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      National security adviser visits Kyiv as US announces $400m in aid to Ukraine – as it happened

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      National security adviser Jake Sullivan visited Kyiv on Friday to “underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine” while announcing a $400 mn infusion in new weapons, including tanks and drones, the White House announced.“National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, head of the office of the president Andriy Yermak, Minister of Defense Reznikov, and others in Kyiv today to underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine and its people as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity,” national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.“To that end, Mr Sullivan announced an additional $400m security assistance package, which includes refurbished T-72 tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and the refurbishment of 250 HAWK surface to air missiles for eventual transfer to Ukraine. He also affirmed the continued provision of economic and humanitarian assistance, as well as ongoing efforts with partners to hold Russia accountable for its aggression.” Opinion polls, extremist trials and finger pointing were all in the news on the last Friday before Tuesday’s midterm election, in which Democrats are fighting to maintain their majorities in the House and Senate for another two years. Meanwhile, one of Donald Trump’s top fundraisers was acquitted of obstruction and false statement charges by a jury, while the former president appeared to blow a deadline to answer a subpoena from the January 6 committee.Here’s a rundown of what happened today:
      Elon Musk made good on plans to enact major layoffs at Twitter, the extent of which are still not clear.
      The latest government employment data was surprisingly good in October, despite the economy’s ongoing struggles with high inflation.
      A majority of Americans fear political violence, though are divided on which party is responsible, according to a poll.
      House Republicans plan to press for answers about the business dealings of Hunter Biden as soon as the midterm elections are over.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan paid a visit to Ukraine, and announced another $400 mn in weapons to fend off Russia’s invasion.
      Georgia poll shows Warnock vs Walker is tiedPolls are polls, of course: i.e. they can be unreliable. But another suvey on Georgia’s intense senate battle between scandal-prone Republican ex-football player Herschel Walker and Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock shows the race is likely a nail-biter.To many observers that might be a surprise, given Walker’s litany of bad press, especially allegations that he has paid for abortions. But in the 2022 midterms it seems that very little can be taken for granted.The Hill has more: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and his Republican rival, Herschel Walker, are heading into Election Day deadlocked, according to a new Marist College poll. The poll, released Friday, shows the two candidates tied at 48 percent each among voters who say they will “definitely” vote in the 2022 midterm elections. With a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points, the race could swing either way come Election Day.Warnock performs slightly better among registered voters overall, taking 49 percent support to Walker’s 45 percent. He also has the edge among independents; 48 percent of those voters are backing Warnock, while 36 percent are supporting Walker. And there are also signs that some GOP voters could cross party lines to cast their ballots for Warnock. Eight percent of Republicans say they are supporting the Democratic incumbent, while only 1 percent of Democrats are behind Walker, the Marist poll found. Notably, neither candidate is breaching the 50 percent threshold needed to win the election outrightSupreme court to hear Navajo Nation water caseThe US Supreme Court has said says it will hear a water dispute involving the American government and the Navajo Nation.AP has the details: The high court said Friday it would review a lower court ruling in favor of the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The government signed treaties with the Navajo Nation in 1849 and 1868 that established the reservation. It was later expanded westward to the Colorado River, which forms the reservation’s western boundary. At issue in the case is water from the Colorado River, which itself is shrinking in part because of overuse and drought.The case dates back to 2003, when the tribe sued, alleging that the federal government in its Colorado River projects had failed to consider or protect water rights of the tribe. Most recently, a trial court dismissed the case but a federal appeals court allowed it to proceed. The federal government is challenging that result.The case of David DePape, who is accused of attacking Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi last week, is beginning its journey through the court system, and the Associated Press reports the judge presiding over the opening proceedings disclosed a connection to the Pelosi family.Loretta “Lori” Giorgi, a superior court judge in San Francisco, said in a hearing today that she worked with Christine Pelosi in the San Francisco city attorney’s office in the 1990s. Christine is one of Nancy Pelosi’s five adult children, the AP said. While there was no immediate effect on the trial, the disclosure could lead to either the defense or prosecution moving to have another judge take the case.Here’s more from the AP:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In court filings released earlier this week, officials said DePape broke into the home, carrying zip ties, tape and a rope in a backpack. He woke up Paul Pelosi and demanded to talk to “Nancy,” who was out of town. Two officers who raced to the home after Paul Pelosi’s 911 call witnessed DePape hit him in the head with the hammer.
      No one objected during Friday’s hearing to Giorgi’s ties to the Pelosi family but either side could in the future and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the case might be heard by another judge regardless. The public defender’s office did not immediately have a comment.
      “I do want to make a disclosure on the record that the daughter of Mr. Pelosi, Christine Pelosi, and I were in the city attorney’s office together in the 90s,” Giorgi told the court. “And I have disclosed to counsel the interactions that I had when she and I were together. I haven’t seen or heard or talked to Ms. Pelosi after she left the office. I do see her here today.”
      Giorgi worked in the city attorney’s office from 1985 to 2006, when she was appointed to the bench. She rose to the rank of deputy city attorney and was the office’s public integrity chief.
