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      In Arizona’s Race for Governor, Hobbs Takes a Narrow Lead

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      PEORIA, Ariz. — In a cramped campaign office tucked in a strip mall, Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, was hours away from Election Day and trying to rally volunteers while also tempering expectations.“I think this state is still a red state,” Ms. Hobbs said, pointing to Republicans’ advantage over Democrats in voter registration numbers. “We are exactly where we thought we would be in terms of the closeness of this race. We knew it was going to come down to the wire.”Ms. Hobbs always cautioned the race would be tight. What some Republicans — and even some Democrats — in Arizona did not realize was just how tight.Ms. Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, rose to national prominence when she helped certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, defending the integrity of the state’s electoral system against prolonged efforts by former President Donald J. Trump’s allies to overturn the count.But she struggled to compete against her Trump-endorsed Republican rival, the charismatic and pugilistic Kari Lake.Who Will Control Congress? Here’s When We’ll Know.Card 1 of 4Much remains uncertain. More

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      Trump quiet as Democrats pull off surprise boost: Politics Weekly America midterms special

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      Republicans will be wondering how polling got it so wrong. As John Fetterman wins that all-important Pennsylvania seat and Democrats keeps more seats in the house than expected, it is clear the former President doesn’t have the pull analysts once thought. Donald Trump faces another problem, a party rival in Florida king, Ron DeSantis.
      Jonathan Freedland is joined by Lauren Gambino, Tara Setmayer and David Shor to discuss the ramifications for Washington and beyond of what the votes are telling us

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      Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

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      The key candidates who threaten democracy in the 2022 US midterms

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      ExplainerThe key candidates who threaten democracy in the 2022 US midterms In several states, Republican candidates who dispute the 2020 election results are running for positions that would give them control over elections

