Democrats

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      How the fall of Roe shattered Republicans’ midterm dreams

      by

      How the fall of Roe shattered Republicans’ midterm dreamsWomen and young people, furious over losing federal abortion protections, helped Democrats defy expectations This summer, after a tectonic decision by the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade eliminated the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion, Joe Biden predicted American women would revolt. Republicans, however, saw a “red wave” brewing, fueled by widespread economic discontent.On Thursday, after Democrats defied historical expectations in the first major election of the post-Roe era, Biden effectively declared: “I told ya so.”Young voters hailed as key to Democratic successes in midtermsRead more“Women in America made their voices heard, man,” the president told a crowd of supporters at the Howard Theater in Washington on Thursday. “Y’all showed up and beat the hell out of them.”The 2022 midterm elections were expected to usher in staggering losses for Democrats. The party in power typically fares poorly, and with Biden’s approval ratings mired in the low 40s, Republicans were expected to make significant gains.That is not how the results unfolded. As the vote count continues in several key races, Republicans appear on track to win a far narrower House majority than they hoped, while Democrats may retain control of the Senate.As a fuller portrait of the results emerges, advocates, Democrats and even some Republicans say one thing is clear: abortion proved a defining issue. Fury over the loss of federal abortion protections galvanized women and young people and delivered a string of unexpected victories for Democrats and new protections for reproductive rights.“You cannot have half of the population have their body autonomy put under threat and not expect it to be mobilizing,” said Heidi Sieck, the CEO and co-founder of #VoteProChoice. “And that’s what we saw across the board with young people showing up, women showing up, newly registered women being more than two- thirds of the newly registered voters.”Exit polls conducted for news networks by Edison Research showed that abortion was the top issue for many Americans, especially people under the age of 30. And about 60% of voters said they were dissatisfied or angry with the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe, according to exit polls conducted by AP Votecast.In every state where an abortion-related measure was on the ballot, voters chose either to enshrine protections or reject new limits. And it was a decisive issue in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the future of abortion access was at risk.In Michigan, voters decisively approved a ballot initiative establishing a state constitutional right to reproductive freedom, effectively stopping a 1931 abortion ban from ever taking effect.They also lifted Democrats to power at all levels of government, re-electing Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel and wresting control of the state legislature from Republicans for the first time in decades. Whitmer defeated Tudor Dixon, a Trump-backed Republican who said she opposed abortion in nearly all cases, including when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.Before the election, the Michigan congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, who was considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats, told the Guardian that she believed her political fate was tied to the result of the state’s abortion proposal. On Tuesday, she held on comfortably.In Pennsylvania, where exit polls showed that abortion was the top issue on voters’ minds, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, won in a landslide. He defeated Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican and one of his party’s most strident opponents of abortion rights.The Democrat John Fetterman won Pennsylvania’s race for Senate against Republican Mehmet Oz, after seizing on a remark that Oz made during a debate in which he appeared to suggest that the decision to have an abortion should rest with women, doctors and “local political leaders”.The issue resonated in red states and blue ones. Like Michigan, California and Vermont approved ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in their state constitutions. Meanwhile, in deep red Kentucky, voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have explicitly denied constitutional protections for abortion, even as they granted the Republican senator Rand Paul another term. And in Montana, another reliably conservative state, an attempt to impose new restrictions on the procedure failed.David Shor, a Democratic data analyst, told the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America that abortion had been “absolutely instrumental” in Democrats’ successes this cycle.“Abortion really up until very recently was a pretty neutral issue for Democrats – that didn’t mean it was bad, but it wasn’t necessarily a vote-getter in most of the country,” he said. But following the the supreme court decision, he said, abortion suddenly became “the single best issue for Democrats”.“The extent to which voters cared about abortion also skyrocketed,” he said. “Out of the 33 issue areas that we track, abortion went from being the 30th out of 33 most important issues to being the 12th basically overnight.”In the wake of Roe’s fall, Democrats took every opportunity to highlight their support for abortion rights and contrast it with their opponents’ views. They flooded the airwaves with nearly half a billion dollars on abortion-related ads.Voters gave Democrats a wide advantage on the issue, as debates over the loss of abortion rights raised new questions about miscarriage care and exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. Republicans, on the defensive, sought to avoid the issue. In several instances, Republican candidates removed references to abortion from their campaign websites.But months later, as the campaign season came to a close, Democrats were second-guessing the strategy. Many pre-election polls showed voters worried more about inflation and crime than abortion. These surveys prompted a bout of angst and finger-pointing. Some Democrats argued that the party had focused too singularly on reproductive rights at the expense of offering a clear economic message.But abortion rights advocates say that logic is flawed – that abortion is an economic issue.“If you’re saying inflation, if you’re saying economy, you’re saying reproductive freedom as well,” Sieck said. “We absolutely miss that connection at our peril.”After Tuesday night, there was little doubt that the issue had been decisive in key races.“For everyone who said abortion was a losing issue; for everyone who said abortion is controversial; for everyone who said abortion is a fringe concern and not the meat-and-potatoes kitchen table problem Michiganders care about: you’re wrong, and the ‘yes’ votes prove it,” said Mini Timmaraju, the president of Naral Pro-Choice America.Even some Republicans conceded the issue may have cost them electorally.“If we lost because of abortion, an issue that was not on the ballot, if we lost because I’m pro-life, because I believe every life has dignity, I’m OK with that,” Matt Birk, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Minnesota said in a concession speech.The string of victories for supporters of abortion rights followed an August vote in Kansas, when voters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to remove abortion rights from its state constitution. The result underscored the political potency of an issue Democrats had long tiptoed around.On Tuesday, Laura Kelly, the state’s Democratic governor, held off a Republican challenge as did Democratic congresswoman Sharice Davids. With the veto pen, Kelly, like Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, who also won re-election in a closely watched race, can block any potential legislation that would impose new restrictions on the procedure.In Wisconsin and North Carolina, Democrats kept Republicans from winning a supermajority in their state legislatures, meaning lawmakers will not have the power to override a Democratic governor’s veto and pass new abortion restrictions.There were some bright spots for anti-abortion advocates. Conservative judges were elected to the state supreme courts in Ohio and North Carolina, an encouraging sign for proponents bracing for a barrage of challenges to new laws restricting the procedure. Though Democrats may keep the US Senate, they failed to win 52 seats, enough to overcome the resistance in their party to eliminating the filibuster and codifying Roe.And key races have yet to be called, including in Arizona, where the Republican nominee for governor, Kari Lake, has backed a territorial-era abortion ban temporarily halted by a judge.None of what unfolded this election cycle surprised longtime supporters of reproductive rights, but they hope the results will finally convince Democrats that abortion is not only a winning political issue, but a foundational one that should be central to their campaign strategy and governing agendas at the state and federal level.“Abortion is a winning issue and will continue to be in elections to come,” Timmaraju said on Friday. “That means Democrats need to keep reproductive freedom at the top of their policy agenda and fight to not only codify Roe but expand access to abortion and birth control.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsAbortionWomenUS supreme courtDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US midterms 2022: Democrats’ Senate hopes grow as vote count edges forward – live

