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      ‘No Republican blowout’: our panel reacts to the initial US midterm results | Panel

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      ‘No Republican blowout’: our panel reacts to the initial US midterm resultsMoira Donegan, Cas Mudde, Robert Reich, Bhaskar Sunkara, LaTosha Brown and Ben DavisWhile much remains unclear about Tuesday’s elections, we know that Democrats did much better than expected Moira Donegan: ‘It wasn’t meant to be this close’It was not supposed to be this close. Midterms are always hard for the party in power. In the past, when Democrats have faced a midterm election when they controlled both the White House and Congress, the Republicans had a blowout.In 1994, during Bill Clinton’s first term, Republicans gained huge margins in the house. In 2010, it was even bigger. Joe Biden has proved to be a president with little of his own constituency and few legislative achievements to show for his first two years of unified government, thanks in no small part to how narrow Democrats’ majorities were in Congress in 2020. Meanwhile, inflation is at roughly 8%. It was supposed to be a blowout night for the Democrats, the kind of humiliation that sent the Biden administration a firm rebuke. It wasn’t.Midterm elections 2022: Democrats hold on in several key races but Republicans surge in Florida – liveRead moreIt’s not that there were no disappointments. There were some painful losses for Democrats: the odious Peter Thiel acolyte JD Vance has won a Senate seat in Ohio; candidates that perennially capture the imagination and hope of national democrats, like Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams, lost.But Republican margins are narrow, and even when the party had the wind at their back. Trump-backed, election-denying candidates did poorly; so did those who most vocally oppose abortion rights. The Republican party is in disarray, unable to quit Trump, but unable to thrive while anchored to him. If they do end up winning a majority, they will do so weakened and vulnerable.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
      Cas Mudde: ‘No red tsunami’Much remains unclear at the time of writing this, but we know the following: first and foremost, there is no red tsunami. The Republicans are doing better than in 2020, but far less well than was expected just a few months ago.Second, while the Dobbs abortion ruling did not bring the blue wave that Democratic operatives had promised, the pro-choice counter-mobilization has definitely mitigated Republican wins.Third, while Joe Biden comes out of the midterms relatively unscathed, this cannot be said of Donald Trump. Several of his hand-picked and personally endorsed outsiders might have achieved shocking primary victories, and some might even still win their elections. But still: the vast majority clearly underperformed in comparison to more traditional Republican candidates in the same states.The much-watched state of Georgia provided perhaps the most embarrassing result for Trump: Brian Kemp, the candidate he campaigned hardest against, was comfortably re-elected governor, while Herschel Walker, his hand-picked Senate candidate, polled almost 5% behind Kemp and is probably facing a highly uncertain runoff against Raphael Warnock.Fourth, Trump’s main rival within the Republican party, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, not only convincingly won re-election, but polled almost 2% ahead of Senator Marco Rubio and gifted his party three new, gerrymandered, House seats.All of this means that, even if the Republican party does seize control of the House and/or Senate, it is facing a very uncertain period in the run-up to the 2024 presidential elections. It is now overly clear to everyone that Trump is both a necessity in the primaries and a liability in the elections. Everyone but Donald Trump, that is.
      Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor in the school of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia
      Robert Reich: ‘Democrats didn’t do too badly’Let me focus on four ways today’s election was unique:1. Compared to previous midterm elections when the party that occupied the White House took a major drubbing (Clinton lost 54 House seats; Obama, 63; Trump, 40), Democrats didn’t do too badly – even though, when the dust settles, they are likely to lose control of the House.2. Compared to the amount of money spent on previous elections, this one was staggering. Total spending on federal and state races could exceed $16.7bn, according to estimates by Open Secrets.American billionaires will have spent an estimated $1bn, mostly on Republican candidates and causes. (Peter Thiel alone sunk $30m into the Senate campaigns of JD Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona.) That’s 44% higher than billionaires’ total spending during the 2018 midterm cycle, according to a report published Thursday by the group Americans for Tax Fairness.What will the super-rich get back on their investments? Republicans won’t have the votes to override Biden’s vetoes, so they’ll likely try to weaponize raising the debt ceiling (as they did in 2011) to force Democrats to agree to more tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks for their wealthy patrons.3. Compared to other elections in which Russia has denied seeking to affect the outcome, in this one, Russia, in the form of a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, openly boasted of such interference.4. Finally, compared with what’s been at stake in previous elections, the stakes in this one are especially high for the future.Last June, half of Americans lost the constitutional right to an abortion, courtesy of the Trump supreme court, and Republicans in Congress have threatened to ban abortions nationally. Meanwhile, more than half of Republican candidates in today’s election sided with Donald Trump in denying that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.What’s decided today in races for Congress as well as for state offices will affect the trajectory of both issues – the future of abortion rights and of democracy – including Trump’s presumed effort to become America’s first dictator.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      Bhaskar Sunkara: ‘Tonight is a wake-up call’Tonight should be a wake-up call for Democrats. Yes, the worst has been avoided for the party, but their dominant midterm strategy simply didn’t work.Of course, circumstances conspired against them – midterms are always difficult for incumbent parties. Add to that an unfavorable set of seats up for grabs, inflation and general concerns about the cost of living, a crime spike since 2019, and it’s hard to imagine how Democrats could have maintained the House of Representatives this cycle.But there were opportunities that could have been exploited in the US Senate that were thwarted by the rhetoric and priorities of the party. Bernie Sanders’ October op-ed right here in the Guardian reads like prophecy: “You can’t win elections unless you have the support of the working class of this country.” Abortion was a crucial issue galvanizing millions of people, many of them workers, to vote. Yet Sanders was right to say that it was “political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy and allow Republican lies and distortions to go unanswered”.Consider the strong performance of John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, who at the time of writing looks poised to win and Tim Ryan in Ohio, who outperformed Biden’s 2020 mark despite coming up short against JD Vance. They ran campaigns with clear economic focused messages and focused on everyday concerns. There’s no reason more candidates like them couldn’t have been put forward.Biden has a relatively strong policy record as president so far, but his and the Democratic leadership’s inability to win on the economy and present themselves as the party of working people hurt them tonight. No matter how low expectations were, a loss is a loss: millionaire-funded NGOs can’t again be allowed to dominate the rhetoric and priorities of the party.
      Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, the founding editor of Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: the Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities
      LaTosha Brown: ‘Trump can still win in 2024’One thing is clear: we are not in a post-Trump world. We are in a Trumpian era. It is not far-fetched that Trump could rise to power again. In fact, we’ve seen many candidates who share his values capture seats in this election.The Democratic party needs to do far more to reach out to Black voters. In Georgia, where Stacey Abrams lost to Brian Kemp, we didn’t see an investment on the ground as we saw in previous cycles.This was the largest election since a slew of voter-suppression bills were signed into law, and we are dealing, in part, with the legacy of that. The political landscape has shifted, and we need a multi-racial, multi-generational pro-democracy movement to respond to that.We are a country that is deeply divided, and Democrats have a long way to go still to win people to their side.
      LaTosha Brown is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter
      Ben Davis: ‘This should have been a Republican blowout. It wasn’t’This has been a weird and contradictory electoral cycle, but one thing is clear: this is the best midterm for any administration since the 2002 election when the country was gripped by the war fever of 9/11.Democrats will probably lose seats: perhaps no one “won” this election. Some states look like they have shifted to the right (Florida appears to be lost to Democrats forever) while some seem extremely strong for Democrats. This year has been confused, because the government is confused.While the Democrats control the actual elected federal government, the primary transformative policy change that has happened came from the hard right, overturning Roe v Wade. It certainly hasn’t felt like the Democrats have power over the last two years. The big takeaway so far is there is no red wave and there is no systemic bias in polling toward Democrats.The first term of a Democratic presidency with Democratic control of the Senate and House, high inflation, and most of the country disappointed in the direction of the country should be a Republican blowout. As of the time of writing, it looks likely the Republican party takes back the House and there’s a real chance they take back the US senate, depending on the results of some razor-thin races.But it’s hard to call this a win for the Republicans or a loss for the Democrats and the Biden administration. If this were a first midterm wipeout like in 2010 or 2018, the Republicans could claim victory. Instead, they have underachieved nearly everywhere.Two things have happened: Donald Trump activated turnout that won’t go away, and the Dobbs decision further polarized the electorate along culture war lines. Once people get in the habit of voting they rarely stop, and Donald Trump activated so many people on both sides that dreary midterms are a thing of the past.
      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign
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      Democrats did far better than expected. How come? | Matthew Yglesias

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      Democrats are doing far better than expected. How come?Matthew YglesiasThere was no Republican ‘red wave’ after all. And abortion might be the reason why Many known unknowns remain in the US congressional elections, including the critical question of who will hold the majority in the Senate.But it’s already clear that Republicans are going to perform far worse than the typical out-party in a midterm election. Democrats appear to be on track for a result that, while certainly not spectacular if viewed in isolation, is the best midterm performance for any incumbent party since 2002. There’s nothing like the massive “wave” elections of 1994, 2006, 2010 or 2018 here, or the steady opposition gains of 2014. In 1998, Democrats did break with precedent and actually gain seats in the House and Senate, despite holding the White House. But that was a question of shrinking existing Republican majorities.Midterm elections 2022: Democrats hold on in several key races but Republicans surge in Florida – liveRead moreThat leaves 2002 as the only real example on record of a more successful midterm defense.For those who remember it, that was a bizarre midterm year. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 just over a year before the voting hung heavily. George W Bush’s approval ratings shot up to a stratospheric level. Criticizing the incumbent administration was seen as dangerous and potentially even unpatriotic. Yet Bush and his political team were merciless in milking the “rally round the flag” effect for partisan gain.Of course, 2022 is not going to go down as that year’s equal. But Democrats’ more modest success is nonetheless, in some respects, more puzzling. The 2002 outlier is easily explained by Bush’s freakishly high approval ratings. Of course, a wildly popular president is going to be hard for the out party to deal with. Biden’s approval rating, by contrast, is literally the worst on record for any postwar president at this point in his term, according to the polling site FiveThirtyEight.How could a Democrat like Abigail Spanberger survive in a swingy district in Virginia in a climate like that?Biden carried her traditionally Republican seat by a decent margin in 2020, but it swung back hard to the right in 2021 and voted to elect the Republican Glenn Youngkin as governor. Democrats never gave up on re-electing Spanberger, but it was clearly going to be an uphill fight the whole way, given she had been a reasonably loyal political ally of the unpopular president. And yet win she did. Michael Bennet romped home in a Colorado Senate race that been projected to be close. Maggie Hassan not only held her Senate seat in New Hampshire but, like Bennet, ran stronger than Biden did two years earlier. Those results weren’t replicated nationwide, but they were certainly visible across large swathes of the country – much larger than you normally see in a presidential midterm year.It’s genuinely hard to know what would explain such a paradoxical result, but a good guess is that Democratic party campaign tactics worked. The Democrats raised lots of money and spent lots of money on running lots and lots and lots of ads, mostly about abortion.This abortion-heavy strategy prompted a fair amount of naysaying and skepticism, for the very solid reason that most voters said it wasn’t the most important issue for them in the race, with inflation and the cost of living clearly taking the crown. But the logic of the abortion-first strategy’s advocates was that even though inflation mattered more, there wasn’t much Democrats could say or do to move voters on that topic. By contrast, driving up the salience of abortion really did change minds in Democrats’ ad-testing experiments.So they tried it, and it seems to have worked – an inference further bolstered by the fact that Democrats seem to have held their own particularly strongly in places with large numbers of secular white people.Of course, that’s not a strategy conjured out of thin air. What made it possible was the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, a fairly predictable consequence of recent appointments but one that still seems to have shocked many Americans out of a sense of complacence.It’s unusual for a party with concurrent governing majorities to face a policy setback on the scale of the Dobbs decision. But that unusual quality is likely why this election broke the pattern of midterms past. As one friend who works on reproductive rights quipped to me repeatedly this fall, “Dobbs is our 9/11” – a shocking and traumatic event that can suspend the laws of political gravity.The Dobbs effect is also noteworthy in Florida, where Republicans did very, very well. Their statewide candidates Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio romped against well-funded opponents, and all the down-ballot races went their way too.Florida as a whole has been drifting more conservative for years, but the strong rightward break in a year when that didn’t happen elsewhere was striking. More than one factor was surely in play. But it is also noteworthy that even as DeSantis has attracted a national reputation as a pugnacious culture warrior par excellence, he trotted a very moderate course on abortion – backing a ban at the 15-week mark that would leave upwards of 95% of actual abortions untouched. That’s a good way of defusing reproductive rights backlash. And an interesting question for DeSantis’s future is: can he continue to hold that line while remaining a conservative darling, or will the base he’s courting for a potential presidential run want to see him go further?But outside of the Sunshine State, Republicans have mostly been less cautious, and it has generated results for Democrats that are almost shockingly good given the state of the economy. That’s a testament to Democrats’ tactical savvy, and also a reminder of the huge political risks Republicans are running if inflation subsides over the next couple of years.
