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

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

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

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

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      Joe Biden indicates he’ll run in 2024, following Democrats’ midterms wins

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      Joe Biden indicates he’ll run in 2024, following Democrats’ midterms winsPresident says he’ll announce decision in early 2023, while two-thirds of midterm voters said they wouldn’t like to see him run To those who do not want to see the US president run for re-election, Joe Biden has a message: “Watch me.”A self-assured Biden, riding high from Democrats’ history-defying showing in this year’s midterm elections, said at a post-election press conference that he intends to seek another term, but that it was ultimately a “family decision”.US midterm elections 2022: Senate and House remain in balance as counting continues – liveRead more“I think everybody wants me to run, but we’re going to have discussions about it,” Biden told reporters, indicating that he would sit down with his family over the holidays and announce his decision “early next year”.01:27A full accounting of the election results will take several more days, or possibly weeks, to know as key states continue counting and a Senate race in Georgia heads to a runoff that could determine control of the chamber.Though Republicans hold the edge in the district-by-district battle for the House, Biden and his party managed to avoid the “giant red wave” that many Democrats had braced for in a political environment shaped by widespread economic discontent and the president’s low approval ratings. Control of the Senate also remains within reach for Democrats.Despite the unexpectedly strong showing Biden, approaching his 80th birthday this month, could still face strong headwinds in 2024. Two-thirds of midterm voters said they would not like to see Biden seek re-election in 2024, according to exit polling conducted by Edison Research. That includes more than 40% of Democrats and 90% of Republicans, the poll showed.But the surprising, mixed results on Tuesday may serve to bolster Biden’s case for seeking re-election and perhaps even quell concerns among those in his party who hope the party elects another standard-bearer in 2024.“Our intention is to run again,” Biden said. “That’s been our intention regardless of what the outcome of this election was.In the months before the election, vulnerable Democrats were peppered with questions about whether they would support Biden in 2024. And Democratic leaders have mostly delicately sidestepped questions about whether he should run again.For now, Democrats’ successes have shifted the attention to Donald Trump, who hoped a wave of Republican victories would propel the launch of his third presidential bid, expected as soon as next week.But many of Trump’s hand-picked candidates lost on Tuesday night, among them Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor, who lost a marquee Senate race in Pennsylvania to John Fetterman. The underwhelming results have raised questions about the former president’s political strength, with some openly warning that he is a drag on the party.Meanwhile, Trump’s chief Republican rival, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, cruised to re-election on Tuesday. Following DeSantis’s strong performance on Tuesday, in which he expanded his support among Hispanic voters and turned the increasingly Republican state even redder, many conservatives are already pushing him as a promising alternative to Trump. The conservative New York Post anointed DeSantis as “DeFuture”.Biden welcomed the Republican competition. “It would be fun to watch them take each other on,” he said.Even before the president makes a decision, his team has started to lay the groundwork for a potential campaign.“We are engaged in some planning for the simple reason that if we weren’t engaged in planning in November of this year, we should be in the political malpractice Hall of Fame,” said Anita Dunn, senior White House adviser, during an Axios event last week.Biden’s approval rating stands at 43% among registered voters, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll released ahead of election day. But he remains popular among Democrats, with eight in 10 giving him positive ratings compared with nine in 10 Republicans who disapprove of his job performance. Slightly fewer than four in 10 independent voters say they approve of his performance.There appears to be little appetite among elected Democrats to challenge Biden in a primary. The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a leading progressive, has ruled out a run against Biden.Should Biden choose not to run, it’s unclear who would step forward to seek the nomination.As vice-president, Kamala Harris is seen as an heir apparent, and would probably emerge as the frontrunner. Harris, who campaigned across the country for Democrats this cycle, was credited with spotlighting the issue of abortion and reproductive rights, which proved decisive in key races. But she, like Biden, also suffers from low approval ratings.Other Democrats have attracted 2024 speculation. The Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, both of whom ran in 2020, traveled to several states this cycle to campaign for Democrats.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who easily won re-election on Tuesday a year after defeating a recall attempt, has sought to build a national profile by publicly challenging DeSantis. And Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who stormed to re-election in a battleground state, is seen as a rising star.David Shor, a top Democratic data analyst, said the midterm results underscored the power of incumbency, as many of the party’s endangered members held on to their seats despite a challenging political environment. Rallying behind an incumbent also avoids a messy primary, he said.“There’s definitely a case that it would make sense to avoid a bruising, trillion-dollar primary where all of the smartest minds in the Democratic party devote themselves to driving the favorables down of all of our favorite candidates,” Shor said in an interview on the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America.But the bigger variable, Shor argued, could be the economy.“The traditional pattern of American politics was that there was this really strong relationship between economic conditions and presidential approval. That was true for Clinton, it was true for Bush but it stopped being true for Barack Obama and for Donald Trump. But it’s come back for Joe Biden,” he said. “And so I think ultimately, the question of 2024 is really just what the economy ends up being.”TopicsJoe BidenUS elections 2024DemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      What a relief I’ve been denied my favourite election day hobby – hating fellow Americans | Emma Brockes