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      US midterm elections 2022 – latest live news updates
      When will we know who won US midterm races — and what to expect
      Several races on the ballot this fall will have profound consequences for American democracy. In some states, Republican candidates who doubt the 2020 election results, or in some cases actively worked to overturn them, are running for positions in which they would have tremendous influence over how votes are cast and counted. If these candidates win, there is deep concern they could use their offices to spread baseless information about election fraud and try to prevent the rightful winners of elections from being seated.In total, 291 Republicans – a majority of the party’s nominees this cycle – have questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, according to a Washington Post tally.What are the US midterm elections and who’s running?Read moreUp and down the ballot, election deniers are running for offices that could play a critical role in future elections.They’re running to be governors, who play a role in enacting election rules. They’re running to be secretaries of state, who oversee voting and ballot counting. They’re running to be attorneys general, who are responsible for investigating allegations of fraud handling litigation in high-stakes election suits. They’re running to be members of Congress, who vote to certify the presidential vote every four years. They’re running to be state lawmakers, who can pass voting laws, launch investigations, and, according to some fringe legal theories, try to block the certification of presidential electors.Here’s a look at some of the key candidates who pose a threat to US democracy:Doug MastrianoUpdate: Mastriano lost to the Democrat Josh Shapiro on election night.Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, played a key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He was the “point person” for the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania as lawyers put together fake slates of electors for Trump, according to emails obtained by the New York Times. He also organized an event with Rudy Giuliani after the 2020 election in which speakers spread misinformation about the election. He hired buses and offered rides to the US Capitol on January 6 and was there himself. He has supported the idea of decertifying the presidential race in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, which is not possible.If elected, Mastriano would wield considerable power over elections in Pennsylvania. The state is one of a handful where the secretary of state, the chief election official, is appointed by the governor. Mastriano has said he has already picked someone, but hasn’t said who. The Philadelphia Inquirer has speculated he could pick Toni Shuppe, an activist who has spread voting misinformation and false theories linked to the QAnon movement. Mastriano has also said he would decertify election equipment and cause all voters in the state to reregister to vote.Mark FinchemFinchem, a member of Arizona’s state house of representatives, is the Republican nominee for Arizona secretary of state, which would make him Arizona’s chief election official. Finchem, a member of the Oath Keepers, was at the US Capitol on January 6. He introduced a resolution this year to decertify the election. In 2020, he was one of several lawmakers who signed a joint resolution asking Congress to reject electors for Joe Biden.He has said, falsely, that Joe Biden did not win the election in Arizona in 2020. “It strains credibility,” he told Time magazine in September of Biden’s victory. “Isn’t it interesting that I can’t find anyone who will admit that they voted for Joe Biden?” When a reporter asked him whether it was possible that people he didn’t know voted for Biden, Finchem said: “In a fantasy world, anything’s possible.”Kari LakeA former news anchor with no prior political experience, Lake made doubting the 2020 election a centerpiece of her successful bid to win Arizona’s GOP nomination for governor.If she wins the governor’s race, Lake would be one of the statewide officials charged with certifying the results of the presidential election. She has called the 2020 election “corrupt and stolen” and said she would not have certified it. She joined an unsuccessful lawsuit to require ballots in Arizona to be counted by hand, which experts say is unreliable and costly. She has backed ending mail-in voting, which is widely used in Arizona.Abraham “Abe” HamadehThe Republican candidate for Arizona attorney general, Hamadeh has never held elected office and is making his first attempt to win a seat. Hamadeh, a former prosecutor, said he would not have signed off on Arizona’s election results, which showed Joe Biden won. Hamadeh, who is endorsed by Trump, has called the 2020 election “rotten, rigged and corrupt” and said if he won, he would “prosecute the election fraud of 2020 and secure the 2024 election so when Donald Trump runs and wins again in 2024, everyone will know it’s legitimate”.Blake MastersMasters, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Arizona, is endorsed by Trump and has received major financial backing from his former boss the tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Early in his race, Masters posted a video saying: “I think Trump won in 2020.” He also said he would have objected to certifying the 2020 election results during the primary, as other Republican senators did on January 6.Since winning his primary, he has sought to soften his views on the topic. He removed language from his campaign website that claimed the election was stolen. During a debate, he pointed to media coverage and big tech going against Trump instead of outright saying the election was stolen. But he has strongly stated the election was stolen to certain audiences, telling Fox News that he still believes Trump won. And Trump himself called Masters after a debate against the Democratic senator Mark Kelly, with Trump telling Masters he had “got to go stronger” on election fraud claims to win in November.His rhetoric on elections has remained heated during the general election. When Trump came to Arizona in October, Hamadeh told the crowd he would “lock up some people and put handcuffs on them”, but then, during a debate with his opponent, Democrat Kris Mayes, he would not say exactly who should be locked up or for what.Andy BiggsUpdate: Biggs won re-election against the Democrat Javier Ramos, confirmed on Wednesday.Arizona’s Biggs was one of 147 Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the election results, but his involvement in January 6 went further than that. Ali Alexander, who helped organize the “Stop the Steal” protests, has said that Biggs helped him formulate strategy, according to Rolling Stone. Biggs is also said to have requested a pardon for his actions around January 6.Anthony KernAs an Arizona state representative in 2020, Kern was present at the Capitol on 6 January. He also briefly participated in a widely panned review of the 2020 election in Maricopa county that provided fodder for more baseless claims but ultimately