as perhaps the most important test of Donald Trump’s efforts to install allies who have questioned the election results in roles in which they would wield considerable power over election rules. Trump’s preferred candidates have already won GOP nominations in Michigan and Pennsylvania, also critical battleground states, elevating concerns that officials could reject valid election results in 2024 and beyond.Georgia was the only place where Trump was trying to oust a GOP incumbent who explicitly refused his request to overturn the statewide election results. In a January 2021 phone call, Trump infamously asked Raffensperger, a first-term secretary of state, to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the election results.Hice’s campaign was built around his denial of the 2020 election results. “The big lie in all of this is that there were no problems in this last election. This last election was filled with problems,” he said during a debate in Atlanta earlier this month. “Election security must be protected and Brad Raffensperger let that ball majorly fall.”He also told reporters after the debate there was nothing that would convince him the 2020 election results were accurate – though Georgia officials confirmed Biden’s victory in the state three times – and that Trump’s phone call with Raffensperger was appropriate.Raffensperger’s campaign has tried to strike a careful balance by appealing to Republican voters’ concerns about fraud while defending the results of the 2020 election. He made the main issue in his campaign preventing non-citizen voting, which is virtually non-existent in Georgia. He also staunchly defended a new state law that imposes new identification requirements on mail-in ballots and prevents handing out food or water within 150 feet of a polling place.“He did not break the law that one time. That does not mean that he does not align with the party’s priorities and with their lies and rhetoric about voting,” Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, which focuses on voter engagement, told the Guardian earlier this month.Raffensperger also bet that voters would ultimately be able to see past lies and disinformation about the 2020 election and reward him for doing his job in 2020.“Jody Hice has been running from one rumor to another for the last 18 months. And how can you have confidence when people that should be holding a responsible position as a sitting congressman should be telling the truth?” he said earlier this month.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

Wins for Kemp and Carr in Georgia show Trump’s grip on GOP slippingThe former president had sought to oust the governor as part of his crusade to punish those involved in his 2020 defeat Georgia governor Brian Kemp won the state’s Republican primary for governor on Tuesday, easily overcoming a challenge from former senator David Perdue in a resounding setback for Donald Trump.The Associated Press projected Kemp the winner over Perdue, one of a trio of Georgia races on Tuesday night that revealed limits to Trump’s power over the party he has remade in his image. As part of a post-presidential crusade to punish the Republicans he blames for his 2020 defeat, Trump had sought to oust Kemp along with the state’s Republican attorney general and Republican secretary of state.US midterm primaries: five key races to look out forRead moreFueled by retribution after the officials refused to overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia – a contest that multiple reviews determined was won by Joe Biden – Trump courted Perdue, who fully embraced the myth of a stolen election. But Trump’s imprimatur was not enough. Polling in the final weeks of the race showed him trailing far behind the incumbent governor, whose conservative agenda drew the support of many of the state’s big donors and political leaders.Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, appeared poised to secure the party’s nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.Meanwhile, Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Kemp will now face Democrat Stacey Abrams, setting the stage for a rematch of their showdown in 2018, when she narrowly lost the governorship but emerged as a rising star on the left and a prominent advocate for voting rights. The race for governor of Georgia is expected to be one of the fiercely fought contests of the cycle.Bee Nguyen, a state representative and ally of Abrams, appears poised to clinch the Democratic nomination for secretary of state while Carr will face Democratic state senator Jen Jordan in the race for attorney general.Once deeply Republican, Abrams is credited as a leading architect of the party’s expanding electoral power in Georgia, culminating in last year’s election of two Democratic senators.Trump’s misses in Georgia come as Republicans still await the results of a nail-bitingly close Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon who Trump endorsed, is running neck-and-neck with David McCormick, a hedge fund executive.Even in the races where Trump’s preferred candidates lost, the election results so far this primary season are a testament to how entrenched Trump’s big lie has become. In Pennsylvania last week, Republicans nominated Doug Mastriano, one of the most prominent spreaders of misinformation about the 2020 election, putting him in striking distance of the governor’s office.In a sign that not every race was going against Trump in the state, former football star Herschel Walker won the Republican nomination for Senate in what is already shaping up to be a marquee race that could determine control of the evenly-divided chamber.Riding Trump’s endorsement and his own celebrity in a state where football often seems to reign supreme, Walker managed to deflect questions about his academic and business achievements and a history of violence against his ex-wife. Walker, who is Black, will face incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, a longtime civil rights champion and the state’s first Black senator who is running for a full term after winning the seat in a special election in 2021.In