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      What a relief I’ve been denied my favourite election day hobby – hating fellow Americans Emma BrockesWhen things going less badly than planned is a small win, the lack of a revival of Trump-backed candidates is cheering In the playground on Tuesday, we stood in a huddle and indulged in the primary joy of election day: loathing one’s fellow Americans. In New York, where I live, the only close race was the race for governor, where the choice between Kathy Hochul, the Democrat incumbent, and Lee Zeldin – a pro-Trump, anti-abortion Republican – threatened to mess with the very idea of the city.Early lessons from the US midterm elections as votes are still being countedRead more“You know who I really hate?” said a friend who had taken the train in from Long Island to vote.I did know. Democrats take more pleasure in hating other Democrats than in hating Republicans. “Andrew Cuomo,” I said.“Yup. If he’d kept his dick in his pants we wouldn’t be here.” A line that could, sadly, be applied to any number of men in American politics. “Now we’re going to end up with a Republican governor because people won’t vote for a woman.”That was midday on Tuesday, when it still seemed probable, per polling and received wisdom about the midterms, that the dominant party in government would suffer the most losses. Anxiety about the economy and inflation; the impression that President Biden is too old; the ugly face of Trumpism apparently not yet vanquished; plus the usual superstitions and defeatist instincts of the left: all led to a mood among Democrats on Tuesday that fell somewhere between panic and gloom.So we did what people in denial do: we told ourselves that, when the results came in overnight, the worst eventuality might actually – sound the counter-intuitition klaxon! – be for the best. A friend had a friend who was a political analyst at Brown (this was how the conversations on Tuesday played out), and she said that it would be no bad thing if the Democrats lost control of Congress because in two years’ time that would mean Republicans would have to carry the can when people voted in the presidential election.This kind of worked. But then there were the races that were so starkly depressing that no amount of fancy footwork could neutralise them. Chief among these was the Pennsylvania Senate race between Dr Oz, the rightwing TV host who said in a recent debate that abortion was a matter between “women, doctors and local political leaders”, and the Democratic candidate, John Fetterman.The importance of this race was underscored when both Biden and Barack Obama turned up to stump for Fetterman on Saturday, undoing all the detachment I’d managed to achieve about the midterms. Watching Obama do his thing in front of a stadium of people in Pittsburgh was intensely moving. It was also a hard reminder of how far we had fallen since 2008. Accustomed as most Americans are these days to seeing the apparent lunatic in any race win, Obama’s appearance seemed to guarantee Oz would ascend to the Senate.Fetterman won with 50.4% of the vote. Kathy Hochul won with 52.5% of the vote. That the size of the relief was so huge, on Wednesday morning, was an indication both of how slim the margins were, and how little we needed to feel some hope. By midday, while it was still unclear whether Congress would remain in the hands of the Democrats, it was apparent there would be no red wave. There was no big revival in support for Trump-backed candidates. And there were some hugely cheering results from the centre of the country, where for example in Kentucky voters defeated the anti-abortion constitutional amendment. For the first time in ages, it was possible to think warmly of people one was used to dismissing as nutters.There were some let-downs among the reliefs. JD Vance, the bearded memoirist turned ultra-right Republican, won the Senate seat in Ohio. Beto O’Rourke lost out once again to Greg Abbott in Texas, and Stacey Abrams was defeated in Georgia. The satisfaction of seeing Trump’s candidates underperform on Wednesday was, meanwhile, eclipsed in part by Ron DeSantis winning decisively in the gubernatorial race in Florida. DeSantis, a more credible version of Trump, remains the most dangerous indication that the movement is alive and well.Still, slight gains, or at least losses on a smaller scale than anticipated, made for a whiplash effect midweek. In the playground on Tuesday, as the kids ran around, we returned to the subject of all the people who were ruining the country. On Wednesday, it was time to feel something else: relief, joy and the disorienting novelty of things going better than planned.
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsNew YorkKathy HochulJoe BidenDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief. But their troubles are far from over

