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      Biden admits Democrats unlikely to maintain control of House

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      Biden admits Democrats unlikely to maintain control of HousePresident at G20 says ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it’ after Republicans triumph in key races and stand on brink of majority Joe Biden on Monday expressed doubts that Democrats can maintain their majority in the US House of Representatives after Republicans won key races over the weekend.US midterms 2022: Democrats’ hope of keeping House fades as counting continues – liveRead more“I think we’re going to get very close in the House, but I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Biden said at a press conference, dedicated to his meeting with China’s Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, in response to a question about abortion legislation following the midterms. Before the midterms, Biden said that the first piece of legislation Democrats would pass if they kept control of both congressional chambers would codify abortion rights established in Roe v Wade.“I don’t think they can expect much of anything other than we’re going to maintain our positions [on abortion],” he said. “I don’t think there’s enough votes to codify unless something [unusual happens] in the House.”Democrats are still largely reveling in their performance in the midterms after retaining control of the US Senate, since many believed the elections were going to favor Republicans. But some sobering news for Democrats has come as more House races were called over the weekend.As of Monday morning, Republicans have won 212 races and are six seats away from taking on a majority. Democrats have 204 seats, and there are 20 races that still need to be called. On Sunday, Republicans won three key toss-up races in Arizona and California. More races in those states, along with Colorado, New York and Oregon, still need to be called but are predicted to go to Republicans.“Dems’ dreams of holding the House majority probably died tonight,” Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman tweeted on Sunday night.Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “We’re still alive. But again, the races are close.”Pelosi still praised Democrats’ overall performance in the election.“Who would have thought two months ago that this red wave would turn into little tiny trickle, if that at all,” Pelosi said.Democrats cinched a slim majority in the Senate, after two key wins in Arizona and Nevada, where incumbents Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto won their races respectively.With 50 seats, along with Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote, the Democrats have a majority in the Senate for the next two years. Still, a runoff election in Georgia between incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will determine whether Democrats will win a true majority of 51 seats. The runoff is slated for 6 December.Far from celebrating what could be their reclamation of the House, Republicans have been experiencing infighting in the days after the election.Some in the party have started to point their fingers at Donald Trump, who is slated to announce that he will try to retake the Oval Office in 2024. On Fox News, Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, called the former president an “800lb gorilla”.The lieutenant governor of Virginia, Winsome Earle-Sears, once an advocate for Trump, told Fox Business that “the voters have spoken, and they said they want a different leader”.Discord has also been seen in both chambers of Congress, where Republican leaders have been coming under criticism over the election. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, is slated to run for speaker on Tuesday. But a small fraction of pro-Trump lawmakers said they will withhold their support for leverage.These conservatives want McCarthy to push for a swath of investigations into Biden, including a potential impeachment proceeding, which McCarthy has shown no interest in. McCarthy will need 218 votes to secure the speaker position.Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has also been facing attacks from fellow Republicans, including senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Florida senator Rick Scott, another Republican, told Fox News on Sunday that McConnell failed to have a plan beyond “talking about how bad the Democrats are”.“Why would you do that? What is our plan? What are we running on? What do we stand for?” Scott said. “We’re just going to run it on how bad the Democrats are, and actually then they cave in to the Democrats.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsJoe BidenDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      US midterm elections: Democrats retain control of Senate as House race still undecided – as it happened

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      It’s been a day of celebrations and recriminations so far in US politics after the Democrats retained control of the Senate in a stunning midterm election rebuke for previously confident Republicans.A civil war appears to be under way inside the Republican party, with several senior party officials taking to the Sunday political talk shows to point fingers of blame.In one camp, “legacy” Republicans such as Larry Hogan, the retiring governor of Maryland, say responsibility for the failure rests with former president Donald Trump, and his handpicked slew of extremist candidates who flopped at the polls.Hogan, among those calling for a change of leadership, told CNN’s State of the Union:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Trump’s cost us the last three elections, and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time.This is the third election in a row that Trump has cost us. Three strikes and you’re out. pic.twitter.com/F3LIkZYCsX— Larry Hogan (@LarryHogan) November 13, 2022
      In the other faction, Florida senator Rick Scott, head of the Republican Senate leadership committee, is among the Trump loyalists attempting to scapegoat Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.Scott told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures he wanted next week’s party leadership elections postponed, claiming McConnell had strangled election strategy:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mitch McConnell said… we’re not going to have a plan. We’re just going to talk about how bad the Democrats are. Why would you do that?Democrats, meanwhile, are jubilant. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren told NBC’s Meet the Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This victory belongs to Joe Biden. It belongs to Joe Biden, and the Democrats who got out there and fought for working people. The things we did were important and popular.Things are less clear in the House of Representatives, where a number of close races are yet to be called, and Republicans are closing in on a narrow majority.And in Arizona, we’re awaiting a winner in the tight and heated governor’s race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and extremist Republican Kari Lake.We’ll have more news, commentary and reaction coming up through the afternoon.We’re closing our US midterms blog now after a day of rancor and recriminations among senior Republicans following the Democrats’ success in retaining control of the Senate.The party seems split into two factions, those keen to move on from Donald Trump as party leader and kingmaker after the failure of many of his endorsed candidates, and those who insist others, such as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, are to blame for a lack of messaging.By contrast, jubilant Democrats were looking ahead with renewed enthusiasm, even with control of the House of Representatives yet to be determined.
      Elizabeth Warren, senator for Massachusetts, said it was “Joe Biden’s victory”, while the president himself tweeted en route to Indonesia that he was always an optimist and “not surprised” his party had recaptured the Senate.
      We’ve also been watching the heated race for governor in Arizona between extremist Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs. Lake has repeated unfounded allegations that the count is somehow improper as it approaches its sixth day.