      Matthew Yglesias is a political commentator. He runs the SlowBoring Substack
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      Inflation, jobs and abortion: why US citizens are voting in the midterms – video

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      Inflation and the state of the economy are at the front of voters’ minds when going out to vote in the closely fought US midterm elections, the results of which threaten to rob the Democrats of control of Congress. Abortion and the threat to democracy also figure highly.
      The final results, which will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Biden’s first term as president and possibly further constrain his legislative agenda, could take days or even weeks in some tight Senate races

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      Midterm elections 2022: US voters head to polls as Republicans fight to take Senate control – live

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      Here’s some helpful context for Tuesday’s midterm elections and what it could mean for Democrats’ control of Congress, from the Guardian’s Chris McGreal and Joan E Greve.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Biden administration was braced for a bad night on Tuesday as the US midterm election results threatened to rob the Democrats of control of Congress, just as former president Donald Trump appears ready to announce another run for the White House.
      But the Democrats were holding out hope that they might just retain control of the US Senate if a handful of closely fought races fell their way.
      The final results, which will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Biden’s first term as president and further constrain his legislative agenda, could take days or even weeks in some closely fought Senate races. Delayed results are likely to fuel legal challenges and conspiracy theories about vote-rigging, particularly if the remaining seats determine control of the Senate.
      The ground was already being laid in Pennsylvania, where a close US Senate race is being fought between Mehmet Oz, a Trump-backed Republican, and Democrat John Fetterman, who has been battling to assure voters he is fit for office after a stroke. Earlier on election day on Tuesday, the agency overseeing the voting in Philadelphia said it will delay counting thousands of paper ballots because of a Republican lawsuit that said the process was open to duplicate voting.
      Dozens of Republican candidates for the Senate, the House of Representatives and other major offices have refused to confirm that they will accept the result if they lose amid a swirl of false claims of fraud, stemming from Trump’s assertion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and kept alive by the Republican party leadership.Read the full article here. US midterms: Democrats pin Senate hopes on tightly fought racesRead moreMore reporting on Californians voting on Proposition 30, from the Guardian’s Maanvi SinghCalifornians are voting today on a ballot measure that would tax the state’s richest residents in an effort to get more electric vehicles on the road.The measure, Proposition 30, would hike taxes by 1.75% on those earning $2m or more annually to raise between $3bn and $5bn annually to subsidize households, businesses and schools; buy zero-emission cars, trucks and buses; fund infrastructure to charge electric vehicles; and bolster wildfire prevention efforts.Proponents of the measure, including the coalition of environmental and labor groups that developed it, say the tax would provide urgently needed funds to hasten the transition to zero-emission vehicles, and reduce the disproportionate burden of pollution on low-income, minority communities across the state.Detractors, including the California governor, Gavin Newsom, claim the proposal is a corporate carve-out for Lyft, the ride-hailing company that has backed the measure and helped fund its campaign.Read more about Proposition 30 and the fraught battle over it here: A California measure would tax the rich to fund electric vehicles. Why is the governor against it?Read moreThe latest on Los Angeles’ mayoral race, from the Guardian’s Lois BeckettBy the time Los Angeles residents headed to polls on Tuesday, mayoral hopeful and billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso had poured more than $100m of his own fortune into his campaign to become the city’s next leader.Caruso, who’s battling Congresswoman Karen Bass in a closely contested race, has backed his own campaign with $101m as of late last week, campaign ethics filing show, outspending his opponent by more than 10 to one.The developer, who is running a pro-police, tough-on-crime campaign, came in second to Bass, a former community organizer and leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, in the city’s June primary.But Bass’ strong lead over Caruso in recent weeks evaporated, according to a recent poll of likely voters, with her 45% to 41% lead over Caruso within the poll’s margin of error.Caruso, who has an estimated net worth of $5.3bn, is nearing a mayoral campaign record set by billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who spent $109m of his own money to win his third term as mayor of New York City in 2009. Total political spending of more than $120m on a mayoral race is a striking sum, especially for a contest in which the key issue is LA’s homelessness. There are at least 41,000 unhoused people in Los Angeles county, many of them unsheltered, and living, in tents, cars, RVs and makeshift structures. Bass has repeatedly attacked Caruso’s campaign spending, saying that if she had $90m or $100m to spend, she would spend it on affordable housing.Rick Caruso has spent $90 million lying about himself and lying about me.I was just asked if I had $90 million, what I would do with it.The answer is simple: I would build housing for thousands of people who sleep on our streets every night. Right away. Without hesitation.— Karen Bass (@KarenBassLA) November 1, 2022
      Concerns over the spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms are a recurring theme of each election but with the recent mass layoffs at Twitter following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform civil liberties groups are particularly on high alert. The company laid off a reported 50% of the workforce or an estimated 3,700 workers last week just days before the midterms. Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth said that layoffs affected 15% of the company’s trust and safety team which is charged with moderating content including combating misinformation. That has the leaders of civil liberties groups such as Color of Change, Free Press and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who met with Musk to discuss how Twitter will deal with hate speech, convinced that the company will not be sufficiently staffed to handle attempts to mislead voters today. “Retaining and enforcing election-integrity measures requires an investment in the human expert staff, factcheckers, and moderators, who are being shown the door today,” said Jessica J González, co-CEO of Free Press.While it’s still early in the day, months-old viral videos and tweets falsely claiming Republicans were being barred from the polls have already been recirculated today, according to the Washington Post. Pennsylvania is at the heart of the battle for control of Congress and key governorships across the country. To get a sense of Democrats’ political fortunes in this consequential battleground, I spoke to Ed Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania.Rendell is bullish on the governor’s race, where Democrat Josh Shapiro has maintained a consistent lead over his Republican opponent, the election-denying conservative Doug Mastriano. But he has jitters about the Senate race between John Fetterman, the Democrat, and Mehmet Oz, the Republican, which is rated a toss up. Key to the race, he says, is Black voter turnout in cities like Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh. If Democrats fail to mobilize this crucial constituency, it will be hard, if not impossible, for them to eke out a win in a close contest. Rendell is hopeful Obama’s visit to the state on Saturday will have a “dramatic impact” on turnout, especially among Black voters, by reminding voters of the stakes and making the affirmative case for electing Democrats. And he does not believe, as some in his party do, that Biden’s campaign appearance in Philadelphia on Saturday, alongside Obama, Fetterman and Shapiro, will hurt the Democratic ticket, In fact, he said it’s possible that the enduring affection for Biden in places like Scranton, where the president was born, may help boost support for Democrats in that industrial corner of the state.