affirmed Biden’s victory. He also signed on to a letter requesting that Pence delay the count of the electoral vote. Trump endorsed Kern in November 2021, saying Kern “supported decertifying” the election results.Jim MarchantMarchant is the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Nevada. He is linked to the QAnon movement; he has said he was pushed to run for the position by Trump allies and a prominent QAnon influencer. He leads a coalition of far-right candidates seeking to be secretary of state in key battleground states.He lost a 2020 congressional race by more than 16,000 votes, but nonetheless challenged the result by alleging fraud. He has since traveled around the state pressuring counties to get rid of electronic voting equipment and instead only hand-count paper ballots. Such a switch would be unreliable – humans are worse at counting large quantities of things than machines – as well as costly, and take a long time, experts say. He has falsely said voting equipment is “easy” to hack and said that Nevadans’ votes haven’t counted for decades. He has claimed there is a global “cabal” that runs elections in Nevada and elsewhere.Kristina KaramoUpdate: Karamo lost to the Democrat Jocelyn Benson, confirmed on Wednesday.Karamo, the GOP nominee for secretary of state in Michigan, became nationally known after the 2020 election when she claimed she witnessed wrongdoing as ballots were being counted in Detroit. The allegations were debunked, but Karamo, a community college professor who has never held elected office, went on to rise in conservative circles. She appeared on Fox News and was a witness at a high-profile legislative hearing about election irregularities. She joined an unsuccessful lawsuit to try to overturn the election. She has claimed “egregious crimes” were committed and said on a podcast: “It’s time for us decent people in the Republican party … to fight back. We cannot have our election stolen,” according to Bridge Michigan.Abortion on the ballot: here are the US states voting on a woman’s right to chooseRead moreShe has also come under fire for comments on her podcast comparing abortion to human sacrifice and opposing the teaching of evolution in schools, according to Bridge Michigan.Matthew DePernoDePerno lost to the Democrat Dana Nessel, confirmed on Wednesday morning.DePerno, a lawyer who has never held elected office, became a celebrity in conservative circles for his work after the 2020 election. He helped lead a lawsuit in Antrim county, in northern Michigan, where a clerk made an error and posted incorrect information on election night. He claimed election equipment was corrupted, and a judge authorized an investigation of the county’s election equipment that became the basis of an inaccurate report that Trump allies used to spread misinformation about the election. A Republican-led inquiry into allegations of fraud found his actions to be “​​misleading and irresponsible”. DePerno has said he would arrest Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat serving as Michigan’s top election official, as well as Dana Nessel, his Democratic opponent in the attorney general’s race.DePerno also faces potential criminal charges for unauthorized access to voting equipment. A special prosecutor is investigating the matter.Steve CarraCarra won his re-election bid against Roger Williams, confirmed on Wednesday.Carra, who is running for re-election to the Michigan house of representatives, signed a letter in 2020 asking Mike Pence to delay Congress’s counting of electors. He also sponsored legislation to require an audit of the 2020 race, even after the 2020 results were already confirmed there.Kim CrockettCrockett lost to the Democrat Steve Simon, confirmed on Wednesday.Joe Biden won Minnesota by more than 230,000 votes in 2020. But Kim Crockett, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, has nonetheless called that victory into question.Crockett has described the 2020 election as “rigged” and agreed with an interviewer who suggested it was “illegitimate”. She has said, “I don’t think we’ll ever know precisely what happened” when it comes to the 2020 race. That is false – there’s no evidence of fraud or other malfeasance in Minnesota, which had the highest voter turnout in the US in 2020.Crockett has harshly criticized Steve Simon, the incumbent secretary of state, for reaching a court settlement that required the state to count late-arriving ballots (an appeals court blocked the agreement). If elected, Crockett has pledged to cut the early voting period in the state (Minnesota has one of the longest early voting periods in the US), get rid of same-day voter registration, and require photo identification to vote.Audrey TrujilloTrujillo lost to Democrat Maggie Toulouse Oliver on election night.Trujillo, the Republican nominee for secretary of state in New Mexico, has called the 2020 election a “coup”.“Until we get a handle on the voter fraud in NM, all elections are going to continue to be rigged. Why run? Run to lose? Thoughts anyone?” she tweeted last year.She has also appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast, where she falsely suggested Biden could not have won the election because she only saw Trump signs in the state (Biden easily won the state by nearly 100,000 votes). She supported an effort in one county not to certify the primary election because of unproven fraud allegations.She has also pushed other conspiracy theories related to school shootings and Covid vaccines, according to Media Matters.Tim MichelsMichels lost to the Democrat Tony Evers, confirmed on Wednesday.Michels, the Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, said earlier this year that the 2020 election was “maybe” stolen. Donald Trump, who lost Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, only requested a recount in two of the state’s largest counties, both of which affirmed Biden’s victory in the state.After pressure from Trump, Michels said this year he would consider signing legislation to decertify the 2020 election, which is not legally possible.Ken PaxtonPaxton won his re-election bid against the Democrat Rochelle Garza, confirmed on Wednesday.Paxton, seeking his third term as Texas attorney general, was one of Trump’s closest allies in the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 race. He filed a lawsuit at the Texas supreme court seeking to block Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania from certifying their election results.Burt JonesA state senator who is running to be Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Jones served as one of 16 fake electors in Georgia in 2020. He helped amplify Trump’s baseless fraud claims after the 2020 vote and was among a group of state senators who called on Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, to convene a special session to address changes to election law – a suggestion Kemp rejected. If elected lieutenant governor, he would oversee the Georgia senate and have a role in controlling the flow of legislation in the chamber.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansPennsylvaniaArizonaNevadaMichiganexplainersReuse this content More