      We’ll bring you any updates in news reports tonight, and please join us again on Monday. Meanwhile, take a read of Oliver Laughland’s report on where things stand:Democrats celebrate retaining control of Senate as Republicans take stockRead moreYounger candidates suggest a generational change is under way in the US political landscape. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington takes a look:We are in the early hours of Wednesday morning, 6 November 2024, and after a nail-biting night two men are preparing to give their respective victory and concession speeches in the US presidential election. One of the men is days away from his 82nd birthday, the other is 78.The prospect of a possible rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in two years’ time is instilling trepidation in both main parties. It is not just the political perils that go with either individual, it’s also the simple matter of their age.What happened to the America of the new world, the young country?But in the wake of this week’s midterm elections there is a stirring in the air. The Democratic party may remain heavily dominated by the old guard – the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is 82 and the top senator, Chuck Schumer, is 69 – yet there are strong signs of fresh beginnings.From the first openly lesbian governors in the US and first Black governor of Maryland, to the first Gen Z member of Congress, as well as battle-hardened young politicians in critical swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, a new slate of Democratic leaders is coming into view after Tuesday’s elections. They may be too new to reshape the 2024 presidential race, but they carry much promise for the years to come.“There’s a generational change happening of the kind you see every few decades,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who has worked on state and congressional campaigns. “A younger generation is emerging with different ideas who aren’t necessarily wedded to the old way of doing things.”It is perhaps no coincidence that several of the names garnering attention are to be found in battleground states where their political skills and resilience have been put to the test. In Michigan, which has become a frontline state in the struggle between liberal versus Maga politics, Gretchen Whitmer handily won a double-digit re-election in her gubernatorial race against Tudor Dixon, an election denier.Whitmer, 51, proved herself not only adept at fending off election subversion misinformation in a midwestern state, but she also withstood the pressures of the kidnap plot against her which led to last month’s convictions of three anti-government plotters. “After two terms as governor, Whitmer is going to be well placed for a move on to the national stage,” Trippi said.Read the full story:New generation of candidates stakes claim to Democratic party’s futureRead moreAuthor and political analyst Michael Cohen has penned an opinion piece for the Observer, and finds America “almost perfectly divided between Democrats and Republicans”:Midterm elections in the United States are where the hopes and dreams of governing parties go to die. Since 1932, the party in power has lost on average 28 seats in the House of Representatives and four seats in the Senate. In 2018, two years after taking the White House and both Houses of Congress, Republicans lost 40 House seats and control of the chamber. In 2010, Democrats lost 63 seats. In 1994, it was 54 and eight Senate seats. Every two years, after electing a new president, voters, generally speaking, go to the polls with buyer’s remorse.But not this year. In a truly stunning outcome, Democrats reversed the historical trend lines and, at least for the time being, protected American democracy from the worst excesses of the Donald Trump-led Republican party.While all the votes still need to be tabulated, it appears that Democrats will keep control of the Senate and have an outside chance of maintaining their narrow majority in the House of Representatives. At the beginning of the year such a scenario was virtually unimaginable. Democrats were facing not only historical headwinds but also rising inflation, a teetering economy and an unpopular incumbent president. Traditionally, these are the kinds of political dynamics that portend a Republican-wave victory in November.But then in June the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, removed a 50-year constitutional guarantee protecting reproductive health rights and virtually overnight turned American women into second-class citizens. Over the summer, congressional Democrats achieved a host of notable legislative successes and President Biden announced billions in student loan forgiveness, fulfilling a promise he’d made during the 2020 presidential campaign.By the autumn, the political winds shifted in the Democrats’ direction – and no issue loomed larger than abortion. In August, a referendum in ruby-red Kansas, which would have made it easier for Republicans in the state legislature to outlaw the procedure, lost by a whopping 18 points.Democratic campaign advisers took their cues from Kansas and made abortion the centrepiece of the autumn campaign. And in the states where Republicans’ victories could have led to potentially greater abortion restrictions, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, Democrats won decisive victories. In suburban districts, the new linchpin of the Democratic coalition, white female college graduates, outraged by the supreme court decision, propelled House Democratic candidates to victory in toss-up races.Republicans compounded the problem by nominating a host of Trump-endorsed first-time Senate and gubernatorial candidates. The closer a Republican was to Trump, the worse they did on Tuesday.Read the full story:Democrats’ triumph may be miraculous but US is still split down the middle | Michael CohenRead moreJamie Raskin, the Democratic Maryland congressman who serves on the January 6 committee, and led the House prosecution at Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, says the former president might “destroy” the Republican party.Raskin was speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation, five days after numerous Trump-endorsed candidates flopped in midterm election races. Emboldened by their failures, some senior Republicans are openly calling out Trump for the first time.He said he cautioned the Republican party during the impeachment last year to jettison Trump, but instead the Senate voted to acquit him:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When I was over in the Senate with the impeachment team, I told the Republicans there that this was our opportunity to deal with the problem of Donald Trump, who had committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the people of the United States.
      And they needed to act on behalf of the country and the Constitution. But if they didn’t, he would become their problem. And at this point, Donald Trump is the problem of the Republican Party and he may destroy their party.Raskin notes on CBS that Republicans had an opportunity to convict Trump after his second impeachment and prevent him from running for office, but they didn’t, and now “he may destroy their party” pic.twitter.com/ddaxECesrA— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2022
      The work of the January 6 committee investigating Trump’s coup attempt will continue, Raskin says, though the panel is mindful that Republicans might win control of the House of Representatives and close the inquiry down:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In a democracy, the people have the right to the truth. And what we withstood was a systematic assault on democratic institutions in an attempt to overthrow a presidential election. So we have set forth the truth in a series of hearings.
