US midterm elections 2022

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      Kari Lake closes campaign office over envelope with white powder – reports

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      Kari Lake closes campaign office over envelope with white powder – reportsArizona Republican gubernatorial candidate’s staffer opened the envelope and is under medical supervision, spokesperson says Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake closed a campaign office after an envelope containing “suspicious white powder” was delivered to the premises on Saturday, according to reports.A member of the candidate’s staff unwittingly opened the envelope and is now under “medical supervision”, campaign spokesperson Colton Duncan told CNN.‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismRead moreThe FBI will analyze the item at its laboratory in Virginia, and agents stopped short of saying whether they had confirmed the powder was harmful.“It was one of two envelopes that were confiscated by law enforcement and sent to professionals at Quantico for examination, and we are awaiting details,” Duncan reportedly said.While Lake was taking the threat seriously, Duncan said, she would not be deterred. “In the meantime, know that our resolve has never been higher, and we cannot be intimidated,” Duncan added. “We continue to push full speed ahead to win this election.”Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state and Lake’s opponent in Tuesday’s election, decried the incident. “The reported incident at Kari Lake’s campaign office is incredibly concerning and I am thankful that she and her staff were not harmed,” Hobbs’ campaign reportedly commented. “Political violence, threats, or intimidation have no place in our democracy. I strongly condemn this threatening behavior directed at Lake and her staff.”This case ensnaring Lake’s office comes amid heightened concerns about political violence surrounding the 2022 midterm elections Tuesday and unrest generally. Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, was bludgeoned by a hammer-wielding home intruder on 28 October in an attack that authorities described as politically motivated.In June, California resident Nicholas John Roske was arrested near US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home for allegedly trying to kill the jurist. Roske, who has pleaded not guilty, allegedly told a police officer that he was angry over the then draft supreme court opinion overturning the federal abortion rights established by the landmark Roe v Wade case.Threats against politicians have surged in recent years, with the US Capitol police saying that they investigated 9,625 threats against legislators in 2021, which began with supporters of Donald Trump launching an attack on the congressional session that certified the former president’s defeat to Joe Biden. That toll was about a threefold increase from 2017, Capitol police said.While US House members will now receive a $10,000 security allowance, the stipend has been criticized as insufficient.The New York police department (NYPD) warned on 27 October that extremists might target political events and polling sites in advance of Tuesday’s race.A New York City voting site was shuttered for several hours Sunday after a bomb threat, authorities said. The threat was reportedly directed toward the school which housed the site.The NYPD said this threat was neither against the polling station nor politically motivated.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022ArizonaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans and Democrats make last arguments as midterms loom

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      Republicans and Democrats make last arguments as midterms loomDemocrats frame election as referendum on US democracy while Republicans say they will better address economic woes Political leaders from both sides of the aisle on Sunday made their closing arguments to voters two days before the hotly contested US midterm elections, with several top Democrats framing the election as a referendum on American democracy.Republicans, meanwhile, swung back by saying that they would better address Americans’ economic woes and repeatedly insisted their rivals were ill-equipped to help voters despite Democratic rhetoric that the GOP was to blame for the nation’s political divisiveness.Trump expected to announce 2024 campaign before end of NovemberRead more“The stakes are about economics,” Minnesota Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar said on CNN’s State of the Union. “Every country in the world has been through a hard time coming out of this pandemic.”“The question [that] voters have to ask is: who do you trust to have people on staff who see them, who’s going to stand up for them, social security and Medicare?”Klobuchar also warned that a shift right could spell danger for this country. She noted that numerous Republican candidates have sowed doubt over the 2020 elections – and said that Donald Trump’s shadow is “looming over” key states.“These candidates are throwing truth out the window – they’re shattering the rule of law and they’re laughing at political violence,” Klobuchar said. “If you’re a Democrat, independent, or moderate Republican, democracy is on the ballot and it is time to vote for democracy.”New Jersey Democratic senator Cory Booker voiced similar sentiments. “There’s a lot on the line and we have to remember after what we saw at January 6, Republican or Democrat, we should be electing people that believe in our democracy, that believe in our traditions, and that ultimately want to unite people and not divide them,” Booker said on ABC’s This Week.Referring in part to the attack on US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, he added: “There’s a culture of contempt in this country. You’re seeing election workers getting increased threats. You’re seeing judges getting increased threats. Heck, you’re even seeing members of Congress – as we saw with what happened to Paul Pelosi.