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      Are US politics starting to turn towards a more hopeful future? | Gary Gerstle

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      Are US politics starting to turn towards a more hopeful future?Gary GerstleWe might one day look back on this midterm – and on Biden’s first two years – and discern in them a new beginning Last week was amazing for Joe Biden. The Red Wave fizzled. The Democrats kept the Senate. Even if the House slips from the Democrats’ grasp, as it is expected to, Biden will be credited with engineering the strongest midterm showing by an incumbent president’s party since 2002, and the most impressive such performance by a sitting Democratic president since JFK in 1962. Women’s anger at the supreme court’s Dobbs decision hammered the Republicans in key states. Many of Trump’s highest-flying, election-denying candidates fell to earth, damaging the ex-president’s aura of invincibility. Fights and recriminations have now broken out everywhere in Republican ranks.And there’s more from last week to bring a smile to Biden’s face: inflation moderated, the Dow rocketed skyward, and Ukrainians pushed the Russians out of Kherson, a big win not just for Ukraine but for Biden’s European foreign policy. And, oh yes, in America, young people – the country’s future – came out in relatively large numbers and, in critical contests, broke for the Democrats in a big way.And yet, what did this past week of exceptional political success yield for Biden and Democrats? Their majority in the Senate is still razor-thin. If they lose the House, their already narrow path to passing legislation will shrink further. House Republicans are likely to use a new House majority to flood media with an investigation of Hunter Biden and other vulnerable Democratic party figures – payback for the January 6 hearings. Even the most impressively conceived legislative proposals coming from the White House may be greeted with House Republican intransigence.Nevertheless, looking ahead to 2024, there are grounds for optimism, not just that Democrats can win but that they can begin to build bigger and more enduring majorities. Most importantly, three major legislative achievements of the Biden administration to date are likely to have a greater impact on the 2024 election than they did in 2022. The most important of these is the curiously titled Inflation Reduction Act. That bill has not gotten the credit it deserves, in part because of its silly name and in part because it is much smaller than the $5tn Build Back Bill from which it is descended.Watching that original bill get whittled down and carved up across 2021 and 2022 was not a pretty sight. Yet the final version of the legislation contains truly important initiatives in multiple spheres, nowhere more so than the nearly $400bn appropriated for investments in green technology and for tax breaks and subsidies to businesses and homeowners to convert to clean energy. The bill constitutes the biggest single investment that the federal government has made in a green energy future.Of nearly equal importance in Biden’s first two years were two other bills: the trillion-dollar Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to improve the nation’s crumbling physical infrastructure; and the Chips Act, to re-shore, in a massive way, the research, design and production of semi-conductor computer chips, those tiny, ubiquitous and indispensable components that drive every computer and virtually all of America’s (and the world’s) machines and phones.In these three initiatives, the Democrats have laid down a foundation for a program of political economy that diverges significantly from its neoliberal predecessor. This older vision of political economy, long embraced both by Republicans and Democrats, insisted on freeing markets and capital from government oversight and direction. The Biden program, by contrast, is grounded in the belief that a strong government is necessary to steer – and, in some cases, compel – markets and corporations into serving the public good. It crystallized from the extensive discussions between the Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders wings of the Democratic party across 2020 and 2021. It represents a profound departure from the last 30 of governing practice.The industrial policies being promoted by the Biden administration won’t lead to nationalization; they focus instead on incentivizing the private sector to pursue broadly agreed upon economic aims. Two of the three aforementioned bills – the Chips Act and the Infrastructure Act – passed the Senate with significant Republican support. Quietly, Biden has delivered on his promise to open a new pathway to bipartisanship. There will be opportunities to broaden this bipartisanship, especially in regard to breaking up or regulating the monopoly power of the giant social media companies. Strong support for doing so exists on both sides of the Senate aisle. One key question is whether this incipient senatorial cross-party collaboration can soften the country’s paralyzing political polarization and persuade a few House Republicans to support upper chamber initiatives. Another is whether the Democrats can use their new program of political economy to sell a