      by

      The closely watched Colorado congressional race between far-right Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and the Democratic challenger Adam Frisch could potentially lead to a recount, the New York Times reported. It could, however, be weeks before the race is called or before it is known whether a recount will take place, and the process is complex. In Colorado, voters have until 16 November to fix errors or discrepancies on their ballots, and after that the secretary of state’s office selects at least one statewide race and one race in each county to audit, the Times reported. At that point, if it’s found that candidates are separated by less than .5%, then the secretary of state can order a recount. At the latest count, Boebert had 50.2% of the vote and Frisch had 49.8%. In the initial results, Frisch had the lead over Boebert, but as more votes have been counted, she earned a very narrow edge. Boebert is known as a conspiracy theorist and election deniers and is considered one of the most extreme members of her party. Our story from yesterday: Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert locked in tight race against DemocratRead moreWhy is the vote counting taking so long in Arizona? The AP has a helpful explainer on why its taking days for winners to be declared in Arizona, where the AP has not yet made calls in the crucial governor and Senate races. .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Almost all of Arizona’s vote happens by mail, and counting all of those ballots can take a while, particularly in a county as large as Maricopa. The state’s largest – and fourth-largest in the country – Maricopa is home to a total of 4.5 million residents, and about 2.4 million registered voters.
      There were some Republican activists in Arizona who advocated that voters intentionally wait until Election Day to drop off their ballots. Some of this push was based on unfounded theories that fraudsters could manipulate voting systems and rig results for Democrats, once they had seen how many GOP votes had been returned early.
      Experts had also warned that such a last-minute crush of ballots could end up creating delays that can ultimately be used by a bad actor to undermine confidence in the election. There were some hang ups this year. About a quarter of voting centers in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous, had a printing problem Tuesday, in which marks weren’t showing up correctly when voters showed up to print out their ballots.Officials have assured voters that every ballot will be counted. Some pundits have called the Senate race for Mark Kelly, saying the Democrat has defeated Blake Masters, but the AP has not yet declared a winner. Yesterday, a newly elected House representative and the lieutenant governor of Virginia did something rare for Republican office holders: they said it was time for the party to move on from Donald Trump.Their comments were a sign that the uneven performance of candidates he endorsed in the midterms may have damaged the GOP’s support for Trump.But today, Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking GOP lawmaker in the House, announced Trump has her endorsement for the 2024 presidential election.I am proud to endorse my friend Donald J. Trump for President in 2024. President Trump has always put America First, and I look forward to supporting him so we can save America.https://t.co/EXe6Rgz7mW— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) November 11, 2022
      She’s jumping the gun a little bit – Trump has not yet announced another campaign, but is widely expected to do so on Tuesday.CBS News has more reporting indicating that Trump is not taking the loss of several of his hand-picked Republican candidates in Tuesday’s midterms particularly well:Dark time in Trump’s inner circle. Spoke to several longtime friends, donors, and aides in the past 24 hours. Many say he’s listening to very few people, isolated, and meanspirited about his potential rivals. Several of them say they’re tired of his rants and are avoiding him.— Robert Costa (@costareports) November 11, 2022
      “I have never seen him more irresponsible and chaotic then he is today. He seems to be in self-destruct mode. It is irresponsible to attack DeSantis and Youngkin, and it’s irresponsible to announce in any time in the near future” especially before GA runoff, per a Trump adviser.— Robert Costa (@costareports) November 11, 2022
      Trump is on Tuesday expected to make what he’s called a “big announcement” – likely the start of his campaign to win the White House again in the 2024 election.And with a big announcement comes big money – at least he hopes. An appeal email sent out by the ex-president’s fundraising committee today offers people who contribute $45 or more the chance to win a free trip to Mar-a-Lago for the announcement.This post has been corrected to indicate it was CBS News that reported on Trump’s mood, not CNN.Not all the results are in, but expect analysts to spend a lot of time debating just how Democrats pulled off their surprisingly good performance in Tuesday’s election. One theory making the rounds is that the party prevailed thanks to substantial support from young voters. The Guardian’s Erum Salam takes a closer look:The 2022 midterm election delivered surprising results, with Democrats maintaining more House seats than projected and a Republican “red wave” failing to materialize. As the forces driving these come into focus, one group proved to be key: young voters.While final figures are still pouring in, it is estimated that 27% of young voters aged 18-29 cast a ballot in 2022, making this the midterm election with the second highest youth voter turnout in almost three decades, after 2018. In some key battleground states, turnout was even higher, at 31%, and support for Democratic candidates was roughly over 60%, driven in large part by the fight for abortion rights after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade.An Edison Research National Election Pool exit poll showed that 18-29s were the only age group in which a strong majority supported Democrats. Support for Democrats was even higher among Black youth at 89% and Latino youth at 68%.It is a trend that continues from the 2018 and 2020 elections, where youth voter turnout – historically perceived as low – surged and proved to be a crucial voting bloc, particularly for Democrats. But some young voters struggled to cast their ballot – raising questions about the particular hurdles this group faces to have a voice in elections.Young voters hailed as key to Democratic successes in midtermsRead moreDespite many of their candidates’ rhetoric about stolen elections and voting fraud before the midterms, Republicans who lost in Tuesday’s election don’t seem to be flocking to the courts to challenge the results. That could change.Politico reports that on a Thursday conference call, Republican senator Lindsey Graham suggested that if the party’s Senate candidate Adam Laxalt loses in Nevada, it’ll be a sign of fraud. “There is no mathematical way Laxalt loses,” Graham said, according to Politico. “If he does, then it’s a lie.”It’s unclear if Laxalt agrees with Graham, who he would join in the Senate if elected over Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto. On Twitter, Laxalt has been projecting confidence as Nevada’s slow ballot counting process grinds on:Clark County Clerk just reported there are just over 50K ballots left. This number includes Election Day drop off. We know there are rural and Washoe votes to be counted. Assuming these two at least offset, then Cortez Masto needs 63.5% to catch us. We remain very confident.— Adam Paul Laxalt (@AdamLaxalt) November 10, 2022
      Outside New York City, House Democrat Pat Ryan has also triumphed in his re-election battle, the Associated Press says:BREAKING: Democrat Pat Ryan wins reelection to U.S. House in New York’s 18th Congressional District. #APracecall at 12:30 p.m. EST. https://t.co/2nlgpji7ac— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 11, 2022
      It was a close call for Ryan. He won 49.4% support against his Republican opponent Colin Schmitt’s 48.6% share of the vote, according to New York’s unofficial results.Another vulnerable House Democrat has won reelection.The Associated Press says David Trone has emerged victorious in a district stretching from western Maryland to Washington’s exurbs. Trone tweeted that his opponent, Neil Parrott, called him to concede the race:I want to thank Del. Parrott for his phone call this afternoon conceding the race. My promise to him, and to all of the people of the 6th District, is this: I’ll continue to work across the aisle to deliver results and get things done. Thank you, Maryland! Let’s get back to work.— David Trone (@davidjtrone) November 11, 2022
      The race was very close. Trone squeaked to victory with 50.5% support against Parrott’s 49.4%, according to the state’s unofficial results.Meanwhile in Alaska, the state’s Democratic House representative is warning that it could be a while before voters learn whether she’s won election to a full term:Buckle up, it’s going to be a bit. pic.twitter.com/9JlcJXPUig— Mary Peltola (@MaryPeltola) November 11, 2022
      Alaska’s ranked choice voting system has made calling their elections particularly complex, and the Anchorage Daily News says don’t expect the final results in Peltola’s race until 23 November. Their preliminary data shows her in the lead over Republican challenger Sarah Palin – yes, that Sarah Palin, the one-time vice-presidential nominee known for her folksy brand of conservatism.Peltola won a special election in August to replace Alaska’s longtime Republican House representative Don Young, who died in office.Guardian US climate reporters Oliver Milman and Nina Lakhani report from Egypt.Joe Biden has implored countries to do more to tackle the climate emergency, telling the Cop27 summit that world leaders “can no longer plead ignorance” and that time to confront the crisis is running out.Biden told a large crowd of delegates at the talks, held in Egypt, that the “science is devastatingly clear – we have to make progress by the end of this decade.” The US president stated that America was taking action on cutting planet-heating emissions and that other major economies needed to “step up” to avoid a disastrous breach of 1.5C in global heating.“Let’s raise both our ambition and speed of our efforts,” he said in his speech on Friday in Sharm el-Sheikh. “If we are going to win this fight, every major emitter needs to align with 1.5C. We can no longer plead ignorance of the consequences of our actions or continue to repeat our mistakes. Everyone has to keep accelerating progress throughout this decisive decade.”Biden, buoyed by better than expected midterm elections for Democrats this week, said that governments need to “put down significant markers of progress” in reducing emissions. Scientists have warned that the world is heading for disastrous levels of global heating, with emissions still not falling fast enough to avoid severe heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and other impacts of the climate crisis.“It’s been a difficult few years; the interconnected challenges we face can seem all-consuming,” said Biden, who accused Vladimir Putin of using “energy as a weapon” in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an action that has caused energy and food prices to soar globally. “Against this backdrop, it’s more urgent than ever that we double down on our climate commitment.”You can read the full report here.The climate challenges we face are great, but our capacity is greater. The global leaders of the COP27 must reach out and take the future in our hands to make the world we wish to see and that we know we need – and preserve our planet for generations yet to come.— President Biden (@POTUS) November 11, 2022