      Christine Pelosi attended Friday’s hearing but seemed to leave through a back door in order to avoid media waiting in the hallway. She entered the courtroom right before the proceeding started and sat in the front row away from reporters.National security adviser Jake Sullivan visited Kyiv on Friday to “underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine” while announcing a $400 mn infusion in new weapons, including tanks and drones, the White House announced.“National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, head of the office of the president Andriy Yermak, Minister of Defense Reznikov, and others in Kyiv today to underscore the United States’ steadfast support to Ukraine and its people as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity,” national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.“To that end, Mr Sullivan announced an additional $400m security assistance package, which includes refurbished T-72 tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and the refurbishment of 250 HAWK surface to air missiles for eventual transfer to Ukraine. He also affirmed the continued provision of economic and humanitarian assistance, as well as ongoing efforts with partners to hold Russia accountable for its aggression.” Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes took the witness stand today in his seditious conspiracy trial, telling jurors he is a patriotic American as he tries to counter allegations that his far-right extremist group planned an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power, the Associated Press reports.Rhodes began his testimony after prosecutors spent weeks laying out evidence they say proves Rhodes was behind a violent far right plot to keep Democrat Joe Biden out of the White House and Republican Donald Trump in in 2021.Rhodes’ decision to testify carries risks for him, opening the way for intense cross-examination from prosecutors, who will get a chance to question him after the trial resumes next week. Rhodes has yet to get into the details of January 6, when his followers pushed through a mob of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol in military-style stack formation.Rhodes, wearing a dark suit and tie, faced jurors as he described his military experience and decision to start the Oath Keepers in 2009. Rhodes, whose stint as an Army paratrooper was cut short by a training accident, said he considers himself a patriotic person.Rhodes portrayed the Oath Keepers as peaceful and disciplined despite a mountain of evidence showing him rallying his band of extremists to prepare for violence and discussing the prospect of a “bloody” civil war ahead of January 6. Asked whether he believed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, Rhodes falsely described Biden’s victory as “unconstitutional” and “invalid.”“You really can’t have a winner of an unconstitutional election,” Rhodes said.Rhodes’ trial is the biggest test so far for the Justice Department’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the attack on the Capitol, a violent assault that challenged the foundations of American democracy.Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, and his co-defendants are the first people arrested in the January 6 attack to stand trial on the charge of seditious conspiracy. The Civil War-era charge, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years behind bars upon conviction, is rarely brought and can be hard to prove.Five days – that’s all we’ve got. That’s not a version of a David Bowie song, that was the message from US vice president Kamala Harris last night at a historic event to get out the vote for Democrats in New York.“Everything is on the line,” Harris said, warning repeatedly that with five days to go until the midterm elections on Tuesday, the stakes are high but there’s still enough time to make a difference.Five was also an interesting number from the point of view of the women leading the event, held at Barnard College, the private woman’s liberal arts college in uptown Manhattan that’s also part of the Columbia University family.As Harris told the audience herself: “You’ve witnessed a lot of history on this stage this afternoon…a whole lot of firsts…yes, we may be the first, but we are committed to not being the last.”The five firsts were the vice president herself, the first woman in that role.Our Vice President.Black women lead. pic.twitter.com/NO2F9fv12y— Tish James (@TishJames) November 3, 2022
      She was headlining the event to get out the vote for New York state governor Kathy Hochul, the first woman in that role.Proud to be fighting alongside strong women like @KamalaHarris and @HillaryClinton.Let’s secure a stronger future for women and girls everywhere at the ballot box — vote by November 8! pic.twitter.com/JDWyddrb9r— Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul) November 3, 2022
      Other headliners were Hillary Clinton, the first woman to lead her party’s nomination for president, when she got close to winning the White House in 2016 but, catastrophically for Democrats, was beaten by Donald Trump.New York: Have you voted for @KathyHochul yet? https://t.co/tTgeqy51PU https://t.co/fql5hsJAKN— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 4, 2022
      And Letitia James, who’s the first woman in New York to be elected as attorney general, the first Black woman to be elected to statewide office in New York, and the first African American to serve as attorney general.If you need a great job done, then give it to a woman.I’ve done my job since you placed your trust in me, and so has @KathyHochul. We’re running for re-election to finish the work. Now it’s your turn. Go vote! pic.twitter.com/QXuWXpYxrq— Tish James (@TishJames) November 3, 2022
      Finally, the warm-up for the event was led by veteran New York congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in the US Congress.A week after the attack on her husband, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi has struck an optimistic note about the party’s chances of hanging on to the House in the upcoming midterms, Punchbowl News reports.“I believe that this race is very winnable. As I’ve said to you before, in the month of October, I was probably in 21 states, some of them more than once, twice, some of them three times. I’ve seen the enthusiasm, I’ve seen the determination, I’ve seen the courage of our candidates, the dedication of our grassroots,” Pelosi told supporters in a private event of which Punchbowl obtained a recording.“The Republicans have put in tons of money against our candidates and cut our lead in some cases, but they have not taken this. These are races, in many cases, too close to call, in margin of error. But in every case, winnable because of the grassroots. And so I think that what we are doing is not only to win an election, but to strengthen our democracy.”Democrats currently have a slim majority in Congress’s upper chamber, and would defy both historical trends and numerous polls if the manage to keep it. The party holding the White House tends to lose seats in their first midterm, while Republicans have the lead in enough race to regain a majority, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.Pelosi also spoke about her husband Paul Pelosi’s recovery from Friday’s attack by a hammer wielding assailant who said he was looking for the speaker.“It’s going to be a long haul, but he will be well, and it’s just so tragic how it happened. But nonetheless, we have to be optimistic. He’s surrounded by family. So that’s a wonderful thing,” she said.The swing district most prone to swinging in all of the United States is located on Virginia’s coast, where Democratic House representative Elaine Luria is fighting for another term in office.A former Navy commander who was part of the January 6 committee, Luria’s closing argument to voters is that she and other Democrats need to be re-elected if America’s democracy is to survive. Considering polls showing voters are this year most motivated by concerns over inflation, crime and abortion, it’s a risky strategy.The Associated Press joined Luria on the campaign trail, and had this to say:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Virginia Democrat, quoting the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, pointed toward the girl and said: “Our children are a window into the future that we will never see.” That future, Luria argued, will look much bleaker if her Republican challenger wins one of the most contested House races in the country.
      In her first two congressional races, Luria, a former Navy commander, would more likely have been seen in settings with a military backdrop or theme. But this time she is in Suffolk, a new part of her district and one that has a Black population of 40% whose votes could well determine if she gets a third term.