      And we’re going to set forth the truth in our final report, along with a set of legislative recommendations about what we need to do to fortify American democracy, against coups, insurrections, electoral sabotage and political violence with domestic violent extremist groups involved.
      We’re going to put all of that out there.The January 6 final report is expected to be released before the end of the year.Here’s the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland on the ongoing fallout from the midterm election results:As the balance of power in the US House of Representatives remained unresolved on Sunday, Democrats are celebrating the projection that they won control of the Senate, marking a significant victory for Joe Biden as Republicans backed by his presidential predecessor Donald Trump underperformed in key battleground states.While senior Democrats remained guarded Sunday about the chances of keeping control of both chambers of Congress, House speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the party’s performance in the midterms following months of projections indicating heavy losses.“Who would have thought two months ago that this red wave would turn into a little tiny trickle, if that at all,” Pelosi told CNN.She added: “We’re still alive [for control of the House] but again the races are close. We don’t pray for victory… but you pray that God’s will will be done.”As of Sunday morning Republicans remained seven seats shy of the 218 needed to win control of the House, with Democrats requiring 14, an indication that a majority on either side will be slim. As internal discussions between House Republicans intensify over potential leadership roles, with minority leader Kevin McCarthy facing opposition from the far right freedom caucus, Pelosi remained circumspect about her own future, saying she would not make any announcements on her plans until after the House’s control is decided.“My decision will then be rooted in what the wishes of my family [are], and the wishes of my caucus,” Pelosi said, with reference to her husband Paul Pelosi’s ongoing recovery following an allegedly politically motivated violent burglary and attack at their family home in San Francisco last month. She added: “There are all kinds of ways to exert influence. The speaker has awesome power, but I will always have influence.”The Democrats were projected to maintain their control of the Senate on Saturday evening when a tight race in Nevada was called for the incumbent Catherine Cortez Mastro who defeated Adam Laxalt, a Trump-backed, former state attorney general.Read the full story:Democrats celebrate retaining control of Senate as Republicans take stockRead moreJoe Biden says he always felt his party would keep control of the Senate.The president is tweeting on his way to Indonesia, where he’ll meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday ahead of the two-day G20 summit in Bali. He has been following closely election developments back home.I’m an optimist but I’m not surprised Senate Democrats held the majority. Working together, we’ve delivered historic progress for working families.Americans chose that progress.— President Biden (@POTUS) November 13, 2022
      Speaking to reporters in Cambodia late on Saturday during the Asean summit, Biden congratulated Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer but appeared to acknowledge how a Republican-controlled House might affect his agenda going forward.“We feel good about where we are,” Biden said. “And I know I’m a cockeyed optimist – I understand that – from the beginning, but I’m not surprised by the turnout.”Here’s an interesting, and historic, statistic from the midterm elections, according to the States Project, an advocacy group promoting democracy at state level.For the first time in almost 90 years, covering dozens of election cycles, the party in the White House retained every state legislative chamber it was defending, and this year gained two more.HISTORY. MADE. For the first time since 1934, the party who holds the WH didn’t lose a *single* state leg chamber. AND we gained 2 new trifectas. I believe that the @StatesProjectUS historic investment made the difference. Here’s why.🧵 https://t.co/EKoeEVr0ZS— Daniel Squadron (@DanielSquadron) November 11, 2022
      It’s been a day of celebrations and recriminations so far in US politics after the Democrats retained control of the Senate in a stunning midterm election rebuke for previously confident Republicans.A civil war appears to be under way inside the Republican party, with several senior party officials taking to the Sunday political talk shows to point fingers of blame.In one camp, “legacy” Republicans such as Larry Hogan, the retiring governor of Maryland, say responsibility for the failure rests with former president Donald Trump, and his handpicked slew of extremist candidates who flopped at the polls.Hogan, among those calling for a change of leadership, told CNN’s State of the Union:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Trump’s cost us the last three elections, and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time.This is the third election in a row that Trump has cost us. Three strikes and you’re out. pic.twitter.com/F3LIkZYCsX— Larry Hogan (@LarryHogan) November 13, 2022
      In the other faction, Florida senator Rick Scott, head of the Republican Senate leadership committee, is among the Trump loyalists attempting to scapegoat Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.Scott told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures he wanted next week’s party leadership elections postponed, claiming McConnell had strangled election strategy:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mitch McConnell said… we’re not going to have a plan. We’re just going to talk about how bad the Democrats are. Why would you do that?Democrats, meanwhile, are jubilant. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren told NBC’s Meet the Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This victory belongs to Joe Biden. It belongs to Joe Biden, and the Democrats who got out there and fought for working people. The things we did were important and popular.Things are less clear in the House of Representatives, where a number of close races are yet to be called, and Republicans are closing in on a narrow majority.And in Arizona, we’re awaiting a winner in the tight and heated governor’s race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and extremist Republican Kari Lake.We’ll have more news, commentary and reaction coming up through the afternoon.Analysts say victory by Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, which secured her party’s control of the Senate for two more years, will be of massive importance to Joe Biden’s plans for filling judicial vacancies.Retaining the majority in the chamber gives the president the opportunity to keep getting his picks confirmed, something for which the incumbent senator was a key ally even before the midterms.