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      Which Election Races Are Still Being Called, and When Will We Have Results?

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

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      The key races to watch in the 2022 US midterms

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      ExplainerThe key races to watch in the 2022 US midterms Control of the Senate could hang on results in a handful of states while votes for governor and secretary of state could affect the conduct of future elections

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      When will we know who won US midterm races — and what to expect
      Arizona governor: Katie Hobbs (D) v Kari Lake (R)Hobbs is currently secretary of state in what used to be a Republican stronghold. Lake is a former TV news anchor who relishes sparring with the media and promoting Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Victory for Lake – who has appeared with figures linked to QAnon on the campaign trail – would be a major boost for the former president and ominous for 2024.US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead moreArizona secretary of state: Mark Finchem (R) v Adrian Fontes (D)Secretary of state elections have rarely made headlines in past midterms but this time they could be vital to the future of American democracy. The battle to become Arizona’s top election official pits Fontes, a lawyer and former marine, against Finchem, who falsely claims that voter fraud cost Trump the state in 2020 and who was at the US Capitol on January 6 2021.Arizona Senate: Mark Kelly (D) v Blake Masters (R)Kelly is a retired astronaut who became well known in the state when his wife, then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot and critically injured at an event in Tucson in 2011. Masters, a 36-year-old venture capitalist and associate of mega-donor Peter Thiel, gained the Republican nomination with the help of Trump’s endorsement but has since toned down his language on abortion, gun control and immigration.Florida attorney general: Aramis Ayala (D) v Ashley Moody (R)Ayala is the first Black female state attorney in Florida history. Moody, the incumbent, is a former prosecutor and judge who recently joined 10 other Republican attorneys general in a legal brief that sided with Trump over the justice department regarding the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home. Like her predecessor Pam Bondi, Moody could be a powerful ally for Trump as the state’s top law enforcement official.Georgia governor: Stacey Abrams (D) v Brian Kemp (R)Abrams, a voting rights activist, is bidding to become the first Black female governor in American history. But she lost narrowly to Kemp in 2018 and opinion polls suggest she could suffer the same fate in 2022. Kemp now enjoys the advantages of incumbency and a strong state economy. He also has momentum after brushing aside a primary challenge from Trump-backed challenger David Perdue.Georgia Senate: Herschel Walker (R) v Raphael Warnock (D)Warnock’s victory in a January 2021 runoff was critical in giving Democrats’ control of the Senate. Now the pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist church – where Martin Luther King used to preach – faces Walker, a former football star with huge name recognition but scant experience (he recently suggested that China’s polluted air has replaced American air). Polls show a tight race between the men, both of whom are African American.Ohio Senate: Tim Ryan (D) v JD Vance (R)The quintessential duel for blue-collar voters. Ryan, a Democratic congressman, has run an energetic campaign, presented himself as an earthy moderate and accused Vance of leaving the state for San Francisco to make millions of dollars in Silicon Valley. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, seen as a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding the Trump phenomenon in 2016, used to be a Trump critic but has now gone full Maga.Pennsylvania governor: Doug Mastriano (R) v Josh Shapiro (D)Mastriano, a retired army colonel and far-right state senator, led protests against pandemic restrictions, supported efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat and appearing outside the US Capitol during the January 6 riot. Critics say that, as governor, he could tip a presidential election to Trump in 2024. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, is running on a promise to defend democracy and voting rights.Pennsylvania Senate: John Fetterman (D) v Mehmet Oz (R)One of the most colourful duels on the ballot. Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, is 6ft 8in tall, recovering from a stroke that has affected his speech and hearing, and running aggressive ads that mock Oz for his lack of connections to the state. Oz, a heart surgeon and former host of the daytime TV show The Dr Oz Show, benefited from Trump’s endorsement in the primary but has since backed away from the former president’s claims of a stolen election.Wisconsin Senate: Mandela Barnes (D) v Ron Johnson (R)This is Democrats’ best chance of unseating an incumbent senator: Johnson is the only Republican running for re-election in a state that Biden won in 2020. First elected as a fiscal conservative, he has promoted bogus coronavirus treatments such as mouthwash, dismissed climate change as “bullshit” and sought to play down the January 6 insurrection. Barnes, currently lieutenant governor, is bidding to become the first Black senator in Wisconsin’s history.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsArizonaFloridaGeorgiaexplainersReuse this content More