“Something has gone wrong in our country where rising political violence, rising threats are really threatening who we are as a people.”South Carolina Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn on Fox News Sunday defended prior comments that the climate in the US had similarities to Germany in the early 1930s. The House majority whip pointed to denying election results and establishing ways that state executives can overturn election results, as well as calling the press “the enemy of the people”.Clyburn insisted that he didn’t think people were in the wrong if they didn’t vote Democrat. Rather, wrongness involved voting for persons trying to sow skepticism about elections’ validity.“If they don’t vote against election deniers. If they don’t vote against liars, people who lie, know full well they’re lying, we all know they’re lying,” Clyburn said. “So if they’re lying, they’re denying, they’re trying to delete, they’re trying to nullify votes – vote against that foolishness.”During a pre-recorded interview that aired on ABC, Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, told voters that his party better represented their economic interests. Youngkin also hit cultural talking points, invoking the bogeyman of rising crime.“Americans are hurting right now and Republican gubernatorial candidates, because that’s who I’ve been spending a lot of time with, are offering commonsense solutions to these most critical issues,” Youngkin said. “Americans are sitting around their tables in the evening and they’re worried about inflation and they’re worried about crime and they’re worried about their schools and they’re worried about the border.“Republicans have clearcut commonsense solutions to all of these,” Youngkin also said, without detailing any of those purported solutions.Both sides’ intensely ideological politicking ahead of Tuesday speaks to a potentially watershed outcome for the nation’s future. The party in control of Congress often loses its majority during midterm elections. So a Republican majority at this point of Joe Biden’s presidency would not be shocking historically speaking.Any dramatic political shift in the current climate, however, could fan the flames of unrest and pessimism pervading a country that is increasingly divided over issues such as voting, gun control, race, reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ rights.And, as political violence and conspiracy theories abound, Trump’s divisive politics might reign supreme once more, especially as he might soon declare his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.Regardless of the midterm election’s outcome, it remains unclear whether politicians will be able to shepherd meaningful legislative solutions to these problems. Major legislation will probably require bipartisan cooperation, which seems unlikely in a bitterly partisan political climate.On NBC’s Meet The Press, host Chuck Todd asked Florida Republican senator Rick Scott: “What’s the first bill a Republican Congress sends to the president’s desk that you actually think he would sign?”Scott did little more than toe the party line, saying: “I think the issue we’ve got to deal with is inflation. We’ve got to figure out how to spend our money wisely, so we don’t continue this inflation. I think we’ve got to do whatever we can to get this crime rate down, so I think we have to look at that. We’ve got to secure the border.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The Guardian view on the US midterms: a tale of two contests

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      The Guardian view on the US midterms: a tale of two contestsEditorialThese elections are key not just to what the president can achieve in the next two years but to the future of democracy When American voters go to the polls on Tuesday, they will be voting not only in a multitude of specific races, but in what feel like two separate elections. The first is a largely traditional version of the midterms: a referendum on the incumbent (helping to explain why Joe Biden has been keeping a relatively low profile, given his approval ratings) and on the economy. In a cost of living crisis, it may not be surprising that 92% of Republicans see the economy as very important, with predictable issues of crime and immigration following behind.But among Democrats, only 65% see the economy as very important – while 80% cite the future of democracy, 79% cite healthcare and 75% abortion. This is the second and very different contest. It is a “struggle for the very soul of America”, as Mr Biden warned on Wednesday, and a battle over people’s fundamental rights – to control their own bodies, and to have free and fair elections. The context is the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021; the vicious attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband by a man who told police he had planned to kidnap the House speaker and break her kneecaps if she “lied” to him; and the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade. The latter led to a surge in registrations, and more than half of registered voters still say abortion will be very important in determining their choice. But Republican candidates who have realised the unpopularity of their extreme views are now muddying their message, as even some voters who define themselves as “pro-life” balk at total bans.The question is how much ground Democrats lose. Polls suggest Republicans will almost certainly take the House and are favoured to take the Senate. Whether they prove more accurate than in recent years is critical to an outcome which will help to determine everything from US support for Ukraine to the 2024 presidential race. A triumph for the Republicans will mean a hobbled administration, facing legislative stagnation, hostile committees and investigations on matters such as Hunter Biden’s business dealings.But this is also a defining moment in the defence of democracy. Thanks to Donald Trump’s lies, amplified by hard-right media outlets like Fox News, grassroots Republicans believe, entirely wrongly, that the 2020 election was unfair or outright