“If you don’t like Joe Biden and you want to send him a message … you vote against him, but not because he appears with Fetterman,” Rendell said. “That doesn’t change anybody’s mind.”Biden and Obama make last-ditch effort as Democrats’ mood darkensRead moreThe Guardian’s Abené Clayton, reporting on voting conditions from Los AngelesA winter storm has brought days of rain, snow and flood warnings to southern and northern California, and while it may have ended California’s fire season it also has led midterm election hopefuls to implore voters to defy the conditions to cast their ballots.There are more questions than clear answers around the impact that weather has on voter turnout and ultimately the results of an election, but candidates aren’t leaving anything up to chance or people’s instincts to stay dry, warm and off of wet roads.“Since we don’t like rain, I have to make sure that people vote. We can’t lose this election because of the rain. That would be crazy,” Karen Bass, the progressive candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, said during a pre-election day Instagram live interview with the actor Rosario Dawson.On the other side of the state, Brooke Jenkins, San Francisco’s interim district attorney who is running to retain her seat, is calling on people to come out to the polls, “rain or shine”.Happy Election Day! Rain or shine, we are working across San Francisco today to get out the vote! Polls close at 8PM. Please go vote and take a friend or family member (or two or three) to the polls with you! You can find your polling place here: https://t.co/UeOxfVuedn pic.twitter.com/ExE3C2FHyF— Brooke Jenkins 謝安宜 (@BrookeJenkinsSF) November 8, 2022
      Matt Gunderson, a Southern California state senate candidate whose campaign promises include repealing laws that downgrades crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.Rain or shine it’s Election Day!This morning my family got up bright and early to make it to the polls before an afternoon of final campaigning. Doing your civic duty is so much fun when you get to do it with the ones you love. Happy Election Day!#gowithgunderson pic.twitter.com/WdRBgBmcjL— Matt Gunderson (@GundersonForCA) November 8, 2022
      Donald Trump, who lost Arizona in 2020, has weighed in on the tabulation machine issues in Maricopa county.Trump posted on Truth Social, saying the machine problems were mostly affecting conservative or Republican areas. It’s not clear exactly which sites have been experiencing the tabulation problems, but voters around the county have reported them.“Can this possibly be true when a vast majority of Republicans waited for today to Vote? Here we go again? The people will not stand for it!!!” Trump wrote.Trump is already starting his messaging that the election is fraud via Truth Social. pic.twitter.com/4m8MGavEO5— Ines Pohl (@inespohl) November 8, 2022
      Earlier on Tuesday, election officials in Maricopa County reported that about 20% of polling places in the county were experiencing problems.The Guardian’s Erum Salam reports on the voting situation in TexasThings are heating up in Texas, one of the most difficult states to cast a vote. Reports have emerged of voters being turned away from eight polling sites in Bell county, an area north-east of Austin, after check-in machines malfunctioned because of an issue relating to the time change.#BREAKING Voters being turned away at 8 polling sites in Bell County. Elections office says the equipment isn’t working – because of the time change.— Joey Horta (@JoeyHorta) November 8, 2022
      Bell county election officials requested an additional hour for voting from the Texas secretary of state due to the issues.At a time when doubt is being unnecessarily cast on the integrity of the American electoral process, Bell county does not inspire confidence in those already skeptical, but county officials told the Guardian that the issue with the machines only affected voters’ ability to check in, not their ability to vote.Bell county’s public information officer, James Stafford, said: “For some reason, computers at those eight locations did not automatically update to the new time. As a result, the central computer, recognizing a discrepancy, would not allow those devices to come online, and we were unable to open those sites to voters.The critical issue that we want to communicate is that we have not had any issues related to ballots or tabulation machines. The issue was limited to those check-in devices. I also would say that, seeing the work and the passion of both our elections and technology services staff as they worked diligently to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.”Confidence in the electoral process is integral to the preservation of democracy and boosting that confidence has been the primary objective of some. The US Department of Justice announced yesterday it will send federal monitors to polling sites across the country, including three counties in Texas, to ensure smooth sailing on election day.During early voting, the Beaumont chapter of the NAACP alleged Black voters were being harassed and intimidated by election workers in Jefferson county. Jessica Daye, a local voter, alleged she witnessed other Black voters being shadowed by election workers who demanded they say their addresses out loud, despite already being checked in to vote.On Monday, Daye, the NAACP and The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit and a federal judge issued an order prohibiting the discriminatory behavior.On the morning of election day, the Election Protection coalition – the nation’s oldest and largest non-partisan voter protection coalition – held a virtual press conference “outlining resources and guidance available to voters in need of information or facing intimidation at the polls”.On the call were leaders from the Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Texas Civil Rights Project, and top of the agenda was addressing any voting incidents at polling sites or ballot drop boxes in key states across the country.Lawyers’ Committee For Civil Rights Under Law called the incident in Beaumont “a gross instance of invasion of privacy and voter intimidation”.In the call, the Texas Civil Rights Project said it received more reports of machine malfunctions, voter intimidation, polling sites opening late, poll workers dressed in partisan attire in a few places, and issues with mail ballots that were either not received or rejected.Voting in Texas ends at 7pm central.As millions across the country voted on Tuesday, Joe Biden tweeted an encouragement for people to participate in elections. At the core of our democracy is a basic principle: the right to vote.With it, anything is possible.Vote today.— President Biden (@POTUS) November 8, 2022