“Cortez Masto has been an excellent senator, who has represented Nevada very well. One example is her efforts to keep the federal district court vacancies in Nevada filled,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at the University of Richmond and former lecturer in law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.“Last year, she and Senator [Jacky] Rosen recommended two well qualified, mainstream candidates whom Biden nominated and the Senate smoothly confirmed.“The Democrats’ retention of the Senate majority will enable Biden and that majority to continue nominating and confirming highly qualified judges who are diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ideology and experience, like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Nevada district judges Cristina Silva and Anne Traum. “These nominees and appointees will mean that Biden and the Democrats have honored their promises to counter former President Trump’s confirmation of 231 judges, especially on the Supreme Court and the appellate courts, who are extremely conservative. “For example, Biden and the Democrats have already appointed 25 appellate judges and are on track to confirm at least five, and perhaps as many as 10 more, judges for those courts this year. Biden and the Democratic majority can build on this success for two more years. “Kari Lake, the Republican election denier trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs in the contest to become governor of Arizona, has been on Fox News complaining again about the pace of the count.Although Arizona law dictates the process, and speed, by which the ballots are counted, Lake is also unhappy that Hobbs, as secretary of state, has involvement in the election, even though her opponent’s role is at arm’s length by certifying the count when it’s complete.“I consider someone’s vote their voice. I think of it as a sacred vote, and it’s being trampled the way we run our elections in Arizona,” Lake said.“We can’t be the laughingstock of elections anymore. Here in Arizona, and when I’m governor, I will not allow it. I just won’t.”It’s a familiar gripe from Lake, who has pledged to be the media’s “worst fricking nightmare” if she wins, and has refused to say if she would accept the result of the election if she lost.Several dozen of her supporters, some in military-style fatigues, lent a menacing air to the count by gathering outside the Maricopa county elections in Phoenix on Saturday and hurling abuse at sheriff’s deputies.VOTERS: All legal votes will be counted. Your vote will count equally whether it is reported first, last, or somewhere in between. Thank you for participating.— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 12, 2022
      Lake, the Arizona Republican party, and Republican national committee (RNC), have all lobbed out unfounded allegations of misconduct and incompetence by election officials, as the count enters its sixth day.Bill Gates, chair of Maricopa’s board of supervisors, hit back, telling CNN: “The suggestion by the RNC that there is something untoward going on here in Maricopa county, is absolutely false and offensive to these good elections workers.”The county is also rejecting online grumblings:SOCIAL MEDIA BOTS: Your disapproval is duly noted but your upvotes and retweets will not be part of this year’s totals. This is not meant as an affront to your robot overlords, it’s just not allowed for in Arizona law.— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 12, 2022
      Lake said she did not expect the race to be called until at least Monday. She conceded: “I’m willing to wait until every vote is counted. I think every candidate should wait until every vote is counted.”Rick Scott, the Florida senator who heads the Republican senatorial committee, has been pouring fuel on the post-midterms fire that threatens Mitch McConnell’s future as Senate minority leader.Despite helping to mastermind the election campaign strategy that fell flat when Democrats retained control of the chamber, Scott, and other Donald Trump loyalists, say it’s all McConnell’s fault.On Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Scott repeated his call for next week’s Republican leadership elections at least until after the Georgia Senate run-off on 6 December:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mitch McConnell said… we’re not going to have a plan. We’re just going to talk about how bad the Democrats are. Why would you do that?
      What is our plan? What are we running on? What do we stand for? What are we hell bent to get done? The leadership of the Republican Senate says ‘no, you cannot have a plan’. We’re just gonna run it on how bad the Democrats are, and actually they cave in to the Democrats.Scott, and Senate colleagues Marco Rubio (Florida) and Ted Cruz (Texas) are among those with knives out for McConnell, aided and abetted by former members of Trump’s inner circle who are keen to shift the blame for the Republican flop away from the former president.Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior policy advisor, continued the theme, also on Sunday Morning Futures:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You’re going to lose these close races because the Republican brand, set by Mitch McConnell on down, is not exciting, is not persuasive, is not convincing to voters.While Republicans, or some of them at least, are blaming Donald Trump for the party’s midterms misfire, leading Democrats have no doubt with whom the credit should lie: Joe Biden.Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, herself a former candidate for the party’s presidential nomination, was almost giddy in her analysis of the elections in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Donald Trump, with his preening and his selection of truly awful candidates, didn’t do his party any favors.
      But this victory belongs to Joe Biden. It belongs to Joe Biden, and the Democrats who got out there and fought for working people. The things we did were important and popular.
      Remember, right after Joe Biden was sworn in, all of the economists and the pundits in his ear who were saying, “go slow, go small.”
      Joe Biden didn’t listen to them. And in fact, he went big. He went big on vaccinations. He went big on testing, but he also went big on helping people who were still unemployed, on setting America’s working families up so they could manage the choppy waters in the economy following the pandemic.
      We were able to address the values and the economic security of people across this country. And it sure paid off. It paid off at historic levels.Also on Meet the Press, White House senior advisor Anita Dunn reflected on Biden’s pre-election strategy of bashing extremist “Maga Republicans” named for Trump’s Make America Great Again movement:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A lot of people thought it wouldn’t work. Former President Trump kind of adopted it himself. But it was a very effective strategy for raising for the American people the hazards of going down that path with democracy denial, threats of political violence to achieve political ends, an extremist program that involves denying women the right to an abortion, economic policies that continue to be trickled down, as opposed to bottom up and middle out.