      “If Luria is going to have a chance at winning, she absolutely needs to win over Black voters,” said Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director at the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University. “Even in our polling, we see that Black voters are more likely to say they’re undecided than white voters, and that suggests that there’s some vulnerability there for Luria and a need to reach out.”Poll master Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report believes her re-election would be a sign that Tuesday may not be so bad of a night for Democrats:Here’s my rough thinking early on Election Night:- If #VA02 Luria (D) holds on, better night for Dems than expected- If #IN01 Mrvan (D) or #VA07 Spanberger (D) lose, Rs likely winning 20+ seats- If #NH02 Kuster (D) or #VA10 Wexton (D) lose, Rs likely winning 30+ seats https://t.co/XNIp07Sj0y— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 4, 2022
      A prime example of the tensions among Democrats over their message on the economy is the child tax credit.Expanded last year as part of Joe Biden’s marquee American Rescue Plan spending bill to help the economy recover from the pandemic, the program lowered child poverty by sending monthly payments to many families. It expired at the end of 2021 after Democrats failed to agree on extending it, and HuffPost reports that the party is basically avoiding the subject on the campaign trail.Here’s more from their report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When it comes to economic policy, Democrats have been more likely to talk about the original Social Security ― the beloved retirement benefit for seniors ― than the monthly benefit parents received last year through the expanded child tax credit.
      Democratic campaign ads have highlighted the party’s support for reducing costs for the middle class, and any mention of “middle class tax cuts” could semi-plausibly be a reference to the child tax credit, since the monthly payments the IRS sent out last year technically were, in fact, tax credits.
      But out of hundreds of campaign ads this cycle, few mention the child tax credit by name. According to a new analysis of campaign ads published Thursday by the Wesleyan Media Project, just 0.2% of federal campaign ads in the general election have mentioned the child tax credit.
      Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley hit his Democratic challenger, Mike Franken, for opposing the child tax credit because he favored repealing the 2017 Republican tax cuts, which expanded the credit before Democrats built on that expansion last year.
      Another ad, from a super PAC boosting Evan McMullin, the independent challenging incumbent Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), calls out Lee for having opposed the Democratic child tax credit last year.
      Neither of those got into any specifics about the child tax credit. From July through December, most parents in the U.S. received as much as $300 per child each month, a taste of the kind of child benefit that other developed countries have long provided. As a result of the payments, child poverty fell to nearly half its rate before the cash payments began.
      But reducing child poverty, apparently, does not make great campaign fodder. The payments were modestly popular, but much less so than empowering Medicare to negotiate cheaper prescription drugs ― another, more recent Democratic policy achievement that has been the centerpiece of plenty of campaign ads.The election isn’t even over, but something of a blame game has begun among Democrats over which tactics the party should have chosen in their quest to defy history and maintain their tiny majorities in Congress. In an interview with The Guardian’s Erum Salam, Bernie Sanders – an independent senator who caucuses with Democrats – weighs in on how the party could have better defended their record on the inflation-wracked economy:Bernie Sanders has criticized Democrats for not doing enough to motivate voters around the economic issues that have an impact on everyday life, as he warned next week’s midterm elections are the most “consequential” in modern American history.In an interview with the Guardian in Texas, the leftwing Vermont senator said: “Obviously, everybody should be turning out for what is the most consequential midterm election in the modern history of this country. Democracy is on the ballot. Women’s right to control their own bodies is on the ballot. Climate change is on the ballot, so everybody should come out.”But Sanders said he worried “very much that Democrats have not done a good enough job of reaching out to young people and working-class people and motivating them to come out and vote in this election”.‘They haven’t tried’: Bernie Sanders on Democrats’ economic messagingRead moreTom Barrack, a onetime private equity executive and fundraiser for former US president Donald Trump, was found not guilty by a jury on Friday of unlawfully acting as an agent of the United Arab Emirates, dealing a setback to the US Justice Department, Reuters writes. Barrack was also acquitted of obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI agents in 2019 about his interactions with Emirati officials and their representatives.The verdict followed a six-week trial in federal court in Brooklyn. Barrack, who was prosecuted by the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn, had faced a total of nine criminal counts.More when we get it. More

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      The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itself | Jonathan Freedland

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      The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itselfJonathan FreedlandMost candidates from the GOP in these midterm elections refuse democracy’s most basic tenet: accepting the voters’ verdict As in all the best horror movies, at first glance everything looks normal. It’s a classic scene of the American autumn: campaign rallies outside community centres, battle buses emblazoned with candidates’ smiling faces, kids wearing badges and holding up signs, while TV screens fill with debates, punditry and an endless loop of focus-grouped ads. Even the predicted outcome of Tuesday’s US midterm elections fits a template as familiar as falling leaves. Most experts agree that the Democrats will take a hit, losing control of at least one or perhaps both chambers of Congress, because they are the incumbent party – and incumbent parties almost always suffer in midterm – and because times are unusually tough. Inflation, interest rates, petrol prices, fear of crime: they’re all up. Couple that with a president set to turn 80 this month whose approval ratings have often plumbed the depths, and all the elements are in place for the Democrats to take a midterm beating, losing ground even in states they once counted as solidly their own.But look closer and you see something else. Because next week’s results will decide more than just whether the red team or the blue team takes control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, on which hangs Joe Biden’s ability to get things done. Next week’s elections will also help determine whether, and for how much longer, the US will remain a genuine democracy.It sounds hyperbolic and that, too, is an American tradition. Candidates always tell the crowds, “This is the most important election of my lifetime” and plenty will have heard Biden’s warning, delivered on Wednesday, that democracy itself is on the ballot in that same spirit. They will have assumed that when the president said, “In our bones, we know democracy is at risk” it was so much campaign talk. But Biden was scarcely exaggerating.More than 370 Republican candidates for some of America’s highest offices have joined Donald Trump in his big lie of election denial, either casting doubt on or wholly rejecting the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential result. That means a majority of Republicans running for those key positions refuse democracy’s most basic act: accepting the verdict of the voters.It’s comforting to pretend they’re doing it solely to soothe Trump’s ego, to avoid angering him by conceding that the ex-president lost to Biden fair and square. Keeping Trump sweet is a necessary tactic in a Republican party where he remains