stolen – a belief not dented even when his own officials testified to his defeat. The consequences have included political violence; the danger of more is clear. But this “big lie” is also playing out in midterm races.The electoral system is already warped by years of gerrymandering, as the growing gap between the Democrats’ share of the popular vote and actual political power demonstrates (though the House race appears fairer than in recent contests). Now it is under fresh threat from outright election deniers who question or reject Mr Trump’s defeat and won’t commit to accepting defeat themselves. If the former president runs in 2024 – as he says he “very, very, very probably” will do – key election officials may not resist his attempts to overturn his defeat as they did in 2020. In Arizona, all but one of the Republican candidates for Congress, governor, attorney general and secretary of state have questioned the 2020 result.The very act of casting a vote in the midterms may help to preserve or imperil democracy. But because very protracted counts will probably be followed by legal challenges and threats, winning means not just persuading voters, but ensuring that their choices are upheld. An increasingly polarised electorate may move even further apart. It is unsurprising that there are two contests when there are, increasingly, two different Americas, who cannot even agree on the facts, still less what they mean for the nation.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpDemocratsRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

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      US far-right group sparks legal firestorm over drive to monitor drop-box voting

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      US far-right group sparks legal firestorm over drive to monitor drop-box votingMelody Jennings of Clean Elections USA teamed up with True the Vote for project that echos Trump’s false claims about 2020 A far-right group run by a Christian pastor has sparked a legal firestorm by spearheading a drive to aggressively monitor drop-box voting for fraud in Arizona and other states, in an echo of Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election results were rigged.Melody Jennings, who runs Clean Elections USA, has teamed up with the conservative group True the Vote, which has a track record for making debunked charges of voting fraud. Together they are promoting a project to hunt for alleged drop-box fraud, which Jennings boasted in multiple interviews on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room and the MG Show, a conspiratorial QAnon program.Michigan’s top election official: ‘Every tactic tried in 2020 will be tried again’Read moreJennings’ frequent messages advocating using cameras and videos in drop-box surveillance fueled lawsuits last month by Arizona voting rights groups charging that voters have faced intimidation tactics from her followers, some of whom have been armed, as they have put their ballots in boxes.Nationwide, more than 4,500 people have reportedly signed up to help monitor drop boxes as part of the Clean Elections drive, which has discussed plans to share photos, information and videos with True the Vote, an organization recently enmeshed in legal battles.Oklahoma-based Jennings has said her campaign to investigate Arizona drop boxes, where people can legally drop off their ballots, was inspired by a teaser on Trump’s Truth Social website for the widely discredited film 2000 Mules, which True the Vote helped make. Jennings has roughly 30,000 followers on the platform.“We’ve got people ready to go in 18 states to go out in shifts and guard these boxes,” said Jennings, whose moniker is Trumper Mel, to Bannon on a 15 October podcast. “We’ve got people out there, on the ground and doing the work.”On Monday, the justice department (DoJ) supported a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters against Clean Elections and two other rightwing drop box surveillance operations. The DoJ brief outlines organized campaigns to intimidate voters with video recording and photography.The brief also noted that a legitimate role exists for poll watchers, but said private “ballot security forces” probably violated the federal Voting Rights Act.On Tuesday, a federal judge in Arizona issued a temporary restraining order against Clean Elections and its allies: the order barred them from taking videos and photos of voters and promoting baseless charges of voter fraud, and banned them from openly carrying guns and wearing tactical gear.Judge Michael Liburdi, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, also required that Clean Election drop box watchers stand at least 75 ft (23 metres) away from the boxes they’re monitoring, and publicly correct past false charges they have made about the state’s election laws.Shortly before the restraining order, Clean Elections announced its volunteers would halt certain tactics, such as openly carrying guns and wearing tactical gear. A lawyer for Jennings and the group has said it’s likely that an appeal would be filed on first amendment grounds, contesting some parts of the order.The judge’s restraining order and the Arizona lawsuits came after several drives by Clean Elections volunteers to target alleged drop-box fraud in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, including one where two armed individuals wearing tactical gear identified themselves as being with Clean Elections, an action that Jennings sought to distance her group from.Similarly, last month the Arizona secretary of state received a report from one individual stating that a Clean Elections representative accused one voter of being a “mule” and had the voter’s license plate photographed, after being followed into a parking lot.Some Arizona GOP officials voiced alarm about the drop box monitoring tactics by Clean Elections and some allied groups, and deplored how their efforts were fueled by the 2000 Mules movie, created by conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote. The movie’s sweeping claims of nefarious, but unsubstantiated, ballot-box stuffing has drawn widespread criticism.