US midterm elections 2022

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      The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itself | Jonathan Freedland

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      The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itselfJonathan FreedlandMost candidates from the GOP in these midterm elections refuse democracy’s most basic tenet: accepting the voters’ verdict As in all the best horror movies, at first glance everything looks normal. It’s a classic scene of the American autumn: campaign rallies outside community centres, battle buses emblazoned with candidates’ smiling faces, kids wearing badges and holding up signs, while TV screens fill with debates, punditry and an endless loop of focus-grouped ads. Even the predicted outcome of Tuesday’s US midterm elections fits a template as familiar as falling leaves. Most experts agree that the Democrats will take a hit, losing control of at least one or perhaps both chambers of Congress, because they are the incumbent party – and incumbent parties almost always suffer in midterm – and because times are unusually tough. Inflation, interest rates, petrol prices, fear of crime: they’re all up. Couple that with a president set to turn 80 this month whose approval ratings have often plumbed the depths, and all the elements are in place for the Democrats to take a midterm beating, losing ground even in states they once counted as solidly their own.But look closer and you see something else. Because next week’s results will decide more than just whether the red team or the blue team takes control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, on which hangs Joe Biden’s ability to get things done. Next week’s elections will also help determine whether, and for how much longer, the US will remain a genuine democracy.It sounds hyperbolic and that, too, is an American tradition. Candidates always tell the crowds, “This is the most important election of my lifetime” and plenty will have heard Biden’s warning, delivered on Wednesday, that democracy itself is on the ballot in that same spirit. They will have assumed that when the president said, “In our bones, we know democracy is at risk” it was so much campaign talk. But Biden was scarcely exaggerating.More than 370 Republican candidates for some of America’s highest offices have joined Donald Trump in his big lie of election denial, either casting doubt on or wholly rejecting the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential result. That means a majority of Republicans running for those key positions refuse democracy’s most basic act: accepting the verdict of the voters.It’s comforting to pretend they’re doing it solely to soothe Trump’s ego, to avoid angering him by conceding that the ex-president lost to Biden fair and square. Keeping Trump sweet is a necessary tactic in a Republican party where he remains the dominant figure, reportedly set to launch another presidential bid later this month, whose endorsement or disapproval is enough to make or break a career. But Republicans’ election denialism is not confined to the past; it applies to the future, too. Several of the party’s candidates have refused to say that they will accept the outcome of Tuesday’s vote should they lose. “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” is how Kari Lake, would-be governor of Arizona, puts it. Some might spin that as mere election eve bullishness, but without losers’ consent democracy cannot function.More sinister still, several of these democracy deniers are running for the very state-level posts that will oversee and certify future elections, including the presidential contest of 2024. And they are brazen in their admission that they will abuse the powers of those offices to boost their side and shut out their opponents. “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor,” is the promise of one Tim Michels, who seeks to lead that state – and it was not a promise that he would be popular. It’s worth recalling that it was in Wisconsin two years ago that a group of Republican office holders moved to ignore the democratic choice of that state’s voters, who had backed Biden, and instead declare Wisconsin for Trump in the electoral college. If they were to try that trick again in 2024, they might have an ally in the governor’s mansion.If all of this seems too abstract, consider the Republicans’ new attitude to political violence. Once it would have been a matter of bland consensus that no political objective should ever be secured by brute force. But only a handful of Republicans could bring themselves to hold even that fundamental position following the storming of Capitol Hill and the attempted insurrection of 6 January 2021. The rest refused to vote for the impeachment of Trump for his role in fomenting that violence and, if they condemned the rioters themselves, it was usually in terms qualified and mealy-mouthed.We’ve seen it again in the last week, after the vicious assault in his home of the 82-year-old husband of House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Paul Pelosi had his skull fractured with a hammer, the alleged assailant a man whose head had been filled with far-right shibboleths including the supposedly stolen election of 2020. And yet the likes of Lake saw the attack as a laughing matter, while other Republicans (and their ally Elon Musk) concocted or spread conspiracy theories that cast doubt on the attack. This in an era when recorded threats against members of Congress rose tenfold in the five years after Trump was elected in 2016.The Republican party’s shift away from democratic norms is no longer confined to one man, even if he embodies it and accelerates it. It is embedded in the ethos of the party now. Reversing that trend is a daunting prospect because of another shift, one that has been apparent for a while but which is taking especially vivid form in these midterm elections. It is the polarisation of information, so that Americans now exist in two distinct spheres of knowledge, each one barely touching the other.I witnessed it for myself this week, as I covered an especially intense senate race in Georgia. News came that, in a previous age, would have been devastating for a candidate. A second woman stepped forward to say, on camera, that the staunchly anti-abortion Republican Herschel Walker had pressured her to have an abortion and had paid for it. Yet when I put that news to Republicans gathering at a Walker rally in Madison, not one of them was fazed by it. They just assumed it was the false concoction of the “mainstream media”.This poses its own danger for democracy. Because there can be no collective decision-making – which is what democracy amounts to – without a collective, agreed-upon basis of facts. If we can’t first agree that the house is on fire, we can’t begin to talk about putting out the flames.Whatever the outcome on Tuesday and in the long days of counting that may follow, this is a moment of peril for the United States. The world’s most powerful democracy is losing the reflexes and habits that make democracy possible. And, as in all the most terrifying horror movies, the threat is coming from inside the house.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. Listen to his Politics Weekly America podcast here
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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate race