      Behind the scenes, Biden also spoke with a number of key leaders in the Democratic party. From the White house press office: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This afternoon, the President spoke individually by phone with Democratic Governors Association Chair Roy Cooper, DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney, DSCC Chair Gary Peters, and DNC Senior Advisor Cedric Richmond. He also spoke jointly to DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Carlisa Johnson reports on Joy to the Polls, an arts-based voting initiative in GeorgiaIn Georgia, young voters make up 17% of the state’s voting population. However, young voter turnout remained lower than in previous elections at the end of early voting. Now, the final get out the vote efforts are happening to capture young voters.Throughout the state, voting rights organizers are taking to the streets to help voters get to the polls, cast their votes and have their voices heard. Today, Joy to the Polls, an arts-based initiative, is making eight stops throughout the metro area to encourage voters to head to the polls and celebrate the joy of voting.“We all know that the system is broken and things need to be changed,” said Kaelyn Kastle one of the hosts for the event. “Young people have to understand that their vote does matter because we’ve seen how close elections can be.” pic.twitter.com/FfctRbMfQ7— Carlisa Johnson (@CarlisaNJohnson) November 8, 2022
      At its third stop of the day, Joy to the Polls featured a performance by recording artist Tate “Baby Tate” Farris in East Atlanta. Farris, a Georgia native, said she came out to remind young people to vote. “Young people have power. This is the opportunity to take that power that [they] have and use it by being active in the election process.”This initiative, which originated in 2020, creates party-like atmospheres at polling places throughout the state, hoping to ease the stress of the voting process. Kaelyn Kastle, co-host of the East Atlanta stop, believes events like Joy to the Polls are critical in places like Georgia, where elections are won by thin margins. “We all know that the system is broken, and things need to be changed,” said Kastle. “Young people have to understand that their vote does matter because we’ve seen how close elections in Georgia can be.”In East Atlanta, recording artist @imbabytate is taking the mobile stage as part of @JoyToThePolls a GOTV effort using the power of music to celebrate the importance of voting. pic.twitter.com/r7xwlPC9K0— Carlisa Johnson (@CarlisaNJohnson) November 8, 2022
      The Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence reports from Decatur, GeorgiaLong voter queues were hard to come by, a sign that can be taken one of two ways: either most residents are already part of the giant early turnout, or simply got turned around. “Because the polling places are different from the early voting locations, that’s caused some confusion,” says Karen “Mix” Mixon, vice-chair of the DeKalb County Democratic Committee.On a cloudless 75F day, Mixon stood outside an early voting location in the South Dekalb Mall to redirect voters toward their assigned polling place. With SB 202, the aggressive voter suppression law President Biden dubbed “Jim Crow 2.0”, finally baring its teeth on election day, Mixon notes mobilizer groups have to be extra careful about extending help this election cycle. “The law is you have to be 150ft from the building where people are voting, or 25 feet from voters who are standing in line to wait to vote,” Mixon says. “We ordered tape measures that are 150ft long and spray chalk, and we mark that off so that we are following the law.”With mobilizing groups forbidden from approaching voters to make sure they’re at the right place (much less offer them water), volunteers can basically only wave and smile and yell and hope lost voters approach them. Mixon made herself easy enough to find outside the mall with a sign urging passers by to remind friends to vote.The Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence reports from AtlantaMike South cast his ballot at Grace International Church with the economy top of mind. “My retirement has shrunk by 50%,” he said. To say he worked hard for it barely tells the story.After launching a decade long career at Nasa as computers expert following the Challenger explosion, South, 64, pivoted to directing and acting in adult movies before cementing his legend as an industry gossip columnist. In 2013, CNBC pronounced him one of porn’s 10 most powerful people.Porn drove his political engagement. “There was a time when free speech would’ve been an issue, especially in Atlanta,” he says. “Most of the people in my business are hardcore Democrats, but I kinda stand out because I’m more libertarian – which I would expect them to be.”South says he voted for libertarian candidates whenever possible, including in the senate race between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock. (“The truth is I don’t like either one of them,” he quipped, as his support dog Lola heeled.) Third-party voters could have a significant impact on that race, which is trending closer toward another senate runoff. A new Warnock ad tips voters to the possibility of having to return to the polls again over the holiday season. After being barraged with campaign ads for the past seven years, in the country, South winces at the thought of yet another trip to the polls. “I’m over it.”Election officials in Georgia’s largest county removed two workers from a polling site on the morning of Tuesday’s midterm races after their colleagues shared social media posts of the pair at the US Capitol attack on 6 January 2021. Fulton county elections officials told media outlets that they fired the workers – a mother and her son – about 15 minutes before the polls opened Tuesday morning. They had been assigned to a polling site at a library in the community of Johns Creek. The mother and son fell under scrutiny after the woman made a comment that caught the attention of a colleague while they were at an event for poll workers, Fulton county’s interim elections director, Nadine Williams, told the local news station WSB-TV. Colleagues of the woman also found social media posts by her which were reported to the county, WSB-TV added.Williams would not elaborate on the nature of the posts. But the Washington Post reported that it was provided with copies of the social media screeds in question, and they showed the woman’s family forming part of the mob of Donald Trump supporters who staged the Capitol attack. According to the newspaper, one of the posts read: “I stood up for what’s right today in Washington DC. This election was a sham. [Trump vice-president] Mike Pence is a traitor. I was tear gassed FOUR times. I have pepper spray in my throat. I stormed the Capitol building. And my children have had the best learning experience of their lives.”Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to prevent the congressional certification of the former Republican president’s defeat to his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the 2020 election. One of the mob’s stated aims was to hang Pence after it falsely accused him of failing to avail himself of the ability to single-handedly prevent Biden’s certification.Officials have linked nine deaths to the insurrection, including suicides by law enforcement officers traumatized after successfully defending the building from the pro-Trump mob. Hundreds of participants have been charged criminally in connection with the attack, and many have either pleaded guilty or otherwise have been convicted over their roles.During the 2020 presidential race, Fulton county experienced long lines at the polls, administrative mistakes and death threats against election workers. The Washington Post reported that the turmoil during the election two years earlier prompted Fulton county to prepare for Tuesday’s midterms – which many regard as a referendum on American democracy – by assigning police to more than half of its 300 or so polling places, with other officers patrolling between sites. Georgia is holding some of Tuesday’s most-closely watched elections, including the race between incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker that could determine which political party controls the US Senate. A rematch from the 2018 electoral showdown between incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams is also being watched nationwide on Tuesday.When Jeff Zapor showed up at his polling place in South Lyon, in the Detroit suburbs, on Tuesday, the most pressing race on his mind was the contest for secretary of state, the elected official who oversees voting and elections in Michigan.That in itself is extraordinary. Long overlooked downballot races, there has been an enormous amount of attention on secretary of state races since the 2020 election, when their role in overseeing vote counting came into focus as Donald Trump tried to overturn the election. Michigan is one of several states where the Republican nominee for secretary of state questioned and tried to overturned the results of the 2020 race.Standing outside his polling place, an elementary school, Michigan, Zapor said he voted for Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, who is running for a second term. She leads her opponent Kristina Karamo, a community college professor, in the polls.