      The Republican Party has to come up with what they’re actually for. It’s very clear what President Biden and the Democratic Party are for.The Guardian’s Sam Levine has news of a consequential victory for Democrats in Nevada:Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, was elected Nevada’s top election official, beating Jim Marchant, a Republican who is linked to the QAnon sought to spread misinformation about the results of the 2020 race.His victory is a significant win against efforts to sow doubt in US elections, a growing force in the Republican party.The Nevada secretary of state race was one of the most competitive in the country and closely watched because of Marchant’s extreme views. It was also one of several contests in which Republican candidates who questioned the election results were running to be the top election official in their state.Thank you, Nevada!! It is the honor of my life to serve as your next Secretary of State. pic.twitter.com/XiQtpCTlRu— Cisco Aguilar (@CiscoForNevada) November 12, 2022
      Marchant, a former state lawmaker, said during the campaign that if he and other like-minded secretary of states were elected, Donald Trump would be re-elected in 2024. He has also said that Nevada elections are run by a “cabal”, and that Nevadans haven’t elected a president in over a decade.He also has pushed Nevada counties to adopt risky and costly hand counts of ballots and leads the America First Secretary of State coalition, a group of secretary of state candidates running for key election positions who pledged to overturn the 2020 race.Aguilar had never run for elected office, but cast himself as a defender of Nevada’s democracy. His campaign emphasized the extremist threat Marchant posed. He far outraised Marchant and was much more present on the campaign trail.Read the full story:Democrat Cisco Aguilar defeats election denier in Nevada secretary of state raceRead moreRepublicans have been bashing Donald Trump on the Sunday talk shows, with Maryland governor Larry Hogan calling him the “800lb gorilla” as the former president prepares to announce a new White House run this week.The party’s less than stellar midterms performance, which included a slew of defeats for extremist candidates endorsed by Trump, have prompted growing chorus from senior officials that it’s “time to move on” from him.Leading the call Sunday was Hogan, for so long one of very few Republicans daring to speak out against the twice-impeached former president.Hogan, who is termed out of office in January, told CNN’s State of the Union it would be “a mistake” for Trump to run again, noting that the White House, Senate and House were all lost under his watch:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He’s still the 800 pound gorilla. It’s still a battle that’s going to continue for the next few years. We’re two years out from the next election. And the dust is settling from this one. I think it’d be a mistake. Trump’s cost us the last three elections and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time.Over on NBC’s Meet the Press, Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy also laid Republicans’ poor showing at Trump’s door, alluding to his fixation with his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, and candidates who bought into the lie that the election was stolen from him:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Those that were most closely aligned with the past, those are the ones that underperformed.
      We’re not a cult. We’re not like, ‘OK, there’s one person who leads our party’. If we have a sitting president, she or he will be the leader of our party, but we should be a party of ideas and principles. And that’s what should lead us.
      What we’ve been lacking, perhaps, is that fulsome discussion,Read more:‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Read moreNancy Pelosi says Democrats are “still alive” in the race for control of the House of Representatives, but acknowledges the pathway to victory is narrow.The speaker’s party needs 218 seats in Congress to retain control of the chamber, and currently has 203. Republicans, despite losing several seats they were expected to win handily, have 211 and are closing in on the majority.On CNN’s State of the Union just now, Pelosi was asked specifically about the loss of four House seats in usually reliably blue New York, and whether they would determine control of the chamber.Pelosi said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You cannot make sweeping overviews the day after the election, just every district at a time. Our message, people over politics, lower costs, bigger paychecks, safer communities, served us well in the rest of the country.
      I want to salute President Biden for his campaign and President Obama, all of it raising the urgency of the election, and the awareness that people must vote and that they shouldn’t listen to those who say this is a foregone conclusion because of history, but it’s about the future and get out there and vote.
      We’re still alive. But again, the races are close.Pelosi, 82, would not be drawn about her own future if Republicans take the House, despite hinting last week that the attack on her husband would influence her decision about whether to retire. House leadership elections are on 30 November..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}My members are asking me to consider [running], but that’s just through the eyes of the members.
      We are so completely focused on our political time… and not worrying about my future, but for the future for the American peopleBut she said she was hurt by response to the attack, which included offensive mockery:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It wasn’t just the attack, there was a Republican reaction to it which was disgraceful. An attack is horrible. Imagine how it feels to was the one who was the target, and my husband paying the price, and the traumatic effect on our family.
      But that trauma is intensified by the ridiculous, disrespectful attitude that the Republicans had. There is no nobody disassociating themselves from the horrible response that they gave to it.One of the biggest midterms winners for the Democrats was Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was reelected by double digits. She’s just been on CNN’s State of the Union, speaking out against political violence she says extremists have been stoking.Whitmer herself was the victim of a kidnap plot that resulted in the conviction of several rightwing extremists, and called out a hammer attack by another on the husband of House speaker Nancy Pelosi:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}My opponent [election denier Tudor Dixon] was a conspiracy theorist, and she has regularly stoked politically violent rhetoric [and] undermined institutions. Whether it is aimed at me, or it is aimed at a Republican congressman like Ron Upton or Peter Meijer here in Michigan, it’s unacceptable.
      My heart goes out to the Pelosi family. I think that this is a moment where good people need to call this out and say we will not tolerate this in this country. Whitmer says the key to her victory was focusing on basics, while her challengers were concentrating on divisiveness:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We stay focused on the fundamentals, whether it’s fixing the damn roads or making sure our kids are getting back on track after an incredible disruption in their learning, or just simply solving problems and being honest with the people.
      Governors can’t fix global inflation. But what we can do is take actions to keep more money in people’s pockets, protect our right to make our own decisions about our bodies.
      And all of this was squarely front and center for a lot of Michigan voters, and I suspect that’s probably true for voters across the country.Among the happiest Democrats at the party’s strong midterms performance is Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader who gets to keep his job for another two years.Speaking after Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory in Nevada kept the chamber in Democrat hands, Schumer told reporters the results were a “vindication” of the party’s agenda, and a rejection of extremist candidates and “divisive” rhetoric put forward by the Republican party:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The election is a great win for the American people.