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      Oprah Winfrey spurns Dr Oz to endorse Fetterman in Pennsylvania Senate raceTV host who launched Republican’s career on her daytime talkshow had previously said election was up to Pennsylvanians Oprah Winfrey sprang a November surprise for Democrats in the midterm elections as the US TV host endorsed their candidate John Fetterman in Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate race, snubbing his Republican rival Mehmet Oz whom she originally made famous on her daytime talkshow.Until now, Winfrey had said she would leave the election to Pennsylvanians, but on Thursday evening she changed that position in an online discussion on voting in next Tuesday’s election.‘A lens of empathy’: disability advocates on John Fetterman and leadershipRead more“I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania … but I will tell you all this, if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said, before going on to urge listeners to vote for Democrats running for governor and Senate in various states.The Pennsylvania seat has for months been seen as the most likely pickup opportunity for Democrats in the evenly divided Senate.Polls show a close race between Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, and Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon who is endorsed by former president Donald Trump.In a sign of how high the stakes are, Trump will return to Pennsylvania on Saturday to campaign for Oz, while Joe Biden and the former two-term Democratic president Barack Obama will campaign for Fetterman that same day.Oz left Oprah’s show after five years and 55 episodes to start his own daytime TV program, The Dr Oz Show, which ran for 13 seasons before he moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to run for the Senate.The Senate seat is being vacated by the retiring Republican Pat Toomey.Fetterman’s race is among those that have grown tighter in recent weeks as polls showed rising support for Oz, who has made much of the fact that Fetterman had a stroke this spring during the campaign and spent much of the summer convalescing.Fetterman has been declared fit for work by his medical experts but has needed some adjustments to accommodate auditory processing.At a recent debate, in order to accommodate Fetterman’s condition, which he said was improving daily, two 70-inch monitors were placed above the heads of the moderators, which showed the transcribed text of their questions, and the text of Oz’s responses.The candidates fiercely clashed over abortion rights, with Fetterman strongly pro-choice.His endorsement by Winfrey – an icon to many Americans, particularly women and African Americans – is seen as a useful boost to Democrats’ chances in that race.Fetterman celebrated with the kind of witty burn on social media he has become well-known for, especially over the summer when he was physically absent from the campaign trail but repeatedly taunted Oz’s New Jersey connections.#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/mla50A5HWa— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) November 4, 2022
      TopicsOprah WinfreyPennsylvaniaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The fight for blue collar voters in Ohio: Politics Weekly America midterms special

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      In the second episode of our special series, Jonathan Freedland travels to Youngstown, Ohio, to see who voters are more excited by in the state’s crucial Senate race – the Trump-backed Republican, JD Vance, or the Democrat Tim Ryan, who analysts say is running one of the best campaigns in the country.
      He heads to Cleveland to talk to a union leader about who workers want to win, and then to a Vance event with other prominent Republicans.

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: CSPAN, CBS, Fox News Subscribe to the Guardian’s new pop culture podcast, which launches on Thursday 3 November Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Abortion might help Democrats in the midterms in two major ways | Laurel Elder, Steve Greene and Mary-Kate Lizotte

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      Abortion might help Democrats in the midterms in two major waysLaurel Elder, Steve Greene and Mary-Kate LizotteIf young pro-choice voters turn out in higher numbers than forecast models are expecting, it could provide a bounce to Democrats in key races Political science-based forecasting models offer a clear prediction for the 2022 midterm elections – the results will be very bad for Democrats. Based solely on the fundamentals like the state of the economy, the type of election (ie midterm) and having an unpopular Democrat in the White House, a model by political scientists Charles Tien and Michael Lewis-Beck, generated months before 8 November, predicts a 44-seat loss for Democrats in the House and a five-seat loss for Democrats in the Senate.The forecasting models produced by FiveThirtyEight are not quite as grim about the prospects for Democrats, predicting that the party will most likely lose majority control of the House of Representatives, but have a small (and shrinking) edge in holding on to their minuscule advantage in the Senate. Unlike the political science models, FiveThirtyEight’s predictions also incorporate polling data and therefore pick up on the ground-level reality that Republicans have put forth weak candidates in key races.Abortion is a bread-and-butter economic issue. We need to treat it that way | Rebecca SolnitRead moreBut there is a plausible case to be made that even models incorporating polling data are underestimating Democratic strength in the 2022 midterms. The issue of abortion may help Democrats in two important ways that are not being picked up in either of the models discussed above.Predicting the outcome of elections is considerably more difficult than other types of polling (eg issue polling), as it requires making assumptions about who is actually going to turn out to vote. Among these well-founded assumptions is that young people have the lowest turnout of all age groups – especially so in midterm elections. Thus current likely voter models assume that young people will once again underperform as voters in 2022.For those who have interacted with young women recently – the anger about the Dobbs decision is undeniable. Outrage at the idea that “old white men” are making decisions about their bodies has made abortion a priority for young women. A recent poll of Gen Z Americans in swing states supports this, providing empirical evidence that young people are energized to vote and continue to rank abortion as their top issue, even while the issue has slipped in importance for older Americans. Young people’s passion on issues has failed to translate into actual action in the voting booth in the past; however, if young pro-choice women actually do turn out in higher numbers than forecasting models are expecting, this could provide a multi-point bounce to Democratic candidates in key House and Senate races.Additionally in our research we found there are a lot of cross-pressured Republicans on the question of abortion legality. While there are a small number of Democrats who hold positions on abortion in tension with their party – eg less than 10% approve the overturning of Roe v Wade – the percentage of Republicans uncomfortable with their party’s policies on abortion reaches anywhere from 30-50%. When abortion policy was more or less settled law, it was easy for cross-pressured Republicans to ignore the conflict between their party’s position and their own, but now that Republicans are enacting highly restrictive laws and outright abortion bans, such contradictions will be harder to ignore. How will cross-pressured Republicans respond?The Kansas referendum over the summer suggests that the threat of abortion bans has the power to mobilize low-propensity voters and entice cross-pressured Republicans to abandon their party’s position. Voting for a Democratic candidate, however, is not as likely as voting in disagreement with one’s party on a referendum, especially in today’s polarized climate. The more likely possibility is that at least some cross-pressured Republicans may simply opt out of the electoral process.Losing the House and especially the Senate would be a major political blow for the Democrats with important and lasting policy consequences, but should that happen, the impact of the Dobbs decision will likely have staved off much larger losses. And should the Democrats defy historical odds and hold on to the House, or, more likely, the Senate, they will almost surely have the Dobbs decision to thank and its ability to mobilize young voters and to demobilize cross-pressured Republicans.
