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      Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez wins key House seat in Washington state

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      Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez wins key House seat in Washington stateGluesenkamp Perez’s win over Trump-backed far-right candidate Joe Kent helps buoy party hopes of keeping a majority in the House

      US midterm election results – live
      Democrats have won a second key House race in Washington state – an open seat in a conservative region that long evaded the party.Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto-shop owner who describes herself as an independent-minded Democrat, pulled off a victory against Joe Kent, a far-right “America First” ex-Green Beret who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, in south-west Washington’s third congressional district on Saturday.Combined with Rep Kim Schrier’s reelection to what Democrats feared was a vulnerable seat, Gluesenkamp Perez’s victory helped buoy party hopes of keeping a majority in the House.Democrats retain control of Senate after crucial victory in NevadaRead more“I am humbled and honored by the vote of confidence the people of South-west Washington have put in me and my campaign,“ Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement.The third district, which narrowly voted for Trump in 2020, had been represented for more than a decade by Republican Rep Jaime Herrera Beutler. But she failed to make it through the state’s top-two primary after angering conservatives with her vote to impeach Trump after the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.Schrier survived a challenge from Republican Matt Larkin to win a third term in the eighth district, which stretches from Seattle’s wealthy eastern ex-urbs across the Cascade Mountains to the orchard country of central Washington. Schrier, a pediatrician, in 2018 became the first Democrat to win the seat since its creation in the early 1980s.“I don’t know which party will control Congress, but it’s races like mine – the ones that are sitting on a razor’s edge – that flip one way or another,” Schrier told the Associated Press. “If more of them flip in this direction, that may mean we have the majority and set the agenda.”By flipping the third district, which Democrats had not held since former rep Brian Baird retired in 2010, the party will now have eight of Washington’s 10 congressional seats. Herrera Beutler won 22% of the vote in the primary, and how her voters split between Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent may have been the deciding factor in the race.Gluesenkamp Perez, who co-owns an auto shop with her husband just across the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon, said that as a small business owner who lives in a rural part of the district, she was more in line with voters than Kent, who repeatedly had to explain his connections to rightwing extremists.Survivor winner Nick Wilson secures seat in Kentucky legislatureRead moreGluesenkamp Perez supports abortion access and policies to counter climate change, but also described herself as a gun owner who opposes an assault rifle ban, though she does support raising the age of purchase for such guns to 21. She wouldn’t be a “typical Democrat” in Congress, she said.Kent, a former Green Beret who is a regular on conservative cable and podcasts, has called for the impeachment of president Joe Biden and an investigation into the 2020 election. He’s also railed against Covid-19 shutdowns and vaccine mandates and has called to defund the FBI after the search on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents.In the eighth district, Schrier stressed results she has achieved, including helping to secure money for road projects, rural broadband access and police body cameras. She also emphasized that as the only female doctor in Congress who supports abortion rights, she’s a bulwark against any Republican efforts to restrict abortion nationally after the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade. She called Larkin’s opposition to abortion rights disqualifying.Larkin is a lawyer and former Washington attorney general candidate who works for his family’s company, which makes parts for water pipes. Unlike more extreme Republican candidates, Larkin says Biden was legitimately elected, though he also notes that many people disagree and are frustrated about it. TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Washington stateHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Lombardo, Trump-backed Republican sheriff, wins Nevada governor race