broad swath of the electorate – including constituencies currently lying beyond Democratic redoubts – on the party’s vision of the good life.Judging by the midterms’ voting patterns alone, one might be tempted to say no. But there are reasons to think otherwise. For one, economic circumstances will be different in 2024 than they are now. Inflation will probably have moderated and thus may have faded as a political flashpoint. The recession that the Fed seems so determined to trigger will have occurred, and a recovery will be under way. Additionally, by 2024, corporate America (as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act) will be more deeply invested in green technology. The conversion to post-fossil fuel economy will have correspondingly accelerated, as America’s robust private sector glimpses the profits to be made in the clean energy revolution. Moreover, by 2024, the first new infrastructural projects should be nearing completion, yielding visible improvements in America’s creaking system of bridges, roads, and transportation hubs and networks. All this investment and building should generate jobs and, perhaps, the promise of a better life for many long denied it. A somnolent US labor movement is reawakening, a development that, if it continues, will help to ensure that future jobs carry with them decent wages. Perhaps word will spread that Democrats are capable of managing America’s dynamic but unruly economy in the public interest.Is this too rosy a picture? Perhaps. Biden will never be a “great communicator”. Trump’s shrinking but still ardent band of zealots will continue to threaten American democracy. The red state-blue state divide endures. House Republicans together with the US supreme court may obstruct further Democratic efforts at reform. And we don’t know what a desperate Putin might inflict on the world if he truly believed that his reign over Russia was about to end.If we take the long view, however, and concede that a progressive political order requires a long march, then we might one day look back on this midterm – and on Biden’s first two years – and discern in them the first steps toward a better future.
      Gary Gerstle is Mellon professor of American history emeritus at Cambridge and a Guardian US columnist. His most recent book is The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era (2022)
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      US midterms 2022: Democrats’ hopes of keeping House fade as counting continues – live

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      If a president’s party can only keep one chamber of Congress, the Senate is the one to have.The Senate is tasked with approving the White House’s nominations, including cabinet secretaries, federal judges and most crucially, supreme court justices. With Democrats holding the majority for the next two years, Joe Biden is once again guaranteed the ability to get his cabinet secretaries and judges confirmed to post across the government. That will increase the chances Biden’s legislative accomplishments – and those of future Democratic presidents – survive court challenges.But if the House falls to Republicans, Biden’s days of big legislating may have come to an end, at least for now. The chamber’s GOP leadership has shown little interest in working with the president, and it’s unlikely any of their bills make it through the Senate and to the president’s desk. Control of the House also gives the GOP the ability to conduct investigations and issue subpoenas. Expect them to do that to officials involved in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, and to Hunter Biden. Prosecutors say criminal charges not expected from Giuliani raidNew York prosecutors said in a letter to a judge on Monday they do not plan to criminally charge Rudy Giuliani following a probe into his dealings with Ukrainian associates – a development Giuliani’s called “a total victory”. Prosecutors had been investigating whether Giuliani should have been registered as a foreign agent due to his dealings with figures in Ukraine in the run-up to the 2020 election.The investigation, which resulted in raids on his residence in April 2021 and seizure of a number of electronic devices, has concluded, and that criminal charges would not be forthcoming.“In my business, we would call that total victory,” Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, told the Associated Press. “We appreciate what the US attorney’s [office] has done. We only wish they had done it a lot sooner.”Read the full story here. Kari Paul here taking over for the next couple hours, stay tuned for updates. Trump wasn’t keeping all those classified documents at Mar-a-Lago for the money, The Washington Post reports.Rather, the motivation for his alleged retention of government secrets at his south Florida resort was more about Trump’s desire to hang on to keepsakes from his time in the White House, according to the Post, which cited federal investigators. That doesn’t mean he won’t face charges in the case, which is one of many inquiries the former president is involved in nearly two years after he left office. Here’s more from the Post:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell, or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.
