Subterms
This live blog is now closed.Sign up for US Breaking News emailA new Washington Post-ABC poll shows that Donald Trump’s approval rating has reached a new low – 33%.This comes, just over two weeks away from the November midterms, as the president continues crisscrossing the country as part of his campaign blitz for embattled Republicans. Continue reading… More
Will California stand with the working class or the oligarchs in the vote this November?The Democratic party has a choice to make. Are we going to be New Deal Democrats or corporate Democrats? Are we standing with the working class or the tech oligarchs?Proposition 40, California’s billionaire tax, is the most important ballot initiative in America and a fight for the soul of our party.Rohit Khanna is aUS congressman and attorney serving as the US representative from California’s 17th congressional district
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The Republican state attorney general appears uniquely ill-chosen as a candidate – but he is a political survivor who could yet frustrate Democratic dreamsDepending how you look at the situation, it is either predictable that Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and Republican candidate for US Senate, is struggling in the polls – or impressive that he is not doing worse. Beloved by hardcore Maga voters and regarded with skepticism by the broader voting public, Paxton is also puzzlingly bland. Recently, Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters that the 63-year-old Paxton “may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen”. The president was endorsing him.Yet it is Paxton’s ability to attract – and somehow scrape through – scandal that makes him a less charismatic, perhaps, but still kindred spirit of “Teflon Don”: nothing sticks. He has survived state prosecution (on securities-related charges that he settled without admitting guilt), impeachment by the Republican-led Texas legislature (on abuse-of-office charges of which he was later acquitted), and so many controversies that it can be difficult to pin down the most outrageous. Continue reading… More
President appears at rally for struggling Mike Collins, dismisses critics and touts ‘most successful’ two-year runAt a rally in north Georgia, Donald Trump again claimed that the 2020 election in Georgia was fraudulent, alleging that the election of US senator Jon Ossoff was illegitimate.Ossoff, who faces US congressman Mike Collins in November, does not represent Georgia’s values, Trump said. Continue reading… More
Rising costs and threatened healthcare benefits are testing voters’ loyalty to Trump as Democrat Randy Villegas challenges David ValadaoVanessa Martinez used to work two jobs to make ends meet. Now she works three.In another era, the 26-year-old from California’s hardscrabble Central valley could have been a poster child for the American Dream, the sort of ambitious, up-by-her-bootstraps personality that politicians of both major parties like to highlight. Continue reading… More
Claims that James Talarico suffered a mental health crisis spread across rightwing media, offering a warning about disinformation ahead of the US midterm electionWhere is James Talarico? The question ricocheted around rightwing echo chambers before metastasising into a conspiracy theory – and a reminder of the persistent danger of disinformation in the US midterm elections.The smear campaign began when Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Texas, was not seen in public for nine days. His campaign was slow to explain why. While nature abhors a vacuum, Donald Trump and social media seize on one and weaponise it. Continue reading… More
As the midterm elections loom, Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone travel to rural West Virginia, a Republican party stronghold, to explore how soaring gas prices, war in the Middle East and datacenter expansion are affecting Donald Trump’s popularity among his base. Although the state remains staunchly Republican, there are signs of a new politics emerging – and local Democrats are looking to capitalize on it Continue reading… More
Talarico casts himself as a moderate who would put Texans’ needs over party allegiances amid close contest against Republican Ken PaxtonJames Talarico, the Texas Democratic nominee for Senate, sat face to face with several undecided voters who grilled him on a slew of contentious issues including Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, abortion and foreign aid, during a CNN town hall on Wednesday evening.One voter, a devout small business owner, questioned the authenticity of Talarico’s faith, referencing a past remark where he described God as nonbinary. Continue reading… More