“If it were not for 2000 Mules, organizations and activists in our state would not be engaging in aggressive monitoring of drop boxes which has bordered on unlawful voter intimidation,” said Bill Gates, the GOP chairman of the Maricopa board of supervisors.Gates added that GOP candidates running for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in Arizona have “pointed to 2000 Mules as evidence that the 2020 election was marred by fraud”.Arizona Republican state senator Paul Boyer also voiced strong criticism of the aggressive actions some groups have taken in their pursuit of drop box fraud.“For those who monitor ballot drop boxes, there are the malicious actors who wear military fatigues thereby insinuating voting is akin to war. It is not. No Arizona citizen should ever feel intimidated when dropping off their ballot,” Boyer said.But there’s no doubt that Jennings has been zealous in spreading debunked allegations about 2020 election fraud as revealed by internet archives of now deleted Clean Election USA blog writings and other group materials.“We often hear people say things like, ‘there is always some election fraud’ as if it is OK at a certain level. However, with the help of our heroes mentioned above, we now know that the level of fraud in 2020 was unprecedented and determinative, meaning Joe Biden is now NOT our duly elected representative and neither is Kamala Harris.”“The rabbit hole goes much deeper, but this is all we need to know for now. It means that we do not have free and fair elections in the US and this should be concerning for all,” Jennings said in a previously unreported Clean Elections document found using internet archives.The alliance between Clean Elections and True the Vote to target drop boxes seems to have been fostered in part to obtain evidence to support the unsubstantiated claims in 2000 Mules. The film slings allegations of “ballot trafficking” by 2,000 people – dubbed mules – who were hired by nonp-rofits to stuff drop boxes with potentially bogus absentee ballots in five key states that Joe Biden won.Last month, before the start of early voting in Arizona, Votebeat first revealed that True the Vote’s Gregg Phillips raved about the fledgling partnership with Clean Elections in a video on the conservative website Rumble: “This is the greatest opportunity for us to catch the cheaters in real time, maybe that’s ever existed. So we’re excited about it.”True the Vote is expected to offer new information to conservative sheriffs including a group, launched by the Pinal county sheriff, Mark Lamb, who has been working with True the Vote for several months on other fraud finding missions involving drop boxes.Jennings has denied charges that her group has broken any laws. “All activities supported by Clean Elections USA are lawful and designed to support lawful elections,” she wrote to Votebeat.But Jennings sees her battle to uncover alleged election fraud in apocalyptic terms.“Luckily, people are standing up and the truth is being uncovered. We have some real American heroes out there,” she wrote in a previously unreported blog earlier this year. Jennings cited True the Vote’s leader Catherine Engelbrecht, Phillips and D’Souza among other heroes “who literally put their lives on the line to uncover what is clearly a planned effort to undermine our democratic republic”.Meanwhile, True the Vote has faced mounting legal scrutiny in Arizona and Texas – where two of its leaders were arrested on Monday and cited with contempt of court – related to conspiratorial allegations about voting fraud in the 2020 election.Last month, Arizona’s Republican attorney general, Mark Brnovich, requested an investigation of True the Vote by the IRS and the FBI into potential tax violations by the non profit tax exempt group after the group failed to provide his office evidence of voting fraud they had promised for months.A Brnovich investigator in a letter last month said True the Vote has “raised considerable sums of money alleging they had evidence of widespread voter fraud”.The letter concluded that given True the Vote’s non-profit IRS status, “it would appear that further review of its financials may be warranted”.The letter also revealed that the attorney general’s office had three meetings over the course of about a year with Engelbrecht and her key associate, Phillips. True the Vote leaders have called the attorney general’s charges inaccurate, but didn’t offer proof to rebut them. Engelbrecht and Phillips did not respond to calls seeking comment.In a separate legal firestorm facing True the Vote in Texas, both Engelbrecht and Phillips were arrested on Monday, after being cited with contempt of court by a judge in a defamation lawsuit brought against the group by a Michigan election software firm, Konnech, for alleging that the company’s leader was a “Chinese operative” and that Konnech had engaged in the “subversion of our elections”.True the Vote in podcasts and other places had stated it authorized “analysts” to hack Konnech’s computers that it claimed gave China access to the names of 2 million election workers, to support its allegations against the firm. Last month, a Texas judge ordered True the Vote to hand over the Konnech data and reveal the name of the person who helped them obtain the information.Georgia ballot rules mean voters are falling between cracks, advocates sayRead moreOn Monday, US district judge Kenneth Hoyt ordered the True the Vote leaders detained for “one day and further until they fully comply” with his demand last week that they disclose the name of a person of interest in the case who True the Vote had cited in its defense in court but referred to mysteriously as a confidential FBI informant.A True the Vote spokesperson has said the group’s lawyer would appeal against the judge’s action and demanded the pair’s “immediate release”.As for Jennings, just days before the justice department brief and the judge’s restraining order against her group she dropped some hints about her looming legal problems during another interview with Bannon.Jennings told Bannon that her group was rebranding some by changing its name to the Drop Box Initiative in Arizona, but keeping her original name in other states.“We are going to rebrand a little bit,” Jennings told Bannon, noting that “I don’t need any more people in Arizona, honestly”. But she added that her drive was still trying to recruit more volunteers in many states.Appearing on War Room again two days later, Jennings appealed to the podcast’s audience to help her legal defense by donating funds to True the Vote.TopicsArizonaUS midterm elections 2022US voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Georgia ballot rules mean voters are falling between cracks, advocates say