“I think election deniers on the ballot is a very dangerous thing,” Zapor, a 46-year-old mental health counselor said. “When you’re running on a platform of complete abject falsehoods, to me, that shows a complete lack of character. And you’re running for the exact wrong reason.”Zapor added that he was concerned that there could be a repeat of efforts to overturn the election, like there were in 2020.“I think it’s a certainty. I’m very concerned. Both in Michigan and in the nation, in 2024, I guess even in this election, will continue to be divisive and to see violence would not surprise me. I really hope I’m wrong, but that’s what I think,” he said.South Lyon is a competitive area in Oakland county, a battleground in Michigan.Another voter, who would only give his middle name, Alex, said he was also deeply concerned about election denialism. “I’m concerned in general that the truth in general has eluded us and many will continue to leverage what happened in 2020 and for false information in general,” he said.Another voter, who would only give his first name, Tom, said he voted for Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, because she was the “lesser of two evils.” He said he also voted for Benson, who sees the state’s motor vehicle offices in addition to elections, because he recently had a quick appointment renewing his driver’s license.“She did what she said he was going to do,” he said. More

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      US voters from around the country outline their key issues in midterms

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      US voters from around the country outline their key issues in midtermsFrom abortion and gun control to white supremacism and the economy, these matters are top of mind in midterms

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      Americans are going to the polls on Tuesday for the midterm elections, in a vote that Joe Biden has described as “a choice between two vastly different visions of America”.The elections will decide the composition of the House of Representatives and about a third of the Senate, as well as dozens of governorships and numerous city mayorships and local officials.When will we know who won US midterm races — and what to expect on election dayRead moreVoters across the US who are backing Democratic, Republican and other candidates discuss the issues that are deciding their vote, including abortion rights, the economy, gun control and the climate emergency.‘A woman’s right to being treated as a human being’“Abortion rights – a woman’s right to being treated as a human being, is front and center for me. As are all issues of equity including racism, reducing the brutality of our policing forces, and making sure everybody has a warm place to sleep at night and enough food to keep them going. Neither party is meeting these needs.“We have had 40 years of ‘trickle-down’ economics, and now so many people are living on the street while the rich fly their rockets around. Seeing the politicians standing around blaming each other for the economy when they’ve benefited from it by enriching themselves and their friends is just maddening.“There aren’t that many choices this year, but I did manage to split my ticket to a Libertarian sheriff candidate. Other than that it’s going to be all the Democrats. On the federal level, I don’t trust them to actually fix anything, but at least they mean well. [On the state level], I’m extremely happy with our Democratic government here in New Mexico. Robin Miller, delivery driver, 60, New Mexico‘Political integrity and racism are my biggest concerns’“My top issue is the return of sanity to US politics and governance by electing/re-electing adults. I live in Trump-centric Arizona. Arizona is filled with gun-loving, trigger-happy GOP voters.“I have to carry a firearm whenever I go ‘outside the wire’ (my property), and as a Vietnam veteran, I’ve seen enough death and destruction that I have no interest in witnessing more.“Racism and white supremacists are also a large motivation for me to vote for the Democrats. As an Asian, I’ve had it with this crap and won’t take it any more. I used to be a Republican in California but, here in Arizona, I may as well be a socialist.“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realise that my me-first attitude has not served us well. I fear for defenceless animals being exploited and driven to extinction by human greed. I worry about women, LGBTQ, minorities and anyone who can’t fight back. If [the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement] prevails, I fully intend to restore my Japanese citizenship and move to Japan.” Yoshimatsu, 73, retired, rural Arizona‘I’ll have a split ticket this time, for the sake of unity’“Right now I am witnessing an increasing polarisation of the US, which I think will lead to disastrous results for everyone. The extreme right is dominating the Republican party and this cancel-culture/censorship trend is dominating the left.“As a left-leaning independent, I sympathise with both but tend to favour the Democrats – I voted for them at the last election. This time, I’ll split my vote between Democrat and Republican candidates who I think will be able to bring people together before it’s too late.” John Blake, MBA student, Morgantown, West Virginia‘I was financially better off under Trump – and I’m no fan of his’“There is only one issue that matters: the economy. Inflation is out of control under Joe Biden, the Democrats and their reckless policies. All the solutions they’re proposing will only make things worse. The first thing Joe Biden did when he took office was to shut down the construction of the Keystone pipeline. That caused gas prices to rise sharply, and the cost of living crisis is definitely affecting me in daily life now, even though I consider myself upper middle class. My daughter and her husband are really struggling right now, and I wish I could help them out more, but my grocery bill keeps rising.“I didn’t vote for Trump and am no fan, but under him, economy-wise, things were much better. I’m really frustrated, and think that if we keep pumping more money into the economy, inflation is going to get worse.“I think Joe Biden is physically and mentally incapable of doing his job as president. He says things in speeches and then his team has to walk them back. In any electoral race, I’m voting Libertarian wherever I can, Republican where I can’t.” Jason Trommetter, 55, software engineer, Greenville, South Carolina‘I’m worried about the excessive number of guns’“I am voting Democrat because I’m very worried about the excessive number of guns in the US, especially the now common school shootings. I am very concerned about the ever-increasing rates of gun violence in my city and the nation. My city’s record for homicides was broken last year, and tied again this year by the end of September. And guns are making their way into our schools here, as well. Last week, a school in our district was locked down because of gunshots on or near campus.