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      Kari Lake closes campaign office over envelope with white powder – reports

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      Kari Lake closes campaign office over envelope with white powder – reportsArizona Republican gubernatorial candidate’s staffer opened the envelope and is under medical supervision, spokesperson says Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake closed a campaign office after an envelope containing “suspicious white powder” was delivered to the premises on Saturday, according to reports.A member of the candidate’s staff unwittingly opened the envelope and is now under “medical supervision”, campaign spokesperson Colton Duncan told CNN.‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismRead moreThe FBI will analyze the item at its laboratory in Virginia, and agents stopped short of saying whether they had confirmed the powder was harmful.“It was one of two envelopes that were confiscated by law enforcement and sent to professionals at Quantico for examination, and we are awaiting details,” Duncan reportedly said.While Lake was taking the threat seriously, Duncan said, she would not be deterred. “In the meantime, know that our resolve has never been higher, and we cannot be intimidated,” Duncan added. “We continue to push full speed ahead to win this election.”Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state and Lake’s opponent in Tuesday’s election, decried the incident. “The reported incident at Kari Lake’s campaign office is incredibly concerning and I am thankful that she and her staff were not harmed,” Hobbs’ campaign reportedly commented. “Political violence, threats, or intimidation have no place in our democracy. I strongly condemn this threatening behavior directed at Lake and her staff.”This case ensnaring Lake’s office comes amid heightened concerns about political violence surrounding the 2022 midterm elections Tuesday and unrest generally. Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, was bludgeoned by a hammer-wielding home intruder on 28 October in an attack that authorities described as politically motivated.In June, California resident Nicholas John Roske was arrested near US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home for allegedly trying to kill the jurist. Roske, who has pleaded not guilty, allegedly told a police officer that he was angry over the then draft supreme court opinion overturning the federal abortion rights established by the landmark Roe v Wade case.Threats against politicians have surged in recent years, with the US Capitol police saying that they investigated 9,625 threats against legislators in 2021, which began with supporters of Donald Trump launching an attack on the congressional session that certified the former president’s defeat to Joe Biden. That toll was about a threefold increase from 2017, Capitol police said.While US House members will now receive a $10,000 security allowance, the stipend has been criticized as insufficient.The New York police department (NYPD) warned on 27 October that extremists might target political events and polling sites in advance of Tuesday’s race.A New York City voting site was shuttered for several hours Sunday after a bomb threat, authorities said. The threat was reportedly directed toward the school which housed the site.The NYPD said this threat was neither against the polling station nor politically motivated.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022ArizonaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US far-right group sparks legal firestorm over drive to monitor drop-box voting