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      Joe Lombardo, Trump-backed Republican sheriff, wins Nevada governor race Lombardo, a career police officer, defeats Democrat Steve Sisolak to regain governorship for GOP Republican Joe Lombardo, a career police officer and sheriff in Las Vegas who was endorsed by Donald Trump, has been elected governor in Nevada.Lombardo defeated Steve Sisolak, regaining the governorship for the GOP and making Sisolak a one-term Democrat amid two decades of Republicans.“It appears we will fall a percentage point or so short of winning,” Sisolak said in a statement conceding the race to Lombardo shortly after a batch of vote results was reported in Clark county. “That is why I reached out to the sheriff to wish him success.”All eyes on Nevada and Arizona as Senate control hangs in balanceRead moreThe count of ballots in Nevada took several days partly due to a provision of a broad mail voting law passed by the state legislature in 2020. It requires counties to accept ballots postmarked by election day if they arrive up to four days later.Lombardo, 60, started as a police officer in Las Vegas in 1988 and served two terms as Clark county sheriff, the nonpartisan elected head of the Las Vegas metropolitan police department, the largest police agency in the state.He weathered campaign attacks on rising crime by acknowledging the increase during the last two years and blaming funding limits and mandates from a Democratic-controlled legislature.Lombardo sometimes distanced himself from Trump during the campaign, and never offered an endorsement of unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was marred by fraud. Lombardo said during his only campaign debate with Sisolak that any irregularities were not enough to change the outcome of the election.Lombardo, who emerged for the general election from a crowded GOP primary field, derided a state public health insurance option that the legislature passed and Sisolak signed, and said he looks at abortion through a “pro-life lens”.But he acknowledged that state law approved by Nevada voters in 1990 allows abortions up to 24 weeks into pregnancy. “There’s nothing the governor can do,” he said, to change that law.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022NevadaRepublicansDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump files lawsuit to block House Capitol attack panel’s subpoena

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      Trump files lawsuit to block House Capitol attack panel’s subpoenaThe committee demanded the ex-president’s testimony and access to several documents in their investigation of the 6 January riot Donald Trump’s attorneys filed a lawsuit seeking to block the House January 6 select committee’s subpoena demanding his testimony in its investigation, according to court documents and a statement on Friday night, setting up a legal battle over the extent of executive power. The suit marks an aggressive posture from the former president as he seeks to avoid complying with the sprawling subpoena, in an effort that could culminate in a constitutionally significant showdown before the US supreme court.Rift in Trump’s inner circle over 2024 presidential campaign announcementRead more“Former President Trump turns to the courts to preserve his rights and executive branch independence consistently upheld by the courts and endorsed by the Department of Justice,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in a 41-page submission filed in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida.The lawsuit contends that, while former presidents have voluntarily agreed to provide testimony or documents in response to congressional subpoenas in the past, “no president or former president has ever been compelled to do so”.“Long-held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it,” Trump attorney’s David A Warrington said in a statement announcing Trump‘s intentions.He said Trump had “engaged with the committee in a good faith effort to resolve these concerns consistent with executive branch prerogatives and separation of powers”, but said the panel “insists on pursuing a political path, leaving President Trump with no choice but to involve the third branch, the judicial branch, in this dispute between the executive and legislative branches”.The suit prolongs the battle over Trump’s testimony and makes it likely it will never happen, as the committee is expected to disband at the end of the legislative session in January.The committee voted to subpoena Trump during its final televised hearing before the midterm elections and formally did so last month, demanding testimony from the former president. Committee members allege Trump “personally orchestrated” a vast effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.They said Trump had to testify, either at the Capitol or by videoconference, “beginning on or about” 14 November and continuing for multiple days if necessary.The letter also outlined a sweeping request for documents, including personal communications between Trump and members of Congress as well as extremist groups.The lawsuit comes as Trump is expected to launch a third campaign for president next week.TopicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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

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

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

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

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      Trump urged to delay announcement on 2024 run until after Georgia runoff