the north-west corner of the state, far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene cruised to victory in a primary that tested conservatives’ tolerance for her extremist brand of politics, a week after voters in North Carolina ousted her ideological ally, congressman Madison Cawthorn.While much of the focus was on Republicans, two popular Democratic incumbents reflective of the coalition that powered Biden’s victory in the state squared off in the newly redrawn seventh district. In the end, congresswoman Lucy McBath prevailed in the race over fellow House Democrat, congresswoman Carolyn Bourdeaux to win the party’s nomination, the Associated Press projected.McBath was recruited to run for office after her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed. Since his death, McBath has been an outspoken advocate for stricter gun laws.McBath’s victory came just hours after a shooting occurred at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that left at least 18 children dead.Georgia is one of several states holding primary elections on Tuesday.In Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary under Trump, secured the Republican nomination in the race to become the state’s next governor. Sanders is heavily favored to win the general election in November to replace the current Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, who is term-limited.If elected, Sanders will follow in the footsteps of her father, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who led the state from 1996 to 2007.In Alabama, the retirement of long-serving Republican senator Richard Shelby, set off another expensive intra-party power struggle for the seat. According to the Associated Press, the primary race was headed for a runoff in June between Katie Britt, the former leader of the Business Council of Alabama, and Republican congressman Mo Brooks, who came in second. Trump initially endorsed Brooks, but rescinded his support when their relationship soured.Meanwhile, in Texas, George P Bush, the former president’s nephew, failed to take down the embattled attorney general, Ken Paxton, in a runoff election that tested the strength of the Bush family’s political dynasty.Paxton, who was endorsed by Trump after leading an unsuccessful lawsuit that asked the US supreme court to overturn the 2020 election, despite no evidence of widespread fraud, is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation related to allegations of corruptions and, separately, was indicted in 2015 for securities fraud. He has denied wrongdoing.And in a competitive Democratic runoff for a House seat in south Texas, centrist congressman Henry Cuellar was in the fight for his political life against progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros. As of early Wednesday, the race was too close to call.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaRepublicansUS politicsStacey AbramsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Donald Trump’s reputation as the undisputed Republican kingmaker is on the ballot in today’s Georgia primary, where former vice-president Mike Pence showed up last night to twist the knife further in his old boss’s back.As polls opened in the party’s primary for governor this morning, Trump’s preferred candidate and former senator David Perdue trailed incumbent Brian Kemp by a significant margin.Pence, the once loyal deputy tipped for his own White House run in 2024, amplified his divergence from Trump by rallying for Kemp in Kennesaw on Monday night.“When you say yes to Governor Brian Kemp tomorrow, you will send a deafening message all across America that the Republican party is the party of the future,” Pence said in another stinging rebuke for Trump’s backwards-looking obsession with his 2020 election defeat.Trump’s thirst for revenge over Kemp for refusing to block Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, or support the big lie that the election was stolen, became calcified in his backing of Perdue, but if polls prove accurate and his preferred candidate goes down, the value of the once-coveted Trump endorsement will be further eroded.Pence is among a number of senior Republicans who are working to achieve that, however inadvertently. At a conservative conference in Florida in February, Pence said Trump was wrong to think the election could be overturned, and that to try to do so was “un-American”.In Georgia, particularly, and elsewhere, other Republican Trump critics and former and current governors including Chris Christie of New Jersey and Doug Ducey of Arizona have worked to weaken Trump’s influence. According to a New York analysis today, most of the big lie-supporting candidates he endorsed in Republican primaries for this year’s midterms won, but many were running unopposed or against unknown or poorly funded opponents.His record in bigger races is less convincing. Celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz failed to deliver a knockout blow in the Pennsylvania senate primary, and is still locked in a tight race with former treasury department official David McCormick, which is heading for a recount.And the extremist, scandal-plagued congressman Madison Cawthorn was ousted in North Carolina despite Trump’s pleas for voters to give him another chance.My colleagues Sam Levine and Alvin Chang have taken this look at the Trump-backed, big-lie advocates running for office in several states in what many say is an alarming attack on democratic principles in the US:’Big lie’ partisans are running for office in swing states across the USRead moreThe Guardian’s Kari Paul is anchoring our live blog on the shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Governor Greg Abbott has said the gunman shot and killed 14 students and one teacher.Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks on the shooting later tonight, when he returns to Washington from Tokyo. Kari will have the latest updates as we learn more. Follow along: Texas school shooting: 14 students and one teacher killed Read moreFourteen students and one teacher were shot and killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, according to the state’s governor, Greg Abbott. Abbott said the gunman, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Romas, had “shot and killed incomprehensibly 14 students and killed the teacher … the shooter, he himself is deceased and it is believed responding officers killed him”.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting and would speak about the tragedy when he returns to the White House tonight. The president was returning from Tokyo when news of the shooting broke.President Biden has been briefed on the horrific news of the elementary school shooting in Texas and will continue to be briefed regularly as information becomes available.— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) May 24, 2022