      Three things helped secure the Senate majority. One, our terrific candidates. Two, our agenda and accomplishments. And three, the American people rejected the anti-democratic, extremist Maga (Make America Great Again) Republicans.
      The American people soundly rejected the anti-democratic, authoritarian, nasty and divisive direction the Maga Republicans wanted to take our country, from the days of the big lie, which was pushed by so many, to the threats of violence and even violence itself against poll workers, election officials and electoral processes.
      And of course, the violence on January 6, all of that bothered the American people.
      And another thing that bothered them just as much, too many of the Republican leaders went along with that, didn’t rebut that violence, and some of them even aided and abetted the words of negativity.
      Where was the condemnation from the Republican leaders so often missing from so many of them?Americans have woken to the remarkable news that Democrats will retain control of the Senate for the next two years, secured by Catherine Cortez Masto’s projected victory over Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada that was declared on Saturday night.Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer, who will remain Senate majority leader, hailed an achievement that appeared unthinkable amid talk of a red tsunami before last Tuesday’s midterm elections.Only the Senate race in Georgia, which heads to a 6 December runoff, remains to be settled. But the outcome cannot affect control of the chamber as Democrats now have 50 seats, plus vice president Kamala Harris’s tie breaking vote.
      Things are less clear in the House of Representatives, where a number of close races are yet to be called, and Republicans are closing in on a narrow majority.
      And in Arizona, we’re awaiting a winner in the tight and heated governor’s race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and extremist Republican Kari Lake.
      We’ll have plenty more news, commentary and reaction coming up in today’s live blog, including from senior officials in both parties.While we wait for the day to unfold, here’s a catch up from The Guardian’s Dani Anguiano in Las Vegas about Cortez Masto’s majority clinching victory:Catherine Cortez Masto wins Nevada Senate race to hold Democrat seatRead more More

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      Democrats celebrate retaining control of Senate as Republicans take stock

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      Democrats celebrate retaining control of Senate as Republicans take stockHouse control still undecided as Republicans lead and attention pivots to Florida, where Trump is expected to announce 2024 run As the balance of power in the US House of Representatives remained unresolved on Sunday, Democrats are celebrating the projection that they won control of the Senate, marking a significant victory for Joe Biden as Republicans backed by his presidential predecessor Donald Trump underperformed in key battleground states.While senior Democrats remained guarded Sunday about the chances of keeping control of both chambers of Congress, House speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the party’s performance in the midterms following months of projections indicating heavy losses.“Who would have thought two months ago that this red wave would turn into a little tiny trickle, if that at all,” Pelosi told CNN.She added: “We’re still alive [for control of the House] but again the races are close. We don’t pray for victory… but you pray that God’s will will be done.”As of Sunday morning Republicans remained seven seats shy of the 218 needed to win control of the House, with Democrats requiring 14, an indication that a majority on either side will be slim. As internal discussions between House Republicans intensify over potential leadership roles, with minority leader Kevin McCarthy facing opposition from the far right freedom caucus, Pelosi remained circumspect about her own future, saying she would not make any announcements on her plans until after the House’s control is decided.“My decision will then be rooted in what the wishes of my family [are], and the wishes of my caucus,” Pelosi said, with reference to her husband Paul Pelosi’s ongoing recovery following an allegedly politically motivated violent burglary and attack at their family home in San Francisco last month. She added: “There are all kinds of ways to exert influence. The speaker has awesome power, but I will always have influence.”The Democrats were projected to maintain their control of the Senate on Saturday evening when a tight race in Nevada was called for the incumbent Catherine Cortez Mastro who defeated Adam Laxalt, a Trump-backed, former state attorney general.The result marks a substantial victory for the Biden administration’s agenda over the next two years, not only with regards to potential legislative negotiation but other powers which include appointments to the federal judiciary.Speaking to reporters in Cambodia during the Asean summit, Biden congratulated Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer but appeared to acknowledge how a Republican-controlled House might affect his agenda going forward.“We feel good about where we are,” Biden said. “And I know I’m a cockeyed optimist – I understand that – from the beginning, but I’m not surprised by the turnout.”Biden added that the party’s focus would move to the Senate runoff in Georgia next month, where incumbent Raphael Warnock will face Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker after neither candidate received over 50% of the vote. A victory for the Democrats in Georgia would hand them an outright majority of 51, without needing Biden’s vice-president Kamala Harris to break Senate ties in their favor.As fallout from the midterm elections continues, attention is likely to pivot to Florida next week, where Trump is expected to announce a 2024 run for the presidency at his private members’ club in Palm Beach.Although polling still indicates Trump is the preferred candidate among the Republican base, his support has shown signs of fracture after many of his endorsed candidates performed poorly last week. One poll released on Saturday showed Trump’s support declining by six points to 50%, while far-right governor Ron DeSantis, who cruised to re-election last week, saw support increase.On Sunday, Maryland’s outgoing Republican governor – Larry Hogan, a longtime Trump critic – urged the party to move away from the former president’s influence.“You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” Hogan told CNN. “And Donald Trump kept saying: ‘We’re going to be winning so much, we’ll get tired of winning’. I’m tired of losing. That’s all he’s done.”Nonetheless, Hogan – who himself is believed to be considering a run in 2024 – acknowledged that ousting Trump from the potential presidential nomination would be an uphill battle.“He’s still the 800-lb gorilla,” Hogan said. “It’s still a battle and it’s going to continue for the next few years. We’re still two years out from the next election, and … the dust is still settling from this one. I think it would be a mistake, as I mentioned Trump’s cost us the last three elections and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time.”The midterms also proved to be an electoral rebuke to unfounded accusations of electoral fraud in the 2020 election, a baseless claim Trump has continued to press since losing the White House to Biden.Many Trump-endorsed candidates in major races, including the governor’s election in Pennsylvania and the Senate race in Arizona, had denied the 2020 election results. In both of these contests, as well as several other high-profile races, the Trump-backed candidate lost to Democrats by significant margins.Although the gubernatorial election in Arizona, which pits high-profile election denier Kari Lake against Democrat Katie Hobbs, remained too close to call on Sunday, a number of Democratic gubernatorial victors argued their wins marked a rejection of election conspiracy theories and rightwing extremism.Michigan’s governor Gretchen Whitmer, who won in a landslide against a Trump-endorsed election denier, said Sunday that she believed her victory marked a rejection of political violence in the state.“Good people need to call this out and say we will not tolerate this in this country,” Whitmer, who was targeted by a failed kidnapping plot in 2020, told CNN. “And perhaps part of that message was sent this election.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsJoe BidenDonald TrumpUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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      US midterms: no sign of 'red wave' as Democrats take Senate – video report