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      Trump urged to delay announcement on 2024 run until after Georgia runoff Trump cautioned to wait until after crucial Senate race as candidates he endorsed were defeated in midterm elections Donald Trump, reeling from another electoral setback, is facing pressure to delay his announcement of a new bid for the White House until after a crucial Senate race next month.Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief. But their troubles are far from overRead moreTrump-endorsed candidates slumped to defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections, leaving the former president at arguably his weakest standing in the party since the riot at the US Capitol last year.Trump looks set to announce a third consecutive run for president next Tuesday but some in his inner circle are cautioning him to wait until after the Senate runoff in Georgia on 6 December.Trump-backed Herschel Walker and the Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, will face off after neither passed 50% of the vote on Tuesday. The race could decide control of the Senate, depending on results in Arizona and Nevada.Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, told the rightwing network Newsmax: “Everything comes down to Herschel Walker and Georgia. And if we can pull that off, we might get … Chuck Schumer packing from the [Senate] majority leader’s office.“I’m advising the president to hold off until after the Georgia race, after Herschel Walker … This is bigger than anything else in the country.”Miller also said Trump should deploy campaign funds to help Walker, a controversial former football star.12:55Republicans had expected widespread success in the midterms but though the House looked set to change hands, the Senate remained on a knife-edge after a high-profile Trump-endorsed candidate, the TV doctor Mehmet Oz, fell to embarrassing defeat in Pennsylvania. Many are pointing the finger at Trump.Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project, said: “He is wounded and that’s evidenced by the rightwing media ecosystem putting out collective rebukes in the wake of a disappointing midterm result because Donald Trump was at the centre once again.“He cost them a much larger victory in the midterms. He is the albatross around the Republican party’s electoral neck and will continue to be as long as he is alive and breathing.”Trump is holding an event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida next week where he is expected to announce his run. He has taken shots at Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor widely seen as his chief rival. But DeSantis enjoyed a strong night on Tuesday, winning a landslide, his victory speech greeted by chants of “two more years”. Worryingly for Trump, allies including the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post have come out strongly for DeSantis.A column on the Fox News website proclaimed: “Ron DeSantis is the new Republican party leader. Republicans are ready to move on without Donald Trump.”But Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, cautioned: “I’m not holding my breath that this posture will remain. We saw this before after the election in 2020 and it lasted as long as the ratings started to crash.“When they started losing ratings to Newsmax and other media outlets, they went right back to the fawning coverage of Donald Trump. Are they willing to remain steadfast this time around because they think now that Ron DeSantis is the heir apparent? We’ll see how long that lasts.”On Wednesday, Fox News reported that Trump would not delay his announcement. On Thursday, Trump launched a tirade on his Truth Social platform.“For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am angry about the midterms, don’t believe it,” he wrote. “I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn’t the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a ‘Stable Genius’.”Trump also criticised reports that he blamed his wife, Melania, and friend, Fox News host Sean Hannity, for talking him into backing Oz in Pennsylvania.“I’d like to apologise to Melania and Sean Hannity for all of the Fake News and fictional stories (made up out of thin air, with no sources despite them claiming there are!)” wrote Trump, whose attacks on the media often prove unfounded.It is not a foregone conclusion that Trump will express robust support for Walker. Trump has attacked Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader. He is also widely held to have contributed to the loss of the Senate in 2021. Then, Warnock and Jon Ossoff won Georgia runoffs as Trump persisted in his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud, potentially depressing Republican turnout.01:56Nationally, Republican hand-wringing continued. Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and a longtime Trump ally, told the Associated Press: “We lost in ’18. We lost in ’20. We lost in ’21 in Georgia. And now in ’22 we’re going to net lose governorships, we’re not going to pick up the number of seats in the House that we thought and we may not win the Senate despite a president who has a 40% job approval.“There’s only one person to blame for that and that’s Donald Trump … The only animating factor in determining an endorsement is, ‘Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen or don’t you?’”John Fetterman’s rise from small-town mayor to Pennsylvania senatorRead moreThe Republican strategist David Urban, a former Trump adviser, told the AP: “How do people feel in America? I think people feel not great about the Trump brand right now. It’s bad.”Commentators, however, noted that Trump has been written off before but still holds sway over the Republican base, as evidenced by rallies that draw fiercely loyal crowds.Joe Walsh, a podcast host and former Republican congressman from Illinois, said: “We’ve seen this movie before. He led a fucking insurrection and the party still bowed to him. So will the dam finally break with this one? No, I don’t think it will. I still think it’s his party.“This whole DeSantis thing is overrated. Trump knows that … I still expect him to come out this month and announce he’s running and I don’t expect many Republicans to have the balls to say, ‘Donald, you suck.’”TopicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Has ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ taken a great fall from Rupert Murdoch’s grace?