      Laurel Elder is a professor of political science at Hartwick College
      Steven Greene is a professor of political science at North Carolina State University
      Mary-Kate Lizotte is a professor of political science at Augusta University
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionAbortionRoe v WadeUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More

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      ‘We’re watching you’: incidents of voter intimidation rise as midterm elections near

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      ‘We’re watching you’: incidents of voter intimidation rise as midterm elections nearDrop box watchers, threatening letters and harassment – voters and election officials alike report increase in occurrences In suburban Mesa, Arizona, people staked out an outdoor ballot drop box, taking photos and videos of voters dropping off ballots. Some wore tactical gear or camouflage. Some were visibly armed.‘The Trump playbook’: Republicans hint they will deny election resultsRead moreOthers videotaped voters and election workers at a ballot drop box and central tabulation office in downtown Phoenix. They set up lawn chairs and camped out to keep watch through a fence which had been added around the facility for safety after 2020 election protests.Some voters claim the observers approached or followed them in their vehicles. Other observers hung back, watching and filming from at least 75ft from the drop boxes.In total, the Arizona secretary of state has received more than a dozen complaints from voters about intimidation from drop box watchers, many of which have been forwarded to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general as of late October, as well as a threat sent to the secretary of state herself. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on 1 November to limit the watchers’ activities.These activities have led to calls from Maricopa county officials to “decrease the temperature” of heated rhetoric and actions in advance of Tuesday’s midterm elections. But though Arizona has become a hotbed for these tactics, it is also a sign of the mounting national threats to security that voters are facing as the 8 November elections near – part of an orchestrated countrywide strategy pushed by rightwing groups who believe baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud and irregularities.“I think that this drop box monitoring could very likely take hold in a number of different states,” said Jared Davidson, an attorney with Protect Democracy, a non-profit, non-partisan organization involved in one legal challenge against the drop box watchers. “I certainly hope it doesn’t and I hope that a win in our case will send a strong deterrent effect to folks who are organizing in other places.”‘All of a sudden now, we’re reaching voter intimidation’Drop box watching efforts have been largely coordinated by election deniers belonging to several different groups across the country, usually inspired by the viral movie 2000 Mules, which makes false, debunked claims about so-called “mules” stuffing drop boxes with ballots in a widespread spree of fraudulent voting during the 2020 presidential election. In recent months, drop box watchers spread the word on rightwing-friendly social media platforms like Truth Social and Telegram. One of the groups, Clean Elections USA, intends to send the photos, videos and information it collects to True the Vote, the organization behind 2000 Mules, Votebeat reported.The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in recent days that the justice department “has an obligation to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated”. The department also filed a “statement of interest” in one of the Arizona drop box lawsuits, saying that the behavior probably violates federal voting rights law.In Michigan, a local offshoot of a group called the America Project is training volunteers to set up hidden cameras to monitor drop boxes and to carry guns in case they encounter criminals while watching the boxes, the Detroit Free Press reported.A pastor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, told PennLive he had seen increased traffic in his community, where trucks with Maga flags drive through regularly, which he sees as an attempt to intimidate the largely Black community. In response to concerns over such intimidation and efforts by election deniers to recruit and train poll observers and workers, the faith community in Philadelphia is encouraging people to become poll monitors.‘We will be watching’Arizona became a sort of ground zero for drop box watching during early voting in October. Arizona voters extensively use no-excuse mail-in voting, and early voting at the polls and via mail and drop boxes begins 27 days before election day.“There’s nothing in and of itself that’s unlawful to sit and film a drop box – it’s odd behavior in my opinion,” Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, said in an interview. “When you have a weapon, and then you have camouflage on, and then you make a statement like ‘I’m out here hunting mules’ – all of a sudden now, we’re reaching voter intimidation.”Rural Yavapai county saw plans for drop box watches in what was dubbed “Operation Drop Box”, organized by the Lions of Liberty, a rightwing group that claims the US has been “hijacked and undermined by global elites, communists, leftists, deep state bureaucrats and fake news”, and the Yavapai County Preparedness Team, which is affiliated with the Oath Keepers extremist group, according to its website. Those groups told their volunteers to “stand down” after they were sued in federal court.But drop box watchers have been encouraged by some rightwing elected officials and candidates who have feigned credulity of false claims of a stolen election. One state lawmaker, the Arizona senator Kelly Townsend, encouraged “vigilantes” to stake out drop boxes (the same lawmaker then said last month that “wearing tactical gear while watching a ballot drop box could be considered voter intimidation”, so people shouldn’t do it). The Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state, Mark Finchem, tweeted in late October to tell his followers to “WATCH ALL DROP BOXES. PERIOD.” He also urged followers to record voters using them.Voters who have filed complaints against the practice said they felt intimidated and found the drop box watchers’ behavior alarming.“I’m a senior and was very intimidated by his actions,” one complaint about a Phoenix drop box watcher reads.“Camo clad people taking pictures of me, my license plate as I dropped our mail in ballots in the box. When I approached them asking names, group they’re with, they wouldn’t give anything,” another complaint from Phoenix reads.