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      Georgia ballot rules mean voters are falling between cracks, advocates sayThe key state is seeing record early voting – but some say restrictions are disproportionately affecting certain groups Just six days before the midterm election, Madison Cook, an eager first-time Georgia voter and a college student at school in Mississippi, awaited the arrival of her requested absentee ballot. She continued to follow up with her county election officials. But nearly one month after her application was processed, it appeared to be lost in the mail.“Here’s a great example of a voter who is falling through the cracks,” said Vasu Abhiraman, deputy policy and advocacy director at ACLU of Georgia, who received an email seeking help for Cook. “If she doesn’t get her ballot, she has almost no hope of voting.”‘We’re watching you’: incidents of voter intimidation rise as midterm elections nearRead moreHere in Georgia, early in-person voting was projected to reach 2.4m by the end of Friday – the last day of early voting – marking the highest voter turnout of a midterm election in the state’s history. But voting rights organizers say that this year’s high in-person voter turnout is reflective of the impact Georgia’s new restrictive voting law has had on other forms of voting, such as casting an absentee ballot by mail or on election day.In this year’s midterm elections, about 200,000 of the nearly 300,000 requested absentee ballots had been returned as of Friday. That’s proportionally far less than the 2020 presidential election, when voters cast more than 1.3m absentee ballots throughout the state.“The hurdles are up in front of Georgia voters, and some are having difficulty jumping those hurdles on the way to the ballot box,” said Abhiraman. “Voters in Georgia are not feeling as confident when they cast their ballots this time around.”Advocates say the restrictions disproportionately affect specific demographics throughout the state who continue to grow within Georgia’s rapidly changing electorate. Asian voters make up less than 2%, or about 35,000, of early votes in the state’s midterm elections this year – a noticeable downward turn from the 134,000 ballots cast by the same community at this point in 2020.“Asian Americans in Georgia make up 3.8% of Georgia’s electorate,” said Abhiraman. “If you go back to 2020, the AAPI community was more likely than any other group to vote absentee by mail. So, it’s these nuances in data that show voters who relied on certain methods of voting are finding it difficult to cast their ballots.”Groups such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta (AAJA) point to the language barriers Asian and other immigrant communities can experience during the election process. The organization, which works to aid voters through tools such as translations of voting documents, filed a lawsuit alleging that changes shortening absentee request deadlines make it more challenging to ensure equitable access to the ballot.Georgia’s electorate is proven to be highly engaged, thanks in part to voting rights organizers. AAJA-Atlanta is a part of the grassroots, multi-issue, voting rights coalition growing throughout the state that has worked to educate voters on a comprehensive scale.“We are lockstep across all of these groups saying vote early in-person,” said Abhiraman. “You have three processes available to you, but [the Georgia] legislature attacked absentee by mail, and the legislature made it much harder to vote on election day given that you can’t cast a provisional ballot outside of the one location that is assigned to you.”State Republicans, who are also celebrating high voter turnout in Georgia, are comparing this election to 2018, the state’s last midterm election. However, Abhiraman said that we should be examining voter turnout as it compares with 2020 as the ballot more closely aligns with the general election.The 2018 midterm elections featured the state’s gubernatorial election, and several US House races. However, this year’s midterm elections feature the highly visible gubernatorial rematch between Stacey Abrams and the current governor, Brian Kemp, and US Senate race between Senator Raphael Warnock and the Republican Herschel Walker. The state’s Senate race is one of the major elections determining which party will hold political power in the nation’s capital in the coming year.“Voters in Georgia are cognizant of the fact that their vote really matters on a national stage. They are taking the information they get and jumping over hurdles in record numbers,” says Abhiraman. “But, while we are seeing high turnout, we are still losing people in the cracks because it’s easy to forget these folks exist when we’re seeing millions of people turn out.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The fight for democracyGeorgiaUS politicsUS voting rightsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      The results of the midterms may determine if American democracy endures | Robert Reich