      Four of the five supreme court justices who overturned the constitutional right to abortion showed up at the conservative Federalist Society’s black-tie dinner marking its 40th anniversary, the Associated Press writes.Justice Samuel Alito got a long, loud ovation Thursday night from a crowd of 2,000 people, most in tuxedos and gowns, when another speaker praised his opinion in June that overturned Roe v Wade, long a target of judicial conservatives.At a moment when opinion surveys show that Americans think the court is becoming more political and give it dismal approval ratings, the justices turned out to celebrate the group that helped then-president Donald Trump and Senate Republicans move the American judiciary, including the supreme court, to the right.The Federalist Society has no partisan affiliation and takes no position in election campaigns, but it is closely aligned with Republican priorities, including the drive to overturn Roe.Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Alito offered brief remarks that steered well clear of the court’s work, though Alito praised the Federalist Society for its success in the Trump years and hoped it would continue. “Boy, is your work needed today,” he said.Barrett’s only allusion to the abortion case came when she responded to the crowd’s roar of approval when she was introduced. “It’s really nice to have a lot of noise made not by protesters outside my house,” she said.Abortion protections were on the ballot in some states in the midterm elections earlier this week.US states vote to protect reproductive rights in rebuke to anti-abortion pushRead moreThree days after the midterm election, we’re still awaiting the results of Arizona and Nevada’s Senate races, which will be crucial to determining control of the chamber. The majority in the House is similarly uncertain, though it looks like Republicans have a better shot than Democrats at taking the majority for the next two years. Meanwhile, Donald Trump appears ready to announce a new run for the White House on Tuesday, even as some in the GOP question whether he’s the right candidate to continue leading the party.Here’s more of what we’ve learned so far today:
      Trump has gone after a number of Republicans on social media today, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin.
      Why is the Guardian’s count of Senate seats different from the AP’s? This is the reason why.
      One Democratic pollster explained why he believed his party would do well all along. Another explored the reasons why Democrats performed better on the issue of crime than he expected.
      In the days before the election, another veteran Democratic pollster predicted a rough night for the party, in part due to frustration over crime.Writing in The American Prospect, Stanley B Greenberg, who played a part in Bill Clinton’s successful White House campaign, argued that Democrats had failed to convince voters of their ability to stem rising crime. So bad was their handling of the issue that many voters believed the party wanted to defund the police, even though many Democrats reject the idea.Greenberg spoke to New York Magazine in an interview published today about the reasons why Democrats ended up doing better in the midterms than his analyses predicted:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s important not to take the wrong lessons from the fact that we were saved by late partisan polarization, which reflects the post-2016 era where we have high turnout and consolidation of both parties. A lot of moderate Democrats in our October poll said they were voting for Republicans, about twice as many Republicans who said they were voting for Democrats. But that disappeared in the intense partisan polarization at the end. And that was driven on the Democratic side by worries about abortion, Social Security, and democracy. On Tuesday, about 3% of Democrats voted for Republicans and about 3% of Republicans voted for Democrats. A quarter of people in our survey said they made up their mind on the last day, or in the last few days before the election, which we’ve never had before. So we were on a knife’s edge, and it could have been and was poised to be much worse.He also addressed why his prediction about the crime issue does not appear to have come true:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If you look at the candidates who won, they addressed the crime problem early on and spent a lot of money being clear that they were against defunding the police, and being clear that they opposed those in the party who are advocating it. Voters believe that we wanted to defund the police. And so if you didn’t make your message almost entirely about respect for police and funding the police, you were not going to make any progress.
      I’m actually surprised how much voters are open to rethinking Democrats on crime, but not in the context of this election, where Democrats were mostly saying the wrong thing. They were making the issue more important, but without the right message. The national Democratic message was block grants for more police, banning assault weapons — a range of government programs that our data showed hurt us. If you look at what happened in New York, they led with that kind of messaging.The Democrats’ success in Tuesday’s elections took many by surprise. But not Simon Rosenberg. The veteran Democratic pollster and president of the NDN and New Policy Institute think tanks has been arguing for weeks that his party would perform better than polls indicated in the midterms, and ended up being more right than wrong.Yesterday on Twitter, he shared some thoughts about what propelled Democrats to their surprisingly strong showing:Happy Thursday all!Some thoughts about the election: – Big miss was on Dem/GOP intensity, abortion- 3rd straight disappointing election for MAGA/Trump- Rs denigration of early vote a mistake- AZ, NV encouraging- Please give to Warnock today! 1/https://t.co/vNjVzIzYFd— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      Before I dive in, it’s worth reviewing our core election arguments. Will be referencing the elements in the thread below. So take a moment to read through it. Holds up pretty well. 2/https://t.co/5poVsdQNKq— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      Now believe fundamental miss of the cycle was the ignoring of the signals about D and R intensity.Ds had showed intensity all summer/fall. R’s didn’t. Then Ds crushed it in early vote. Rs struggled. Was a clear sign.But somehow we got red wave. 3/ https://t.co/UjEpoMsup3— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      And of course the thing which drove the Dem intensity was GOP extremism on abortion. It was really important to Rs that they erase notion abortion could drive US politics. Ideological implications of this dire for them. It was pure gaslighting. 4/https://t.co/34K1cKpZ9t— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      Will be interesting for us learn in coming days whether Rs really believed there was a red wave coming or they knew it was all bullshit. Looking back big flood of R happy polls may be sign they knew they were having intensity issues. 5/https://t.co/1BEbErzFdg— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      One area we have to explore together is what a political disaster MAGA/Trump has been for Rs: – lost Presidency/Senate/House in 18/20- Disappointing 22- Huge R defections across US, fractured coalition- Attack on voting/early vote costly- Candidates couldn’t raise money 6/— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      The GOP’s crazy attack on our elections not only reminded voters every day that they’d lost their mind as a party, but it also gave Ds a huge tactical advantage as we banked huge early vote leads across US.”Election denialism” is a disaster for Rs. 7/https://t.co/WJgQ5Jta12— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      Here is the @ThePlumLineGS on what an abject failure authoritarianism has been for MAGA and the Rs. This is a very important story. 8/https://t.co/nR1YQlTj1M— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      Trendlines look very good for us in Arizona and Nevada. Am optimistic about both. 9/https://t.co/nR1YQlTj1M— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) November 10, 2022
      Have you heard of Chase Oliver? Democratic and Republican party leaders in Georgia certainly have. The Libertarian candidate garnered 81,000 votes in the tight race for Georgia’s Senate seat, which will now go to a run-off, in part because of his presence on the ballot. Here’s more about the “armed and gay” politician, from The Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence:The morning after the midterms, Chase Oliver was back at work. “That’s what most other Georgians have to do after an election,” he tells the Guardian. “I have a job and have to pay rent and the bills.”Oliver, 37, has two jobs, actually – one as a sales account executive for a financial services company and another as an HR rep for a securities firm. And as he toggled between email replies and Zoom interviews from his north-east Atlanta home, with three cats and a dog, Delilah, underfoot, you’d never suspect this natty, young Georgian had thrown a spanner into the cogs of American power. “You are possibly the most hated man in America right now,” read one post to his Facebook page.Oliver was the third candidate in Georgia’s US Senate race: a pro-gun, anti-cop, pro-choice Libertarian who proudly announces himself as the state’s first LGBTQ+ candidate – “armed and gay”, he boasts. And on Tuesday night, this surprise spoiler scored an historic upset of sorts, siphoning enough support away from the Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker to force the election to a 6 December runoff – Georgia’s second in as many election cycles. Until then, there’s no telling whether the Democrats will retain control of the Senate.The ‘armed and gay’ Senate hopeful who helped force Georgia’s runoffRead moreVote counting is proceeding at an agonizingly slow pace in Nevada, where Democrats are locked in tight races to keep a Senate seat and the governor’s mansion.For an idea as to why, take a look at this explainer from the Associated Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The vote counting is taking days, but that’s not abnormal for Nevada, where a chunk of votes have previously not been tallied until after election night. In the two most populous counties, officials warned up front that it would take days to process the outstanding ballots.
      NEVADA’S WAY
      A few things have slowed Nevada’s vote counting in recent elections.
      First, Nevada has also had problems with long lines of voters at poll close, although Nevadans have traditionally opted to vote early. The state won’t release vote counts until all voters who were in line at poll close have cast their vote.
      Second, in 2020, Nevada greatly expanded absentee voting, sending a ballot to every registered voter. The state passed legislation to do that in future elections as well.
      Also that year, nearly 15% of Nevada’s vote was not reported until after election night — and it took three days for the state to report 100% of the vote.
      This year, voting officials in the two most populous counties, encompassing the population centers of Las Vegas and Reno, warned it would take days to process the outstanding ballots.
      County election clerks will count mail ballots received until Nov. 12 as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
      Officials have until Nov. 17 to finish the counting and submit a report to the Nevada secretary of state’s office, according to state law.
      The state has no mandatory recount law. More