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      AnalysisHas ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ taken a great fall from Rupert Murdoch’s grace?Adam Gabbatt in New YorkMurdoch-owned media have not held back against the former president in the wake of Republicans’ disappointing midterms On election day, Donald Trump was clear about how his efforts to support Republican candidates should be seen.“Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit,” Trump told NewsNation. “If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.”Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015Read moreUnfortunately for Trump, he did not get what he hoped for. Instead the former president has seen conservative news outlets, the Rupert Murdoch-owned ones in particular, turn on him, in some cases with gleeful abandon.“Trumpty Dumpty” blared the front page of Thursday’s New York Post, the tabloid Murdoch has owned since 1976. Editors went so far as to mock up Trump as Humpty Dumpty, his enlarged orange head stuffed into a white shirt and a signature red tie.Today’s cover: Here’s how Donald Trump sabotaged the Republican midterms https://t.co/YUtDosSGfp pic.twitter.com/vpI94nKuBh— New York Post (@nypost) November 10, 2022
      Next to the picture of Trump as an egg perching precariously on a brick wall, the text goaded: “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall – can all the GOP’s men put the party back together again?”The Post cover offered the most visceral insight into Murdoch’s thinking, and its contempt was far from an outlier in the mogul’s news empire.“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser” was the verdict of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. A subheading added: “He has now flopped in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022.”The piece was just as scathing as the headline, running through nine races this November the paper said Trump had effectively tanked through his continued election denial, his various wars with more moderate Republican candidates and his general unpopularity nationwide.“Since his unlikely victory in 2016 against the widely disliked Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump has a perfect record of electoral defeat,” the editorial said.“The GOP was pounded in the 2018 midterms owing to his low approval rating. Mr Trump himself lost in 2020. He then sabotaged Georgia’s 2021 runoffs by blaming party leaders for not somehow overturning his defeat.”It added: “Now Mr Trump has botched the 2022 elections, and it could hand Democrats the Senate for two more years.”Trump-backed candidates lost in several key states on Tuesday, including Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor running for Senate, and Doug Mastriano, an election-denying extremist running for governor, were both thwarted.What was most crushing for Trump were the states where candidates he endorsed were outperformed by those he hadn’t.In New Hampshire, Trump-backed Don Bolduc lost decisively to his Democratic opponent, incumbent US senator Maggie Hassan. Chris Sununu, the Republican governor who did not receive Trump’s endorsement, won re-election easily, by more than 15 points.Herschel Walker, the retired football star endorsed by Trump in Georgia for the Senate, will head to a runoff against Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, after neither man won more than 50% of the vote. Brian Kemp, the unendorsed Republican, cruised to victory in the governor’s race against Stacey Abrams, his Democratic opponent.Murdoch had his doubts about Trump before the businessman and reality TV star ran for president in 2016. Even when Trump won, Murdoch was unconvinced, reportedly privately calling him a “fucking idiot” following one conversation about immigration.Some Murdoch outlets, including Fox News, notably backed away from Trump over the summer, giving him less airtime. In her book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, Maggie Haberman, a reporter for the New York Times, said Murdoch had been keen to wash his hands of Trump after the 2020 election.“‘We should throw this guy over,’ Murdoch said of Trump, exhausted by Trump’s refusal to concede and his almost manic speech on election night,” Haberman wrote.But the speed and comprehensiveness of this week’s step-away still came as a surprise. There was a sense it was preplanned, that Murdoch subordinates decided in advance not just that Trump was done, but also on the identity of their new man.The day before Trump was presented as an egg on legs in the New York Post, the paper celebrated the re-election of Ron DeSantis, the Trump-esque Florida governor rumored to be planning a presidential run, with a front page which declared him “DeFuture”.Even Fox News, once Trump’s safe space, the TV network where he would often just call in for a chat, seems to have officially moved on.The channel offered scant defense of Trump in its analysis of election night, while on the Fox News website, the article leading the opinion page on Thursday was headlined: “Ron DeSantis is the new Republican party leader.”“The biggest winner of the midterm elections was Ron DeSantis. The biggest loser was Donald Trump,” the piece said. “Many will conclude, on the basis of the midterm 2022 results, that the Republican party is ready to move on, without Donald Trump as its leader.”It seems Rupert Murdoch already has.TopicsDonald TrumpRupert MurdochRepublicansUS politicsRon DeSantisanalysisReuse this content More

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      Trump paved Ron DeSantis’s way. Now apprentice has turned on master | Cas Mudde