“I felt very intimidated and scared about who was watching me deposit my ballot in the box. A man with a camera was snapping shots of me, my car and my license plate. Definitely without my permission,” yet another reads.The Maricopa county sheriff, Paul Penzone, said that he was increasing security and directing more deputies to monitor the drop box situation in response to claims of voter intimidation. But the presence of uniformed law enforcement can also be a concern for voters who may distrust police, particularly voters of color.On 28 October, federal judge Michael Liburdi ruled against voter advocacy groups in a case brought by the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino. Liburdi wrote that, while some voters may be “legitimately alarmed” by the drop box watchers, their activity was protected by the first amendment.But a separate lawsuit from the League of Women Voters of Arizona, represented by the non-profit Protect Democracy, claims the drop box watchers violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Also before Judge Liburdi, that case prevailed in getting the practice curtailed in several ways that should make watchers’ activities less threatening to voters.Now, because of a temporary restraining order that Judge Liburdi issued, observers affiliated with the Clean Elections USA group cannot take photos or videos of voters within 75ft of a drop box, nor can they post images online implying someone is committing a crime. They now have to be 250ft away from a drop box if they are wearing body armor or carrying guns. Even then, the threat continues.‘How did we get here?’It’s not just the drop box activities that have election workers, voters and activists worried. Across the country, elected officials have been receiving threats from the same groups that are closing in on voters.One email sent to several workers at the Arizona secretary of state’s office, including the secretary of state herself, Katie Hobbs, vulgarly harassed the employees, threatened to find their addresses using local tax records and referred to the French Revolution. Hobbs, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for governor, has been subjected to threats after 2020, resulting in federal charges for one man who made a death threat against her. Two other local elected officials, the Maricopa county supervisor, Clint Hickman, and county recorder, Stephen Richer, have faced threats that resulted in federal charges this year as well.The chairs of all 15 Arizona county Democratic parties also received unsigned threatening letters, featuring the words “WE ARE WATCHING YOU”. “Retirees with nothing else to do will be filing hundreds of lawsuits, if not more,” the letter said. “They will be locating your homes, your social media profiles and pictures and posting them online as well.”Bonnie Heidler, the chair of the Pima county Democratic party, received the letter at the office’s headquarters and immediately informed the FBI. She wanted the letter on record, in case anything happens. She pointed out that the language of the letter was similar to an 14 October social media post from Finchem directed at Pima county, in which the candidate said: “We will be watching.”The county party’s building is up for sale, and someone called the realtor saying they wanted to buy the building so they could blow it up, Heidler said. The party is discussing ways to improve security, she added.“What Trump did was, he let the genie out of the bottle. And now we can’t get the genie back in. And that’s the problem. He’s given them credence that they’re ‘very fine people’,” Heidler said.Election workers in other states have also faced harassment and threats for doing their jobs. Election officials now routinely receive calls, voicemails, emails and social media posts that range from vitriolic to frightening.A mother and daughter who were election workers in Georgia told the January 6 committee they were threatened and told they should be jailed or killed.The entire election staff in rural Gillespie county, Texas, quit earlier this year, having finally had enough of the onslaught of harassment and false claims after 2020.The threats have left polling places understaffed or with inexperienced staff, as seasoned election workers decide to leave. In some areas, like Akron, Ohio, local officials have put laws in place to increase penalties for people who harass or interfere with election workers.Few Republicans have stood up to stolen election claims, and the ones who have have faced harsh electoral consequences from Trump’s rabid base. The Republican governor, Doug Ducey, who ignored Trump’s phone call while signing off on Arizona’s 2020 results, is not up for re-election, but he has still largely remained quiet. Arizona’s house speaker, Rusty Bowers, who refused to overturn the election results, lost his primary. County elected officials, who have been steadfast in support of the way the county ran the election, have faced endless outrage and threats.“How did we get here?” Gates said. “We got here because there are a few people that have normalized this sort of behavior, and then a bunch of my fellow Republicans who remain silent while that goes on, out of fear of some political ramification.”He doesn’t think the fervor will die down unless other Republicans start calling out those who are undermining democracy.“Literally, the eyes of the world are on Maricopa county,” Gates said. “If we engage in this kooky behavior, that’s not a good image to be providing to the rest of the country and the rest of the world. We’re better than that.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US voting rightsArizonaUS politicsPostal votingfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Unregulated, unrestrained: era of the online political ad comes to midterms