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      The results of the midterms may determine if American democracy enduresRobert ReichRepublican ascendancy is always a possibility with US elections, but the perils this time are more extreme than ever Coming into the home stretch before the 2022 midterm elections, I feel different than I’ve felt in the days before every election I’ve witnessed or participated in over the last three-quarters of a century.In elections before this one, I’ve worried about Republicans taking over and implementing their policy preferences – against political rights in the dark days of Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt in the early 1950s, against civil rights in the late 1950s and early 1960s, against Medicare in the mid-1960s, for smaller government in the 1970s, for tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s, for a balanced budget in the early 1990s, against universal health care in the late 1990s and early 2000s, against LGBTQ rights in the 2010s.Michigan’s top election official: ‘Every tactic tried in 2020 will be tried again’Read moreToday I’m not particularly worried about Republicans’ policy preferences. Today I’m worried about the survival of our democracy.I’m worried that a majority of Republican candidates are telling voters, without any basis in fact, that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.I’m worried that if elected, many of these Republicans will make it harder to conduct elections in the future, allow or encourage endless audits of election results, and even refuse to sign off on them.I’m worried that Republicans have been spending millions to recruit partisan poll workers and watchers in the upcoming election, who could disrupt the counting process or raise false claims about it. (Michigan Republican secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo rose to prominence as a Detroit poll watcher who made false claims about election fraud.)I’m worried that thousands of Trump supporters have been calling their local election offices requesting all kinds of public records, often using suspiciously similar wording, leading officials to believe this is a coordinated effort to prevent them from holding an election.I’m worried that violent thugs are on the prowl, and that Republican leaders – starting with Trump – have been quietly encouraging them.Speaking on a conservative radio talkshow on Tuesday, Trump amplified a conspiracy theory about the grisly attack on US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, saying: “Weird things going on in that household in the last couple of weeks.”Other Republican candidates are joining in this cruel, baseless, disgusting taunt.Most of all, I’m worried that Americans are losing the trust that a democracy needs in order to function – trust that even though we may not like the outcomes of particular elections, we feel bound by them because we trust the democratic process.It is this trust that is the basis for all else. Without it, elections become free-for-alls in which voters’ preferences are subordinated to power plays.The biggest question hanging over the 2022 midterm election is not a policy. It’s not even an issue.The biggest question is analogous to the question we as a nation faced in 1860 as we slid into the tragic civil war.It is whether American democracy can endure.The extraordinary, abominable challenge we now face – one that I frankly never imagined we would face – is that the Republican party and its enablers in the media and among the moneyed interests appear not to want American democracy to endure.As Joe Biden said last week, “democracy itself” is at stake in the upcoming election, as the president appealed “to all Americans, regardless of party, to meet this moment of national and generational importance”.Indeed.I believe we owe it to generations before us who fought and died for democracy and the rule of law, and to generations after us who will live with the legacy we leave them, to vote out the traitors and liars, to renounce those who have forsaken the precious ideal of self-government and to vote in people who are dedicated to making American democracy stronger and better.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      ‘He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of Trump

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      ‘He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of TrumpPart Trump rally, part religious service, and much conspiracy theory thrown in – on the eve of the midterms, Ed Pilkington visits the ReAwaken America tour “There is a man by the name of Donald,” the voice on the recording says. “God said, ‘You have been determined through your prayers to influence this nation … I will open that door that you prayed about, and when it comes time for the election you will be elected.”Three thousand people are packed into an overflowing auditorium, many with arms raised and eyes closed in prayer. The recording to which they are listening is from April 2013 and of Kim Clement, a late South African preacher, as he prophesies the first coming of Donald Trump.In a clip from the following year, Clement again purports to channel the word of God: “Hear me, for I have found a man after my own heart and he is among you. He is one of the brothers, but singled out for presidency of the United States of America.”There is excitement in the theater, with talk of a “red wave” at Tuesday’s midterm elections that will set America back on a righteous path after two years in the progressive wilderness. There is also palpable expectation that victory next week will be followed soon after by Trump’s second coming.The audience erupts in a mighty cheer as Clement’s speaking as God is beamed down to them from large flat screens while he says: “Hear me today. I have the whole thing planned out. I have looked for a man who would restore the fortunes of Zion.”So begins the ReAwaken America tour, a Trump-adoring, rightwing road show that has come for its 17th and last pre-election stop to Branson, a deeply Christian, deeply conservative town in Missouri. Over the next two days the crowd, swathed in Stars and Stripes T-shirts and Make America Great Again (Maga) hats and paying up to $500 for a “VIP” ticket, will be treated to speeches from the far-right stormtroopers of the Trump revolution.They will hear the former president’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is