The shooting comes months before the US is set to mark the 10-year anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school, which resulted in the deaths of 20 children and six adults. In the decade since the Sandy Hook shooting, no major gun control legislation has passed Congress. Thousands of mass shootings have occurred in the years since, including one earlier this month in Buffalo, New York. The Guardian will have a separate live blog to cover the latest news from Uvalde as we continue to provide updates on today’s primaries. Fourteen students and one teacher killed in Texas school shooting, governor saysRead moreTexas is also holding primary runoff races today to determine nominees in a number of key statewide and congressional races.In Texas’ 28th congressional district, Democratic incumbent congressman Henry Cuellar is facing a serious political threat from progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros.Neither of the two candidates finished above 50% in the district’s 1 March primary, forcing them into today’s runoff.The Guardian’s Alexandra Villareal reported on the race this week:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Texas-28 is a heavily gerrymandered, predominantly Latino congressional district that rides the US-Mexico border, including the city of Laredo, before sprawling across south-central Texas to reach into San Antonio. During the primary election in March, voters there were so split that barely a thousand votes divided Cuellar from Cisneros, while neither candidate received the majority they needed to win.
Now, the runoff on 24 May has come to represent not only a race for the coveted congressional seat, but also a referendum on the future of Democratic politics in Texas and nationally.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, House majority whip, James E Clyburn, and House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, have thrown the full-throated support of the Democratic establishment behind Cuellar, while endorsements from progressive icons such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have elevated Cisneros as a rising star on the national stage.
‘If Cuellar wins, this is a story of how the Democratic machine and the old system is still strong in the district. And if Jessica Cisneros wins, the narrative is this is another successful Latina politician … carrying the community forward,’ said Katsuo Nishikawa Chávez, an associate professor of political science at Trinity University.Progressive v anti-abortion Democrat: Texas faces pivotal primary runoffRead moreThe Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, pointed to the expected record turnout in Georgia to dispute Democratic criticism of the state’s new voting law.That law, which was signed by Governor Brian Kemp last year, imposed significant restrictions on absentee voting in Georgia. Voting rights activists argued that the law was an overt attempt to suppress turnout, particularly among Black voters.Speaking at a press conference on Capitol Hill, McConnell said the record turnout disproved Democrats’ claims that Republicans are attempting to limit access to the ballot box across the country.“There’s no effort in America, in any state in America, to suppress voting,” McConnell told reporters.According to the Brennan Center for Justice, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restrict­ing access to voting last year, as Donald Trump continued to spread the “big lie” of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.Senate Republicans have also repeatedly blocked Democratic voting rights bills since Joe Biden took office.The polls in Georgia are scheduled to close in less than three hours, and the state is on track to set a new record for voter turnout in a midterm primary election.Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said on Twitter, “We are on a solid path to surpass the record for midterm primary turnout. The previous record was 2018 with approximately 1,162,000.”We are on a solid path to surpass the record for midterm primary turnout. The previous record was 2018 with approximately 1,162,000.— Gabriel Sterling (@GabrielSterling) May 24, 2022
This year’s Georgia primaries have attracted nationwide interest because of Donald Trump’s endorsements in the gubernatorial and secretary of state races.Trump has endorsed David Perdue, who is challenging incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp, and Jody Hice, who is running against current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.The two races are being closely watched to determine if the former president’s endorsement has enough sway with Republican primary voters to oust two incumbents. The blog will be closely following the results once polls close in Georgia, so stay tuned.Thanks for joining me today. I’m handing over the blog now to my colleague Joan E Greve, who will guide you through the next few hours as polls close and results begin to come in from the five states holding their primaries today.Here’s some of the races we looked at:
In Georgia, it’s a day of reckoning for Donald Trump, where his big lie-supporting endorsee David Perdue takes on incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp. The former president’s power is also being put to the test in the race for secretary of state between incumbent Brad Raffensperger and his pick congressman Jody Hice.