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      US far-right group sparks legal firestorm over drive to monitor drop-box votingMelody Jennings of Clean Elections USA teamed up with True the Vote for project that echos Trump’s false claims about 2020 A far-right group run by a Christian pastor has sparked a legal firestorm by spearheading a drive to aggressively monitor drop-box voting for fraud in Arizona and other states, in an echo of Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election results were rigged.Melody Jennings, who runs Clean Elections USA, has teamed up with the conservative group True the Vote, which has a track record for making debunked charges of voting fraud. Together they are promoting a project to hunt for alleged drop-box fraud, which Jennings boasted in multiple interviews on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room and the MG Show, a conspiratorial QAnon program.Michigan’s top election official: ‘Every tactic tried in 2020 will be tried again’Read moreJennings’ frequent messages advocating using cameras and videos in drop-box surveillance fueled lawsuits last month by Arizona voting rights groups charging that voters have faced intimidation tactics from her followers, some of whom have been armed, as they have put their ballots in boxes.Nationwide, more than 4,500 people have reportedly signed up to help monitor drop boxes as part of the Clean Elections drive, which has discussed plans to share photos, information and videos with True the Vote, an organization recently enmeshed in legal battles.Oklahoma-based Jennings has said her campaign to investigate Arizona drop boxes, where people can legally drop off their ballots, was inspired by a teaser on Trump’s Truth Social website for the widely discredited film 2000 Mules, which True the Vote helped make. Jennings has roughly 30,000 followers on the platform.“We’ve got people ready to go in 18 states to go out in shifts and guard these boxes,” said Jennings, whose moniker is Trumper Mel, to Bannon on a 15 October podcast. “We’ve got people out there, on the ground and doing the work.”On Monday, the justice department (DoJ) supported a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters against Clean Elections and two other rightwing drop box surveillance operations. The DoJ brief outlines organized campaigns to intimidate voters with video recording and photography.The brief also noted that a legitimate role exists for poll watchers, but said private “ballot security forces” probably violated the federal Voting Rights Act.On Tuesday, a federal judge in Arizona issued a temporary restraining order against Clean Elections and its allies: the order barred them from taking videos and photos of voters and promoting baseless charges of voter fraud, and banned them from openly carrying guns and wearing tactical gear.Judge Michael Liburdi, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, also required that Clean Election drop box watchers stand at least 75 ft (23 metres) away from the boxes they’re monitoring, and publicly correct past false charges they have made about the state’s election laws.Shortly before the restraining order, Clean Elections announced its volunteers would halt certain tactics, such as openly carrying guns and wearing tactical gear. A lawyer for Jennings and the group has said it’s likely that an appeal would be filed on first amendment grounds, contesting some parts of the order.The judge’s restraining order and the Arizona lawsuits came after several drives by Clean Elections volunteers to target alleged drop-box fraud in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, including one where two armed individuals wearing tactical gear identified themselves as being with Clean Elections, an action that Jennings sought to distance her group from.Similarly, last month the Arizona secretary of state received a report from one individual stating that a Clean Elections representative accused one voter of being a “mule” and had the voter’s license plate photographed, after being followed into a parking lot.Some Arizona GOP officials voiced alarm about the drop box monitoring tactics by Clean Elections and some allied groups, and deplored how their efforts were fueled by the 2000 Mules movie, created by conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote. The movie’s sweeping claims of nefarious, but unsubstantiated, ballot-box stuffing has drawn widespread criticism.“If it were not for 2000 Mules, organizations and activists in our state would not be engaging in aggressive monitoring of drop boxes which has bordered on unlawful voter intimidation,” said Bill Gates, the GOP chairman of the Maricopa board of supervisors.Gates added that GOP candidates running for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in Arizona have “pointed to 2000 Mules as evidence that the 2020 election was marred by fraud”.Arizona Republican state senator Paul Boyer also voiced strong criticism of the aggressive actions some groups have taken in their pursuit of drop box fraud.“For those who monitor ballot drop boxes, there are the malicious actors who wear military fatigues thereby insinuating voting is akin to war. It is not. No Arizona citizen should ever feel intimidated when dropping off their ballot,” Boyer said.But there’s no doubt that Jennings has been zealous in spreading debunked allegations about 2020 election fraud as revealed by internet archives of now deleted Clean Election USA blog writings and other group materials.