the dominant figure, reportedly set to launch another presidential bid later this month, whose endorsement or disapproval is enough to make or break a career. But Republicans’ election denialism is not confined to the past; it applies to the future, too. Several of the party’s candidates have refused to say that they will accept the outcome of Tuesday’s vote should they lose. “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” is how Kari Lake, would-be governor of Arizona, puts it. Some might spin that as mere election eve bullishness, but without losers’ consent democracy cannot function.More sinister still, several of these democracy deniers are running for the very state-level posts that will oversee and certify future elections, including the presidential contest of 2024. And they are brazen in their admission that they will abuse the powers of those offices to boost their side and shut out their opponents. “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor,” is the promise of one Tim Michels, who seeks to lead that state – and it was not a promise that he would be popular. It’s worth recalling that it was in Wisconsin two years ago that a group of Republican office holders moved to ignore the democratic choice of that state’s voters, who had backed Biden, and instead declare Wisconsin for Trump in the electoral college. If they were to try that trick again in 2024, they might have an ally in the governor’s mansion.If all of this seems too abstract, consider the Republicans’ new attitude to political violence. Once it would have been a matter of bland consensus that no political objective should ever be secured by brute force. But only a handful of Republicans could bring themselves to hold even that fundamental position following the storming of Capitol Hill and the attempted insurrection of 6 January 2021. The rest refused to vote for the impeachment of Trump for his role in fomenting that violence and, if they condemned the rioters themselves, it was usually in terms qualified and mealy-mouthed.We’ve seen it again in the last week, after the vicious assault in his home of the 82-year-old husband of House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Paul Pelosi had his skull fractured with a hammer, the alleged assailant a man whose head had been filled with far-right shibboleths including the supposedly stolen election of 2020. And yet the likes of Lake saw the attack as a laughing matter, while other Republicans (and their ally Elon Musk) concocted or spread conspiracy theories that cast doubt on the attack. This in an era when recorded threats against members of Congress rose tenfold in the five years after Trump was elected in 2016.The Republican party’s shift away from democratic norms is no longer confined to one man, even if he embodies it and accelerates it. It is embedded in the ethos of the party now. Reversing that trend is a daunting prospect because of another shift, one that has been apparent for a while but which is taking especially vivid form in these midterm elections. It is the polarisation of information, so that Americans now exist in two distinct spheres of knowledge, each one barely touching the other.I witnessed it for myself this week, as I covered an especially intense senate race in Georgia. News came that, in a previous age, would have been devastating for a candidate. A second woman stepped forward to say, on camera, that the staunchly anti-abortion Republican Herschel Walker had pressured her to have an abortion and had paid for it. Yet when I put that news to Republicans gathering at a Walker rally in Madison, not one of them was fazed by it. They just assumed it was the false concoction of the “mainstream media”.This poses its own danger for democracy. Because there can be no collective decision-making – which is what democracy amounts to – without a collective, agreed-upon basis of facts. If we can’t first agree that the house is on fire, we can’t begin to talk about putting out the flames.Whatever the outcome on Tuesday and in the long days of counting that may follow, this is a moment of peril for the United States. The world’s most powerful democracy is losing the reflexes and habits that make democracy possible. And, as in all the most terrifying horror movies, the threat is coming from inside the house.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. Listen to his Politics Weekly America podcast here
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More

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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate race

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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate raceTV host who launched Republican’s career on her daytime talkshow had previously said election was up to Pennsylvanians Oprah Winfrey sprang a November surprise for Democrats in the midterm elections as the US TV host endorsed their candidate John Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate race, snubbing his Republican rival Mehmet Oz whom she originally made famous on her daytime talkshow.Until now, Winfrey had said she would leave the election to Pennsylvanians, but on Thursday evening she changed that position in an online discussion on voting in next Tuesday’s election.‘A lens of empathy’: disability advocates on John Fetterman and leadershipRead more“I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania … but I will tell you all this, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said, before going on to urge listeners to vote for Democrats running for governor and Senate in various states.The Pennsylvania seat has for months been seen as the most likely pickup opportunity for Democrats in the evenly divided Senate.Polls show a close race between Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, and Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon who is endorsed by former president Donald Trump.In a sign of how high the stakes are, Trump will return to Pennsylvania on Saturday to campaign for Oz, while Joe Biden and the former two-term Democratic president Barack Obama will campaign for Fetterman that same day.Oz left Oprah’s show after five years and 55 episodes to start his own daytime TV program, The Dr Oz Show, which ran for 13 seasons before he moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to run for the Senate.The Senate seat is being vacated by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey.Fetterman’s race is among those that have grown tighter in recent weeks as polls showed rising support for Oz, who has made much of the fact that Fetterman had a stroke this spring during the campaign and spent much of the summer convalescing.Fetterman has been declared fit for work by his medical experts but has needed some adjustments to accommodate auditory processing.At a recent debate, in order to accommodate Fetterman’s condition, which he said was improving daily, two 70-inch monitors were placed above the heads of the moderators, which showed the transcribed text of their questions, and the text of Oz’s responses.The candidates fiercely clashed over abortion rights, with Fetterman strongly pro-choice.His endorsement by Winfrey – an icon to many Americans, particularly women and African Americans – is seen as a useful boost to Democrats’ chances in that race.Fetterman celebrated with the kind of witty burn on social media he has become well-known for, especially over the summer when he was physically absent from the campaign trail but repeatedly taunted Oz’s New Jersey connections.#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/mla50A5HWa— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) November 4, 2022
      TopicsOprah WinfreyPennsylvaniaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The fight for blue collar voters in Ohio: Politics Weekly America midterms special

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      In the second episode of our special series, Jonathan Freedland travels to Youngstown, Ohio, to see who voters are more excited by in the state’s crucial Senate race – the Trump-backed Republican, JD Vance, or the Democrat Tim Ryan, who analysts say is running one of the best campaigns in the country.
      He heads to Cleveland to talk to a union leader about who workers want to win, and then to a Vance event with other prominent Republicans.