    • 225 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      The Democrats’ midterms performance shows how Trump – and his imitators – can be beaten | Jonathan Freedland

      by

      The Democrats’ midterms performance shows how Trump – and his imitators – can be beatenJonathan FreedlandJoe Biden’s party abandoned timidity and neutered the Republican right. Labour should take heed Politics has brought so much angst in recent years that when hope comes along we should savour it. This week delivered a dollop of unexpectedly good news from the US, news that should encourage, and perhaps instruct, those who oppose the menace of nationalist populism the world over – even here in Britain.True, the struggle against that danger has enjoyed mixed fortunes this autumn. Jair Bolsonaro was ejected in Brazil, only for an Israeli election to seal the comeback of Benjamin Netanyahu two days later. But the message from Tuesday’s US midterms is clear: populists can be defeated.American voters had made that point two years ago, when they showed Donald Trump the door, but few thought they would do it again this time. The talk was of a Republican “red wave”, with both precedent and polls pointing to heavy losses for an incumbent Democratic party saddled with rising inflation and an unpopular president. This was not just a media invention: with only the odd exception, senior Democrats were braced for defeat. Instead, the party won several of the closest Senate races and kept losses in the House of Representatives so low that even if Republicans do take eventual control of that body – the votes are still being counted – it will not be with the emphatic majority they assumed.It turns out that, even when Trump himself is not on the ballot, sufficient numbers of Americans will reject Trumpist candidates who have plunged deep into unhinged conspiracy theory and contempt for democracy, and they will defend their rights. There are lessons to learn here, for Democrats looking to 2024 most obviously, but also for those beyond the US battling their own versions of the Trumpist peril.A first takeaway is that such an effort requires great discipline. The anti-Netanyahu forces in Israel lacked it: had several small opposition parties put aside their differences and formed alliances, they would have won enough seats to deprive the former PM of a governing majority. As it was, two of those parties narrowly failed to clear the electoral threshold to enter parliament, leaving Netanyahu smiling.The Democrats were much more focused, exhibiting “an incredible amount of message discipline”, as the party strategist David Shor put it to me, sticking to those issues where the American public agree with them and avoiding those where they are out of step. They refused to be drawn on to the terrain where Republicans wanted to fight – even leftwing candidates distanced themselves from the “defund the police” slogan – digging in instead on turf where Democrats enjoy public support, whether that be jobs, healthcare or abortion rights. The latter issue was especially galvanising, following the supreme court’s summer decision to overturn Roe v Wade and its constitutional protection of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.But Democrats also made a case that some feared would bring no electoral reward. They pressed the argument that Trumpist Republicans posed a threat to democracy itself, reminding voters that this was the first election since the attempted insurrection of 6 January 2021, an event that too many Republicans excused and for which all but a handful refused to hold the former president accountable. Above all, Democrats cast as dangerously extreme the majority of Republicans who perpetuate Trump’s big lie that the election of 2020 was stolen.Plenty of Democrats worried that was a mistake, fretting when Joe Biden made democracy the theme of his last major pre-election address. This, they warned, was too abstract an issue, of grave concern to liberal elites – to the university seminar rooms and opinion pages – but a luxury consideration for voters preoccupied with the cost of petrol. And yet the argument cut through. While those Republicans who had publicly resisted the big lie – Georgia’s governor, for example – won easily, Trumpist election-deniers fared especially badly, losing winnable contests in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Arizona. Moderate might be a dirty word to the Republican faithful, but extremist is a toxic label to the wider electorate. Strikingly, 56% of those American voters who describe themselves as moderate voted for Democrats.There is encouragement here for anti-populists the world over. Of course, each context is different and few nations will have witnessed proof of the lethal danger posed by nationalist populism as vividly undeniable as the attempted coup of 6 January. Nevertheless, the Democrats’ experience suggests one can be too wary of issues lazily dismissed as of concern solely to a liberal elite. In Britain, Labour has multiple reasons for steering clear of Brexit, but among the weakest is the notion that it’s of interest only to the “remoaner” chattering classes. Brexit is having an impact on people’s jobs, businesses, education, bills and basic freedom to move. In a way, it has more practical relevance to Britons’ daily lives than the question of democracy has to Americans’. And yet the opposition is shy of touching it. This week’s Democratic successes make a case for the abandonment of such timidity. The Democrats were brave, and it paid off.There’s more advice contained in the US results. For any party of progress serious about winning, the support of women matters enormously: exit polls confirmed that abortion rights trailed just a few points behind inflation as the issue of greatest concern to voters and, as one analyst noted: “Abortion voters supported Democrats by a larger margin than inflation voters supported Republicans.” Unsurprisingly, those “abortion voters” included more women than men.Young voters were crucial, too. While the over-45s favoured Republicans, the under-30s backed the Democrats by a staggering 28-point margin. Biden’s moves to shrink student debt deserve some credit for that. And, as always, minorities were an essential part of the Democratic coalition, though the drift rightward of Hispanic voters – most noticeably in Florida, where they helped Ron DeSantis win a landslide – is a warning to progressive parties everywhere that they cannot take the support of minority communities for granted. They have to earn it, demonstrating that they understand – and celebrate – the aspiration to move up and out as well as any conservative.So no shortage of lessons from America. Of course, the differences between there and everywhere else are obvious and nothing reads across precisely. Except for one thing. What the US election proved once more is that the conventional wisdom is often wrong, that fatalism is always wrong – and that, every now and then, politics can turn out right.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. Listen to his Politics Weekly America podcast here
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Young voters hailed as key to Democratic successes in midterms