“We often hear people say things like, ‘there is always some election fraud’ as if it is OK at a certain level. However, with the help of our heroes mentioned above, we now know that the level of fraud in 2020 was unprecedented and determinative, meaning Joe Biden is now NOT our duly elected representative and neither is Kamala Harris.”“The rabbit hole goes much deeper, but this is all we need to know for now. It means that we do not have free and fair elections in the US and this should be concerning for all,” Jennings said in a previously unreported Clean Elections document found using internet archives.The alliance between Clean Elections and True the Vote to target drop boxes seems to have been fostered in part to obtain evidence to support the unsubstantiated claims in 2000 Mules. The film slings allegations of “ballot trafficking” by 2,000 people – dubbed mules – who were hired by nonp-rofits to stuff drop boxes with potentially bogus absentee ballots in five key states that Joe Biden won.Last month, before the start of early voting in Arizona, Votebeat first revealed that True the Vote’s Gregg Phillips raved about the fledgling partnership with Clean Elections in a video on the conservative website Rumble: “This is the greatest opportunity for us to catch the cheaters in real time, maybe that’s ever existed. So we’re excited about it.”True the Vote is expected to offer new information to conservative sheriffs including a group, launched by the Pinal county sheriff, Mark Lamb, who has been working with True the Vote for several months on other fraud finding missions involving drop boxes.Jennings has denied charges that her group has broken any laws. “All activities supported by Clean Elections USA are lawful and designed to support lawful elections,” she wrote to Votebeat.But Jennings sees her battle to uncover alleged election fraud in apocalyptic terms.“Luckily, people are standing up and the truth is being uncovered. We have some real American heroes out there,” she wrote in a previously unreported blog earlier this year. Jennings cited True the Vote’s leader Catherine Engelbrecht, Phillips and D’Souza among other heroes “who literally put their lives on the line to uncover what is clearly a planned effort to undermine our democratic republic”.Meanwhile, True the Vote has faced mounting legal scrutiny in Arizona and Texas – where two of its leaders were arrested on Monday and cited with contempt of court – related to conspiratorial allegations about voting fraud in the 2020 election.Last month, Arizona’s Republican attorney general, Mark Brnovich, requested an investigation of True the Vote by the IRS and the FBI into potential tax violations by the non profit tax exempt group after the group failed to provide his office evidence of voting fraud they had promised for months.A Brnovich investigator in a letter last month said True the Vote has “raised considerable sums of money alleging they had evidence of widespread voter fraud”.The letter concluded that given True the Vote’s non-profit IRS status, “it would appear that further review of its financials may be warranted”.The letter also revealed that the attorney general’s office had three meetings over the course of about a year with Engelbrecht and her key associate, Phillips. True the Vote leaders have called the attorney general’s charges inaccurate, but didn’t offer proof to rebut them. Engelbrecht and Phillips did not respond to calls seeking comment.In a separate legal firestorm facing True the Vote in Texas, both Engelbrecht and Phillips were arrested on Monday, after being cited with contempt of court by a judge in a defamation lawsuit brought against the group by a Michigan election software firm, Konnech, for alleging that the company’s leader was a “Chinese operative” and that Konnech had engaged in the “subversion of our elections”.True the Vote in podcasts and other places had stated it authorized “analysts” to hack Konnech’s computers that it claimed gave China access to the names of 2 million election workers, to support its allegations against the firm. Last month, a Texas judge ordered True the Vote to hand over the Konnech data and reveal the name of the person who helped them obtain the information.Georgia ballot rules mean voters are falling between cracks, advocates sayRead moreOn Monday, US district judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered the True the Vote leaders detained for “one day and further until they fully comply” with his demand last week that they disclose the name of a person of interest in the case who True the Vote had cited in its defense in court but referred to mysteriously as a confidential FBI informant.A True the Vote spokesperson has said the group’s lawyer would appeal against the judge’s action and demanded the pair’s “immediate release”.As for Jennings, just days before the justice department brief and the judge’s restraining order against her group she dropped some hints about her looming legal problems during another interview with Bannon.Jennings told Bannon that her group was rebranding some by changing its name to the Drop Box Initiative in Arizona, but keeping her original name in other states.“We are going to rebrand a little bit,” Jennings told Bannon, noting that “I don’t need any more people in Arizona, honestly”. But she added that her drive was still trying to recruit more volunteers in many states.Appearing on War Room again two days later, Jennings appealed to the podcast’s audience to help her legal defense by donating funds to True the Vote.TopicsArizonaUS midterm elections 2022US voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats, Don’t Despair. There Are Bright Spots for Our Party.