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      AnalysisDemocrats are breathing a sigh of relief. But their troubles are far from overDavid Smith in WashingtonAmerica is returning to an era of divided government and two years of grinding trench warfare It was a result that, Joe Biden said on Wednesday, gave everyone a “whew! sigh of relief” that Make America Great Again (Maga) Republicans are not taking over the government again.Biden won and Donald Trump lost in midterm elections to decide control of Congress. But just as in 2020, a collective exhalation is not enough to spell the end of political dysfunction in America. Things are about to get messy.For all their deflation, Republicans appear on course to capture a majority in the House of Representatives, albeit by a far smaller margin than history has suggested or crystal ball gazers had forecast.Karl Rove on the midterms: ‘Trump looms over this. No ifs or buts’Read moreThat means the end of Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s reign as House speaker, at least for now. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has announced his intention to take the speaker’s gavel. It might be better described as a poisoned chalice.Should McCarthy prevail, his achingly slim majority will afford little room for maneuver when it comes to legislating. McCarthy will have to do deals either with Democrats or far-right Trump loyalists. In a House where every member fancies him or herself as president, the speaker could find himself perpetually bending to the will of Marjorie Taylor Greene.It is hardly a prescription for national unity. Whatever happens in the Senate, which may be decided again in a Georgia runoff, America is returning to an era of divided government and two years of grinding trench warfare.That spells trouble for Biden’s legislative agenda, echoing the plight of Barack Obama, who did big things in his first two years as president but found slim pickings over the following six.Biden, who campaigned as an apostle of bipartisanship and did enjoy some wins – on infrastructure, gun safety, military veterans’ benefits – will now find Republicans more combative as everything comes to be seen through the prism of the 2024 election.Expect the Republican majority to launch an array of congressional investigations ranging from the reasonable (Biden’s botched withdrawal to Afghanistan) to the grandstanding (Anthony Fauci’s coronavirus pandemic measures and Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop).Expect a battle over lifting the limit on US debt with the potential to cause havoc in the economy. Expect a possible attempt by the the Maga wing of the party to impeach Biden on spurious grounds, effectively as payback for Democrats having twice hit Trump with the ultimate sanction.But Republican overreach could prompt a public backlash and generates sympathy for the incumbent president.Paul Ryan, the most recent Republican House speaker, from 2015 to 2019, warned on the new Control podcast: “The last thing I think the American people want to see is a new majority used as a tool for Trump’s vindictive campaign or a vendetta. That’s not what a majority is for; a majority is for advancing the interests of the American people. Looking forward, not looking backward to settle some guy’s scores. So that’s going to be a bit of a challenge.”Ryan added: “It’s important that the adults in the room temper this by not just chasing conspiracy theories, going down rabbit holes or overreaching and just getting to truth and making sure that you hold an executive branch accountable.”If Republicans are unable to resist the rabbit holes, none of it will be healthy for the governance of democracy, adding to the feedback loop that disaffected millions of people and made them crave a “drain the swamp” outside like Trump in the first place.Hyperpartisan cable news and social media will continue to pour fuel on the flames. Twitter, now controlled by Elon Musk, might welcome back Trump just in time for an epically savage presidential campaign.The chaos would also harm America abroad. Biden has spent two years trying to rebuild alliances and assure the world that its democracy is secure.At a press conference in the state dining room on Wednesday, Biden retold the story of how, just after taking office, he attended a meeting of G7 leaders and assured them that America is back. “One of them turned to me and said, ‘For how long?’ It was a deadly earned question. ‘For how long?’”In other words, was Trump the blip or is Biden the blip?The sight of election-denying extremists ruling the roost in the US Capitol will hardly calm nerves in Berlin or Tokyo. Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia, recently declared: “Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first.”Even McCarthy has warned Tuesday that Republicans will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine if they win the House. The bipartisan consensus in Washington on this issue – seen as critical to Biden’s perennial theme of democracy standing up to autocracy – could crumble with huge global ramificationsWith a portrait of a pensive Abraham Lincoln looking on, Biden reflected on Wednesday: “The American people made it clear. They don’t want every day going forward to be a constant political battle. There’s too much of that going on. There’s too much that we have to do. The future of America is too promising to be trapped in an endless political warfare.”But as reporters pressed him over whether he will run in 2024, and with Trump expected to announce his own White House bid next week, the next phase of political warfare is already under way. Given America’s structural flaws and democratic deficits, it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.TopicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansNancy PelosiUS politicsDonald TrumpJoe BidenBarack ObamaanalysisReuse this content More