      Several Trump advisers said that each time he was asked to give documents or materials back, his stance hardened, and that he gravitated toward lawyers and advisers who indulged his more pugilistic desires. Trump repeatedly said the materials were his, not the government’s — often in profane terms, two of these people said.
      The people familiar with the matter cautioned that the investigation is ongoing, no final determinations have been made, and it’s possible additional information could emerge that changes investigators’ understanding of Trump’s motivations. But they said the evidence collected over a period of months indicates the primary explanation for potentially criminal conduct was Trump’s ego and intransigence.
      A Justice Department spokesman and an FBI spokeswoman declined to comment. A Trump spokesman did not return a request for comment Monday.
      The analysis of Trump’s likely motive in allegedly keeping the documents is not, strictly speaking, an element of determining whether he or anyone around him committed a crime, or should be charged with one. Justice Department policy dictates that prosecutors file criminal charges in cases in which they believe a crime was committed and the evidence is strong enough to lead to a conviction that will hold up on appeal. But as a practical matter, motive is an important part of how prosecutors assess cases and decide whether to file criminal charges.The Guardian’s Kari Paul is now taking over the live blog, and will take you through the latest politics news over the remainder of the day.Another notable Republican has reiterated his support for Donald Trump, Politico reports.Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville said he will back Trump for president in 2024, if he announces:Sen. Tuberville says he will endorse Trump for president when he announces. He also says he’ll support McConnell as GOP leader— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) November 14, 2022
      He also announced that he would back Mitch McConnell as Senate minority leader, the top office available for the GOP in that chamber after they failed to win control in the midterms.CNN reports that the bipartisan group of senators pushing a bill to codify same-sex marriage believes it has enough support to pass the chamber:Multiple sources say the bipartisan group working on legislation to codify same-sex marriage has the votes needed for the bill to pass and is urging leadership to put it on the floor for a vote as soon as possible.w/ @alizaslav— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) November 14, 2022
      The Respect for Marriage Act passed the House earlier this year with some Republican support. Assuming all Democratic senators vote for it, it will need the votes of at least 10 Republicans to overcome a filibuster, but it’s previously been unclear if that support exists.Ahead of the release of his memoir tomorrow, former vice-president Mike Pence sat down with ABC News to talk more about his experience on January 6.Here was his reaction when asked about Trump’s tweet lashing out at Pence on the day of the attack:”It angered me. … The president’s words were reckless. It was clear he decided to be part of the problem.”— Former Vice President Mike Pence, in an ABC News exclusive as he promotes his new book, rebukes Trump’s tweet attacking him on Jan. 6th as the mob stormed the Capitol pic.twitter.com/PqnqUH7vbQ— The Recount (@therecount) November 14, 2022
      In their quest to understand why they performed so poorly in the midterms, some Republicans are pointing the finger at Donald Trump, arguing he has outlived his usefulness to the party.Writing in The American Conservative, JD Vance, a Republican who just won a seat in the Senate representing Ohio, attempted to dissuade the GOP from casting blame on the former president. He argues that Trump serves as a unifying force for Republicans and can offset Democrats’ advantages in fundraising and voter turnout that are going to make it more difficult for the GOP to win House and Senate races.Here’s more from his piece:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the long term, the way to solve this is to build a turnout machine, not gripe at the former president. But building a turnout machine without organized labor and amid declining church attendance is no small thing. Our party has one major asset, contra conventional wisdom, to rally these voters: President Donald Trump. Now, more than ever, our party needs President Trump’s leadership to turn these voters out and suffers for his absence from the stage.
      The point is not that Trump is perfect. I personally would have preferred an endorsement of Lou Barletta over Mastriano in the Pennsylvania governor’s race, for example. But any effort to pin blame on Trump, and not on money and turnout, isn’t just wrong. It distracts from the actual issues we need to solve as a party over the long term. Indeed, one of the biggest changes I would like to see from Trump’s political organization—whether he runs for president or not—is to use their incredible small dollar fundraising machine for Trump-aligned candidates, which it appears he has begun doing to assist Herschel Walker in his Senate runoff.