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      Unregulated, unrestrained: era of the online political ad comes to midterms Parties once focused on TV but now a billion-dollar effort embraces the highly targeted and almost rule-free digital worldThe advert is in grainy black and white, with an edgy horror movie soundtrack. As gunfights erupt in the streets, the narrator announces in a gravelly bass voice that John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania, “has a love affair with criminals”.Fetterman has voted “over and over to release the state’s most violent criminals, including murderers”, the narrator says. If elected, he would “keep the drugs flowing, the killers killing, and the children dying”.Republicans and Democrats are spending billions on ads – with very different messagesRead moreThe advert was laser-targeted on a demographic which was seminal in securing Joe Biden’s victory in 2020: women over 25 in the suburbs of Philadelphia. That same group could now hold the fate of the Senate in its hands.Should Philadelphia’s female suburban voters come out for Fetterman on 8 November, they could push him over the winning line in his battle with the Republican nominee, Mehmet Oz. That in turn could help the Democratic party retain control of the upper chamber, and by doing so keep Biden’s agenda alive.The stakes could not be higher. Yet the Philadelphia women who were bombarded with the “Fetterman loves criminals” ad 6m times over just 10 days through YouTube and Google were told next to nothing about who was behind it.“Paid for by Citizens for Sanity” is all that the advert reveals in small type at the end of the 30-second video. It took the sleuthing of the non-profit group Open Secrets to expose the producers as former members of Donald Trump’s inner circle, including the far-right senior White House adviser Stephen Miller.From the other side of the political spectrum comes another grainy black-and-white attack ad, titled Herschel Walker Can’t Be Our Senator. The ad is also targeted exclusively at women, but this time in Georgia, where another nail-bitingly close Senate race is reaching its climax.“Herschel Walker,” the ad begins, referring to the former NFL star now running as a Republican for a Georgia Senate seat. “Decades of violence against women. Guns. Razor blades. Choking. Stalking.”The female voters who were besieged by the ad some 60,000 times over four days were only told that it was created by a group named “Georgia Honor”. Open Secrets records that the group is a Super Pac that supports the incumbent Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, and has so far spent $34m in assailing Walker.Two grainy black-and-white videos out of a vast mountain of political advertising which is on track this year to smash midterm spending records. It may even exceed the amount poured into the 2020 presidential cycle.The total investment in 2022 is projected by the non-partisan ad tracking firm AdImpact to be $9.7bn, pushing America close to a stunning new norm: the $10bn election.Of that, AdImpact estimates that 30% of the political advertising spend, about $2.9bn, is going into digital advertising or to ads placed through connected TV (CTV) – smart TVs that support video content streaming through apps such as Roku or Apple TV.Such vast sums suggest that the age of the online political ad is firmly upon us. It has been propelled by the “cord-cutting” generation which has dispensed with conventional television in favour of streaming and on-demand formats.Take Priorities USA, the largest Democratic Super Pac. It has decided to place its entire $30m spend in 2022 in the digital basket – the first time it has entirely dropped broadcast TV advertising.“Online is where more people are spending their time, especially Black and Latino voters who are critical to the coalition that we are trying to build,” Aneesa McMillan, Priorities’ deputy executive director, told the Guardian. Some 45% of the Super Pac’s spending this cycle has gone on reaching African American and Latino voters, using platform data on social media and YouTube, as well as keywords associated with demographic groups, to target the message.McMillan said that the shift online was informed by research. The group found that 75% of the TV ads they injected into House races in 2020 went to homes outside the congressional district to be consumed by people who could not even vote in the relevant elections.The conclusion was clear: “Digital is much more efficient,” she said.The rise of online political advertising began tentatively with Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008 and has grown exponentially every cycle since. Despite its billion-dollar size, the world of online political ads remains almost entirely unregulated.Outside groups, which have beamed millions of attack ads on to voters’ smart TVs and tablets this year, can do so without having to meet federal rules on disclosing who they are or whose money they are spending.“We live in an increasingly online society, and political campaigns are moving online, but federal transparency rules have never been updated to take that into account,” said Daniel Weiner, head of the elections and government program at the non-partisan Brennan Center.Adav Noti, legal director of the non-profit Campaign Legal Center, spent 10 years as a lawyer at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) which is responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws. He expressed dismay at the agency’s inability to keep up with a dramatically changing media landscape.“We are more than a decade into an era of campaigns increasingly being conducted through digital, and the only government agency charged with regulating that activity has done nothing about it. Literally not a single piece of regulation.”Noti said that one of the effects of the FEC failing to engage with the explosion in online political advertising has been that social media giants and other big digital platforms have been left to their own devices. “Facebook, Google, TikTok and the rest have become the de facto regulators, and they set their own rules.”The big players have gone in different directions. Facebook and Google have both set up public databases listing their political ads, introducing a modicum of transparency.Other platforms such as TikTok have prohibited political advertising, though candidates are increasingly using the sites directly as megaphones.Attempts by Congress to legislate for more accountability have all succumbed on the rock of Republican intransigence in the US Senate. The Honest Ads Act, a bipartisan bill backed by the Brennan Center that would make digital ads subject to the same disclosure rules as broadcast TV and radio, was included in the Freedom to Vote Act that failed to overcome a Republican filibuster in January.In the absence of central regulation, outside groups can distribute extreme or false messages with impunity. Citizens for Sanity, the Super Pac created by former Trump advisers, blasted out an advert last month attacking Biden’s immigration policy.It was viewed 600,000 times over nine days by voters in the border state of Arizona.“Who is Joe Biden letting in?” its female narrator asks. “Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have erased our southern border and released a record number of illegal immigrants into the United States, all at your expense.”The ad goes on to warn about a “giant flood of illegal immigration” that was “threatening your family”. It accuses Biden of allowing drug dealers, sex traffickers and violent predators into the country, one of whom raped a little girl.“She was three years old,” the narrator says.The Poynter Institute’s factchecking unit, Politifact, reviewed the ad. It found that the immigrant who allegedly sexually assaulted a three-year old girl had been in the US since at least 2011; he has been behind bars since February 2020 – almost a year before Biden entered the White House.Politifact rated the advert “False”.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsSocial mediaAdvertisingDigital mediaRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Bernie Sanders hits the campaign trail with days left before the US midterms