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      ‘Giant red wave didn’t happen,’ says Biden as he cites plan to run in 2024 – video

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      Joe Biden took a cautious victory lap following the 2022 midterm election results, describing Democratic successes despite expectations of large Republican gains. ‘While the press and the pundits were predicting a giant red wave – it didn’t happen,’ the US president said, adding that many results in key races were still being tallied.
      With ballots still being counted, Democrats were hopeful about holding the Senate while Republicans felt they were on course to win the House – but by a much narrower margin than widely predicted

      Senate control still a toss-up as key midterm races remain uncalled
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      Biden hails ‘good day for democracy’ as Democrats defy midterm expectations

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      Biden hails ‘good day for democracy’ as Democrats defy midterm expectationsPresident says ‘giant red wave didn’t happen’ as Senate still in balance and race for House control much closer than predicted

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      01:27Joe Biden hailed “a good day” for democracy after Democrats defied history and outperformed expectations in America’s midterm elections, leaving control of Congress on a knife-edge.Trump branded midterms’ ‘biggest loser’ as DeSantis win fuels 2024 talkRead moreWith ballots still being counted, Democrats were hopeful about holding the Senate, though the outcome of the tight races in Arizona and Nevada were still uncertain on Wednesday evening and another key race in Georgia was headed to a runoff. Democrats need to win two of those seats to maintain Senate control.Republicans, meanwhile, felt they were on course to win the House – but by a much narrower margin than widely predicted.“We had an election yesterday – it was a good day, I think, for democracy,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “And I think it was a good day for America.”The president added: “While the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn’t happen … Democrats had a strong night.”Biden looked poised for the best midterm performance by an incumbent president’s party since George W Bush in 2002. Perhaps the biggest loser of the night was his predecessor, Donald Trump, as many of his handpicked candidates slumped to defeat, throwing fresh doubt over his political future.The party that controls the White House typically loses seats in midterm elections and opinion polls had shown broad dissatisfaction with Biden and the economy. The conditions appeared ripe for a so-called Republican “red wave” that could have drowned the president’s legislative agenda.But it did not turn out that way and a day that had been expected to dawn with Democratic soul-searching was instead filled with Republican finger-pointing and recriminations.“The Republican party needs to do a really deep introspection look in the mirror right now because this is an absolute disaster,” Marc Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for Bush, told Fox News.The results of the most hotly contested Senate races were giving many Republicans heartburn. Biden campaigned hard in Pennsylvania, the state of his birth, and was rewarded when John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor who suffered a stroke during the campaign, defeated Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor endorsed by Trump.01:19Senator Mark Kelly maintained a lead over the Republican Blake Masters in Arizona, though Kelly’s colleague from Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, had fallen behind. But hundreds of thousands of ballots remain uncounted in those races, and election officials have warned it could take days to determine the winners.In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a pastor, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker, a former American football star, are headed to a 6 December runoff, a race that could determine control of the chamber. The Alaska Senate race was also still too close to call, but the top two candidates are both Republicans.Future of Congress hangs in balance as many races still too close to callRead moreRepublicans had been heavily favoured to take the House and did claim a major prize, winning the New York seat of Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democrats’ campaign arm.But the widespread gains many forecasters predicted failed to materialise. Vulnerable Democrats such as Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan held on, keeping the party’s hopes of House control alive hours after polls closed.It may be days before the House results are clear, with roughly 30 critical races still pending, including several key battles in California; although the state is overall Democratic, there are five competitive races where votes are still being counted and where party affiliation could flip.