In Texas, the incumbent Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar faces a stiff challenge from progressive Jessica Cisneros.
In Alabama, congressman Mo Brooks is looking to show that a Republican can not only survive having the endorsement of Trump taken away in his race, but actually thrive without it.
In Arkansas, former Trump mouthpiece Sarah Huckabee Sanders is expected to win the Republican nomination for governor easily. The former white House press secretary could follow her father Mike Huckabee into the governor’s mansion in November.
And elsewhere:
The deadlocked Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania could be heading for the supreme court, with party leaders backing TV doctor Mehmet Oz in a legal fight with challenger David McCormick over mail-in ballots.
In her new memoir, Kellyanne Conway lavishes abuse on Steve Bannon, calling the former White House strategist a “leaking dirigible” and an “unpaternal, paternalistic bore of a boor” more concerned with his own image than serving Donald Trump.
A Maryland man who draped himself in a far right-affiliated flag and sprayed a fire extinguisher at police during the deadly Capitol attack on January 6 has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison, according to federal court records.
Please stick with us through the rest of the afternoon and evening for all the developments in the primary election races.In the battle for control of the Democratic party, progressives are increasingly confident they are winning. That’s how they explain the record sums of Super Pac money targeting their candidates in nominating contests for safely Democratic seats.“There’s a set of people who are uncomfortable with a new brand of politics,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the progressive Working Families party. “They’re trying to set the clock back. But the genie’s outta the bottle.”So far this election cycle, progressives have a mixed record. But a stronger-than-expected showing in last week’s primaries has energized the movement and set the stage, they hope, for even more success this summer.In Pennsylvania, state representative Summer Lee overcame a deluge of outside spending to win her congressional primary. Lee was declared the winner after three days of counting. She tweeted: “$4.5 mill” with a fire and trash can emoji.Oregon progressives cheered the victory of Andrea Salinas, who also went up against a crush of big money in one of the most expensive House Democratic primaries in the country. Meanwhile, the seven-term Oregon congressman Kurt Schrader, whose conservative politics drew the left’s ire, appears to be on the verge of losing his seat to progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner, though results have been delayed by a ballot-printing problem.And in what will be one of the cycle’s most competitive Senate races, John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s iconoclastic, liberal lieutenant governor, beat Congressman Conor Lamb, a rising star of the center-left.The next test of progressive political power comes today, in a Texas runoff election between Congressman Henry Cueller, a conservative Democrat backed by party leadership, and Jessica Cisneros, a progressive immigration lawyer endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. And after that, there are competitive intra-party primaries in Illinois, New York and Michigan.“We’re not doing any victory laps,” Mitchell said. “If anything, those losses and the wins have redoubled our commitment and focus.”Read the full story:US progressives show strength in primaries and predict more wins aheadRead moreThe Wisconsin Republican party says it has recovered all $2.3m stolen by hackers before the 2020 presidential election.A chunk of the money, $600,000, was recovered by the FBI and given back to the party last month, the state party chair Mark Jefferson said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.The party’s bank was able to get back $1.5m through its fraud until, and the rest was reimbursed through insurance payouts and donations, Jefferson said.Officials contacted the FBI two weeks before election day in 2020 after they noticed money intended for suppliers of campaign materials, including Donald Trump hats, was being siphoned to the hackers.Trump lost Wisconsin to Joe Biden by fewer than 21,000 votes.Mallory McMorrow remembers the sting of being slandered by a colleague for wanting to “groom” and “sexualize” young children. “I felt horrible,” she says. But instead of shrugging it off or trying to change the subject, as Democrats are often criticised for doing, the state senator from Michigan decided to fight back.In just four minutes and 40 seconds, McMorrow delivered a fierce, impassioned floor speech at the state capitol that went viral on social media and earned a laudatory phone call from the US president.She also offered a blueprint for how Democrats can combat Republicans intent on making education a wedge issue. The New Yorker magazine described her as “a role model for the midterms”. The New York Times newspaper added: “If Democrats could bottle Mallory McMorrow … they would do it.” It was quite an ovation for a 35-year-old serving her first term in elected office. McMorrow, who previously worked as a car designer and branding