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      Bernie Sanders hits the campaign trail with days left before the US midterms The Vermont senator is holding nine rallies across five battleground states, hoping to deliver a closing argument to young and working-class voters
      ‘They haven’t tried’: Bernie Sanders criticizes Democrats’ economic messagingSan Marcos’s Sewell Park on Texas State University’s campus, was packed with people on Saturday. Harry Styles’s As It Was’ and Dua Lipa’s Levitating provided the soundtrack to a mostly young crowd, who gathered around the stage and eagerly awaited its headliner: Senator Bernie Sanders.With just days left before polls close and Republicans’ midterm fortunes seemingly on the rise, Sanders is hitting the campaign trail, holding nine rallies across five battleground states in the week and a half leading up to election day.No one knows his name – but he could win a tight race because of abortionRead moreSanders and his progressive allies hope to deliver a closing argument to young and working-class voters that Democrats are the better stewards of the US economy, in the hopes of avoiding a Republican landslide on 8 November.Sanders’ rallies come as Democratic candidates appear to be on the defensive in key races that could determine control of the House and the Senate. Republicans have regained their lead on the generic congressional ballot, according to FiveThirtyEight, and voters’ mounting concerns over the state of the economy appear to be hurting Democrats’ prospects in the crucial final stretch of campaigning.In an interview with the Guardian, Sanders warned that Democrats have not done enough to mobilize many of the voters who were so instrumental in the party’s victories in 2020.“Obviously everybody should be turning out for what is the most consequential midterm election in the modern history of this country,” Sanders said before his rally in Austin, Texas. “But in the real world, I worry very much that Democrats have not done a good enough job of reaching out to young people and working-class people and motivating them to come out and vote in this election.”Texas State University student and first-time voter Gabrielle Diedrick, 18, can easily be spotted in the crowd in San Marcos by her black 10-gallon hat, cowboy boots and blue Bernie T-shirt. For Diedrick, raising the minimum wage is her top priority as a constituent and Sanders’ position resonates with her.Diedrick said: “It’s hard to pay off tuition here at San Marcos. Every job here is like $10 an hour and tuition is about $10,000 every like five months or semester.”Sanders has repeatedly hammered his economy-based message in the closing days of the 2022 election season, expressing concern that Democrats have focused too heavily on abortion rights in their campaign messaging. In a Guardian op-ed written earlier this month, Sanders urged progressive candidates to outline a pro-worker vision for the country, saying it would be “political malpractice for Democrats to ignore the state of the economy and allow Republican lies and distortions to go unanswered”.More Democrats have acknowledged the wisdom of Sanders’ argument in recent weeks, as surveys show a large share of the electorate identifies the economy as their top priority. An ABC News/Ipsos poll taken last week found that 49% of Americans named the economy or inflation as the most important issue determining their vote for Congress, while just 14% said the same of abortion.That trend could sink many Democratic congressional candidates, as voters consistently say Republicans are better equipped to manage the US economy. Sanders considers that widely held belief to be a misapprehension, insisting Republicans are not prepared to address the near record-high inflation currently affecting millions of American families, and he said Democrats must press their opponents on economic policy.“We should take the fight to the Republicans,” Sanders told the Guardian. “What are they doing about inflation? What are their ideas? Their ideas, among other things, is to give massive tax breaks for the rich and then cut social security, Medicare and Medicaid.”In an attempt to turn the inflation conversation on its head, Sanders has framed the problem as a result of corporate greed, and there is some evidence to support his theory. One analysis released in April by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning thinktank, concluded that about 54% of inflation could be attributed to increased corporate profits.“People are hurting. You got 60% of our people living paycheck to paycheck. And for many workers, they are falling further behind as a result of inflation,” Sanders said. “Corporate profits are at an all-time high. The rich are getting much richer, and Democrats have got to make that message.”Joe Biden appears to have taken the hint, lambasting corporate greed in the closing days of the campaign season. On Monday, the president delivered remarks criticizing oil companies for posting record profits as gas prices have climbed. “It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering, meet their responsibilities to this country, and give the American people a break and still do very well,” Biden said in a speech at the White House.Sanders credited Biden with directly addressing the concerns of working Americans, but he lamented that Democratic leaders have not done enough to change voters’ minds about the party’s economic agenda, as they have instead focused more of their attention on abortion rights.“We have not had the same unity and the same energy around the economic crisis facing working families and what Republicans would do,” Sanders said. “It’s not a question of what the president alone is doing. It’s a question of what the party is doing, where it’s putting its money, its resources, its energy.”Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution, echoed Sanders’ concerns that Democrats have fallen short when it comes to presenting a unified vision around improving Americans’ standard of living. But he acknowledged the inherent challenges of that task, when many of Democrats’ proposals aimed at helping families struggling under the weight of rising prices failed to pass Congress.Democrats had originally hoped to establish a federal paid family leave program and extend monthly child tax credit payments through their Build Back Better Act, which stalled in the Senate late last year. Democrats instead passed the Inflation Reduction Act this summer, but many of progressives’ economic proposals were stripped out of that bill to ensure the support of centrists like Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.“I agree Democrats have not delivered enough,” Geevarghese said. “I don’t want to belittle [Biden’s] accomplishments, but what he has delivered is much less than what was originally promised, so that’s the fundamental problem.”That being said, Geevarghese suggested Biden and fellow Democrats could use the hurdles they have encountered to their advantage. After all, if more progressives are elected to Congress, Democrats could revive portions of Build Back Better that were left on the cutting room floor.“Biden should level with the American people,” Geevarghese said. “He tried to pass transformative legislation that would improve the standard of living of working-class voters, and he was stymied by people in his own party like [Sinema and Manchin], and you know what? That’s why he needs Democrats who will vote with the Democratic caucus.”Sanders could serve as a pivotal messenger on that front in the final days of the campaign. In his two presidential runs, Sanders demonstrated how a platform of economic populism could invigorate young and working-class voters.“We know that he is the most popular youth vote candidate. He’s one of our oldest, but he’s one of the most popular hands down,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of the youth voting group NextGen America, which is co-hosting Sanders’ rallies. “No one can mobilize young people and working-class people like Bernie Sanders can.”When Sanders traveled to the border town of McAllen to rally for congressional candidate Michelle Vallejo’s campaign, Vallejo described “a packed house”.Vallejo told the Guardian: “To have Senator Bernie Sanders come join us was really exciting. It meant a lot to me. And it meant a lot to the people of [district] 15, because we want to be heard, and we want to be seen for who we are and be respected for the solutions, opportunities and resources that we know that we need in order to live the best quality life possible.”Although House Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), has chosen not to invest heavily in Vallejo’s race in the face of a potential Republican wave election, she expressed optimism about her chances on 8 November.“While we did not see any large TV buys on our behalf of the DCCC, we are focusing on connecting with our voters and running this campaign the way that we’ve run it since day one: which is just centered on our community members and on the efforts that really are rooted from our home and on the ground,” Vallejo said.Early voting data has raised alarm among some Democrats that younger Americans will not cast ballots at the record-breaking levels seen in 2020, which could prove disastrous for the party’s hopes of maintaining control of Congress. But Ramirez expressed confidence that young voters will once again turn out in large numbers because they understand exactly what is at stake on November 8.“What we’re going to be telling young people is that, in 2020, we beat back fascism. We beat it back for an election cycle. We didn’t kill it or destroy it,” Ramirez said. “We have to beat it out of the political body for our democracy to be truly healthy, and we’re not there yet at all.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Bernie SandersDemocratsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Why the US midterms matter – from abortion rights to democracy

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      ExplainerWhy the US midterms matter – from abortion rights to democracyGuardian writers lay down what’s on the line and what a Republican victory could mean for the future of the country America is hurtling towards the first nationwide test of its democracy since Donald Trump left the White House and his supporters mounted a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol. The midterm elections on Tuesday will decide control of Congress as well as 36 state governorships – but will also be a referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency, and fire the starting gun for the race to the White House in 2024.Here’s why the midterms matter for some of the biggest issues facing the US – and the world:The 2024 presidential electionA frenzy of speculation over the 2024 presidential race is likely to begin even before the last vote is cast in 2022. Midterm elections are typically seen as a referendum on the incumbent president. If Democrats suffer heavy losses in the House of Representatives, Senate and state governors’ mansions, the buck stops with Biden.There may be calls, especially from the left, for him to announce that he is not running again. He turns 80 on 20 November and is already the oldest president in American history. His potential successor would need time to build a political brand and establish a fundraising apparatus. But there is no obvious heir apparent and Biden can point to history: both Bill Clinton and Obama suffered midterm rebukes in 1994 and 2010 only to bounce back and win reelection.On the Republican side, Trump faces a test of his own electoral viability. A pattern of defeats for candidates he endorsed in states such as Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio might prompt more pragmatic Republicans to question whether the 76-year-old former president represents the party’s best shot at the White House. But victories for candidates who support Trump’s big lie about a stolen election would also raise fears about democracy itself in 2024. David SmithUkraineRussia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked Americans. Eight months later, most Americans continue to support efforts to aid Ukraine though polling suggests that the war – and foreign policy more broadly – isn’t one of the major issues driving their vote this cycle.Nevertheless, the midterms could have dramatic consequences for Ukraine. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who hopes to become the House Speaker if his party wins control of the chamber in November, has said Congress would no longer “write a blank check to Ukraine”. Those comments drew strong rebukes from Democrats and divided Republicans.Biden has also repeatedly spoken about the war in the context of rising fuel prices, a top concern among voters that Republicans have used to attack Democrats’ economic policies. In response, Biden has sought to blame Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying high gas prices are the cost of imposing crippling sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine. The US president has also argued that standing with Ukraine is critical to defending democratic values, which are under attack around the world. On the campaign trail, a growing number of Republicans have criticized Biden for sending aid to Ukraine while Americans are suffering from high inflation at home, a sign of a wider fissure in the party over the war. In some instances, far-right acolytes of Donald Trump, like Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have even echoed Moscow talking points. Such views are only a minority in the party, but if Republicans win the House, members like Greene will surely see their political clout rise. Lauren GambinoDemocracySeveral Republican candidates who have doubted the 2020 election are on the cusp of winning gubernatorial, attorneys general, and secretary of state contests in Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, and other key battleground states. Those offices all play a role in ensuring that votes are lawfully cast and counted. If these candidates win, they would oversee the 2024 presidential election in their states. There is already deep concern they would use their positions to sow confusion to try to overturn the result of the 2024 vote, refusing to seat any candidate who defeats Trump.Jim Marchant, a Republican running for Nevada’s top election official, has said explicitly this is his goal: “When I’m secretary of state of Nevada, we are going to fix it, and when my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected we’re going to fix the whole country, and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024,” he said at a rally last month.Meanwhile, if Republicans take control of the US House, as they are expected to, election denialism will be prominent among its members there too: 124 candidates who either denied or doubted the election are heavily favored to win their contests, according to FiveThirtyEight. Republicans could use their new majority to launch investigations, hold hearings, and spread misinformation about elections. A Republican victory in either House of Congress would quickly end whatever slim chance remained of Democrats passing any kind of federal voting rights legislation. That stalemate would essentially preserve the status quo for at least another two years. Even though they have controlled both chambers of Congress since 2020, Democrats have been unable to pass any kind of voting rights legislation because of the filibuster, a procedural rule in the US senate that requires 60 votes to advance legislation. Sam LevineJudgesTrump appointed more than 200 judges to the federal judicial system during his single four-year term – arguably his most profound legacy. The judges’ decisions touch millions of lives. This was never better illustrated than in June when the supreme court – with three out of nine justices appointed by Trump – overturned the constitutional right to abortion.Biden has been fighting back. As of 8 August, he had appointed 75 judges to the federal bench, far more than Trump or Barack Obama at the same stages of their presidencies. These included a record number of women and people of color, most notably Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman to serve as a supreme court justice.All this has been made possible by a Senate under Democratic control. Should Republicans win the chamber, they will have the power to block Biden’s future nominations, likely forcing him to choose “moderate” candidates in the hope of picking up Republican votes. Few Democrats have forgotten how Senate Republicans froze a supreme court vacancy in the last year of Obama’s presidency and denied Merrick Garland a hearing. David SmithInvestigations and committeesThe Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers are bracing for a legislative blockade and an onslaught of investigations. If Republicans take the House majority, one of the first orders of business will likely be terminating the work of the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. Members of the committee have anticipated this possibility as well, and they are racing to release a full report of their findings before the end of the year. Rodney Davis, the Republican ranking member of the House administration committee, has even indicated plans to investigate the work of the select committee, which has consistently attracted the ire of Donald Trump since its creation last year.Such an investigation would just be one of many investigations launched by House Republicans if they take control of the lower chamber. Republican leaders have suggested they are looking to investigate the overseas business dealings of Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, among other topics.House Republicans’ agenda may even include the impeachment of a sitting cabinet member. Multiple members of the Republican caucus have called for the removal of Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s homeland security secretary, over the White House’s handling of the US-Mexican border. “We will give Secretary Mayorkas a reserved parking spot, he will be testifying so much about this,” House minority whip Steve Scalise said in September.Joan E GreveAbortionThe supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade in June catapulted the issue of abortion to the front and center of several key midterm contests. The outcomes of governor’s races in particular could have direct consequences on the future of abortion access, which will now be decided by the states.Democrats have made abortion a core part of their campaign message amid signs that fury over the ruling – and over Republican-led efforts to ban abortion in the states – was fueling a political backlash. In several states, the number of women registering to vote surged and in conservative Kansas, voters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to undermine abortion protections.Abortion protections are on the ballot in four states, while competitive contests for state legislature and the governor’s mansion could be critical to determining access in the state. At the federal level, Biden has vowed that his first legislative act of the new Congress would be to codify abortion rights, if Americans deliver Democrats even bigger majorities this November. By contrast, some Republicans have said they would push for a national ban on abortion if their party retakes control of Congress in November. Lauren GambinoTopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansexplainersReuse this content More