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, expressed optimism in the early hours of Wednesday.“While many races remain too close to call, it is clear that House Democratic members and candidates are strongly outperforming expectations across the country,” Pelosi said. “As states continue to tabulate the final results, every vote must be counted as cast.”Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, appeared at 1.59am, much later than expected, at an event in Washington. He declared: “It is clear we are going to take the House back.”McCarthy later announced his bid to become speaker if Republicans do win the House. But with a wafer-thin majority, he could face political headaches as pro-Trump extremists seek to dominate the agenda.Biden said he would speak to McCarthy later in the day. He told reporters: “I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues. The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect the Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.”The results also brought welcome news for abortion rights supporters devastated by the supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade in June. California, Vermont and Michigan voted to strengthen abortion rights into their constitutions, while conservative states Kentucky and Montana rejected measures to restrict access to the procedure.Early exit polls suggested abortion rights had been a motivating factor for many voters, despite predictions the issue would be overshadowed by economic concerns. One exit poll conducted by Edison Research found that 27% of voters named abortion as their top priority, compared to 31% who said the same of inflation.Threats to democracy also appeared to be weighing heavily on voters’ minds. According to AP VoteCast, 44% said the future of democracy was their primary consideration, making it the second-most common response behind inflation.Overall, the night shaped up poorly for election deniers and candidates endorsed by Trump. Although dozens of incumbents who challenged the 2020 presidential result did win, election deniers in key gubernatorial and secretary of state races were on track for defeat. Democrats won governors’ races in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, crucial battlegrounds in recent presidential elections likely to be pivotal again in 2024. Many saw it as yet another rebuke of Trump and his “Make America great again” (Maga) movement following losses in 2018 and 2020.Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, said: “This was supposed to be Maga’s triumphant night. It turned into a massive embarrassment. While we’re still awaiting final results, the overall picture is clear: Democrats massively performed the midterm fundamentals. Voters don’t like anti-abortion zealots. Voters don’t like election deniers. Voters don’t like Trump. And voters don’t like Maga.”As Trump-endorsed candidates fell, others downplayed their connection to the former president. JD Vance, who won the Ohio Republican Senate primary largely thanks to Trump’s endorsement, did not mention his name while delivering a victory speech on Tuesday.Today’s cover: Ron DeSantis shows he’s future of the GOP https://t.co/Ja9rO579r4 pic.twitter.com/9Px1KBH1MP— New York Post (@nypost) November 9, 2022
      The results reportedly infuriated Trump, who is expected to announce another presidential campaign as early as next week. Even more worrisome for him, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, frequently named as a potential presidential candidate, easily cruised to re-election.DeSantis’s 19-point victory in Trump’s home state – notably carrying largely Latino counties such as Miami-Dade and Osceola – only intensified chatter about 2024.In a potential sign of trouble for Trump, the New York Post, which the former president has been known to read avidly, put a photo of DeSantis on its cover. “DeFuture”, the cover’s headline read. “Young GOP star DeSantis romps to victory in Florida.”The glowing coverage is sure to irritate Trump, who is famous for lashing out against fellow Republicans who steal the spotlight and who last week branded the governor “Ron DeSanctimonious”.01:41In a preview of a potentially bloody primary, Trump told Fox News: “I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly. I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering – I know more about him than anybody – other than, perhaps, his wife.”Biden, meanwhile, suggested that he is likely to make a final decision on running early next year with input from his wife, Jill Biden.“Our intention is to run again,” he said, in the White House state dining room. “That’s been our intention, regardless of what the outcome of this election was.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      The winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald Trump