      by

      AnalysisYoung voters hailed as key to Democratic successes in midtermsErum SalamThe youth vote was the highest in almost three decades, defying conventional wisdom about 18-29 demographic
      US midterms 2022 – follow live
      US midterms results tracker The 2022 midterm election delivered surprising results, with Democrats maintaining more House seats than projected and a Republican “red wave” failing to materialize. As the forces driving these come into focus, one group proved to be key: young voters.While final figures are still pouring in, it is estimated that 27% of young voters aged 18-29 cast a ballot in 2022, making this the midterm election with the second highest youth voter turnout in almost three decades, after 2018. In some key battleground states, turnout was even higher, at 31%, and support for Democratic candidates was roughly over 60%, driven in large part by the fight for abortion rights after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade.Democrats breathe a sigh of relief but their troubles are far from overRead moreAn Edison Research National Election Pool exit poll showed that 18-29s were the only age group in which a strong majority supported Democrats. Support for Democrats was even higher among Black youth at 89% and Latino youth at 68%.It is a trend that continues from the 2018 and 2020 elections, where youth voter turnout – historically perceived as low – surged and proved to be a crucial voting bloc, particularly for Democrats. But some young voters struggled to cast their ballot – raising questions about the particular hurdles this group faces to have a voice in elections.“There’s very much a popular belief that young voters are apathetic, and actually the data shows that it’s quite the opposite. This is the most politically engaged cohort of young voters in American history – even higher than in the 1960s in the United States,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen, a progressive youth advocacy non-profit and political action committee.“They’re voting more. They’re participating in protests. They are more avid readers of politics and social issues. So I think that that surprises a lot of people about young voters.”This sentiment couldn’t be more apparent than in Florida’s 10th district, where the US has found its first Gen-Z member of Congress in 25-year-old Maxwell Frost.“I am Congressman-Elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost and I will be the first member of Generation-Z in the United States Congress. WE MADE HISTORY!!! Don’t count young people out,” the young politician wrote on Twitter shortly after his win.Ramirez said that Democrats also have the youth to thank for key Senate race victories. “In Pennsylvania, we contacted 2.1 million young eligible voters, [which is] nine out of 10 young voters in that state. John Fetterman is the new senator of Pennsylvania because of young voters.”According to exit polls, 70% of young voters in the state turned out for Fetterman, a historically high percentage for Democrats in Pennsylvania.College voters are a key subset of that youth vote.On Tuesday, there was a barrage of images on social media of lengthy lines formed at university polling sites. At the University of Michigan, some students waited for six hours to vote, casting their ballot at 2am. Michigan allows for same-day voter registration, which is popular with young voters. THIS IS HUGE! The line of students at Texas State University voting this morning on Election Day is out the door and wrapped around the entire building!Don’t ever say young people don’t vote. pic.twitter.com/sLUkeS7Ax6— NextGen America (@NextGenAmerica) November 8, 2022In Texas, one of the most difficult states to cast a ballot, and where student IDs are not an acceptable form of identification, accounts emerged of students still waiting in line to vote after polls officially closed at 7pm Central time at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas State University in San Marcos.But while college students can be motivated to vote, they often face significant obstacles. In the small town of College Station, halfway between Houston and Austin, Texas A&M University students were denied an early voting polling site on campus altogether by Brazos county officials.Before the 2022 midterm elections, the officials decided to remove the on-campus Memorial Student Center early voting site used in the 2020 election, citing low voter turnout at that location. But the Texas Tribune reported that Texas A&M’s Memorial Student Center polling site had the second highest number of early voters in the 2018 and 2020 general elections in the county.Texas A&M student Kristina Samuel, 21, is the president of her school’s chapter of Move (Mobilize. Organize. Vote. Empower.), the non-partisan and non-profit organization aimed at increasing voter turnout among young Texans. She told the Guardian that having an early voting polling site on college campuses was “a no-brainer”.“We have been demanding a second on-campus polling location for years, so the fact that we got the only polling location taken away from us for early voting, especially as our student population has exponentially been growing and we have become an HSI (Hispanic-serving institution) this year has made no logical sense,” she said.Samuel and her organization consulted election lawyers and invoked the Texas election code in order to make their case to county commissioners for an on-campus early voting location. While their efforts have yet to pay off, her age cohort still showed up in great numbers.One reason youth voter turnout was surprising to many in this election is because traditional polling failed to accurately capture the demographic. Rather than investing in phone banking and television advertising, Ramirez said it was more effective to gauge youth political opinion on social media and dating apps like Bumble and Tinder, which her organization does.Before the next election, you might want to find a better way to poll anyone under the age of 30 since they would rather pick up a pinless grenade than a call from an unknown number.— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) November 9, 2022
      “We didn’t pay for one TV ad to reach young people. We did have streaming ads, like on Hulu, but on traditional TV, we had zero ads. We’ve never done a TV ad, and we never will do a TV ad,” she said.Without the major turnout of younger voters, we would have seen a very different outcome in last night’s elections. But now I am asking the younger generations: continue to stay engaged in the struggle. We have an enormous amount of work ahead of us. pic.twitter.com/JS8ks6SwzH— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 9, 2022
      As the power of the youth turnout this election season becomes increasingly clear, Democratic politicians offered their gratitude to the youth for showing up in such large numbers.“I especially want to thank the young people of this nation, whom I’m told, I haven’t seen the numbers, voted in historic numbers again, just as they did two years ago. They voted to continue addressing the climate crisis, gun violence, their personal rights and freedoms, and the student debt relief,” said President Joe Biden.Senator Bernie Sanders thanked young voters on Twitter and asked them to remain politically engaged.“Without the major turnout of younger voters, we would have seen a very different outcome in last night’s elections. But now I am asking the younger generations: continue to stay engaged in the struggle. We have an enormous amount of work ahead of us,” he said.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansDemocratsanalysisReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      All eyes on Nevada and Arizona as Senate control hangs in balance

      by

      All eyes on Nevada and Arizona as Senate control hangs in balanceCounting continues in key Senate battlegrounds, while Republicans look on course for slim majority in House

      US midterm elections results 2022 – live
      The eyes of the political world remained focused on Arizona and Nevada on Friday, where hundreds of thousands of uncounted votes held the key to control of the US Senate, three days after Americans cast their final ballots in midterm elections.The delay in districts such as Arizona’s Maricopa county, which includes Phoenix, is attributed to the record number of ballots cast on Tuesday. Election officials had estimated they would have a tally by Friday but now say they will count through the weekend.In Nevada, election officials had estimated a finish by Friday but, again, the high number of ballots cast means counting will continue through next week. However, a winner could be called as soon as any candidate is judged to have passed a majority threshold.Why is the midterm vote count taking so long in some US states?Read moreIf Democrats or Republicans can capture a majority by sweeping the contests in both states, it will settle control of the Senate. A split, however, would transform a 6 December runoff Senate election in Georgia between incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker into a proxy battle for the chamber, which among other powers holds sway over Joe Biden’s judicial appointments.Meanwhile, Republicans were slowly inching closer to wresting control of the House of Representatives from Biden’s Democrats, which would in effect give them veto power over his legislative agenda, allow them to launch investigations into his administration and have greater control over the budget.Biden conceded on Thursday that Democrats face long odds to keep control of the House.“It’s still alive. It’s still alive. But it’s like drawing an inside straight,” Biden said, using a poker term for an unpromising situation.Biden said he had spoken to the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, a day earlier, after an upbeat press conference at the White House.“I said: ‘If you win the majority, congratulations,’” Biden recalled, in a fine distinction after McCarthy told Fox News that the president had congratulated him on winning a majority.Republicans had secured at least 211 of the 218 House seats they need for a majority, Edison Research projected late on Thursday, while Democrats had won 197. That left 27 races yet to be determined, including a number of close contests.The Republican House leader, Kevin McCarthy, has already announced his intention to run for speaker if Republicans win, an outcome he described as inevitable on Wednesday.But his path could be blocked by a handful of conservative Republicans known as the Freedom Caucus. McCarthy needs 218 votes, so fewer than a dozen caucus members have power to block his path.US midterm elections 2022: live resultsRead more“No one currently has 218” votes, Chip Roy of Texas told NBC News as he emerged from a private Freedom Caucus meeting.Tuesday’s results fell far short of the sweeping “red wave” that Republicans had expected, despite Biden’s anaemic approval ratings and deep voter frustration over inflation.Democrats portrayed Republicans as extremist, pointing to the supreme court’s decision to eliminate a nationwide right to abortion and the hundreds of Republican nominees who promoted former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.Some of Trump’s most high-profile endorsed candidates lost pivotal races on Tuesday, marring his status as Republican kingmaker and leading several Republicans to blame his divisive brand for the party’s disappointing performance.The outcome may increase the chances that the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who routed his Democratic challenger on Tuesday, opts to run for the 2024 presidential nomination. While Trump has not officially launched a third White House campaign, the former president has strongly suggested he will do so and has said he will make a “special announcement” at his Florida club on Tuesday.Trump lambasted DeSantis in a statement on Thursday, taking credit for the governor’s political rise, while attacking critics on his social media site, Truth Social.Even a narrow Republican House majority would be able to demand concessions in exchange for votes on key issue such as raising the nation’s borrowing limit. But with few votes to spare, McCarthy might struggle to hold his caucus together – particularly the hard-right faction that is largely aligned with Trump and has little interest in compromise.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      We were told abortion wasn’t an important election issue. How wrong that was | Moira Donegan