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      The Democrats have kept control of the Senate after the crucial race in Nevada was announced in their favour. The party’s midterm election performance widely beat expectations after pundits predicted a ‘red wave’ across the US for the Republicans. Since voting began on 8 November, Republican circles have been speculating over who to blame following Democrat wins. Donald Trump has been at the centre of the storm after he backed rightwing candidates in several key races who lost, including Mehmet Oz, defeated by John Fetterman in Pennsylvania

      Democrats retain control of Senate after crucial victory in Nevada
      New generation of candidates stakes claim to Democratic party’s future More

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      Democrats’ triumph may be miraculous but US is still split down the middle | Michael Cohen

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      Democrats’ triumph may be miraculous but US is still split down the middleMichael CohenThe midterms are a win for democracy but many Republicans await a third Trump bid Midterm elections in the United States are where the hopes and dreams of governing parties go to die. Since 1932, the party in power has lost on average 28 seats in the House of Representatives and four seats in the Senate. In 2018, two years after taking the White House and both Houses of Congress, Republicans lost 40 House seats and control of the chamber. In 2010, Democrats lost 63 seats. In 1994, it was 54 and eight Senate seats. Every two years, after electing a new president, voters, generally speaking, go to the polls with buyer’s remorse.But not this year. In a truly stunning outcome, Democrats reversed the historical trend lines and, at least for the time being, protected American democracy from the worst excesses of the Donald Trump-led Republican party.While all the votes still need to be tabulated, it appears that Democrats will keep control of the Senate and have an outside chance of maintaining their narrow majority in the House of Representatives. At the beginning of the year such a scenario was virtually unimaginable. Democrats were facing not only historical headwinds but also rising inflation, a teetering economy and an unpopular incumbent president. Traditionally, these are the kinds of political dynamics that portend a Republican-wave victory in November.But then in June the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, removed a 50-year constitutional guarantee protecting reproductive health rights and virtually overnight turned American women into second-class citizens. Over the summer, congressional Democrats achieved a host of notable legislative successes and President Biden announced billions in student loan forgiveness, fulfilling a promise he’d made during the 2020 presidential campaign.By the autumn, the political winds shifted in the Democrats’ direction – and no issue loomed larger than abortion. In August, a referendum in ruby-red Kansas, which would have made it easier for Republicans in the state legislature to outlaw the procedure, lost by a whopping 18 points.Democratic campaign advisers took their cues from Kansas and made abortion the centrepiece of the autumn campaign. And in the states where Republicans’ victories could have led to potentially greater abortion restrictions, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, Democrats won decisive victories. In suburban districts, the new linchpin of the Democratic coalition, white female college graduates, outraged by the supreme court decision, propelled House Democratic candidates to victory in toss-up races.Republicans compounded the problem by nominating a host of Trump-endorsed first-time Senate and gubernatorial candidates. The closer a Republican was to Trump, the worse they did on Tuesday.Indeed, for months, political commentators had portrayed the 2022 election as potentially the end of democracy in the US. In state after state, election deniers, parroting Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, appeared poised to take office. Yet across the board they lost. On an even more positive note, while Trump still refuses to accept that he lost the presidency to Joe Biden, his enablers and sycophants in the GOP (“grand old party”) refused to follow the same script. Virtually every Republican who lost their election – including the election deniers – has conceded defeat, in the best sign for the strength of American democracy in quite some time.How the fall of Roe shattered Republicans’ midterm dreamsRead moreThat’s the good news, but like everything these days in American politics it’s virtually impossible for us to have nice things. While Trump is arguably the biggest loser of the 2022 campaign, his stranglehold over the Republican party is not ending just yet. This week, he will announce his third bid for the White House and, while plenty of Republican leaders wish he would go away, a great many rank-and-file Republicans don’t feel the same.It’s easy to criticise Trump for his lousy record of endorsements, but it’s not as if he held a gun to the collective head of Republicans and forced them to vote for his preferred candidates. These are still the types of politicians that Republican voters want and there is little reason to expect that they are prepared to jettison Trump.What makes matters even worse for Republicans is that no matter how the presidential nomination contest turns out, it’s a no-win situation. Democrats have won the past three US elections, in large measure by running against Trump. If he is again the Republican nominee there is no reason to expect that 2024 would play out any differently.What if Trump loses? That might actually be a worse outcome because if there’s one thing we know about the former president, it’s that he is a thin-skinned narcissist who doesn’t care about anybody but himself. If he loses the GOP presidential bid, say to the Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who just won a landslide re-election victory, one can expect that he will not respond well. There will not be a moment at the Republican national convention with Trump and DeSantis, their hands clasped together in party unity. Instead, Trump will handle himself probably no differently from the way he did after losing to Biden – again claiming fraud and denigrating DeSantis to his supporters. Indeed, Trump would probably prefer Biden wins re-election than watch DeSantis accomplish a feat that he could not.But beyond all that, the final numbers in the House and Senate tell a crucial story. Democrats will probably either maintain their 50-50 edge in the Senate or add one seat (the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, is the tie-breaking vote in the Senate). In the House, the most likely result is an incredibly narrow Republican advantage – somewhere between one and three seats. Governorships could be split evenly 25-25.America is almost perfectly divided between Democrats and Republicans and neither party can cobble together an effective majority. The 2022 midterms are, on the surface, a win for Democrats, but from a deeper perspective they have simply ratified the status quo of the US as a divided and divisive country.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansJoe BidenDonald TrumpcommentReuse this content More

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      Who were the big winners and losers of the US midterm elections?