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      AnalysisThe winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald TrumpJonathan Freedland in WashingtonTrumpers fared badly in swing states as Biden bucked the historical trend and avoided heavy defeats in his first term

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      US midterm elections 2022 – latest live news updates
      And the loser is … Donald J Trump. The identity of the winners of America’s midterm elections was not clear the morning after the night before – even at lunchtime on Wednesday the TV anchors could not tell their audiences whether Democrats or Republicans would be in control of the House of Representatives or Senate – but there was no such ambiguity over the fate of the man who continues to loom over US politics, even two years after his removal from the White House. Trump took a beating.True to form, the former president had wanted this election to be all about him. His rallies, nominally staged to boost support for Republican candidates in whichever state he had landed in, were instead intensely focused on himself. At an outdoor event in Latrobe, Pennsylvania on Saturday night, for example, he spoke only fleetingly of the men running for governor or senator, devoting most of his two-hour speech either to relitigating the past – insisting, against all evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him – or hinting at a glorious future, talking up his prospects for retaking the presidency in 2024.When he projected charts on to the giant screens, the graphics did not make a case for why Democrats deserved to lose their majorities in Congress, still less offer policy remedies for how the Republicans would combat inflation or crime. No, they showed a series of opinion polls, each one confirming how Trump remained the Republican faithful’s favourite, miles in front of any would-be rival.As things turned out, the ex-president’s trademark narcissism was not so wide of the mark. In a way, the 2022 midterms were indeed all about him – just not in the way he had hoped.Trump, like so many others, had assumed Tuesday would see a red wave rolling across America, sweeping Democrats out of both houses of Congress, toppling blue citadels in the most unexpected places: in the final weekend, there was sufficient panic in the highest reaches of the Democratic party that both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were dispatched to New York, one of the bluest states in the union, to shore up a governor who was suddenly thought to be in a tight race. (In fact, she won easily.)Trump was poised to claim credit for a famous victory and to enjoy the fruits of it. He looked forward to a decisive Republican takeover of the House, one that would see the Democrat-led investigation into the attempted insurrection of 6 January 2021 abandoned, its place taken instead by multiple probes into the affairs of the Biden family. As one seasoned Democrat put it to me this week, “He’ll expect the House to operate as his law firm.” But even if his party does eke out an eventual congressional win, there was no Republican tsunami. “Definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure,” admitted senator and tireless Trump sycophant Lindsey Graham.That’s a surprise, and not only because it upended the Washington conventional wisdom. Heavy midterm defeat for the party of a first-term, incumbent president is seen as the norm, a pendulum effect all but governed by the laws of nature. Barack Obama lost 63 House seats in 2010, just as Bill Clinton lost 52 in 1994. Trump himself lost 40 in 2018. Yet Democratic losses this time will be much fewer, even at a time of great economic hardship and low poll ratings for the Democratic president. How was Biden able to buck that historical trend? The answer lies, in part, with Trump.The former president inserted himself into multiple contests, endorsing candidates at the primaries stage when parties choose their standard-bearers. The Trump seal of approval proved decisive in several, but just look at how those Trump favourites fared. True, the memoirist and venture capitalist JD Vance won in now solidly red Ohio, but in swing states Trumpers performed badly. An election denier who had been present at the 6 January Capitol Hill riot was trounced in the race to be Pennsylvania governor, while TV doctor Mehmet Oz, another Trump pick, was defeated in the Senate race by Democrat John Fetterman – even though the latter faced persistent questions about his ability to serve