      by

      We were told abortion wasn’t an important election issue. How wrong that wasMoira DoneganPro-choice anger propelled Democratic candidates, delivered decisive victories in four state referenda on abortion, and blocked the brunt of what was supposed to be a wipeout We were told that abortion would not be a major issue in the midterm elections. Over the past weeks, pundits and political strategists alike suggested that the outrage over the Dobbs decision had been momentary, capricious; that by election day, women would forget. They insisted that the surge in new voter registrations among women was a fluke, or irrelevant.American voters just sent a crystal-clear message: they believe in abortion rights | Jill FilipovicRead moreAhead of the election, it became conventional wisdom among a kind of self-serious, mostly male political commentator to insist that not only were the Democrats doomed, they had doomed themselves, specifically, by talking about abortion too much. The party had dragged itself down with a social issue that was ultimately not very important, we were told. The Democrats were going to lose, and it was going to be because they had spent too much time catering to the flighty and unserious demands of feminists.Instead, abortion rights proved a hugely motivating force for voters in Tuesday’s midterms. A still-potent anger at the Dobbs decision drove women and young people to the polls, propelled the most vocally pro-choice Democratic candidates to victory, delivered decisive wins for abortion-rights advocates in every state referendum on the issue, and helped to dramatically improve the Democrats’ performance in what was supposed to be a “bloodbath” election favoring Republicans.We now head into 2023 with Democrats holding onto a chance to keep the Senate; if they lose the House, they will only lose it by a handful of seats. There was no bloodbath; there was barely a paper cut. Abortion rights, and the women voters who wanted to defend them, are a big part of why.None of this was what was supposed to happen. To hear the Republicans tell it, they didn’t think that the Dobbs decision would cost them at all in this year’s midterms. As recently as last week, party strategists and rightwing pundits were projecting wild confidence, assuring writers like the New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells that the post-Dobbs moment of anger and energy that animated Democratic voters had passed – and that it had not dimmed Republican prospects.“In the end, Republicans didn’t find a way through the political fact that many of the voters they wanted to win were against them on abortion so much as wait it out,” Wallace-Wells wrote last Friday, channeling the shrugging attitude toward the abortion issue that had been conveyed to him by Republican insiders. “They simply absorbed the political hit and moved on.”Even the polling, which throughout the summer and early fall suggested that abortion remained a motivating issue for voters, was explained away, dismissed as a mere “blue mirage”. One Republican strategist hypothesized that Democrats, consumed with emotionalism, were answering their telephones more often, in the hope of being polled. “Answering a political poll itself became a kind of expression of political identity.”Others, like the Washington Examiner’s David Keene, claimed that the large numbers of women voters claiming that abortion would affect their vote were in fact women who were anti-abortion, who would enthusiastically vote to support abortion bans. In retrospect, of course, this seems like risible wishful thinking by Republicans, the kind of thing one can only believe if you live in a deep Republican partisan bubble, and don’t often talk to women. Or maybe it was the kind of bluster that’s meant to intimidate political opponents into thinking that the Republicans were more confident ahead of Tuesday’s elections than they really were.But if Republicans were just bluffing when they said that they didn’t think abortion rights would impact the midterms, many prominent Democrats seem to have believed them. In the weeks ahead of the vote, a series of highly visible party insiders and off-the record insider sources were preemptively blaming the Democrats’ anticipated loss on their supposed overfocus on abortion.Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a column entitled “Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake”. Sanders’ piece denounced the party’s supposed overfocus on abortion as both politically unwise and morally treacherous. “While the abortion issue must remain on the front burner, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy.”This sentiment was not confined to Sanders and his ilk on the left. On the other side of the party’s political spectrum, the centrist Democratic strategist and PR executive Hilary Rosen appeared on television to lambast the party for paying too much attention to so-called social issues. “I think we’re going to have a bad night,” Rosen said on CNN. “When voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them.”In predicting a so-called “red tsunami,” in late October Josh Kraushaar, of Axios, appealed to the data. “Biden delivered a speech Tuesday pledging to codify Roe as his first act if Democrats elect more senators and keep the House,” he wrote. “But there’s worry in Democratic circles that abortion-centric messaging is keeping candidates from talking about the economy. A new Monmouth poll found 63% of respondents wish Biden would give more attention to ‘issues that are important to your family’ – including 36% of Democrats.”It seems almost insultingly remedial to have to explain why this framing – the notion that somehow the midterms could either be about the economy or they could be about abortion – is so wrongheaded. Because, of course, abortion access is central to the economic prospects of working people. But to acknowledge this, you have to acknowledge something that still seems incomprehensible and out of reach for many of our most esteemed shapers of political opinion: that when we think and speak of economic and political subjects, we are speaking of women.It is women whose prospects shape the economy, women who are workers and consumers; it is women who dream to advance economically, to retire or finish school or buy a house; it is women whose economic prospects, along with their health, dignity and freedom, have been curtailed by Dobbs.The stigma surrounding abortion helps to marginalize the issue in the American political imagination; the silence surrounding it conceals just how common abortion is, and how central abortion access is to women’s lives. One in four American women will have an abortion by age 45; many, many more of them know what it is to fear the upheaval of an unplanned pregnancy, to pee on a stick in the loneliness of a bathroom stall as your dreams hang in the balance.To say that this experience of hope, aspiration, anticipation, fear is somehow not as serious as the dreams and aspirations of men – to say that it is somehow not an “issue that is important to your family” – is at best to misunderstand the problem and at worst to suggest that women’s lives are not of political concern at all. If the midterm results are any indication, American women voters disagree.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionAbortionUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Young voters blocked the ‘red wave’. Biden must deliver on student debt cancellation | Astra Taylor