revered in this setting as “America’s general”, warning that a new world tyranny is approaching. They will listen as Mike Lindell, the so-called My Pillow Guy, launches an incoherent rant about how foreign forces are infiltrating voting machines and using them to subvert US elections.They will give a standing ovation to the beloved leader’s son, Eric Trump, who will fire them up almost to the point of ecstasy with talk of “doing it all again”. And at the end of the day more than 200 of them will line up by a swimming pool for a full-body immersive baptism in the name of the lord, spiritual and political.The show is part Trump Stop the Steal rally, part charismatic religious service, part QAnon and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory all rolled into one. It also subscribes heavily to the church of merchandising – there is a large vendors’ tent with several stalls devoted to the peddling of snake oil (“Redox Worx: patented cell-signalling technology. Improve health on a cellular level”).This heady brew is the creation of Clay Clark, a former wedding reception DJ from Oklahoma turned ThriveTimeShow podcaster who came to prominence protesting Covid lockdowns. Together with Flynn, he launched the ReAwaken America tour in April last year, just weeks after Trump supporters staged the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in a desperate yet unsuccessful attempt to keep Joe Biden out of the Oval Office.Since then the show has criss-crossed the country like a merry band of minstrels, honing the look, feel and message of Trump 2.0. There is less arch humour in the mix than there was when Trump descended the golden escalator in June 2015 – now it’s more resentment and menace.The speakers talk about a battle for America’s soul, literally, as though an aspiration that was floated at the start of the Trump experiment has gelled into something concrete. The regular tussle between Republicans and Democrats has distilled into a concoction that is far more potent: the fight of good versus evil.“We are ready to go to war with the enemy, to bring this country back,” Clark says as he orders the blowing of the shofar – horns seen as spiritual weapons that herald the unleashing of God’s power.“How many of you believe that Jesus is king, and that Donald Trump is the president?” he asks. Almost every hand in the house shoots up.There is more dystopian paranoia in the room, too. America’s general, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia but was pardoned by Trump, tells the rapt crowd that “these people” – unnamed but indicative of global elites – “have a plan to take this country over. They are moving to impose a new world order.”There are signs on the front of the theater pronouncing: “No guns”. Yet guns are plentiful inside the theatre as fashion appendages. One woman sitting on the stage as a “VIP” is wearing a T-shirt that says: “Guns don’t kill people. Biden does.”There is a pulsing sense inside the ReAwaken America arena that the world outside, the world surrounding them, is wholly against them. There is some reason to that.Last year the the Anti-Defamation League compiled a report on ReAwaken America that accused the tour of spreading disinformation. “This phenomenon underscores the extent to which the line separating the mainstream from the extreme has blurred,” it warned.Twice the event has been shut down or forced to relocate, in New York and Washington states. Now when you are sent your ticket it is labelled as a “Fresh-roasted coffee-fest and expo” to disguise the show’s real focus.Misinformation flows freely inside Trump 2.0. Lori Gregory, who produces films for Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced British doctor who was struck off from medical practice in 2010 for fear-mongering about links between the MMR vaccine and autism, tells the crowd that 10 years from now one in two children will be on the autistic spectrum as a result of vaccine injury.A later speaker, Sherri Tenpenny, says that Covid vaccines were turning people into “transhumanist cyborgs”. Covid shots have killed 20 million people around the world and caused 20 billion injuries, she says.Kash Patel is next up, fresh from the immunity deal he has cut with federal prosecutors that will see him testify about how Trump hoarded top-secret documents at Mar-a-Lago. Patel doesn’t want to talk about that.The Trump administration’s former chief of staff at the Department of Defense wants to empathise with his audience over how they are maligned by Biden and the media: “You guys have been labelled domestic violent terrorists because you dare to support the Maga movement.”He also wants to talk about the “two-tiered justice system” that has put many loyal Maga supporters behind bars without bail after the violent attack on the Capitol. He does not mention the more than 140 law enforcement officers who were injured on January 6 nor the seven people – at least – who died as a result of the attack.What Patel really wants to talk about is his latest children’s book that purports to enlighten school kids about how the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump and rigged in Biden’s favor. “King Donald had taken the lead, getting an unprecedented amount of votes,” as the story goes in The Plot Against the King: 2000 Mules. “Poor Joe was trailing so far behind that the result seemed to be obvious. The winner was …”Patel wants his book to be taught in schools, replacing the critical race theory and gender realignment that he laments is being forced down children’s throats. When he has finished speaking, he goes outside to sell signed copies of the 36-page book to a long line of attendees, at $60 each.People who had travelled from all over Missouri and beyond to attend the show expressed happiness that for once they were understood. “I feel encouragement, I feel truth. We don’t get much of that any more,” says Ruth Denham, who sits on the local Branson town council.Denham has stopped consuming mainstream media – she gets her news from Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, and from Kash’s Corner, Patel’s podcast. Nor does she call herself a Republican any longer, there are just too many Rinos, or “Republicans in name only”. She considers herself a “constitutional conservative”.Mark Trudo, who runs his own swimming pool construction company near St Louis, is more optimistic, saying: “Right now I’m hopeful, I think things are going to turn around, a great awakening is taking place.”Like most of his ReAwaken peers, he sees the current politics in apocalyptic terms: “The country is being taken away from us from within. This is good versus evil.”Actual evil? As in satanic evil?