and design consultant, is among a generation galvanised by resistance to Donald Trump and his red meat populism.Soon after Trump’s election as president in 2016, she saw a video of middle school students chanting “Build the wall!” at another student; the school happened to be the polling place where she had voted. She felt motivated to go into politics and was elected in 2018 to the state senate for the 13th district, which covers suburbs just north of Detroit.But the Michigan senate has been under Republican control since before McMorrow was born. In a time of acrimony and division, it was never going to be an easy ride.Republican Lana Theis opened the latest senate session with an invocation that was part prayer, part Make America Great Again (Maga) battle cry: “Dear Lord, across the country we’re seeing in the news that our children are under attack. That there are forces that desire things for them other than what their parents would have them see and hear and know.”McMorrow was among three Democrats who walked out in protest at the apparent reference to how schools address sexual orientation, gender identity and critical race theory – the target of Republican laws across the country.She also tweeted criticism of the prayer, prompting Theis to lash out in a fundraising email: “These are the people we are up against. Progressive social media trolls like Senator Mallory McMorrow (D-Snowflake) who are outraged they can’t teach can’t groom and sexualize kindergarteners or that 8-year-olds are responsible for slavery.”Grooming, a term used to describe how sex offenders initiate contact with their victims, has recently become a Republican buzzword and nods to QAnon conspiracy theories that hold Democrats run a pedophile ring. It is no less hurtful for being so preposterous.Read the full story:The ‘straight, white, Christian, suburban mom’ taking on Republicans at their own gameRead moreAn independent commission is recommending new names for nine Army posts that commemorated Confederate officers. If approved, Fort Bragg in North Carolina would become Fort Liberty, and Fort Gordon in Georgia would become Fort Eisenhower.The recommendations are the latest step in a broader effort by the military to confront racial injustice, most recently in the aftermath of the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Associated Press reports.The list recommends naming bases for the first time after women and Black soldiers.Fort Polk, Louisiana, would be renamed Fort Johnson, after Sgt William Henry Johnson, a Black medal of honor recipient who served in the first world war.Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia would be renamed Fort Walker, after Mary Edwards Walker, a doctor who treated soldiers in the Civil War and later received a medal of honor.As recently as 2015 the Army argued that the Confederate names did not honor the rebel cause but were a gesture of reconciliation with the South. But following Floyd’s killing and subsequent racial unrest, the Pentagon and Congress pushed to rename military posts and other federal assets such as roads, buildings, memorials, signs and landmarks that honored rebel leaders. An independent commission is recommending new names for nine Army posts that commemorated Confederate officers.Among the recommendations, Fort Bragg in North Carolina would become Fort Liberty and Fort Gordon in Georgia would become Fort Eisenhower. https://t.co/oghpx3pFSj— The Associated Press (@AP) May 24, 2022
My colleague Sam Levine has this look at one of the most consequential races of today’s primary elections, for Georgia secretary of state. Incumbent Brad Raffensperger, who famously resisted Donald Trump’s demand to “find” him enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state is facing a tough battle for reelection. Sam has been talking to Georgia voters: Today Georgia voters are casting ballots in what I believe is the most important primary election this year: the Republican primary for secretary of state.Last week, we published a story from reporting I did earlier this month about the race between incumbent Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who became nationally known for refusing to overturn the election results, and his Trump-backed challenger and big lie peddler, Congressman Jody Hice. There has already been record turnout during early voting, and polls show a close race between Hice and Raffensperger.Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Georgia not affiliated with either campaign, told me Raffensperger had made a strategic error in pushing back on Trump and predicted Hice would win.“He’s branded. And I think it’s gonna be difficult for Republicans to be able to go out and vote for the guy,” he said. “If you don’t have a big stick, don’t go after someone who has a bigger stick than you. He’s the president, he’s just not a big enough guy to go after him.”Several polls over the last year have shown that the vast majority of Republicans believe Joe Biden’s victory was not legitimate. I was curious to see whether that belief was translating into who they were voting for. Would voters kick Raffensperger out of office for saying the election was legitimate?To my surprise, I didn’t find a huge amount of momentum for Hice, who has said the 2020 election was stolen and tried to overturn it. Instead, I found a lot of voters who said they supported Trump, but were also voting for Raffensperger.