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: CSPAN, CBS, Fox News Subscribe to the Guardian’s new pop culture podcast, which launches on Thursday 3 November Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Abortion might help Democrats in the midterms in two major ways | Laurel Elder, Steve Greene and Mary-Kate Lizotte

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      Abortion might help Democrats in the midterms in two major waysLaurel Elder, Steve Greene and Mary-Kate LizotteIf young pro-choice voters turn out in higher numbers than forecast models are expecting, it could provide a bounce to Democrats in key races Political science-based forecasting models offer a clear prediction for the 2022 midterm elections – the results will be very bad for Democrats. Based solely on the fundamentals like the state of the economy, the type of election (ie midterm) and having an unpopular Democrat in the White House, a model by political scientists Charles Tien and Michael Lewis-Beck, generated months before 8 November, predicts a 44-seat loss for Democrats in the House and a five-seat loss for Democrats in the Senate.The forecasting models produced by FiveThirtyEight are not quite as grim about the prospects for Democrats, predicting that the party will most likely lose majority control of the House of Representatives, but have a small (and shrinking) edge in holding on to their minuscule advantage in the Senate. Unlike the political science models, FiveThirtyEight’s predictions also incorporate polling data and therefore pick up on the ground-level reality that Republicans have put forth weak candidates in key races.Abortion is a bread-and-butter economic issue. We need to treat it that way | Rebecca SolnitRead moreBut there is a plausible case to be made that even models incorporating polling data are underestimating Democratic strength in the 2022 midterms. The issue of abortion may help Democrats in two important ways that are not being picked up in either of the models discussed above.Predicting the outcome of elections is considerably more difficult than other types of polling (eg issue polling), as it requires making assumptions about who is actually going to turn out to vote. Among these well-founded assumptions is that young people have the lowest turnout of all age groups – especially so in midterm elections. Thus current likely voter models assume that young people will once again underperform as voters in 2022.For those who have interacted with young women recently – the anger about the Dobbs decision is undeniable. Outrage at the idea that “old white men” are making decisions about their bodies has made abortion a priority for young women. A recent poll of Gen Z Americans in swing states supports this, providing empirical evidence that young people are energized to vote and continue to rank abortion as their top issue, even while the issue has slipped in importance for older Americans. Young people’s passion on issues has failed to translate into actual action in the voting booth in the past; however, if young pro-choice women actually do turn out in higher numbers than forecasting models are expecting, this could provide a multi-point bounce to Democratic candidates in key House and Senate races.Additionally in our research we found there are a lot of cross-pressured Republicans on the question of abortion legality. While there are a small number of Democrats who hold positions on abortion in tension with their party – eg less than 10% approve the overturning of Roe v Wade – the percentage of Republicans uncomfortable with their party’s policies on abortion reaches anywhere from 30-50%. When abortion policy was more or less settled law, it was easy for cross-pressured Republicans to ignore the conflict between their party’s position and their own, but now that Republicans are enacting highly restrictive laws and outright abortion bans, such contradictions will be harder to ignore. How will cross-pressured Republicans respond?The Kansas referendum over the summer suggests that the threat of abortion bans has the power to mobilize low-propensity voters and entice cross-pressured Republicans to abandon their party’s position. Voting for a Democratic candidate, however, is not as likely as voting in disagreement with one’s party on a referendum, especially in today’s polarized climate. The more likely possibility is that at least some cross-pressured Republicans may simply opt out of the electoral process.Losing the House and especially the Senate would be a major political blow for the Democrats with important and lasting policy consequences, but should that happen, the impact of the Dobbs decision will likely have staved off much larger losses. And should the Democrats defy historical odds and hold on to the House, or, more likely, the Senate, they will almost surely have the Dobbs decision to thank and its ability to mobilize young voters and to demobilize cross-pressured Republicans.
      Laurel Elder is a professor of political science at Hartwick College
      Steven Greene is a professor of political science at North Carolina State University
      Mary-Kate Lizotte is a professor of political science at Augusta University
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionAbortionRoe v WadeUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More

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      Unregulated, unrestrained: era of the online political ad comes to midterms

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      Unregulated, unrestrained: era of the online political ad comes to midterms Parties once focused on TV but now a billion-dollar effort embraces the highly targeted and almost rule-free digital worldThe advert is in grainy black and white, with an edgy horror movie soundtrack. As gunfights erupt in the streets, the narrator announces in a gravelly bass voice that John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania, “has a love affair with criminals”.Fetterman has voted “over and over to release the state’s most violent criminals, including murderers”, the narrator says. If elected, he would “keep the drugs flowing, the killers killing, and the children dying”.Republicans and Democrats are spending billions on ads – with very different messagesRead moreThe advert was laser-targeted on a demographic which was seminal in securing Joe Biden’s victory in 2020: women over 25 in the suburbs of Philadelphia. That same group could now hold the fate of the Senate in its hands.Should Philadelphia’s female suburban voters come out for Fetterman on 8 November, they could push him over the winning line in his battle with the Republican nominee, Mehmet Oz. That in turn could help the Democratic party retain control of the upper chamber, and by doing so keep Biden’s agenda alive.The stakes could not be higher. Yet the Philadelphia women who were bombarded with the “Fetterman loves criminals” ad 6m times over just 10 days through YouTube and Google were told next to nothing about who was behind it.“Paid for by Citizens for Sanity” is all that the advert reveals in small type at the end of the 30-second video. It took the sleuthing of the non-profit group Open Secrets to expose the producers as former members of Donald Trump’s inner circle, including the far-right senior White House adviser Stephen Miller.From the other side of the political spectrum comes another grainy black-and-white attack ad, titled Herschel Walker Can’t Be Our Senator. The ad is also targeted exclusively at women, but this time in Georgia, where another nail-bitingly close Senate race is reaching its climax.