“School shootings in the US increase each year, with 40 so far in 2022. The Republicans in Kentucky are very supportive of nearly unlimited gun rights, passing laws allowing open-carry and concealed-carry of firearms without a permit.” Suzannah, 48, stay-at-home parent, Lexington, Kentucky‘Stop subsidizing the major oil companies’“For the first time in my life I will vote straight Democratic ticket rather than spend any time at all considering a failed Republican party.“One of the main issues I’m voting on is climate change. Stop subsidizing the major oil companies; actively participate in national efforts to grapple with the issue; actively support states in the area of climate change; stop the gross support of far too many business practices that avoid real or useful solutions to address sustainability and climate equity.“I’m also voting on abortion rights, voting rights and democratic process. I’m deeply concerned that there will be significant efforts at multiple polling stations to intimidate voters, deny people’s votes, and threaten with violence including gun related threats and violence.” Eric, retired physician, 68, Missouri‘I’m voting Republican because of inflation and energy concerns’“I am a voter in Oklahoma, and voted for Trump in the last election. Like many others in our state, I work in the energy sector. My biggest concerns going into Tuesday’s election are efforts to reduce inflation, and domestic energy security. We have the ability and infrastructure to not only provide for our own energy demand, but to help places like mainland Europe and the UK with their energy issues through the Ukraine war.“The current administration, along with a strong blue House and Senate, have blocked a vast majority of these opportunities, trying to force a large population into relying on unreliable green energy options. While we are capable of producing a lot more gas and oil than we currently do, we do not have the infrastructure to immediately become reliant on renewable and alternative energies, and I fear we’re going to have supply issues this winter, should we have more severe weather.“Biden has continued to empty our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the benefit of other countries and to save pennies at the pumps now, leaving us with a critically short backup supply.” Josh R, 35, Oklahoma‘The erosion of democracy is my biggest concern of many’“I voted Democratic in the last election, and will be voting for [incumbent three-term Republican Senator Lisa] Murkowski and [Democrat] Les Gara for governor, and otherwise generally Democratic.“The overriding issue in this election is the threat to democracy posed by the Republican party’s attempts to gerrymander, suppress voters, sow mistrust in elections, refuse to recognise free and fair election results, stack the courts, school boards and state offices, and generally disregard the law. The growth of fascism and the white supremacist movement in the US is frightening.“There are many other concerns I have – climate inaction, political violence in the US, destruction of the wilderness, Russian aggression, the destruction of Ukraine, the erosion of a free and independent press, fair treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers, and poverty in the developing world.” Doug, retired firefighter, Fairbanks, AlaskaTopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content 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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      The future of American democracy is at stake in the midterm elections | Andrew Gawthorpe

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      The future of American democracy is at stake in the midterm electionsAndrew GawthorpeThe majority of the Republican candidates for the House of Representatives are election-deniers – and a Republican-controlled Congress might attempt to sabotage the certification of the next presidential vote Midterm elections are generally seen as less important than presidential elections. The stakes seem lower, which means fewer people turn out to vote. Most of the time the party controlling the White House takes losses, and this predictability can make midterms seem less important too: what can one voter do against the strength of the political tides? But occasionally there are midterms whose stakes rise beyond whether or not the president’s party will be able to pass new laws, and instead concern the whole future of the American republic. This year is one of them.Is Herschel Walker the worst candidate the Republicans have ever run? | Jill FilipovicRead moreThat’s because this year, the majority of Republican candidates running for Congress, governor’s mansions, and other key statewide offices have denied or questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump’s attempted coup failed in 2020 because officeholders at the federal and state level refused to go along with it. This year’s midterm elections could change all of that, producing a set of Republican officials willing to extinguish American democracy.There have been several other midterms in American history which foreshadowed chaos and violence to come. In 1858, the anti-slavery Republican party won a plurality in the House of Representatives, exacerbating the divisions which would lead to the civil war. In 1874, the Democratic party won a massive majority in the House, which turned out to be enormously consequential amid the contested election of 1876. In return for not attempting to block the inauguration of the Republican candidate Rutherford B Hayes, House Democrats demanded the withdrawal of federal troops from the south, ending Reconstruction.Both of these midterms were momentous, but they also differed from our present situation. Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 rent the Union, but nobody doubted that he had been legitimately elected president. On the other hand, widespread violence and fraud meant that the election of 1876 was genuinely contested, and even today the question of “who really won?” is difficult to answer. The end of Reconstruction had horrific consequences for African Americans in the south, but the basic institution of competitive elections lived on, and with it the possibility for future change.Never before in American history has there been an organized movement which was only one vote away from having the motivation and opportunity to make that election America’s last. Never that is, until now. Today’s anti-democratic movement is propelled not by genuine controversy or scandal, but rather by their commitment to ending competitive elections in the United States. There is no other way to interpret their belief that only one side, the Republicans, can legitimately be considered to win, and the plans that they hold to make this belief a reality.The problems can be expected to start this November, when Republican candidates who lose will question the validity of the results and try to stir unrest. State officials who do win will begin to act on their plans to sabotage future polls by centralizing power in their own offices, de-registering millions of voters, and moving to error-prone hand-counting systems. Then, if voter suppression doesn’t prevent a Democratic win in 2024, they’ll just suppress the evidence instead and announce that they are sending Republican electors to the electoral college. Meanwhile, the majority of Republican House candidates in 2022 are election-deniers, and a Republican-controlled Congress might attempt to sabotage the certification of the presidential vote on 6 January 2025.Each of these potential points of failure threatens the integrity of the 2024 presidential election. The breadth and depth of the anti-democratic movement also means that they are likely to