“I felt that under all that pressure, he did a good job. I know it upset Trump, and I’m a Trump person, but fair is fair,” said Carolee Curti, 82, who voted for Raffensperger in Rome, which is in the heart of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s deeply Republican district in north-west Georgia.“I think something happened, but I don’t know anything like everybody else. I don’t know that Raffensperger did anything bad either,” said Judy C, 80, who declined to give her full name after she cast her vote for Raffensperger in Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb. “Trump, excuse me, he should keep his mouth shut.”Another Republican voter, age 78, who only gave only his first name, Bob, said he had automatically ruled out voting for anyone who said the election was stolen. “If you claim the last election was fraudulent, I’m not voting for you,” he told me. “If you asked people to go illegally to try and overthrow the election, I’m not voting for you.” He declined to say whom he voted for, but said it was probably safe to say he didn’t cast a ballot for Hice.Read more:Georgia secretary of state primary will test big lie’s hold on RepublicansRead moreThe FBI claims an Islamic State sympathizer living in Ohio plotted to assassinate George W Bush, but confidential informants helped federal agents foil the plan, according to court records.Details of the alleged scheme to kill the former president are laid out in a warrant that the FBI obtained in March to search the accused operative’s cellphone records, a 43-page document that was only unsealed in recent days.NBC News reported that the man named in the warrant – Shihab Ahmed Shihab – had been arrested.A spokesperson for Bush said in a statement Tuesday that the former president was unworried.“President Bush has all the confidence in the world in the US Secret Service and our law enforcement and intelligence communities,” said the former president’s chief of staff, Freddy Ford.A spokesperson for the FBI declined comment on the investigation, which Forbes was first to report Tuesday. Shihab could not be reached.Read the full story:FBI says it foiled Islamic State sympathizer’s plot to kill George W BushRead moreThe deadlocked Republican senate primary in Pennsylvania could be heading for the supreme court, with party leaders at state and national level throwing in with celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz.Officials are opposing a lawsuit that could help Oz’s opponent, former hedge fund chief executive David McCormick, close the gap in votes. One week after last Tuesday’s primary, Oz leads by 997 votes, or 0.07% of 1,341,184 ballots cast. McCormick filed a lawsuit late Monday, the Associated Press said, less than 24 hours before today’s 5pm deadline for counties to report unofficial results to the state. He wants the state Commonwealth Court to require counties to obey a new federal appeals court decision and promptly count mail-in ballots that lack a required handwritten date on the return envelope.Oz, who is endorsed by former president Donald Trump, has pressed counties not to count the ballots and the Republican National Committee and state party officials said they would go to court to oppose McCormick.Trump, meanwhile, has urged Oz to declare victory before counting is completed.RNC chief counsel Matt Raymer said in a statement: “Election laws are meant to be followed, and changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections”.McCormick is doing better than Oz in mail-in ballots and has insisted that “every Republican vote should count”.A recount is virtually certain, which could push the official result as late as 8 June.Donald Trump’s onetime attorney Rudy Giuliani testified to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack at length on Friday but declined to discuss the involvement of congressional Republicans in efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, according to sources familiar with the matter.The move by Giuliani to refuse to give insight into Republican involvement could mean his appearance only marginally advanced the inquiry into his ploy to have the then vice-president, Mike Pence, unlawfully keep Trump in office after he lost to Joe Biden.However, he did potentially pique the committee’s interest by discussing two notable meetings at the White House involving Trump that took place just weeks before the Capitol insurrection.Giuliani asserted privilege and the work-product doctrine to decline to respond when asked to detail the roles played by House and Senate Republicans in the scheme to stop Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory on 6 January 2021, the sources said.The panel was not expecting Giuliani to divulge damning information against Trump, since committee counsel had agreed with Giuliani in advance that he should not have to violate legitimate claims of privilege he might have as the former president’s attorney.But Giuliani’s refusal to engage with questions about House and Senate Republicans frustrated the select committee, the sources said, not least because Giuliani personally urged them to object to Biden’s victory to delay its certification.Full story:Rudy Giuliani stonewalls Capitol attack investigators during lengthy depositionRead more More