“Herschel Walker,” the ad begins, referring to the former NFL star now running as a Republican for a Georgia Senate seat. “Decades of violence against women. Guns. Razor blades. Choking. Stalking.”The female voters who were besieged by the ad some 60,000 times over four days were only told that it was created by a group named “Georgia Honor”. Open Secrets records that the group is a Super Pac that supports the incumbent Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, and has so far spent $34m in assailing Walker.Two grainy black-and-white videos out of a vast mountain of political advertising which is on track this year to smash midterm spending records. It may even exceed the amount poured into the 2020 presidential cycle.The total investment in 2022 is projected by the non-partisan ad tracking firm AdImpact to be $9.7bn, pushing America close to a stunning new norm: the $10bn election.Of that, AdImpact estimates that 30% of the political advertising spend, about $2.9bn, is going into digital advertising or to ads placed through connected TV (CTV) – smart TVs that support video content streaming through apps such as Roku or Apple TV.Such vast sums suggest that the age of the online political ad is firmly upon us. It has been propelled by the “cord-cutting” generation which has dispensed with conventional television in favour of streaming and on-demand formats.Take Priorities USA, the largest Democratic Super Pac. It has decided to place its entire $30m spend in 2022 in the digital basket – the first time it has entirely dropped broadcast TV advertising.“Online is where more people are spending their time, especially Black and Latino voters who are critical to the coalition that we are trying to build,” Aneesa McMillan, Priorities’ deputy executive director, told the Guardian. Some 45% of the Super Pac’s spending this cycle has gone on reaching African American and Latino voters, using platform data on social media and YouTube, as well as keywords associated with demographic groups, to target the message.McMillan said that the shift online was informed by research. The group found that 75% of the TV ads they injected into House races in 2020 went to homes outside the congressional district to be consumed by people who could not even vote in the relevant elections.The conclusion was clear: “Digital is much more efficient,” she said.The rise of online political advertising began tentatively with Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008 and has grown exponentially every cycle since. Despite its billion-dollar size, the world of online political ads remains almost entirely unregulated.Outside groups, which have beamed millions of attack ads on to voters’ smart TVs and tablets this year, can do so without having to meet federal rules on disclosing who they are or whose money they are spending.“We live in an increasingly online society, and political campaigns are moving online, but federal transparency rules have never been updated to take that into account,” said Daniel Weiner, head of the elections and government program at the non-partisan Brennan Center.Adav Noti, legal director of the non-profit Campaign Legal Center, spent 10 years as a lawyer at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) which is responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws. He expressed dismay at the agency’s inability to keep up with a dramatically changing media landscape.“We are more than a decade into an era of campaigns increasingly being conducted through digital, and the only government agency charged with regulating that activity has done nothing about it. Literally not a single piece of regulation.”Noti said that one of the effects of the FEC failing to engage with the explosion in online political advertising has been that social media giants and other big digital platforms have been left to their own devices. “Facebook, Google, TikTok and the rest have become the de facto regulators, and they set their own rules.”The big players have gone in different directions. Facebook and Google have both set up public databases listing their political ads, introducing a modicum of transparency.Other platforms such as TikTok have prohibited political advertising, though candidates are increasingly using the sites directly as megaphones.Attempts by Congress to legislate for more accountability have all succumbed on the rock of Republican intransigence in the US Senate. The Honest Ads Act, a bipartisan bill backed by the Brennan Center that would make digital ads subject to the same disclosure rules as broadcast TV and radio, was included in the Freedom to Vote Act that failed to overcome a Republican filibuster in January.In the absence of central regulation, outside groups can distribute extreme or false messages with impunity. Citizens for Sanity, the Super Pac created by former Trump advisers, blasted out an advert last month attacking Biden’s immigration policy.It was viewed 600,000 times over nine days by voters in the border state of Arizona.“Who is Joe Biden letting in?” its female narrator asks. “Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have erased our southern border and released a record number of illegal immigrants into the United States, all at your expense.”The ad goes on to warn about a “giant flood of illegal immigration” that was “threatening your family”. It accuses Biden of allowing drug dealers, sex traffickers and violent predators into the country, one of whom raped a little girl.“She was three years old,” the narrator says.The Poynter Institute’s factchecking unit, Politifact, reviewed the ad. It found that the immigrant who allegedly sexually assaulted a three-year old girl had been in the US since at least 2011; he has been behind bars since February 2020 – almost a year before Biden entered the White House.Politifact rated the advert “False”.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsSocial mediaAdvertisingDigital mediaRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Bernie Sanders hits the campaign trail with days left before the US midterms

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      Bernie Sanders hits the campaign trail with days left before the US midterms The Vermont senator is holding nine rallies across five battleground states, hoping to deliver a closing argument to young and working-class voters
      ‘They haven’t tried’: Bernie Sanders criticizes Democrats’ economic messagingSan Marcos’s Sewell Park on Texas State University’s campus, was packed with people on Saturday. Harry Styles’s As It Was’ and Dua Lipa’s Levitating provided the soundtrack to a mostly young crowd, who gathered around the stage and eagerly awaited its headliner: Senator Bernie Sanders.With just days left before polls close and Republicans’ midterm fortunes seemingly on the rise, Sanders is hitting the campaign trail, holding nine rallies across five battleground states in the week and a half leading up to election day.No one knows his name – but he could win a tight race because of abortionRead moreSanders and his progressive allies hope to deliver a closing argument to young and working-class voters that Democrats are the better stewards of the US economy, in the hopes of avoiding a Republican landslide on 8 November.Sanders’ rallies come as Democratic candidates appear to be on the defensive in key races that could determine control of the House and the Senate. Republicans have regained their lead on the generic congressional ballot, according to FiveThirtyEight, and voters’ mounting concerns over the state of the economy appear to be hurting Democrats’ prospects in the crucial final stretch of campaigning.In an interview with the Guardian, Sanders warned that Democrats have not done enough to mobilize many of the voters who were so instrumental in the party’s victories in 2020.“Obviously everybody should be turning out for what is the most consequential midterm election in the modern history of this country,” Sanders said before his rally in Austin, Texas. “But in the real world, I worry very much that Democrats have not done a good enough job of reaching out to young people and working-class people and motivating them to come out and vote in this election.”Texas State University student and first-time voter Gabrielle Diedrick, 18, can easily be spotted in the crowd in San Marcos by her black 10-gallon hat, cowboy boots and blue Bernie T-shirt. For Diedrick, raising the minimum wage is her top priority as a constituent and Sanders’ position resonates with her.Diedrick said: “It’s hard to pay off tuition here at San Marcos. Every job here is like $10 an hour and tuition is about $10,000 every like five months or semester.”Sanders has repeatedly hammered his economy-based message in the closing days of the 2022 election season, expressing concern that Democrats have focused too heavily on abortion rights in their campaign messaging. In a Guardian op-ed written earlier this month, Sanders urged progressive candidates to outline a pro-worker vision for the country, saying it would be “political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy and allow Republican lies and distortions to go unanswered”.More Democrats have acknowledged the wisdom of Sanders’ argument in recent weeks, as surveys show a large share of the electorate identifies the economy as their top priority. An ABC News/Ipsos poll taken last week found that 49% of Americans named the economy or inflation as the most important issue determining their vote for Congress, while just 14% said the same of abortion.That trend could sink many Democratic congressional candidates, as voters consistently say Republicans are better equipped to manage the US economy. Sanders considers that widely held belief to be a misapprehension, insisting Republicans are not prepared to address the near record-high inflation currently affecting millions of American families, and he said Democrats must press their opponents on economic policy.