      by

      The Democratic Party and Senator Mitch McConnell rarely see eye to eye on anything. But if Democrats hold the line in the elections on Tuesday and keep control of the Senate — and we still have a shot — it will come down to candidate quality.That’s the phrase that Mr. McConnell used this past summer alluding to his Republican Senate nominees.Going into Tuesday’s vote, Democrats face fierce headwinds like inflation and the typical pattern of losses in midterm elections for the party in power. But unlike some Republican candidates — a real-life island of misfit toys — many Democratic Senate candidates have been a source of comfort: the likable, pragmatic, low-drama Mark Kelly in Arizona and Raphael Warnock in Georgia, the heterodox populists John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) and Tim Ryan (Ohio). If the party can defy the odds and hold the Senate, there will be valuable lessons to take away.For many election analysts, the hopes of the summer —  that the Dobbs decision overturning Roe could help Democrats buck historical trends — look increasingly like a blue mirage, and Republicans seem likely to surf their way to a majority in the House.Yet the battle for the Senate is still raging, and largely on the strength of Mr. Kelly, Mr. Warnock, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Fetterman. Their races also offer insights that can help Democrats mitigate losses in the future and even undo some of the reputational damage that has rendered the party’s candidates unelectable in far too many places across the country.In a normal midterm year, Mr. Warnock and Mr. Kelly would be the low-hanging fruit of vulnerable Democrats, given that they eked out victories in 2020 and 2021 in purple states.But they bring to the table compelling biographies that resist caricature. Mr. Kelly is a former Navy combat pilot and astronaut whose parents were both cops. Mr. Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, quotes Scripture on the campaign trail and compares the act of voting to prayer.They’ve rejected the hair-on-fire, hyperpartisan campaign ads that endangered incumbents often rely on. Mr. Kelly’s ads highlight his bipartisanship and willingness to break with the Democratic Party on issues like border security — he supports, for example, filling in gaps in the wall on the border with Mexico.Mr. Warnock, too, has focused on local issues: His campaign has highlighted his efforts to secure funding for the Port of Savannah and his bipartisan work with Tommy Tuberville of Alabama to help Georgia’s peanut farmers. These ads will probably not go viral on Twitter, but they signal that Mr. Kelly and Mr. Warnock will fight harder for the folks at home than they will for the national Democratic agenda.In Ohio and Pennsylvania, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Fetterman have showed up in every county, red or blue, in their states. Democrats can’t just depend on driving up the margins in Democratic strongholds — they also need to drive down Republicans’ margins in their strongholds.Mr. Fetterman is holding to a slim lead in polls. Most analysts doubt Mr. Ryan can prevail in what is a tougher electoral environment for a Democrat, but even if he loses, he helped his peers by keeping his race competitive, and he did it without a dollar of help from the national party. He forced national Republicans to spend about $30 million in Ohio that could otherwise have gone to Senate races in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania.Anything could happen on Tuesday. Politics, like football, is a game of inches. It’s still possible that Democrats could pick up a seat or two. It’s also plausible that Republicans could take seats in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and even New Hampshire.But when the dust settles on the election, Democrats need to do some real soul-searching about the future of our party. We look likely to lose in some places where Joe Biden won in 2020. And what’s worse, we could lose to candidates who have embraced bans on abortion and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, views shared by a minority of the American people. This outcome tells us as much about the Democratic brand as it does the Republican Party.Fair or not, Democrats have been painted as the party of out-of-touch, coastal elites — the party that tells voters worried about crime that it’s all in their heads and that, by the way, crime was higher in the 1990s; the party that sneers at voters disillusioned with bad trade deals and globalization and that labels their “economic anxiety” a convenient excuse for racism; the party that discounts shifts of Black and Hispanic voters toward the Republican Party as either outliers or a sign of internalized white supremacy.If Democrats are smart, they’ll take away an important lesson from this election: There is no one way, no right way to be a Democrat. To win or be competitive in tough years in places as varied as Arizona, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, we need to recruit and give support to the candidates who might not check the box of every national progressive litmus test but who do connect with the voters in their state.Mr. Fetterman and Mr. Ryan offer good examples. Both have been competitive in part because they broke with progressive orthodoxy on issues like fracking (in Pennsylvania, Mr. Fetterman was called the “enemy” by an environmentalist infuriated by his enthusiastic support for fracking and the jobs it creates) and trade deals (in Ohio, Mr. Ryan has bragged about how he “voted with Trump on trade”).It also means lifting up more candidates with nontraditional résumés who defy political stereotypes and can’t be ridiculed as down-the-line partisans: veterans, nurses, law enforcement officers and entrepreneurs and executives from the private sector.In some states, the best candidates will be economic populists who play down social issues. In others, it will be economic moderates who play up their progressive social views. And in a lot of swing states, it will be candidates who just play it down the middle all around.It might also mean engaging with unfriendly media outlets. Most Democrats have turned up their noses at Fox News even though it is the highest-rated cable news channel, but Mr. Ryan has made appearances and even put on air a highlight reel of conservative hosts like Tucker Carlson praising him as a voice of moderation and reason in the Democratic Party. In the frenzied final days of the campaign, Mr. Fetterman wrote an opinion essay for FoxNews.com.This year we still might avoid losing the Senate. And Democrats can avoid catastrophe in future elections. It all comes down to two words: “candidate quality.”Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith), a Democratic communications strategist, was a senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign and is the author of the memoir “Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More