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      Trump paved Ron DeSantis’s way. Now apprentice has turned on masterCas MuddeTrump unleashed a revolution that opened the door to people like DeSantis. Now the Florida governor and his supporters want to continue that revolution without its original leader The day after the midterm elections, the knives were out for Donald Trump. On rightwing social media, people were emotionally debating the alleged toxicity of the former president and his hand-picked nominees, while Fox News highlighted the victory of the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, emphasizing that he is “reviled by Trump”, while heralding the “dominating win” of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. A Fox News contributor pronounced DeSantis “the new Republican party leader”. In fact, the idea that DeSantis is the big Republican winner of the midterms – and Trump the big loser – seems to be the broad consensus in today’s media.There is, of course, at least one dissonant voice: Trump himself. Sensing that the tables are turning rapidly, he went on Fox News to warn DeSantis to stay out of the 2024 presidential election. In his typical mafioso way, Trump said, “I don’t know if he is running. I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly.”There is no doubt that DeSantis had a great night. He won his own race convincingly, while delivering three new House seats to the Republican party, courtesy of his blatantly partisan gerrymandering. At the same time, DeSantis did less than 2% better than Marco Rubio in the Senate race, putting some doubt on his particular appeal. Moreover, as too few media noted, Florida Republicans undoubtedly profited from DeSantis’s years-long campaign of voter intimidation, which entailed unleashing a newly created “vote-fraud squad” on mostly innocent voters; against the broader national trend, Democratic turnout seemed significantly down in Florida.It is important to note that the shift from Trump to DeSantis does not indicate a return to “normal”, in the sense of old-school conservatism. DeSantis and Trump are both clearly far right and there is little ideological space between the two. Rather, it is about strategy and style. As far as Republican voters had any problems with Trump during his presidency, it was always more about his delivery than about his policies. It is not just his style but also his strategy – Trump largely operates outside of the traditional party establishment and political system.Trump is not a politician and has no desire to become one. In sharp contrast, DeSantis is and has already significant political experience with running one of the biggest states in the country in terms of both economic power and population. Whereas Trump mainly shouts from the sidelines, respecting neither the institutions of liberal democracy nor the political practices of Washington, DeSantis practices what Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele calls “democratic erosion by law”: the weakening of liberal democracy from within both the legal and the political system.In this way, the turn from DeSantis to Trump mirrors developments in Europe, where crude far-right politicians like Matteo Salvini are being “upgraded” to more subtle peers like Giorgia Meloni. It is, if you will, the Orbánization of the far right. The Hungarian leader is the prime example of democratic erosion by law, having effectively destroyed democracy in Hungary by perfectly legal means. It is no coincidence that Orbán is a hero of the so-called “national conservative” wing of the Republican party – mostly politicians with law degrees, such as DeSantis and Josh Hawley.What Trump lacks in legal and political expertise, however, he compensates in charisma, something DeSantis sorely lacks. The Florida governor has gained nationwide Republican support by what he does, not by who he is. DeSantis is a rather uninspiring speaker who neither draws large crowds nor captivates smaller ones. It is his actual fights with “woke capitalism”, in the form of Disney, or “woke academia”, in the form of the University of Florida, that supporters point to. As he bragged in his victory speech on Tuesday night, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”Moreover, DeSantis lacks that unique quality of Trump, authenticity, something the former president identified in bestowing the new moniker “Ron DeSanctimonious”. And while Trump, rather uncharacteristically, seems to have dropped the nickname for now – after a barrage of criticism from rightwing media – you better believe he will return to it, or to even worse names, should he face DeSantis in a Republican primary.Poll after poll might show the divisive nature of Trump, as well as his dropping favorability among both independents and Republicans, but he was still twice as popular among Republicans before the midterms. Although this can change rapidly, particularly if Fox News would support DeSantis over Trump, Trump will continue to command a modest but highly mobilized hardcore – who could make or break Republican candidates in many races, including the presidential one.While DeSantis’s star might be rising, the Republican party remains at the mercy of Trump. The former president unleashed a revolution within the Republican party that has opened the door to people like DeSantis. Now the Florida governor and his supporters have less than two years to figure out how to continue that revolution without its original leader.
      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
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsRepublicansRon DeSantisDonald TrumpcommentReuse this content More