“We should take the fight to the Republicans,” Sanders told the Guardian. “What are they doing about inflation? What are their ideas? Their ideas, among other things, is to give massive tax breaks for the rich and then cut social security, Medicare and Medicaid.”In an attempt to turn the inflation conversation on its head, Sanders has framed the problem as a result of corporate greed, and there is some evidence to support his theory. One analysis released in April by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning thinktank, concluded that about 54% of inflation could be attributed to increased corporate profits.“People are hurting. You got 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck. And for many workers, they are falling further behind as a result of inflation,” Sanders said. “Corporate profits are at an all-time high. The rich are getting much richer, and Democrats have got to make that message.”Joe Biden appears to have taken the hint, lambasting corporate greed in the closing days of the campaign season. On Monday, the president delivered remarks criticizing oil companies for posting record profits as gas prices have climbed. “It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering, meet their responsibilities to this country, and give the American people a break and still do very well,” Biden said in a speech at the White House.Sanders credited Biden with directly addressing the concerns of working Americans, but he lamented that Democratic leaders have not done enough to change voters’ minds about the party’s economic agenda, as they have instead focused more of their attention on abortion rights.“We have not had the same unity and the same energy around the economic crisis facing working families and what Republicans would do,” Sanders said. “It’s not a question of what the president alone is doing. It’s a question of what the party is doing, where it’s putting its money, its resources, its energy.”Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution, echoed Sanders’ concerns that Democrats have fallen short when it comes to presenting a unified vision around improving Americans’ standard of living. But he acknowledged the inherent challenges of that task, when many of Democrats’ proposals aimed at helping families struggling under the weight of rising prices failed to pass Congress.Democrats had originally hoped to establish a federal paid family leave program and extend monthly child tax credit payments through their Build Back Better Act, which stalled in the Senate late last year. Democrats instead passed the Inflation Reduction Act this summer, but many of progressives’ economic proposals were stripped out of that bill to ensure the support of centrists like Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.“I agree Democrats have not delivered enough,” Geevarghese said. “I don’t want to belittle [Biden’s] accomplishments, but what he has delivered is much less than what was originally promised, so that’s the fundamental problem.”That being said, Geevarghese suggested Biden and fellow Democrats could use the hurdles they have encountered to their advantage. After all, if more progressives are elected to Congress, Democrats could revive portions of Build Back Better that were left on the cutting room floor.“Biden should level with the American people,” Geevarghese said. “He tried to pass transformative legislation that would improve the standard of living of working-class voters, and he was stymied by people in his own party like [Sinema and Manchin], and you know what? That’s why he needs Democrats who will vote with the Democratic caucus.”Sanders could serve as a pivotal messenger on that front in the final days of the campaign. In his two presidential runs, Sanders demonstrated how a platform of economic populism could invigorate young and working-class voters.“We know that he is the most popular youth vote candidate. He’s one of our oldest, but he’s one of the most popular hands down,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of the youth voting group NextGen America, which is co-hosting Sanders’ rallies. “No one can mobilize young people and working-class people like Bernie Sanders can.”When Sanders traveled to the border town of McAllen to rally for congressional candidate Michelle Vallejo’s campaign, Vallejo described “a packed house”.Vallejo told the Guardian: “To have Senator Bernie Sanders come join us was really exciting. It meant a lot to me. And it meant a lot to the people of [district] 15, because we want to be heard, and we want to be seen for who we are and be respected for the solutions, opportunities and resources that we know that we need in order to live the best quality life possible.”Although House Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), has chosen not to invest heavily in Vallejo’s race in the face of a potential Republican wave election, she expressed optimism about her chances on 8 November.“While we did not see any large TV buys on our behalf of the DCCC, we are focusing on connecting with our voters and running this campaign the way that we’ve run it since day one: which is just centered on our community members and on the efforts that really are rooted from our home and on the ground,” Vallejo said.Early voting data has raised alarm among some Democrats that younger Americans will not cast ballots at the record-breaking levels seen in 2020, which could prove disastrous for the party’s hopes of maintaining control of Congress. But Ramirez expressed confidence that young voters will once again turn out in large numbers because they understand exactly what is at stake on November 8.“What we’re going to be telling young people is that, in 2020, we beat back fascism. We beat it back for an election cycle. We didn’t kill it or destroy it,” Ramirez said. “We have to beat it out of the political body for our democracy to be truly healthy, and we’re not there yet at all.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Bernie SandersDemocratsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Why the US midterms matter – from abortion rights to democracy

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      ExplainerWhy the US midterms matter – from abortion rights to democracyGuardian writers lay down what’s on the line and what a Republican victory could mean for the future of the country America is hurtling towards the first nationwide test of its democracy since Donald Trump left the White House and his supporters mounted a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol. The midterm elections on Tuesday will decide control of Congress as well as 36 state governorships – but will also be a referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency, and fire the starting gun for the race to the White House in 2024.Here’s why the midterms matter for some of the biggest issues facing the US – and the world:The 2024 presidential electionA frenzy of speculation over the 2024 presidential race is likely to begin even before the last vote is cast in 2022. Midterm elections are typically seen as a referendum on the incumbent president. If Democrats suffer heavy losses in the House of Representatives, Senate and state governors’ mansions, the buck stops with Biden.There may be calls, especially from the left, for him to announce that he is not running again. He turns 80 on 20 November and is already the oldest president in American history. His potential successor would need time to build a political brand and establish a fundraising apparatus. But there is no obvious heir apparent and Biden can point to history: both Bill Clinton and Obama suffered midterm rebukes in 1994 and 2010 only to bounce back and win reelection.On the Republican side, Trump faces a test of his own electoral viability. A pattern of defeats for candidates he endorsed in states such as Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio might prompt more pragmatic Republicans to question whether the 76-year-old former president represents the party’s best shot at the White House. But victories for candidates who support Trump’s big lie about a stolen election would also raise fears about democracy itself in 2024. David SmithUkraineRussia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked Americans. Eight months later, most Americans continue to support efforts to aid Ukraine though polling suggests that the war – and foreign policy more broadly – isn’t one of the major issues driving their vote this cycle.Nevertheless, the midterms could have dramatic consequences for Ukraine. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who hopes to become the House Speaker if his party wins control of the chamber in November, has said Congress would no longer “write a blank check to Ukraine”. Those comments drew strong rebukes from Democrats and divided Republicans.Biden has also repeatedly spoken about the war in the context of rising fuel prices, a top concern among voters that Republicans have used to attack Democrats’ economic policies. In response, Biden has sought to blame Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying high gas prices are the cost of imposing crippling sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine. The US president has also argued that standing with Ukraine is critical to defending democratic values, which are under attack around the world. On the campaign trail, a growing number of Republicans have criticized Biden for sending aid to Ukraine while Americans are suffering from high inflation at home, a sign of a wider fissure in the party over the war. In some instances, far-right acolytes of Donald Trump, like Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have even echoed Moscow talking points. Such views are only a minority in the party, but if Republicans win the House, members like Greene will surely see their political clout rise. Lauren GambinoDemocracySeveral Republican candidates who have doubted the 2020 election are on the cusp of winning gubernatorial, attorneys general, and secretary of state contests in Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, and other key battleground states. Those offices all play a role in ensuring that votes are lawfully cast and counted. If these candidates win, they would oversee the 2024 presidential election in their states. There is already deep concern they would use their positions to sow confusion to try to overturn the result of the 2024 vote, refusing to seat any candidate who defeats Trump.Jim Marchant, a Republican running for Nevada’s top election official, has said explicitly this is his goal: “When I’m secretary of state of Nevada, we are going to fix it, and when my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected we’re going to fix the whole country, and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024,” he said at a rally last month.Meanwhile, if Republicans take control of the US House, as they are expected to, election denialism will be prominent among its members there too: 124 candidates who either denied or doubted the election are heavily favored to win their contests, according to FiveThirtyEight. Republicans could use their new majority to launch investigations, hold hearings, and spread misinformation about elections. A Republican victory in either House of Congress would quickly end whatever slim chance remained of Democrats passing any kind of federal voting rights legislation. That stalemate would essentially preserve the status quo for at least another two years. Even though they have controlled both chambers of Congress since 2020, Democrats have been unable to pass any kind of voting rights legislation because of the filibuster, a procedural rule in the US senate that requires 60 votes to advance legislation. Sam LevineJudgesTrump appointed more than 200 judges to the federal judicial system during his single four-year term – arguably his most profound legacy. The judges’ decisions touch millions of lives. This was never better illustrated than in June when the supreme court – with three out of nine justices appointed by Trump – overturned the constitutional right to abortion.Biden has been fighting back. As of 8 August, he had appointed 75 judges to the federal bench, far more than Trump or Barack Obama at the same stages of their presidencies. These included a record number of women and people of color, most notably Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman to serve as a supreme court justice.All this has been made possible by a Senate under Democratic control. Should Republicans win the chamber, they will have the power to block Biden’s future nominations, likely forcing him to choose “moderate” candidates in the hope of picking up Republican votes. Few Democrats have forgotten how Senate Republicans froze a supreme court vacancy in the last year of Obama’s presidency and denied Merrick Garland a hearing. David SmithInvestigations and committeesThe Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers are bracing for a legislative blockade and an onslaught of investigations. If Republicans take the House majority, one of the first orders of business will likely be terminating the work of the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. Members of the committee have anticipated this possibility as well, and they are racing to release a full report of their findings before the end of the year. Rodney Davis, the Republican ranking member of the House administration committee, has even indicated plans to investigate the work of the select committee, which has consistently attracted the ire of Donald Trump since its creation last year.Such an investigation would just be one of many investigations launched by House Republicans if they take control of the lower chamber. Republican leaders have suggested they are looking to investigate the overseas business dealings of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, among other topics.House Republicans’ agenda may even include the impeachment of a sitting cabinet member. Multiple members of the Republican caucus have called for the removal of Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s homeland security secretary, over the White House’s handling of the US-Mexican border. “We will give Secretary Mayorkas a reserved parking spot, he will be testifying so much about this,” House minority whip Steve Scalise said in September.Joan E GreveAbortionThe supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade in June catapulted the issue of abortion to the front and center of several key midterm contests. The outcomes of governor’s races in particular could have direct consequences on the future of abortion access, which will now be decided by the states.Democrats have made abortion a core part of their campaign message amid signs that fury over the ruling – and over Republican-led efforts to ban abortion in the states – was fueling a political backlash. In several states, the number of women registering to vote surged and in conservative Kansas, voters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to undermine abortion protections.Abortion protections are on the ballot in four states, while competitive contests for state legislature and the governor’s mansion could be critical to determining access in the state. At the federal level, Biden has vowed that his first legislative act of the new Congress would be to codify abortion rights, if Americans deliver Democrats even bigger majorities this November. By contrast, some Republicans have said they would push for a national ban on abortion if their party retakes control of Congress in November. Lauren GambinoTopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansexplainersReuse this content More