      Blaming Trump isn’t just wrong on the facts, it is counterproductive. Any autopsy of Republican underperformance ought to focus on how to close the national money gap, and how to turn out less engaged Republicans during midterm elections. These are the problems we have, and rather than blaming everyone else, it’s time for party leaders to admit we have these problems and work to solve them. Meanwhile in Georgia, the midterms are very much not over.The Senate race is headed to a run-off election on 6 December, with Republican Herschel Walker challenging Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock for the seat.In a speech today, Walker attacked Warnock for using campaign funds to pay for childcare – as US election law allows:Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) criticizes Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D) parenting:”He paid himself for childcare, all that stuff — why don’t he keep his own kids? Don’t have nobody keep your kids. … I keep my own, even though he lied about me.” pic.twitter.com/C41IJUbA0F— The Recount (@therecount) November 14, 2022
      Left unsaid were reports that Walker paid for two women to have an abortion, even though he supports a nationwide ban on the procedure, without exceptions. He also did not mention one of his son’s claim that he has not been much of a father.It’s just one pollster in one state, but take a look at who CWS Research found was leading among Republican candidates for the White House in 2024.Florida governor Ron DeSantis topped Donald Trump in the poll of Republicans and independents, with 43% support against Trump’s 32%. The survey was conducted from 12 to 13 November, after the midterm elections, and represents a change from a previous poll conducted in mid-October before the vote. Then, Trump led, with 46% support compared to DeSantis’ 29%.Trump is widely expected to announce another campaign for office tomorrow, but DeSantis had a far better midterm election. The Florida governor resoundingly won another term on a day when Republicans performed well in the state overall. Trump, meanwhile, saw several of his handpicked candidates for office rejected by voters in states across the country.Joe Biden’s plan to relieve some student debt has lost again in court and will remain on hold, Politico reports:NEWS – 8th Circuit has blocked Biden’s student debt relief program, siding with GOP states in a 3-0 decision. pic.twitter.com/6gn7UyxmLa— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
      The panel of two Trump appointees & a GWB appointee ruled unanimously that Missouri has standing to challenge debt relief program based on injury to the state via MOHELA. pic.twitter.com/FixeqTSmAa— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
      But the 10-page decision doesn’t discuss the merits of the case much — other than to say the GOP states have raised “substantial questions of law which remain to be resolved”https://t.co/2WkRX1ozkd pic.twitter.com/0Qs03zL7qh— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
      The Guardian’s community team wants to hear from Americans about what they think of the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Be you Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, independent or something else, let them know your thoughts:US voters: share your reaction to the midterm results so farRead moreThe dust is settling from Tuesday’s midterm elections. Control of the House is still up for grabs, but the GOP appears on course to eke out a majority, while Democrats have won themselves the Senate for another two years. The 2024 presidential race may very well kick off tomorrow, when Donald Trump is expected to announce another campaign for the White House.Here’s what else is happening today:
      Joe Biden doesn’t believe the House is winnable for Democrats, nor that there’s enough support for a measure to codify abortion rights into law.
      The Senate plans to vote on a measure to codify same-sex marriage rights this week, after a conservative supreme court justice raised the possibility of the court reconsidering its ruling establishing the rights.
      The January 6 committee is cleared to access the phone records of Arizona’s Republican party chair after the supreme court quashed a challenge to the lawmakers’ subpoena.