      by

      Young voters blocked the ‘red wave’. Biden must deliver on student debt cancellationAstra TaylorBiden acknowledged that student debt relief helped motivate ‘historic’ turnout. But we have yet to see a penny of actual relief For years, advocates like myself have been saying that canceling student debt should be a political no-brainer. In addition to being economically smart and ethically just, it would energize voters – especially younger ones.Tuesday proved us right. Voters under the age of 29 broke for Democrats in overwhelming numbers, helping turn the much-feared Red Wave into a Red Trickle. In a speech on Wednesday night, President Biden acknowledged that student debt relief played a big role in motivating the “historic” turnout of young people, alongside the issues of climate change, abortion and gun violence.On Twitter, the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, made a similar point, saying that President Biden “kept his promises to younger Americans (with action on climate change, student loans, marijuana reform, etc), and they responded with energy and enthusiasm”.The problem is that Klain’s comment isn’t totally accurate. Young people did indeed respond with energy and enthusiasm – to at least one promise that is, to date, unfulfilled. Almost three months after Biden’s cancellation program was announced, not a single person has seen a penny of relief.And now they may not ever see relief – unless Biden acts. On Thursday night, a Trump-appointed judge in Texas struck down the student loan cancellation program. This hyper-partisan decision will hold unless Biden fights back. Fortunately he has the legal tools to do so.The stakes are too high, and margins too tight, for the White House to not follow through on this essential commitment. On Tuesday, debt relief almost certainly played a decisive role in key races, including Senate races. Consider Pennsylvania, where cancellation champion John Fetterman beat back the reactionary Dr Oz. In Arizona, Mark Kelly, another proponent of cancellation, exceeded expectations. Not so for Ohio Democrat and Senate hopeful Tim Ryan, who strongly opposed Biden’s cancellation plan and lost to the Trump impersonator JD Vance. Likewise, in North Carolina, the Republican senator Ted Budd trounced Cheri Beasley, who waffled on debt cancellation and, it seems, paid a price.Ryan’s and Beasley’s cancellation-averse approach was the one many aspiring soothsayers recommended. Ever since Biden took office, professional pundits have vehemently insisted that canceling student debt would turn off middle-aged, middle-of-the road Democrats, when in fact it drew young people to the polls. (Political commentator David Frum, a man who has made his career being wrong about everything, at least admitted he was wrong about this: “I thought student debt relief was bad policy and bad politics. I still think it bad policy – but looking at the youth vote surge, hard to deny its political impact.”)Looking ahead, there’s no doubt student debt relief will play an outsized role in the 6 December Georgia runoff – a contest that may determine the balance of power in the Senate. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock has been a leader in the fight for cancellation, unwavering in his faith that delivering student debt relief is vital to winning the south. Republican challenger Herschel Walker, meanwhile, has denounced Warnock for wanting to help student debtors, who he claims spend their loan money on booze, vacations and video games.A recent government report shows the absurdity of Walker’s lie: many students only receive one financial aid disbursement per semester, often delivered into banking products with fees so high they are pushed into overdraft; students reported that this led to the need to fast, use candles for electricity, or forgo textbooks and gas. In addition, polling shows that 29% of student debtors will spend less on basic needs – food, housing, bills – should the pandemic student loan payment moratorium end.If Biden wanted to give Warnock a boost, he would cancel student debt tomorrow and let Walker deal with the fall out. Imagine the jubilation and appreciation unleashed when tens of millions of people see their balances reduced or entirely wiped out,1,506,100 Georgians among them. Young people might once again turn out in droves, and the Senate might be saved.Biden has the power to make this happen. As things stand, his debt relief plan is sabotaged by bad-faith litigation. While the president has rightly blasted the Republicans behind these lawsuits, the real story is more complicated. Biden could have directed the education secretary to cancel people’s debts using the “compromise and settlement” authority granted in the Higher Education Act of 1965, but instead his administration invoked a different and more limited legal authority. (It was this limited authority that the Texas judge formally took issue with.)They also chose to make borrowers apply for the program, instead of automatically issuing cancellation – a slow-moving process that bought their billionaire-backed opponents valuable time to cook up legal arguments, find plaintiffs, and line their cases up with sympathetic, Trump-appointed judges poised to toe the conservative line.The White House needs to learn from its mistakes and play hardball. Biden could knock the legs out from under these cynical lawsuits tomorrow by extinguishing all federal student loans immediately and permanently using compromise and settlement authority. Now that would generate some real “energy and enthusiasm” – the kind of energy and enthusiasm required to sustain and expand this week’s odds-defying electoral success.This longer view is what motivates Nailah Summers, co-director of Dream Defenders, a group that just successfully mobilized young Floridians to elect Maxwell Frost, who will be Generation Z’s first member of Congress.“Young people and Black folks in the US did what had to be done to keep the Democratic party from utter collapse in the midterms last night and it’s likely that the terrain in 2024 is going to be even harder,” Summers told me. “Crumbs and half measures won’t secure their place in the White House as life in the US gets harder. The party is going to have to take decisive action to make American lives better and they can start with canceling all remaining student loans.”This month, young people held up their end of the bargain. Now Biden must honor his.If Biden allows Republicans and billionaires to sabotage student debt cancellation without a fight, he risks breaking the fragile trust that has only just been built with younger voters. Student debt cancellation can be one of Biden’s signature victories, and a catalyst for a reinvigorated Democratic party, or a self-inflicted failure – an empty promise that risks demoralizing and demobilizing the demographic on which the future of the Democratic party, and arguably democracy itself, depends.
      Astra Taylor is a writer, organiser and documentary maker
      This article was amended 11 November 2022 to reflect legal developments shortly before publication
      TopicsUS student debtOpinionJoe BidenUS politicsDemocratscommentReuse this content More

    • 238 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US midterm elections 2022: Trump backlash grows as top Virginia Republican says ‘I could not support him’ – live