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      Who were the big winners and losers of the US midterm elections?Biden and DeSantis are on the up, but Donald Trump and some of the Republicans’ more unhinged candidates flopped After months of campaigning and billions of dollars spent on advertising, the message from America’s midterm elections could essentially be boiled down to: “Not as bad as Democrats feared.”There were big wins for Republicans in Florida, and the party still seems likely to take the House, but elsewhere candidates endorsed by former president Donald Trump flopped, and there were key victories for supporters of reproductive rights.As Trump licks his wounds after being compared to an egg on legs by a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, and as Democrats celebrate avoiding a predicted “red wave”, here’s a look at who did well, and who suffered.WINNERSJoe Biden, US presidentMuch of the talk ahead of last Tuesday’s elections was about how Biden might tank the Democratic party’s candidates. Republicans across the country ran ads tying their opponents to Biden, banking that the unloved president would turn off voters. It didn’t work, as Democrats performed much better than expected across the board. Biden remains very unpopular – his approval rating dropped to 39% in a Reuters poll this week – but that doesn’t seem to be hindering his party. The results prompted Biden, who turns 80 later this month, to repeat his recent assertions that he will run for a second term as president in two years’ time.Ron DeSantis, Republican Florida governorIt’s not just that the Florida governor won re-election, in what is supposed to be a swing state, by almost 20 points. In the process, DeSantis, 44, has also found himself anointed by the rightwing media as the future of the Republican party – in the case of the New York Post, quite literally: “DeFuture”, blasted the front page of the tabloid on Wednesday morning. DeSantis, an anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ rights Republican, is seen as a more palatable, less hysterical version of Donald Trump. He has been cagey about whether he will run for president in 2024, but if DeSantis does want to launch a campaign, then this was a pretty good way to start.John Fetterman, Democrat Senate candidateThree years ago John Fetterman was mayor of Braddock, a town of fewer than 2,000 people. On Tuesday he was elected to the US Senate, and will represent 13 million Pennsylvanians. It has been a remarkable rise, made all the more astonishing by the fact Fetterman had a stroke days before the Democratic primary in May. The 6ft 8in, tattooed, permanently hoodie-clad senator-elect is still recovering – he relied on closed captioning to process questions in a debate in October – but overcame a stiff challenge from Trump-backed Mehmet Oz to win relatively easily on Tuesday. Fetterman, who has previously said he owns only one suit, is going to have to do some clothes shopping.Reproductive rightsAway from the noise and intrigue about Republican and Democratic candidates and races, Michigan voters approved a ballot measure to secure a constitutional right to abortion, blocking the imposition of a 1931 abortion ban in the state. In Kentucky, voters rejected a measure which would have denied constitutional protections for abortion. North Carolina Republicans failed to secure a majority which would have enabled them to ram through restrictive abortion bans, and it was a similar story in Wisconsin, where the re-elected Democratic governor, Tony Evers, will have the power to veto abortion laws proposed by the state legislature.LOSERSDonald TrumpThe one-term, twice-impeached president had a shocker of an evening, as one after another, many of his endorsed candidates flopped in key races across the country. The fact that many of the Republicans Trump had backed lost isn’t the only thing that will sting. Several of Trump’s people underperformed in states – including New Hampshire and Georgia – where Republicans who had not been anointed by Trump triumphed. To top it all off, Rupert Murdoch seems to have turned on Trump. On Thursday the New York Post, a Murdoch-owned tabloid, mocked up an image of Trump as Humpty Dumpty. “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall – can all the GOP’s men put the party back together again?” read the accompanying text.Republicans – outside Florida and New YorkWith an unpopular Democratic president, soaring inflation, high gas prices and widespread doom and gloom about the economy, this was supposed to be the night that Republicans swept through Congress in a “red wave”. They didn’t. By Friday, with votes still being tallied in some states, the Republican party was still short of a majority in the House and the Senate, as Democrats out-performed expectations across the country. There were some exceptions. In Florida both DeSantis and Marco Rubio, the state’s incumbent senator, cruised to victory, and Republicans flourished in state-level races too. It was, the Tampa Bay Times declared, “an electoral catastrophe for Democrats”.(Some of) the unhinged candidatesIn Pennsylvania Doug Mastriano, a Christian nationalist state senator who paid for buses to take people to what became the January 6 insurrection and tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was swept away in the governor’s race. Matthew DePerno, a fellow election conspiracy theorist who had branded Democrats “radical, cultural Marxists” lost his bid to be Michigan’s attorney general, and his ideological counterpart Kristina Karamo failed to become secretary of state. Tina Forte, a Republican who attended the January 6 rally and has dabbled in QAnon conspiracy theories, was crushed in her attempt to defeat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congresswoman, in New York.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Donald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsAbortionJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

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      How the fall of Roe shattered Republicans’ midterm dreams

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

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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