“Is God real, is Satan real? Yes, I believe they are,” he says.Is Biden satanic?“I don’t know he is actually satanic. He is compromised. He knows what the evil side, the satanic forces, that control him tell him to do.”And Trump?“As a believer, I believe God knows the future. Trump was chosen. Even though he didn’t look like a Christian figure – he was foul-mouthed and a playboy – it’s obvious God knew what he was doing and put him in.”And now God is potentially poised to put Trump in a second time. That’s a theme that Eric Trump picks up when he takes the stage.He talks about the 2016 election, how Hillary outspent his father five to one and yet Trump still won. “We had the best out of all, which was the guy up there,” he says, pointing a finger heaven-ward. “Believe me, there was divine intervention, there was somebody watching over him.”Then came the biggest cheer of the day: “That’s why we have to do it again. It’s why we have to do it again.”On Thursday night Trump addressed a rally of his supporters in Sioux City, Iowa, and said: “I will very, very, very probably do it again.” There is speculation he will announce another run for the White House on 14 November, the week after the elections.“Guys, we will never ever, ever stop fighting for this country,” Eric Trump says, prompting chants of “USA! USA! USA!”“It’s unthinkable what these people are doing to this nation,” he says. “This is cognitive war, and I don’t say that lightly – I’m not, like, a tin-hat wearing guy.”Eric Trump concludes by telling the reawakened crowd that he loves them, saying: “I know you guys have our back 100%, and we have yours. I promise you, we are going to go and get those bastards, I promise you we will.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Sulking and moping is not an option’: Obama campaigns with Biden ahead of US midterms

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      ‘Sulking and moping is not an option’: Obama campaigns with Biden ahead of US midtermsDemocrats roll out political heavyweights to deliver closing arguments, warning that democracy itself is at risk

      Explainer: Why the US midterms matter – from abortion rights to democracy
      The Democratic party’s most powerful voices warned that abortion, social security and democracy itself are at risk as they laboured to overcome fierce political headwinds over the final weekend of the 2022 midterm elections.“Sulking and moping is not an option,” former president Barack Obama told several hundred voters in Pittsburgh on Saturday. “On Tuesday, let’s make sure our country doesn’t get set back 50 years.”Republicans appear better positioned than ever ahead of midtermsRead moreLater in the day, President Biden shared the stage with Obama in Philadelphia, the former running mates campaigning together for the first time since Biden took office. In neighbouring New York, former president Bill Clinton – largely absent from national politics in recent years – was also out defending his party.Before arriving in Pennsylvania, Biden was dealing with a fresh political storm after upsetting some in his party for promoting plans to shut down fossil fuel plants in favour of green energy. While he made the comments in California the day before, the fossil fuel industry is a major employer in Pennsylvania.Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia and chair of the Senate energy and natural resources committee, said the president owed coal workers across the country an apology. He called Biden’s comments “offensive and disgusting”.Former president Donald Trump was also campaigning on Saturday, finishing the day at a rally in south-western Pennsylvania where he claimed Biden had “resumed the war on coal – your coal”.The White House said Biden’s words were “twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended – he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offence”. He was “commenting on a fact of economics and technology”.Biden, Trump, Obama and Clinton – four of the six living presidents – focused on north-eastern battlegrounds on Saturday, as the parties sent out their biggest names to deliver a critical closing argument. Polls across America will close on Tuesday, but more than 36 million people have already voted.Democrats are deeply concerned about losing their narrow majorities in the House and Senate, amid surging inflation and widespread economic concerns. History suggests that Democrats, as the party in power, will suffer significant losses in the midterms.US midterms 2022: the key racesRead moreThe attention on Pennsylvania underscores the stakes in 2022 and beyond for the tightly contested state. The Senate race could decide the overall Senate majority, and with it, Biden’s agenda and judicial appointments for the next two years. The governor’s contest will determine the direction of state policy and control of the state’s election infrastructure heading into the 2024 presidential contest.Biden’s speech in Pennsylvania ran through a grab bag of major legislative achievements, while warning that abortion rights, voting rights, social security and Medicare are at risk should Republicans take control of Congress this week.The president highlighted the Inflation Reduction Action, passed in August by the Democratic-led Congress, which includes several health care provisions popular among older adults.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsBarack ObamaJoe BidenPennsylvaniaDonald TrumpBill ClintonReuse this content More