      by

      Virginia’s Republican lieutenant-governor Winsome Sears said she could not support Donald Trump if he again ran for the White House, telling Fox Business Network in an interview that the former president has become a “liability” for the GOP:“A true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage, and the voters have given us that very clear message… I could not support him.”—VA Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears (R) comes out against Trump’s 2024 candidacy pic.twitter.com/0g1plfHJmu— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2022
      The comments are significant considering Sears did something last year that Trump hasn’t done in more than six: win an election. Voters in the Democratic-leaning state elected Sears as the running mate of Glenn Youngkin in his gubernatorial campaign, and she made history as the first woman and first person of color to serve as Virginia’s lieutenant governor.Her comments also underscore the tension among Republicans over Trump’s influence on the party, particularly since many candidates he backed did not fair well in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Voter turnout this year was the second highest of any midterm since 1940, according to the Washington Post, which analyzed AP and US Elections Project data. About 112.5m people – or about 47% of eligible voters – cast ballots in the midterms. In 2018, about 50% of eligible voters cast ballots, according to the Post.And according to researchers at Tufts University, about 27% of eligible voters 18-29 turned out:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This 2022 youth turnout is likely the second-highest youth turnout rate for a midterm election in the past 30 years, behind only the historic 31% turnout in 2018. Votes cast by young people made up 12% of all votes in this election, nearly matching the 13% youth share of the vote from the 2014 and 2018 midterms, according to National Election Pool surveys.Joe Biden just spoke in Washington to thank Democratic volunteers for their work in securing the party a better-than-expected night in Tuesday’s midterm elections.He noted that several Republicans who embraced baseless fraud claims about his own election win in 2020 ended up conceding their races without much drama:President Biden says none of the 2020 election deniers contested the results of the 2022 midterm elections when they lost:“Tuesday was a good day … for democracy, and it was a strong night for Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/NZlZwNsyIL— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2022
      He also linked the surprising support many Democrats received to the party’s pledge to preserve abortion access:President Biden touts the overwhelming support for abortion rights during the 2022 midterms:“Women in America made their voices heard, man … Y’all showed up and beat the hell out of them.” pic.twitter.com/Kc2qZUAwu1— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2022
      He closed by touting his own legislative accomplishments, including moves intended to lower the country’s fiscal deficit:President Biden: “I don’t wanna hear from Republicans calling Democrats big spenders. We’re the ones bringing down the deficit. They’re the ones that blew it up over four years.” pic.twitter.com/5N7j0ExfT0— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2022
      The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh is now taking over the blog, and will cover the rest of today’s elections and politics news.The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer isn’t banking on his party continuing to hold the chamber for another two years.Bloomberg Government reports that Schumer intends to prioritize confirming Joe Biden’s judges and other nominees before the year ends and the new Congress begins:🚨Scoop: Senate leader is preparing to pull the defense authorization bill off the floor and instead focus on federal nominees and judges and majority next year is still in limbo. Instead annual defense bill will materialize as an informal conference bill @business @BGOV #NDAA— Roxana Tiron (@rtiron) November 10, 2022
      Democrats still have a path to keeping the Senate majority, particularly if Mark Kelly in Arizona and Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada win their races. Counting is ongoing in both.Even as some Republicans blame him for their party’s struggles in Tuesday’s election, Morning Consult has new data out that confirms he remains the most-liked man in the GOP, though perhaps not as popular as he once was:2024 National Republican Primary:Trump 48% (+22)DeSantis 26%.@MorningConsult, 1,691 RV, 11/2-7https://t.co/AdYWBaSMK0 pic.twitter.com/PZ1AJdcudQ— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) November 10, 2022
      Trump’s most recent popularity peak came in August, after his actions had received scrutiny from the January 6 committee and his resort searched by the FBI as part of its investigation into potentially unlawful retention of government secrets.It may not be until Saturday that the outcomes of Nevada’s razor-thin Senate and governor races are known, The Nevada Independent reports.That’s based on comments made at a press conference by Joe Gloria, registrar of Nevada’s most-populous county Clark, where Las Vegas is located. The outcome of the two races is expected to hinge on votes from its residents, who tend to lean Democratic:Gloria on today’s numbers:He notes that Clark reported results from about 14k mail ballots last night.He says there are still more than 50k ballots that must be counted in Clark.”Majority of mail should be counted in Clark County by Saturday.”— Sean Golonka (@s_golonka) November 10, 2022
      Yesterday, Gloria said Clark received 12.7k in mail on Wednesday, and in the afternoon, the county announced it received 56.9 from Election Day drop boxes.The 14k reported yesterday was apparently Monday drop off and Tues mail. But Gloria now says there are 50k uncounted.— Sean Golonka (@s_golonka) November 10, 2022
      Meanwhile, NBC News reports a Trump adviser says the former president still plans to announce another run for the White House on Tuesday:A senior Trump adviser just confirmed Tues announcement & said “The media, the corporate elites, and political establishment has all moved in unison against Donald Trump at their own peril. It’s like they want to recreate 2015-2016. Let them. We are doing it again. Buckle up”— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) November 10, 2022
      Invites for Trump’s announcement should go out today.— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) November 10, 2022
      Virginia’s Republican lieutenant-governor Winsome Sears said she could not support Donald Trump if he again ran for the White House, telling Fox Business Network in an interview that the former president has become a “liability” for the GOP:“A true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage, and the voters have given us that very clear message… I could not support him.”—VA Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears (R) comes out against Trump’s 2024 candidacy pic.twitter.com/0g1plfHJmu— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2022
      The comments are significant considering Sears did something last year that Trump hasn’t done in more than six: win an election. Voters in the Democratic-leaning state elected Sears as the running mate of Glenn Youngkin in his gubernatorial campaign, and she made history as the first woman and first person of color to serve as Virginia’s lieutenant governor.Her comments also underscore the tension among Republicans over Trump’s influence on the party, particularly since many candidates he backed did not fair well in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Montana has become the latest state where voters said no to further abortion restrictions by rejecting a law that was meant to stop the killing outside the womb of babies who survive a failed abortion – which is already illegal.The so-called “born alive” law would have allowed medical providers to face criminal charges if they don’t take “all medically appropriate and reasonable actions to preserve the life” of infants, according to the AP.The defeat puts Montana among the ranks of Republican-leaning states where voters have rejected attempts to further tighten down on abortion access following the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade in June.Here’s more on the failed law from the AP:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Health care professionals and other opponents argued the proposal could rob parents of precious time with infants born with incurable medical issues if doctors are forced to attempt treatment.
      “Today’s win sends a clear message to state leadership: Montanans demand our right to make private health care decisions for ourselves and our families with the help of our trusted medical teams — and without interference from politicians,” said a statement from Hillary-Anne Crosby, a spokesperson for an organization called Compassion for Montana Families that opposed the measure.
      The outcome comes after a series of wins for abortion rights supporters in states around the country where abortion was directly on the ballot during the midterm elections. Voters enshrined abortion protections into state constitutions in Michigan, California and Vermont. They also voted down an anti-abortion constitutional amendment in conservative Kentucky, just as voters did in Kansas in August.
      Supporters said the proposed Montana law was meant to prevent the killing of infants outside the womb in rare occurrence of a failed abortion, something that is already is illegal. Penalties for violating the proposed law would have included up to $50,000 in fines and up to 20 years in prison.
      At least half of U.S. states have similar post-abortion born-alive laws in place, according to Americans United for Life, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that opposes abortion, aid in dying and infant stem cell research.
      “This initiative would have criminalized doctors, nurses and other health care workers for providing compassionate care for infants, and, in doing so, overridden the decision-making of Montana parents,” said a statement from Lauren Wilson of the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.Adam Gabbatt has taken a look at the latest round in the long-running American political parlor game, ‘Has Rupert Murdoch Finally Dumped Trump?’:On election day, Donald Trump was clear about how his efforts to support Republican candidates should be seen.“Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit,” Trump told NewsNation. “If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.”Unfortunately for Trump, he did not get what he hoped for. Instead the former president has seen conservative news outlets, the Rupert Murdoch-owned ones in particular, turn on him, in some cases with gleeful abandon.“Trumpty Dumpty” blared the front page of Thursday’s New York Post, the tabloid Murdoch has owned since 1976. Editors went so far as to mock up Trump as Humpty Dumpty, his enlarged orange head stuffed into a white shirt and a signature red tie.Next to the picture of Trump as an egg perching precariously on a brick wall, the text goaded: “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall – can all the GOP’s men put the party back together again?”The Post cover offered the most visceral insight into Murdoch’s thinking, and its contempt was far from an outlier in the mogul’s news empire.“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser” was the verdict of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. A subheading added: “He has now flopped in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022.”The piece was just as scathing as the headline, running through nine races this November the paper said Trump had effectively tanked through his continued election denial, his various wars with more moderate Republican candidates and his general unpopularity nationwide.“Since his unlikely victory in 2016 against the widely disliked Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump has a perfect record of electoral defeat,” the editorial said.“The GOP was pounded in the 2018 midterms owing to his low approval rating. Mr Trump himself lost in 2020. He then sabotaged Georgia’s 2021 runoffs by blaming party leaders for not somehow overturning his defeat.”It added: “Now Mr Trump has botched the 2022 elections, and it could hand Democrats the Senate for two more years.”Has ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ taken a great fall from Rupert Murdoch’s grace?Read moreAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not happy about how Democrats performed in her state, New York, in the midterms – a series of House losses helping (probably) hand the chamber to Republicans, though Kathy Hochul, the governor, did fend off an unexpectedly strong challenge from her Trumpist opponent, Lee Zeldin.The New York City congresswoman popularly known as AOC told the Intercept: “New York, I think, is the glaring aberration in what we see in this map … what happened in New York really bucks a lot of the trends in what we saw nationwide.“… I think, in New York, the way that those campaigns were run were different than the way a lot of winning campaigns across the country were run. And I think the role of the state party had very strong national implications. If Democrats do not hang on to the House, I think that responsibility falls squarely in New York state.”Identifying key election themes in New York, Ocasio-Cortez said: “I think policing was a big one, I think the choice among certain Democrats to … amplify Republican narratives on crime and policing, running ads on it … validating these narratives actually ended up hurting them much more than a different approach. I think that what we saw in other races was that they were able to really effectively center either their narratives and the narratives that they wanted to run with, whether it was abortion rights, whether it was democracy, whether it was … other key and top priorities.“I think Democrats in New York, they did a couple of things. They ran ads around that were explicitly very anti-defund [the police], which only served to reinvoke the frame and only served to really reinforce what Republicans were saying. If we’re going to talk about public safety, you don’t talk about it in the frame of invoking defund or anti-defund, you really talk about it in the frame of what we’ve done on gun violence, what we’ve done to pass the first gun reform bill in 30 years. Our alternatives are actually effective, electorally, without having to lean into Republican narratives.“… And I think another prime mistake is that in New York state, [ex-governor Andrew] Cuomo may be gone, but … much of his infrastructure and much of the political machinery that he put in place is still there. And this is a machinery that is disorganised, it is sycophantic. It relies on lobbyists and big money. And it really undercuts the ability for there to be affirming grassroots and state-level organising across the state.“And so … you’re leaving a void for Republicans to walk into … it’s a testament to the corruption that has been allowed to continue in the New York state Democratic party.”Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri who may or may not run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 but definitely did run from Capitol rioters on 6 January 2021, even after raising a fist to the mob, thinks Republicans did not do as well as they might’ve done on Tuesday night because they didn’t run on his populist, not to say Trumpist, principles.He tweets, in a message at least partially counter to the emerging consensus that Republicans suffered (if probably winning the House and maybe winning the Senate can be called suffering) because voters wanted to rebuke their Trumpist drift:Washington Republicanism lost big Tuesday night. When your “agenda” is cave to Big Pharma on insulin, cave to Schumer on gun control & Green New Deal (“infrastructure”), and tease changes to Social Security and Medicare, you lose— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 10, 2022
      A refresher on how Hawley ran, as shown by the House January 6 committee, is here.Video of Josh Hawley running, meanwhile, is here:01:08 More