pose other problems which are difficult to anticipate. Whatever means they find of sabotaging the vote, it would be foolish to rely on the conservative-dominated supreme court to stop them, particularly if the country has been plunged into civil unrest and violence.That’s why measures like reforming the Electoral Count Act, something which Congress may take up in the lame duck session after the midterms, are not enough. Legal tinkering can only go so far in the face of a dedicated movement, especially if it is willing to go outside the law and provoke violence on the streets. The only thing that can avert an impending crisis is to keep Republican party’s election saboteurs out of office. Yet the Democratic party has decided to largely fight the midterms on other issues which they think motivate voters more effectively. And while it’s true that very few voters do identify threats to democracy as the most important issue facing the country, this is partly down to a failure of Democrats and the media to communicate just how bad things might get.At least part of Democrats’ closing message in these elections must be dedicated to changing that. Voters need to understand that the threat to democracy is very real, and that bad choices this year could lead to complete breakdown in 2024. It might be impossible to stitch the national fabric back together or to return to free, competitive, reliable elections afterwards. Democracy is not some arcane or marginal topic but is at the very heart of America’s ability to undo its mistakes and move forwards as a nation. That makes these the most important midterms in American history. It’s way past time to communicate the stakes clearly.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University and host of the podcast America Explained
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      Midterms scenarios: will Republicans take the Senate and the House?

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      Midterms scenarios: will Republicans take the Senate and the House?A handful of general scenarios could play out on Tuesday, each having huge significance for Biden and Donald Trump As Americans go to the polls on Tuesday they are voting in what Joe Biden has framed as a vital test for American democracy in the face of a Republican party fielding candidates who buy into the big lie of a stolen 2020 election.Republicans, meanwhile, have tried to capitalize on widespread economic anxiety in the face of rising inflation as well as stoking culture war themes and fears over crime, often spilling over into racism and intolerance.Why the US midterms matter – from abortion rights to democracyRead moreMillions of voters are casting their ballot as Republicans and Democrats fight for control of Congress, numerous state governorships as well as many local offices and ballot initiatives on issues like abortion.A handful of general scenarios could play out, each having momentous significance for the Biden presidency and the tactics of a resurgent Republican party and its de facto leader Donald Trump.Republicans win the House, Democrats hold the SenateIn a split decision, expect Republicans to thwart Biden’s legislative agenda and launch a flurry of congressional investigations, for example into the botched military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the president’s son Hunter’s business dealings in China and Ukraine. Trump ally Jim Jordan might take the lead.A Republican majority would also doom the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. They might even seek revenge by launching a counter-investigation into telecom companies that handed over phone records to the committee or into members of the panel themselves.Policy-wise, Republicans could seek to reverse some major accomplishments of Biden’s first two years, such as climate spending, student loan forgiveness and corporate tax increases.Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader and current favourite to become House speaker, has told Punchbowl News that Republicans would use a future battle over raising the national debt ceiling as leverage to force cuts in public spending.McCarthy has also warned that the party will not write a “blank cheque” for Ukraine, while Marjorie Taylor Greene, expected to be a prominent figure in the Republican caucus, told a rally in Iowa: “Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first.”But a Democratic-controlled Senate would be able to continue rubber-stamping Biden’s nominations for cabinet secretaries and federal judges.Republicans win House and SenateDespite polarisation in Washington, Biden has so far achieved some bipartisan victories on infrastructure, gun safety, health benefits for veterans and manufacturing investments to compete with China. But Republicans would be less likely to allow him further wins as the next presidential election draws closer.Instead, expect a new antagonism between the White House and Congress. A Republican-controlled Senate could slow down or block Biden’s judicial nominees, including if there is an unexpected opening on the supreme court.Conversely, Republican attempts to harden rules on immigration, gun rights or ban transgender women from playing in women’s sports would surely be met by a Biden presidential veto.The Republican policy agenda remains nebulous. Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, has resisted publishing a platform, fuelling criticism that the party has a cult of personality around Trump.Former president Barack Obama told a recent rally in Atlanta, Georgia: “These days, right now, just about every Republican politician seems obsessed with two things: owning the libs and getting Donald Trump’s approval.”Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, did publish a 12-point plan that includes forcing poorer Americans who do not currently pay income tax to do so and reauthorising social security and Medicare every five years instead of allowing the programmes to continue automatically.And Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced a bill to create a national ban on abortions at 15 weeks, dividing Republicans and infuriating progressive activists. If far-right members put it to a vote, Senate Democrats would be sure to filibuster it.The White House, meanwhile, would be forced on the defensive against a slew of congressional investigations into Afghanistan, Hunter Biden and other targets.Democrats hold House and SenateThis would be a huge surprise and defy historical trends. Opinion pollsters would be crying into their beer, fearing that their industry is well and truly broken.A Democratic sweep would give Joe Biden a mandate to enact a sweeping agenda that would again invite comparisons with former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.Biden said last month that, if Democrats win control of Congress, the first bill he sends to Capitol Hill next year would codify Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. The party could also push for national protections for same-sex marriage and voting rights.The president wants further actions on gun safety including a ban on assault weapons. He could seek to resurrect elements of his Build Back Better agenda, including more climate measures and expanding the social safety net, and make another attempt to tackle racial discrimination in policing.And some Democrats are drafting legislation to prevent Trump from running for president in 2024 due to his instigation of the January 6 insurrection, the New York Times reported, although that would be a long shot.But much would depend on how big – or small – the Democratic majority turns out to be. If it is slender, the conservative Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona could once again call the shots and frustrate the president’s ambitions.TopicsUS newsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022House of RepresentativesUS CongressDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More