      Mo Brooks was once one of Donald Trump’s closest allies, but has since joined the ranks of those who have fallen out with the former president.The Alabama Republican congressman will retire at the end of this year, and in an interview with AL.com called on the party to dump the former president.“It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” said Brooks, who was the first congressman to object to the certification of the 2020 election. “Donald Trump has proven himself to be dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans. Even a candidate who campaigns from his basement can beat him.”The bad blood between the two men stems from Trump’s withdrawn endorsement of Brooks for Alabama’s Senate seat, which was won last week by Republican Katie Britt. Brooks said Trump asked him to remove Joe Biden from office and elevate the ex-president back to power, which the congressman told him was illegal. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports on a new justice department filing in the Mar-a-Lago case, which claims Donald Trump kept classified documents at the resort, even after he left the White House:Donald Trump retained documents bearing classification markings, along with communications from after his presidency, according to court filings describing the materials seized by the FBI as part of the ongoing criminal investigation into whether he mishandled national security information.The former US president kept in the desk drawer of his office at the Mar-a-Lago property one document marked “secret” and one marked “confidential” alongside three communications from a book author, a religious leader and a pollster, dated after he departed the White House.The mixed records could amount to evidence that Trump wilfully retained documents marked classified when he was no longer president as the justice department investigates unauthorised possession of national security materials, concealment of government records, and obstruction.Court files show evidence Trump handled records marked classified after presidencyRead moreMike Pence will on Tuesday release a memoir detailing his time in the Trump White House, and Martin Pengelly takes a look at what the former vice president reveals:In his new book, Donald Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, protests his loyalty to his former boss but also levels criticisms that will acquire new potency as Trump prepares to announce another presidential run and the Republican party debates whether to stay loyal after disappointment in last week’s midterm elections.According to Pence, Trump mishandled his response to a march staged by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August 2017, a costly error that Pence says could have been avoided had Pence called Trump before a fateful press conference in which Trump failed to condemn “the racists and antisemites in Charlottesville by name”.Also in Pence’s judgment, “there was no reason for Trump not to call out Russia’s bad behaviour” early in his term while beset by investigations of Russian election interference on Trump’s behalf and links between Trump and Moscow.“Acknowledging Russian meddling,” Pence writes, would not have “somehow cheapen[ed] our victory” over Hillary Clinton in 2016.Pence does not stop there. Among other judgments which may anger his former boss, he says Trump’s claimed “perfect call” to Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in 2019, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment after he withheld military aid in search of political dirt, was in fact “less than perfect” – if not, in Pence’s judgment, impeachable.Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookRead moreThe January 6 committee can access the phone records of the chair of Arizona’s Republican party after the supreme court turned down an attempt to block the lawmakers’ subpoena:NEW: Supreme Court rejects bid by Ariz GOP Chair Kelli Ward to block a Jan. 6 committee subpoena for her phone records. Thomas and Alito dissent. pic.twitter.com/g3IoSuuRuk— Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) November 14, 2022
      Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are two of the court’s most conservative justices, and objected to the court’s order.Arizona was one of the states targeted by Donald Trump and his allies in the weeks after the 2020 election, as part of their effort to tamper with Joe Biden’s election victory.Later this week, Republicans in the House and Senate are set to vote on who their leaders will be for the next two years, but the party’s weak showing in the midterms has sparked calls to delay the election.It appears rightwing lawmakers are trying to punish top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell for failing to retake the chamber, and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy for the party’s weak showing there. According to Axios, conservative figures outside of Congress will soon release a letter backing the calls for a delay: Per source: collection of prominent conservative movement figures — incl Heritage President Kevin Roberts — will be releasing a letter calling for delay to House and Senate leadership elections. pic.twitter.com/ON8c1dvIyl— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 14, 2022