US midterm primaries: five key races to look out forElections will test Trump’s enduring hold over Republican party while a progressive tries to unseat a Democratic centrist in Texas It is election night in America as a swath of primary races take place in states ranging from Georgia to Texas to Alabama.Here are some key races to watch out for:Progressive v anti-abortion Democrat: Texas faces pivotal primary runoffRead moreGorgia governor: A big blow for Trump?Trump’s preferred candidate for the Georgia governor’s race is former senator David Perdue but he is badly trailing incumbent Brian Kemp by a significant margin.Trump’s thirst for revenge over Kemp for refusing to block Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, or support the big lie that the election was stolen, became calcified in his backing of Perdue, but if polls prove accurate and his preferred candidate goes down, the value of the once-coveted Trump endorsement will be further eroded.Mike Pence, the once-loyal deputy tipped for his own White House run in 2024, amplified his divergence from Trump by rallying for Kemp in Kennesaw on Monday night. “When you say yes to Governor Brian Kemp tomorrow, you will send a deafening message all across America that the Republican party is the party of the future,” Pence said in another stinging rebuke for Trump’s backwards-looking obsession with his 2020 election defeat.Pence is among a number of senior Republicans who are working to achieve that, however inadvertently. At a conservative conference in Florida in February, Pence said Trump was wrong to think the election could be overturned, and that to try to do so was “un-American”.Georgia secretary of state: Big lie or not?The race in Georgia for the hitherto little-known position of secretary of state has assumed national importance as the holder of that post effectively runs the state’s elections – and Georgia is of paramount importance now in presidential elections.The race on the Republican side is between the incumbent Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who became nationally known for refusing to overturn the 2020 election results, and his Trump-backed challenger and big lie peddler, Congressman Jody Hice.There has been record turnout during early voting, and polls show a close race between Hice and Raffensperger.Georgia Senate: How will Herschel Walker do?One of the biggest Trump-endorsed winners is likely to be the former NFL star Herschel Walker, who is handily placed to win the Republican nomination for senator in Georgia.Walker is, as journalist Justin Glawe observed in this profile for the Guardian, a relatively rare political being: a Black, Trump-supporting Republican with a base consisting largely of white conservatives.Already a household name from his years in football, Walker went into the election with an almost certainly unassailable lead, ahead in some polls by more than 55 points, according to Real Clear Politics.Some Republican opponents have questioned the electability of Walker, a close friend of Trump, according to the Associated Press. He has a history of violence against women and has made multiple gaffes on the campaign trail. He also skipped the primary debates. He has been open about his long struggle with mental illness and acknowledged violent urges.Texas congressional race: A new leftist or will centrism triumph?Texas 28 is a heavily gerrymandered, predominantly Latino congressional district that rides the US-Mexico border, including the city of Laredo, before sprawling across south-central Texas to reach into San Antonio.During the primary election in March, voters there were so split that barely a thousand votes divided the incumbent centrist Democrat Henry Cuellar from insurgent progressive Jessica Cisneros, while neither candidate received the majority they needed to win.As Alexandra Villarreal wrote for the Guardian: “Now, the runoff has come to represent not only a race for the coveted congressional seat, but also a referendum on the future of Democratic politics in Texas and nationally.“The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, House majority whip, James E Clyburn, and House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, have thrown the full-throated support of the Democratic establishment behind Cuellar, while endorsements from progressive icons such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have elevated Cisneros as a rising star on the national stage.”Alabama Senate: Can a Republican ditched by Trump still win?In Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks is looking to show that a Republican can not only survive having the endorsement of Donald Trump taken away, but actually thrive without it.The rightwing politician was a happy Trump follower but made the mistake of saying it was time to look ahead to future elections and not focus on Trump’s loss in 2020’s election – which Trump falsely says was stolen from him.That was enough for a furious Trump to pull his backing. But Brooks remains competitive in a race that seems likely to head to a runoff next month, with no candidate winning more than 50%.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansDemocratsexplainersReuse this content More