US midterm elections 2022

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Americans should focus on Biden’s accomplishments, says chief of staff – as it happened

      by

      Here’s the meat of White House chief of staff Ron Klain’s argument to American voters, as he put it to Politico:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Elections are choices, and the choice just couldn’t be any clearer right now. Democrats have stood up to the big special interests. They stood up to the big corporations and insisted that all corporations pay minimum taxes, stood up to the big oil companies and passed climate change legislation. They stood up to Big Pharma and passed prescription drug legislation. They stood up to the gun industry and passed gun control legislation. Things that this city [was] unable to deliver on for decades because the special interests had things locked down, Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have been able to deliver on.”The point of interviews like these is to get the administration’s message out ahead of November’s midterms, when voters will get a chance to decide which lawmakers they want representing them, and ultimately which party controls Congress. Considering Biden’s low approval ratings, the base case now is that Republicans have a good shot at taking the House, while Democrats seem favored to narrowly keep the Senate, though anything could happen.The White House would, of course, prefer Democrats hold onto both chambers. If one falls into the hands of the GOP, the prospects for any major legislation getting through Congress become dramatically slimmer for the next two years. Klain and others seem to be hoping that two things will happen: either enough voters change their minds about Biden, or they divorce their dislike of the president from their opinions of Democrats on the ballot. It may be premature to say whether the latter is happening, but when it comes to the former, polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight does show the president’s approval rating recovering from something of a nadir reached in mid-July.In closing, Klain offered this comment on Biden’s public profile, as compared to the previous White House occupant:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“I don’t think it’s true he’s out there less than his predecessors. I just think Donald Trump created an expectation of a president creating a shitstorm every single day.”The Biden administration took advantage of a quiet week in Washington to lay the groundwork for the roughly two months of campaigning before the November midterm elections, when Democrats will have to fight for control of Congress.Here’s what else happened today:
      White House chief of staff Ron Klain gave an interview to Politico, where he promoted Biden’s legislative accomplishments and previewed Democrats’ message to voters.
      A Georgia judge blocked senator Lindsey Graham’s attempt to quash a subpoena compelling his appearance before the special grand jury investigating election meddling in the state.
      Democrats attacked Mike Pence’s trip to Iowa, as the former vice president continues exploring whether to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
      An Ohio House Democrat criticized Biden in a television advertisement. She is fighting to keep her seat representing a district whose boundaries have been redrawn to include more Republican voters.
      More LGBTQ politicians are holding elected office in America than ever before, according to a new survey.
      The supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade may be causing a surge in women registering to vote, a political data firm has found.
      “Joe Biden’s letting Ohio solar manufacturers be undercut by China.” Sounds like a Republican campaign advertisement. It’s not – instead, it’s a television spot from an Ohio House Democrat fighting for her seat in a newly redrawn district that’s become much more friendly to the GOP.The New York Times reports that Marcy Kaptur has become the latest and most prominent Democratic lawmakers to publicly break with Biden with an ad that also highlights her collaboration with Rob Portman, Ohio’s retiring Republican senator. It’s a reversal from just last month, when she greeted the president at the airport in Cleveland during his visit to the city. However, such conduct is not unheard of for Democrats this election cycle. Maine representative Jared Golden aired an ad where he described himself as an “independent voice” that voted against “trillions of dollars of President Biden’s agenda because I knew it would make inflation worse,” according to the Times.Then there are the somewhat bizarre actions of Carolyn Maloney of New York, who is fighting to keep her House seat against a challenge from Jerry Nadler, a fellow Democrat. She had to apologize after saying Biden wasn’t planning to stand for reelection in 2024, only to make the same comment again. Democrat apologises for saying Biden won’t run in 2024 – then says it againRead moreRepublican House candidates who are facing close races are being advised not to talk too much about Donald Trump, but rather try to concentrate voters’ attention on the issues where they see an advantage over Democrats, CNN reports.“I don’t say his name, ever. I just avoid saying his name generally,” a Republican lawmaker in a tight race told the network. “I talk about the policies of his that I like.”The advice comes from Tom Emmer, a GOP House representative and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is tasked with reclaiming Congress’ lower chamber in the November elections. While a spokesman for Emmer didn’t address the report about Trump, he told CNN, “Candidates know their districts best,” and “public and private polls show the midterms will be a referendum on Joe Biden and Democrats’ failed agenda that’s left voters paying record prices, dealing with soaring violent crime and facing billions in middle-class tax hikes.”As the report notes, this strategy could become complicated if Trump opts to announce another campaign for the presidency before the November midterms. Earlier this week, The Guardian reported he was being counseled to do so to avoid an indictment by the justice department over his handling of classified material.Trump should announce run for 2024 soon to avoid indictment, source saysRead moreThe investigation into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia was one of the earliest and most intense scandals of his presidency, and the legal wrangling over it still hasn’t finished.The Associated Press reports that a federal court of appeals panel has found that William Barr, Trump’s attorney general in 2019, wrongly withheld a memo that he cited to say that Trump did not obstruct justice during in the investigation into his ties with Moscow.Here’s more from the AP:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}At issue in the case is a March 24, 2019, memorandum from the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, or OLC, and another senior department official that was prepared for Barr to evaluate whether evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation could support prosecution of the president for obstruction of justice.
      Barr has said he looked to that opinion in concluding that Trump did not illegally obstruct the Russia probe, which was an investigation of whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.
      The Justice Department turned over other documents to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as part of the group’s lawsuit, but declined to give it the memo. Government lawyers said they were entitled under public records law to withhold the memo because it reflected internal deliberations among lawyers before any formal decision had been reached on what Mueller’s evidence showed.
      But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said last year that those arguments were disingenuous because the memo was prepared for Barr at about the same time as a separate Justice Department letter informing Congress and the public that Barr and other senior department leaders concluded that Trump had not obstructed justice.
      The memo noted that “Mueller had declined to accuse President Trump of obstructing justice but also had declined to exonerate him” and “recommended that Barr ‘reach a judgment’ on whether the evidence constituted obstruction of justice,” the panel wrote Friday. The memo also noted that “the Report’s failure to take a definitive position could be read to imply an accusation against President Trump” if the confidential report were released to the public, the court wrote.Busy day for courts in Georgia. A federal judge in the state has just rejected another bid by Republican senator Lindsey Graham to quash a subpoena compelling his appearance before a special grand jury probing attempts to meddle in the 2020 elections by Donald Trump’s allies.“Senator Graham raises a number of arguments as to why he is likely to succeed on the merits, but they are all unpersuasive, not least because they largely misconstrue the Court’s holdings,” judge Leigh Martin May wrote in denying the senator’s motion.“A stay is not justified even assuming for the sake of argument that Senator Graham has shown ‘a substantial case on the merits.’”Earlier this week, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared before the panel, which has informed him he is a target of their investigation.Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in GeorgiaRead moreHowever in Georgia, a judge will allow a state law provision that bans giving food and water to voters standing in line to go into effect for the November midterm elections, though it is still subject to further legal challenges, the Associated Press reports. The law, passed last year, was part of a Republican-backed effort to reform the state’s election system, which Democrats attacked as an attempt to make it harder for the poor and racial minorities to vote. But as the AP notes, the legal battle isn’t over:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee said the voting rights groups may ultimately prevail on part of their challenge, but he agreed with the state that it’s too close to the election to block any part of the provision. He noted that requiring different rules for the general election than those in place for the primaries earlier this year could cause confusion for election workers.
      Boulee said that voting rights groups had failed to show that prohibiting the distribution of food and drinks within 150 feet (45 meters) of a polling place violates their constitutional rights. But he said that another part of the provision that bars people from offering food and drink within 25 feet (7.6 meters) of any person in line is probably unconstitutional because that zone is tied to the location of voters and could stretch thousands of feet from the polling place. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      What does the future hold for Liz Cheney? Politics Weekly America | podcast

      by

      More ways to listen

      Apple Podcasts

      Google Podcasts

      Spotify

      RSS Feed

      Download

      Share on Facebook

      Share on Twitter

      Share via Email

      This week, Joan E Greve speaks to the former chair of Republican National Committee Michael Steele about the defeat of Liz Cheney in the Wyoming primary, the state of the GOP after she leaves and why Donald Trump should fear what she does next

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: NBC, MSNBC, C-Span Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Democratic boot camp: party intensifies local tactics ahead of midterms

      by

      Democratic boot camp: party intensifies local tactics ahead of midtermsDemocratic groups are training candidates up and down the ballot in the hopes that a successful voter turnout will help limit losses this fall Democrats knew going into this midterm election campaign season that they would have their work cut out for them. History shows that the president’s party usually loses House seats in the midterm elections, and Joe Biden’s approval rating has been underwater for almost a year.But that does not mean that Democrats are giving up. Despite the grim forecasts of a Republican shellacking in the midterms, Democratic groups have doubled down on training candidates to compete up and down the ballot in November. Party leaders have expressed hope that teaching these candidates how to tailor a campaign message to their communities’ concerns and execute a successful voter turnout operation can help Democrats limit their losses this fall.Democratic ads boosted extremists in Republican primaries. Was that wise?Read moreOne of the groups leading those efforts is the National Democratic Training Committee (NDTC), which coaches candidates and their staffers on the best strategies for managing successful campaigns. The NDTC has held more than 150 trainings this year, both virtually and in person, and 8,000 participants have joined the sessions.“This all goes back to our core mission, which is lowering the barrier of entry for anyone who wants to get involved in Democratic politics and our belief that Democrats need to be preparing and building for long-term power,” said Kelly Dietrich, NDTC’s CEO and founder.NDTC’s bootcamp training sessions instruct candidates and their staffers on everything from building personal connections with voters to executing a successful “get out the vote” strategy. Ebony Lofton, who is running to be the mayor of Dumfries, Virginia, has attended several NDTC trainings, and she said the advice she has received has already paid dividends on the campaign trail.“It’s important to me, as someone who doesn’t have a huge staff, to just have some idea of the direction I’m going,” Lofton said. “You have so many other people from all over the country who are providing nuggets – like someone told me about [getting] signs on the cheap, from the chat in one of the trainings I had – and I’ve been using them, so it’s just been great all around.”While much of the national conversation around the midterm elections has focused on control of Congress, Dietrich said that Democrats need to be paying just as much attention to state and local races like Lofton’s.“We all focus on these big and sexy races of running for Congress, but it’s only a couple of dozen of competitive races,” Dietrich said. “There are literally hundreds of thousands of state [representatives], city council, school board [candidates] that are running.”Dietrich advises trainees running in those local races to carefully consider the issues affecting their communities, and then craft a campaign message around those concerns. For many candidates, that strategy means addressing the way that rising prices have constrained family budgets in recent months.In July, the annual rate of inflation hit 8.5%, which was slightly down from a month earlier but still close to a 40-year high for the US. A CNN poll conducted last month found that 75% of Americans consider inflation and the cost of living to be the most important economic problem facing their family.“When you’re running in those local communities, the national mood and national environment can affect your race. But you need to be talking about what matters in your community,” Dietrich said. “If inflation is top of mind, how does that affect your community?”James Reavis, an NDTC trainee who is running for a seat in the Montana house, said voters have told him that their top concerns are the rising cost of housing and the state’s high property taxes.“I’ll run on tax issues all day because that’s what the constituents are talking about,” Reavis said. “So I’m still listening to the constituents, and that’s my number one driver.”During the NDTC trainings that Reavis has attended this year, he has been able to talk to other Democrats in traditionally Republican states about the best tactics for reaching out to reluctant voters.“There were lots of people on that phone call that were like me, which were people that were running in red states, and we were talking about the challenges that we have,” Reavis said. “We really have an uphill battle in places like Montana. If you have an R next to your name, you’re doing pretty good. You’re already a step ahead of the game. But if you’ve got a D next to your name, you’ve got to work really hard.”The importance of helping state legislative candidates like Reavis has been thrown into stark relief for Democrats in the past couple of months. After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June, individual states have been able to ban abortion access, and a number of Republican-led states have already done so.The end of Roe has shifted the conversation among voters about the upcoming election, said Donna Dill, an NDTC trainee and campaign staffer for a Democratic candidate seeking a seat in the Texas house. After the supreme court overturned Roe, abortion became illegal in Texas under a 1925 law.“We’re in Texas, and we’re in the fire,” Dill said. “What we’re trying to do is reach out to young women because they’re the ones that are going to bear the consequences of the law.”Dill and her team have pointed to Texas’s abortion ban as a devastating example of the importance of electing Democrats to the state legislature, and she said the NDTC trainings have helped guide her efforts in reaching out to right-leaning voters who may have concerns about the law.“There’s a lot of Republicans in Texas that understand that the way our state government is moving is not in a good direction for the state,” Dill said. “We’re trying to make inroads with them.”Reavis agreed that abortion has become a more prominent issue in his race, but he emphasized that kitchen-table issues like rising prices were still dominating voters’ attention.“The constant message down here in Montana has been the rising price of housing, property taxes [and] public safety,” Reavis said. “Those are still the top two or three issues. Those haven’t changed.”With that in mind, Congress’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act has provided a boon to Reavis’s campaign. The spending package, which Biden signed into law on Tuesday, includes provisions on limiting Medicare recipients’ prescription drug costs and investing in renewable energy to reduce America’s planet-heating emissions.“President Biden gets a lot of complaints down here in Montana. After the news came out about the Inflation Reduction Act, those complaints really dropped,” Reavis said. “When they’re delivering solutions up at the national level, that makes it easier for us down here to work on those state issues.”The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act was one of several recent victories for Biden and his party. On Wednesday, Biden signed the Pact Act to expand healthcare benefits to millions of veterans. A week before that, Biden announced the death of the al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who helped coordinate the September 11 attacks.Those accomplishments, combined with concerns over the end of Roe, appear to have bolstered Democrats’ midterm prospects. Earlier this month, Democrats surpassed Republicans on the generic congressional ballot for the first time this election cycle, according to FiveThirtyEight.Although there are still three months left until election day, recent developments in Washington have made Reavis and other NDTC trainees more optimistic.“In the last two weeks, I have felt some wind being lifted in the sails,” Reavis said. “Because we are getting things done at the federal level and we’re working really hard at the state level, I’m feeling really excited about the midterms.”TopicsDemocratsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      What will it mean for Trump – and Biden – if Liz Cheney runs in 2024?

      by

      What will it mean for Trump – and Biden – if Liz Cheney runs in 2024?Trump Republican adversary could make a symbolic impact in the ‘moderate’ party lane – but she could also take votes from Biden When Liz Cheney left the podium at a Wyoming ranch on Tuesday night, clapped and cheered by supporters, a Tom Petty song boomed out beneath the Teton mountains: “Well, I won’t back down / No, I won’t back down / You could stand me up at the gates of hell / But I won’t back down.”The woman who has emerged as Donald Trump’s most implacable Republican adversary had suffered a landslide defeat in a primary election to decide Wyoming’s only seat in the US House of Representatives.But unlike the former president, who loves to play victim, Cheney refused to dwell in political martyrdom after her act of self-sacrifice. In a 15-minute speech beside a dozen hay bales, a red vintage Chevrolet truck and four US national flags, she made clear that, while Trump had won the battle, the war for the soul of the party rages on.“This primary election is over,” Cheney acknowledged to a crowd that, with aching symbolism, included her father, former vice-president Dick Cheney. “But now the real work begins.”She invoked Abraham Lincoln, who lost congressional elections before ascending to the presidency and preserving the union. The vice-chair of the congressional January 6 committee warned that Trump and his enablers pose an existential threat to democracy and urged Americans of all stripes to unite.To many in the crowd – who had wined and dined in a hospitality tent with a country and western band for entertainment – it sounded awfully like the launch of a presidential campaign.Heath Mayo, 32, a lawyer, said: “On the question about the future of the party, there are few people making an argument counter to the prevailing Trumpism argument. She’s the only one that can make it. I hope she runs for president in 2024. She needs to be on that stage making that argument again, even if she loses. Keep making the argument.”Carol Adelman, 76, who hired a 22-year-old Cheney for the US Agency for International Development, said that “of course” she would like see Cheney run for the White House in 2024. Alan Reid, 60, who works in finance, agreed: “Who else? Who’s better? I don’t see anybody from any party that shows the leadership that Liz shows.”Cheney’s political future became a little clearer on Wednesday when she launched a leadership political action committee with the name “The Great Task”. Her spokesperson told the Politico website: “In coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic.”In a TV interview, Cheney confirmed that she is “thinking about” a run for president in 2024 and will make decision “in the coming months”.As the fall of the Cheney dynasty in Wyoming demonstrated, she would stand almost no chance of winning a Republican primary. But if the field is crowded and divided, for example between Trump, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and former vice-president Mike Pence, she could make a symbolic impact in the “moderate” lane.And as the January 6 hearings have shown, Cheney would relish nothing more than standing on a debate stage with Trump and prosecuting the case against him directly in prime time.Alternatively, the three-time congresswoman could run as an independent candidate in the general election. This could peel crucial moderate votes away from Trump in battleground states, helping his Democratic opponent, presumably President Joe Biden.But there might also be a danger that she would take votes from Biden, in particular those crossover Republicans who supported him in 2020 because of their hostility to Trump. Democrats would be anxious to avoid a repeat of 2000 when the third party “spoiler” Ralph Nader was blamed for costing Al Gore the election.Cheney, who has vowed to do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the Oval Office, would be equally wary of such a scenario unless, as some critics suspect, ambition and ego are competing with her nobler impulses.Robert Talisse, an expert in contemporary political philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote in an email: “If Cheney seeks the GOP nomination against Trump, she’ll be crushed. If Trump’s not seeking the nomination, he’ll still get to select the nominee.“If she runs as an independent against Trump, she’ll probably siphon off a significant number of conservative voters who won’t be able to bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, but also can’t bring themselves to vote for Trump.”The calculation would take place in the context that reports of Trump’s weakening grip on the Republican party have been greatly exaggerated. She is one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him: eight have lost their primary or retired, while only two stand a chance of surviving to the next Congress.Indeed, as Cheney exits the stage, at least for now, Sarah Palin, who paved the way for Trump, is making a comeback. On Tuesday, with his endorsement, she advanced to the November general election in the race for Alaska’s lone House seat. The journeys of these two fiftysomething women neatly sum up where the Republican party is at.But as Cheney noted in her remarks, pro-Trump election deniers are rising all over the country. It has proved a winning formula in primaries that reward the loudest voices but could yet backfire on the party in the midterm elections, where centrist voters are put off by extremism. Republicans may blow their chances in the Senate with several radical candidates who are heavy on celebrity but light on gravitas.For now, Trump will feel that Tuesday demonstrated that revenge is a dish best served Maga. But Adam Kinzinger, Cheney’s Republican colleague on the January 6 committee, is confident that she will not yield. Echoing Tom Petty, he told the MSNBC network: “She’s very determined, very dogged, and she will chase Donald Trump to the gates of hell.”TopicsLiz CheneyUS politicsRepublicansUS elections 2024US midterm elections 2022analysisReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Harriet Hageman: who is the Republican who beat Liz Cheney?

      by

      Harriet Hageman: who is the Republican who beat Liz Cheney?The lawyer appears to be the ideal candidate to carry Trump’s rightwing banner into the midterms – but she hasn’t always been aboard his train A conservative lawyer with a passion for thwarting environmentalists, Harriet Hageman would appear to be an ideal candidate to carry Donald Trump’s rightwing banner into November’s midterm elections.On Tuesday night she beat the incumbent and member of Wyoming’s political royalty, Liz Cheney, for the thinly populated western state’s solitary seat in the US House of Representatives.Liz Cheney considers run for president after Republican primary defeatRead moreAfter trouncing Cheney, Trump’s most vocal critic within the Republican party, Hageman, 59, has a clear run at election success. In an overwhelmingly red state, Cheney defeated her Democratic challenger in 2020 by a margin of almost three votes to one.Hageman, however, has not always been such an enthusiastic passenger aboard the Trump train.Her stance has shifted from calling him “the weakest candidate” in the 2016 primaries, when she attempted to help maneuver the Texas senator Ted Cruz into the Republican presidential nomination, to “the greatest president of my lifetime” when she eagerly embraced Trump’s endorsement as his chosen candidate to topple Cheney, his latest bete noire.Neither is this her first foray into politics. She was a losing candidate in Wyoming’s 2018 contest for state governor, finishing a distant third to the eventual winner, Mark Gordon, and one other in the Republican primary, with barely 20% of the vote.Hageman’s political positions are rooted in the minutiae of her career as a trial lawyer representing Wyoming’s ranchers, and advocating for energy industries against federal protections for water, land and the endangered gray wolf.A 1989 graduate of the University of Wyoming’s college of law, her most successful case, according to the New York Times, was persuading a judge in 2003 to block regulations from Bill Clinton’s presidency protecting millions of acres of national forests from road-building, mining and other development.She is a vocal supporter of the fossil fuel industry, telling supporters at a campaign event earlier this month that coal was an “affordable, clean, acceptable resource that we all should be using”.She has previously also angered activist groups including Defenders of the Wild for her positions on endangered species.In 2017, as an attorney for the ultra-conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation, she praised a US appeals court for cutting through “emotional arguments” and upholding the delisting of gray wolves.The following year, the Sierra Club accused Wyoming of “waging a war” on wolves through hunting and allowing a “scorched earth” policy that threatened the species’ recovery from near-oblivion.Hageman was late in her campaign in converting to Trump’s false assertion that his 2020 election defeat by Joe Biden was fraudulent.In her victory speech on Tuesday night, she said: “Wyoming has spoken on behalf of everyone who is concerned that the game is becoming more and more rigged against them.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022WyomingUS politicsRepublicansDonald TrumpLiz CheneyfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Sarah Palin advances to November election for Alaska House seat

      by

      Sarah Palin advances to November election for Alaska House seatFormer governor clinches one of four spots on ballot for seat formerly occupied by Don Young Sarah Palin looks set to be on the ballot in November’s general election after the former governor of Alaska and ex vice-presidential candidate clinched one of four spots vying for a seat in the US House, according to the Associated Press.Palin, who rose to fame more than a decade ago as John McCain’s running mate, advanced to the general election along with her two challengers, Nick Begich III, a tech millionaire backed by the Alaska Republican party, and Mary Peltola, a former state legislator and Democrat. It was too early to call the fourth spot.Palin, Peltola and Begich are competing for Alaska’s only House seat, formerly occupied by Don Young, who died in March. The trio were also competing in a special election to serve the remainder of Young’s term, which ends early next year.The results of the special election could take days to finalize as Alaska voters are using a ranked voting system for the first time.Liz Cheney loses Wyoming Republican primary to Trump-endorsed rivalRead moreYoung was first elected to the office in 1973 and was the longest-serving Republican member of the House, holding the state’s sole seat in the chamber for nearly 50 years.Palin, 58, first shot to prominence as McCain’s running mate in the 2008 elections, when she branded herself a “mama grizzly” and built a persona as a loose-lipped loose cannon. Palin’s attacks on the media, her racist rabble-rousing and her eschewing of policy or traditional politics in favor of demagoguery in many ways paved the way for Trump, of whom she was an early endorser.After that failed 2008 campaign, Palin left her post as Alaska governor and took a long hiatus from politics amid ethics scandals. This year, she staged a comeback, appearing with Trump at rallies and fundraisers but often skipping traditional campaign events and candidate debates within her home state.Elsewhere in Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski faced 18 challengers – including the Trump-backed Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka – in a non-partisan primary in which the four candidates garnering the most votes will advance to November’s general election.The Congress and Senate races will offer insights into the power Trump still commands over voters, even in the “last frontier” of Alaska, where most voters have not declared a party affiliation.As perhaps one of the most famous Alaskans, Palin remained the most familiar among the candidates, despite the perception among many voters that she abandoned her state after quitting the governorship. After leaving politics, she launched a career in reality TV, showcasing her life and state in shows such as Sarah’s Alaska and belting out Baby’s Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot while dressed in a pink and blue bear outfit on an episode of The Masked Singer.“I knew who Sarah was before I became an Alaskan,” said Kari Jones, 47, who moved to the state five years ago after her husband, who is in the military, was posted there. But Jones said her husband backed Begich, in large part because the former governor didn’t show up to a local meet-and-greet event and had been less accessible than her opponents. “She did lose some votes because of that,” Jones said.“I’m looking for candidates that show they’re really dedicated to the state, not just during election time,” Aundra Jackson, 60, who was fishing for coho salmon in Anchorage.Nearly 15 years ago, when Palin first took the governor’s seat, she was a fiery newcomer who unseated a powerful incumbent: Lisa Murkowski’s father, Frank Murkowski. Back then, Palin’s approval rating had peaked just over 90% according to Ivan Moore, an Anchorage-based pollster. She was briefly reputed for her bipartisanship, creating a sub-cabinet on climate change and taking on the oil and gas industry, before she leaned into more rightwing politics.“Palin is probably the most attractive, charismatic candidate out there,” Jackson said. “But when she’s asked any specific questions, all I hear from her are soundbites. So it just surprises me that she’s got the popularity.”Begich, who painted Palin as absentee and vacuous in the days before the election, had earned endorsements from many prominent state Republicans. Peltola, the Democratic candidate, has presented herself as a fiercely amicable moderate who was willing to collaborate with conservatives and progressives. “I’m not interested in speaking ill of Sarah, she has her supporters and I respect her and her supporters,” she said in an interview with the Guardian before the election.The congressional election on Tuesday was the state’s first ever ranked-choice race, where voters were able to choose their first, second and third choice for the role. In “pick one” Senate and congressional primaries, voters also choose their favorite candidate from a longer list of choices. The four with the most votes in each race will advance to the ballot in November.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsUS midterm elections 2022House of RepresentativesUS politicsAlaskaSarah PalinJohn McCainDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Liz Cheney says she 'could not go along with Trump's lie' after primary defeat – video

      by

      Liz Cheney has been defeated in a GOP primary, losing her seat in Congress to Harriet Hageman, who was backed by the former president Donald Trump. Cheney, a third-term congresswoman, and her allies entered the contest downbeat about her prospects, aware that Trump’s backing gave Hageman a considerable lift in the state where he won by the largest margin during the 2020 campaign. 
      ‘Two years ago, I won this primary with 73% of the vote. I could easily have done the same again,’ Cheney said. ‘The path was clear, but it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enabled his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take’

      Liz Cheney loses Wyoming Republican primary to Trump-endorsed rival
      Sarah Palin’s political career in the balance as Alaska holds special election More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Are Latino voters really moving right? The end of Roe may muddy the picture

      by

      Are Latino voters really moving right? The end of Roe may muddy the pictureLatinos support reproductive rights by large margins – and that could prove a powerful mobilizing tool in the midterms After the Republican party made some inroads among Latino voters in the 2020 presidential election, when Latino support for Trump went up by 3% compared with 2016, many commentators declared this group was decisively moving away from the Democratic party.As November’s midterms approach, the GOP is aiming to capitalize on these gains. The recent victory of the Latina Republican Mayra Flores, who won a congressional seat representing southern Texas, is one they are hoping to replicate across the country.Yet, with increased support largely limited to Florida and Texas, the political landscape is more complicated than it seems heading into this year’s midterms, and experts say the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade may play a role in halting the GOP’s gains.Christine Sierra, professor emerita of political science at the University of New Mexico and a specialist in Latino politics, says that any Republican gains in the 2020 presidential election did not mark a definitive trend. “While Republicans managed to make a few inroads in very specific counties in Florida and Texas, for example, Democrats maintain a majority of the Latino vote,” she recently told the Guardian. More than 60% of Latinos voted for Joe Biden.Historically, Latinos have focused on issues such as economics, jobs, education and immigration to determine their vote – areas in which the GOP believes it has an upper hand among more moderate voters. However, the quickly changing landscape of sexual and reproductive rights in the United States might influence what matters most to Latino voters. Abortion bans are expected to have a greater effect on women of color, and Latina women account for about 25% of abortion patients in the US.“Now, given the controversy and salience of abortion as an issue, it may go to the top one, two, or three issues [that matter to Latinos],” Sierra said.A poll conducted in June by Change Research on behalf of the political organization Voto Latino found that 64% of Latinos in battleground states “are more motivated to vote in November” due to the fall of Roe, and 52% are “much more motivated”. The poll surveyed Latino voters in Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.Another poll by the same organization conducted in May found that across the battleground states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, 70% of Latino voters are in favor of protecting the right to choose. At least 30% of Latino Republicans in these states believe abortion should be legal “in all or most cases”.Moreover, a recent Axios-Ipsos Latino poll in partnership with Noticias Telemundo revealed at least 50% of Latino voters in the US say abortion should be legal while another 21% don’t have a view. One-fourth believe abortion should be illegal “at any time under any circumstances”.Lina-Maria Murillo, assistant professor of gender, women’s and sexuality studies as well as history and Latinx studies at the University of Iowa, believes this extreme conservative stance among a minority of Latino voters can be traced back to the influence of the evangelical Christian church, where Latinos have been considered “one of the fastest growing segments’’, and of which Flores is a member. Bucking what Murillo says is a common stereotype that Latinos oppose abortion due to their Catholicism, the May Voto Latino poll shows Catholic Latinos support a woman’s right to choose at about the same rate as Latinos in general.Still, Ameer Patel, vice-president of programs at Voto Latino, says the belief that Latinos are generally conservative is more anecdotal than anything else. “They’re actually really in favor of reproductive rights. And that number obviously increases when we look at younger Latinos,” he said. In the May Voto Latino poll, 75% of respondents between the ages of 18 through 39 said they support a woman’s right to choose.Every year, about 1 million Latinos turn 18 and become eligible to vote in the US. Patel says their stance on abortion represents a unique mobilization opportunity for Democrats. “If you’re able to use this as a mobilization issue for young Latino voters in places like Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, this is an extremely powerful tool,” he said.In Arizona, where the end of Roe could revive a civil war-era law banning abortions, Latinos account for about 25% of voters and played a critical role in flipping the state in the 2020 presidential election. Moreover, 64% of respondents to the Voto Latino poll in Arizona said they would not support a candidate who stands for a complete abortion ban, stating “it would be a deal breaker.” This picture could affect contests like the attorney general race, where the Republican candidate Abraham Hamadeh has campaigned on the promise of upholding Arizona’s anti-abortion laws.Patel says Republicans are taking note of this trend and choosing not to focus on reproductive rights as an issue to sway Latino voters, “because [they know] this is not a message they can win them on”. While Arizona’s Democratic candidate for governor, Katie Hobbs, has been outspoken about her stance on abortion, for instance, the Republican candidate, Kari Lake, has recently shied away from discussing the issue. In Texas, the Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke has repeatedly vowed to repeal the state’s abortion ban if elected governor. In Florida, the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, is avoiding the subject.Murillo believes the role of Latinas working for reproductive justice is often overlooked. “If we look at some of the major abortion funds in Texas, like West Fund and Frontera Fund, they have been established and are run by Latinx folks,” she said.If O’Rourke can “galvanize the youth in Texas, especially around issues of abortion”, said Murillo, “then I think he has a chance and I think that Latinx people in Texas have a major role to play in that”.According to a New York Times analysis, Democrats are vastly outspending Republicans on midterm ads talking about abortion. Still, Murillo believes Democrats are not fully seizing the opportunity to sway Latino voters. “Democrats are stuck in these old pandering ways; they’re not seeing the changes that are coming and the ways that Latinx people are not a monolith and that the youth component of this community is overwhelmingly progressive,” she said.If Democrats don’t act, she says, while Latino voters “are not necessarily going to be turning to Republicans, they may just not vote at all”.TopicsAbortionUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More