      Among the signatories: Ginni Thomas, wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. She’s a prominent denier of the facts surrounding Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, and was interviewed by the January 6 committee earlier this year. Lawmakers on the panel said she didn’t have much to offer, and there wasn’t evidence she played a significant role in the insurrection. More

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      Trump for 2024 would be ‘bad mistake’, Republican says as blame game deepens

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      Trump for 2024 would be ‘bad mistake’, Republican says as blame game deepensAlabama congressman Mo Brooks, a once-zealous Trump ally, comments after party fails to retake Congress in midterms Alabama congressman and once-zealous Trump supporter, Mo Brooks, has a remarkable new stance on the political future of his former hero. “It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” he said.Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookRead moreThe stark judgment from Brooks was indicative of the deepening and brutal blame game among Republicans which continued on Monday, nearly a week after the party failed to retake Congress in the midterm elections and a day before Trump’s expected announcement of a new presidential campaign.Speaking to AL.com, Brooks, an Alabama congressman, added: “Donald Trump has proven himself to be dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans. Even a candidate who campaigns from his basement can beat him.”That was a reference to Joe Biden and his precautions against Covid in the 2020 election the Democrat won by more than 7m votes and 306-232 in the electoral college.Brooks did not accept that result. On 6 January 2021, he donned body armor and spoke to Trump supporters at a rally near the White House. Repeating Trump’s lie about electoral fraud, he said: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” The mob then attacked the Capitol, a riot now linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.The election subversion Brooks supported is under investigation by the House January 6 committee, the Department of Justice and state authorities. But Brooks broke with Trump earlier this year, when the former president rescinded his endorsement for US Senate, because Brooks publicly urged him to stop re-litigating 2020.Trump’s eventual endorsee in Alabama, Katie Britt, won a Senate seat. But elsewhere last Tuesday high-profile Trump-endorsed candidates failed, ensuring Democrats held the Senate and stayed on course to hold the Republicans to a tight House majority.Trump is almost certain to announce his 2024 run at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday. But the fire from his own party keeps coming, the barrage widening to include shots at leaders in both houses of Congress.In the Senate, Marco Rubio of Florida, who retained his seat against a highly-rated Democrat, Val Demings, tweeted: “The Senate GOP leadership vote next week should be postponed.”Josh Hawley of Missouri, a potential challenger to Trump in 2024, added: “Exactly right. I don’t know why Senate GOP would hold a leadership vote for the next Congress before this election is finished.”That was a reference to the runoff for the last Senate seat to be decided, in Georgia and between the Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker, a controversial former NFL star, and the incumbent Democrat, Raphael Warnock. Warnock won a tight vote last Tuesday but did not pass 50%, teeing up the runoff.Victories in Pennsylvania – the only Senate seat to flip so far – Arizona and Nevada mean the Democrats will control the Senate even if Warnock loses, thanks to the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris.The other Florida senator, Rick Scott, is under pressure after leading the Republican election effort. The party leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is also feeling the heat.On Tuesday, Josh Holmes, a Republican operative who was formerly chief of staff to McConnell, told the Wall Street Journal the Senate campaign “was run basically as a Rick Scott super Pac, where they didn’t want or need to input any Republican senators whatsoever. That’s a huge break from recent history where members have been pretty intimately involved.”Democrats seized on an “11 Point Plan to Rescue America” Scott issued earlier this year, in which the senator, widely thought to have presidential ambitions of his own, proposed that more Americans pay federal income tax and said Congress could “sunset” social security and Medicare within five years.Holmes said McConnell told Scott: “When you are in leadership you don’t have the ability to do something like this without other people carrying your water.”In the House, the defeat of the Trump endorsee, and election-denier, Joe Kent in Washington state quickly came to seem symbolic of Republican failures.In the primary, Kent defeated a six-term incumbent, Jamie Herrera-Beutler, who suffered for being one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol attack. Kent went on to lose the seat, to the Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez.‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Read moreThe House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, faces a growing threat from the far-right of the party, jeopardising his hopes of becoming speaker should Republicans take control of the House.Andy Biggs of Arizona, another congressman investigated for his support of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, is reported to be teeing up a challenge to McCarthy.Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, like Herrera-Beutler a Republican who voted to impeach Trump, announced his retirement rather than face a primary defeat then went on to sit on the House January 6 committee.Amid post-election recriminations on Capitol Hill, he tweeted: “To GOP’ers: if Kevin McCarthy had not gone to Mar-a-Lago, had the Senate convicted, or had any more congressmen actually stood on principle, likely we would have no Trump, the alt-right would be a sick memory, and you could look in the mirror.“Just FYI. Maybe start now.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS CongressUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

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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

      by

      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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      in US Politics

      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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      in Elections

      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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      ‘A sacred space’: Sebastian Junger and Seth Moulton on Vets Town Hall

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      ‘A sacred space’: Sebastian Junger and Seth Moulton on Vets Town Hall The bestselling author wants to help Americans understand those in the military. On Veterans Day, the Democratic congressman hosted a hometown eventOn Friday, Veterans Day, the Democratic congressman Seth Moulton hosted a town hall in Marblehead, his home town in Massachusetts. He first staged such an event in 2015, working with Sebastian Junger, author of bestsellers including The Perfect Storm, War and Tribe, which considers how veterans might be better understood and helped after coming home from war.‘I almost died last summer’: Sebastian Junger on life, death and his new book FreedomRead moreOn the page, Junger considers how Indigenous peoples treated warriors who returned from “intimate and bloody warfare”. Before the Marblehead event, he said: “I’d read about the gourd dance, this process that some of the Southern Great Plains tribes had. I’m sure all of them had some variant on allowing for warriors to recount what they did.”What Moulton did is this. After graduating Harvard in 2001, he joined the US Marines. In the wars after 9/11, he completed four tours in Iraq, taking part in the invasion in 2003 and the Battle of Najaf the following year. Moulton did not buy George W Bush’s case for war. As he said in Marblehead, even in action he thought the invasion “probably shouldn’t have happened”. But he was determined to lead his troops through it.In 2014, he won a seat in the US House. Speaking before the event on Friday, he described how he had “read Sebastian’s book, and said, ‘This is an amazing idea. We should actually do this.’ So I reached out to him and said, ‘Hey, I just got elected to Congress. I’m a marines vet. And I want to start this tradition. So he and I started putting together what would have to happen.”The project grew. It now has a name, Vets Town Hall, a new organisational structure as a non-profit and established rules. Politics are left at the door. Any veteran can speak. There are no questions. Attendees simply listen.Junger reported from Bosnia during the Balkan wars and later made Restrepo, a searing documentary about American soldiers in Afghanistan, and its sequel, Korengal. His co-director, the British photojournalist Tim Hetherington, was killed in Syria in 2011. In his book War and elsewhere, Junger has described being shot at and surviving a roadside bomb. But as he says, when he and Moulton staged their first Vets Town Hall, he had no role to play but to listen.There was, Junger said, “this extraordinary moment where an old lady stood up and said that she fought in Vietnam as a man and came home and got a sex change. Marblehead – it’s one of the more conservative enclaves in Massachusetts. Certainly traditional. And I watched that sort of blow people’s hair back. It was great. It was quite extraordinary.”Marblehead counts itself the home of the US navy. On Friday, busts of François Joseph Paul de Grasse, admiral of the French fleet off Yorktown in the revolutionary war, and Charles Snellen, a gunner’s mate on the USS Monitor, the first civil war ironclad, looked over the town hall speakers.A Marine veteran described a moment in 1967 when he and a North Vietnamese soldier both decided not to fire, then a visit to Vietnam, years later, and a salute to his unknown foe.A former soldier described his service in Afghanistan and what happened on 15 August 2008, when 1Lt Donald Carwile and Pfc Paul Conlon Jr, of the 101st airborne division, were killed by a roadside bomb.A retired naval commander described the wrench of deployments far from his wife and children. Other speakers, men and women, described work on the home front, supporting veterans or advocating for them.Before the event, as Moulton spoke outside Abbot Hall, a man with a prosthetic leg made his way into the venue. He later rose to speak about his struggles since leaving the marines, an edge of anger in his voice.“I took care of myself,” he said, “because I’m a veteran.”In this “dire time of polarisation”, Junger said, Vets Town Hall might provide “kind of a sacred space. I’m an atheist, but I use the word sacred all the time. It’s a sacred space in the sense that ordinary life is suspended and here we are in this place, and we’re honoring something, and we’re healing something, we’re doing something together. And it doesn’t matter if you were for or against the war, or you’re Republican or Democrat, Black or white, rich or poor. None of that matters.”He added: “Anytime you are in a space where you have to be respectful, and you hear things that are anathema to your ideology, it forces you to reconsider. To conservative America, America is always right. The virtuous nation. And the veterans are the heroes in the conservative ideology, almost beyond reproach. And then here, you have a veteran who’s just in a rage about a war we fought. Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. Whatever it is, that’s healthy for a conservative psyche, to have to navigate through that.Geoff Dyer on war reportageRead more“But likewise, I’m a liberal, but it’s very healthy for liberals to share space with a veteran who’s saying, ‘You know what, I’m not a victim of all this. Going off to war was the best thing that ever could have happened to me. I was a troubled young man, and it was exactly what I needed. And I chose it freely. It wasn’t because I needed money. This was an amazing thing for me, and I miss it a lot.’ That’s great for liberals to hear.”Moulton was less keen to discuss political divisions, saying he thought the town halls might instead help bridge a social chasm between the general public and the “very small percentage of Americans who have served”. He did say the “no politics” ground rule established seven years ago “feels like it’s even more important now, with how divisive politics has become, especially in the last five years”.When Moulton ran for Congress – six years before campaigning, briefly, for president – it took an investigative reporter to find out he had been decorated, in part for “fearlessly expos[ing] himself to enemy fire”.Speaking to the Boston Globe, Moulton described “a healthy disrespect among veterans who served on the frontlines for people who walk around telling war stories” and said he was “uncomfortable calling attention to his own awards out of respect to ‘many others who did heroic things and received no awards at all’”.Through Vets Town Hall, he seeks to provide a forum. He said: “I have told stories at this town hall that I’ve never told before because I think this is the one place where it is appropriate. And I learned from Sebastian the value of telling some stories from war that helped explain both the experience overseas and how it influences our lives back home. And that’s what we really need to share with non-veterans, to help bridge that divide.”Junger described a story Moulton has told. It is about Najaf, where, in a hellish fight in a cemetery, Marines faced the Mahdi army, a militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a powerful Shia cleric.“He told a story about taking a break, because he’d been up for 48 hours straight. And it was a hot day. And he personally was just really starting to get wobbly. And they took a five-minute break. And because they stopped, the 19-year-old sitting next to him got a bullet in the forehead. And that’s the ghost he lives with.“You know, that’s combat. These random things. ‘If we hadn’t stopped’ or ‘If we had stopped’, or ‘If I hadn’t tied my shoe …’ If you’re a lieutenant or a captain or whatever, you take on responsibility for all the random shit that happens. It’s all your fucking fault. It’s not, of course, but psychologically that’s what it feels like. And it’s really, really hard.“Hearing Seth say that story? I was choking back tears. Everyone was choking back tears. It was absolutely brutal. You might ask him, if he doesn’t bring it up.”In Marblehead, Moulton did not bring up Najaf. Instead, he described a moment outside Baghdad, “dug into the mud” and freezing cold, when intelligence indicated that he and his marines were about to meet a column of Iraqi tanks without protection from their own.Tribe by Sebastian Junger review – why we need the solidarity felt during wartimeRead more“I remember thinking to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing here? I’m about to die, in the mud, in a town nobody’s ever heard of, in a country on the other side of the globe, in a war that probably shouldn’t have happened.’ I knew my buddies back home were probably on a good night in a Boston bar. ‘Why am I here?’ But that thought lasted for about 10 seconds, because I remembered why I signed up.“I didn’t want someone else to fight my place. I didn’t want to be in the Boston bar. And after that, I felt a little bit more warm. A little bit more comfortable. A little bit happier, perhaps, because I was exactly where I wanted to be.”TopicsUS militarySebastian JungerUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS national securityfeaturesReuse this content More