following a severe stroke in the summer.Perhaps most revealing of the Trump effect was Georgia. Two Republican officials who became nationally known when they resisted Trump pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential count in their state were comfortably re-elected. But Herschel Walker, handpicked by Trump to run for the senate in Georgia, was in a photo finish for that all-important seat, one set to be decided by a run-off next month. Meanwhile, a Trumper in New Hampshire was soundly beaten, while another, Kari Lake, seemed to be trailing in what should have been a winnable contest in Arizona.As Wednesday morning came, a pattern seemed to be emerging. Even Fox News reporters were quoting Republican sources telling them: “If it wasn’t clear before, it should be now. We have a Trump problem.” Trump’s endorsement hurt Republicans in midterms – aside from JD VanceRead moreIt wasn’t just Trump’s talent for picking duff candidates in states Republicans had to win (and will need to win again in 2024). It was the transformation he has wrought in the Republican party itself. A majority of GOP candidates had cast doubt on or outright denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election. That enabled Democrats, starting with Biden himself, to argue that, whatever grievances voters had with the party’s handling of the economy, they had to vote Democrat to save democracy.Bad poll numbers had some wondering if that was a mistaken message, given voters’ preoccupation with rising prices, but it seems to have paid dividends. Along with reproductive rights, imperilled by the supreme court’s summer ruling ending constitutional protection for abortion, the threat to democracy galvanised blue turnout, seemingly turning a red wave into a red ripple. Blame, or credit, for that comes entirely down to Trump, who made election denial a Republican article of faith.All this affects Trump’s prospects for 2024, not least because his most obvious rival for the Republican nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, had such a good night. DeSantis was re-elected in his own state by a landslide, racking up big numbers in historically Democratic counties. At that Saturday rally in Pennsylvania, Trump had mocked the governor, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious” (not one of his better hostile nicknames). The contrast between the two is no longer flattering to Trump, a point made robustly by one senior Republican: “The one guy [Trump] attacked before election day was DeSantis – the clear winner. Meanwhile, all his guys are shitting the bed.” In Ohio, strikingly, JD Vance did not even mention the former president in his victory speech.Cold, hard logic suggests Republicans should step away from Trump, a man who has now presided over three consecutive defeats in 2018, 2020 and 2022 (four if you include the two Georgia senate runoffs in January 2021). But it won’t be simple. For one thing, Trump’s defenders can argue that they do better when his name is on the ballot than when it is not – and it is true that Republicans did gain congressional seats in 2016 and 2020. But in some ways that underlines the problem. Because in a year when Trump himself is not a candidate, like 2022, his absence weakens hardcore Trump devotees’ desire to turn out, while his looming presence on the scene repels the floating voters who decide elections. Put another way, the Republicans’ problem is not simply Trump the man. It is that they have become Trump’s party.All of this is sweet balm for Democrats, who can now crack open the popcorn and enjoy the spectacle of Republicans fighting each other. But that too has implications for 2024. One clear winner from these midterms is Joe Biden, who presided over a better than expected performance for his party. That will reduce the pressure on him to make way for a fresher candidate for next time. Some Democrats anticipated that the thundercloud of defeat they expected on Tuesday would have one silver lining: Biden, who is showing his 80 years, would feel compelled to announce that he would not seek re-election. Those voices have now been stilled, at least for now.In part, Biden can thank his 2020 antagonist for that. The flaws of the 45th president helped put the 46th in the White House – and now the predecessor may have done his successor another favour. For this election night, like the previous three in America, was all about Donald Trump.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansDemocratsJoe BidenanalysisReuse this content More