US midterm elections 2022

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      Republican primaries offer look into future of Trumpism without Trump

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      Republican primaries offer look into future of Trumpism without TrumpThe ex-president suffered some humiliation when his candidates lost in the Georgia primaries – but the hard-right strain of Republican politics will survive In his campaign heyday, Donald Trump would declare it the greatest movement in the history of politics and promise: “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.”What never occurred to him was that the “Make America Great Again” movement – or Maga – might get sick and tired of him first.Tuesday’s Republican primaries did not go as Trump had hoped | Lloyd GreenRead moreThe former US president suffered some humiliation on Tuesday when four candidates he handpicked in Georgia lost Republican primary elections in a landslide. It was a stinging rebuke in what has become ground zero for his “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen.But it was no rebuke of Maga and all it stands for.The hard-right, nativist-populist strain of Republican politics predates Trump and will surely survive him. This year’s primary season winners in Georgia and elsewhere have been careful not to disavow the movement, or its patriarch, even when they lack his blessing.“Donald Trump has transformed the Republican party over the past five years and it is now a solid majority Trumpist party with everything that entails in policy and in tone,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. “On the other hand, Republicans, including very conservative ones, are clearly willing to entertain the possibility of Trumpism without Trump.”Trump is now 75 and could be living a quiet, golf-playing retirement like other past presidents. But against the counsel of some of his inner circle, he chose to make this year’s midterm elections about him and the primaries – votes in states and districts to decide which Republicans will take on Democrats in November – a referendum on his continued influence.Trump endorsed candidates in nearly 200 races, from governor to county commissioner, often in contests that are not particularly competitive and help bolster his list of wins. But others have been reckless, vengeful bets aimed at dislodging incumbents who defied his claims of election fraud. So far, the results have been a mixed bag.The month began well enough in Ohio, where venture capitalist and author JD Vance leaped from third to first place following Trump’s late-stage endorsement in the Senate primary.In North Carolina, Trump helped the 26-year-old former college football player Bo Hines win the nomination for a seat in the House of Representatives. In Pennsylvania, voters chose his preferred candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, who said he would not have certified Joe Biden’s 2020 win of the state.But other governor races, which often turn on specific local issues, have proved more elusive. Trump’s pick in Nebraska’s primary, Charles Herbster, lost after allegations surfaced that he had groped women. In Idaho a week later, Governor Brad Little comfortably beat a Trump-backed challenger.In North Carolina, meanwhile, voters rejected Trump’s plea to give a scandal-plagued congressman Madison Cawthorn a second chance. And in Pennsylvania, a Senate primary featuring Trump-endorsed TV doctor Mehmet Oz remains too close to call.This week Trump again notched some wins including Sarah Sanders, his former White House press secretary, in the primary for governor of Arkansas. But it was all overshadowed by Georgia, where he has pushed his personal vendetta hardest and so squandered political capital.It was not just that former senator David Perdue, whom Trump had lobbied to run, lost to Governor Brian Kemp, who had refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his state. It was also the crushing margin: Kemp beat Perdue by a staggering 52 percentage points.Rubbing salt into the wound, Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who defied Trump’s call to “find” the votes to change the outcome two years ago, also won his party’s nomination. Attorney general Chris Carr and insurance commissioner John King, both opposed by Trump, prevailed in their primaries too.Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, commented: “The results in Georgia were really stunning. Few, if any Republicans, have aroused Donald Trump’s ire so much as Governor Kemp and Brad Raffensperger and they both did substantially better than expected. Donald Trump went all out in Georgia and he ended up an egg on this face, which is significant.“It may be that the people who have been in the bull’s eye of Trump’s ‘big lie’ campaign have started resenting it and took their resentment out. More generally, I think an increasing number of people are asking themselves a question that they weren’t asking previously: would we be better off with a Trumpist candidate who’s not named Donald Trump?”Among those asking the question is Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who campaigned for Kemp in Georgia and told the Politico website: “Trump picked this fight.” Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have also felt at liberty to campaign for midterm candidates denied Trump’s imprimatur.Then there is Mike Pence, the former vice-president, who defied his old boss by rallying with Kemp on Monday and telling the crowd: “Elections are about the future.” Pence, himself a former governor of Indiana, has made a habit of speaking with pride about the accomplishments of the Trump-Pence administration while distancing himself from the “big lie”.Should he run for president in 2024, he may pay close attention to how Little, Kemp and others have studiously avoided criticising Trump while capturing swaths of his base by shifting right on abortion, gun rights and “culture wars” issues and signing legislation to prove it. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is another likely student of the formula.That means there is still little room for more old school Republicans such as Senator Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, who lost the presidential election in 2012. Few are making an impact in the primaries. “A Republican who wants to pretend that 2016 through 2020 never happened and go back to the Romney-Ryan era is not going to do well in today’s Republican party,” said Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington.But Trump does face a further challenge to his authority from the far right.Some on this wing effectively accuse him of not being Trumpy enough, as demonstrated last year when he was booed for urging supporters to get vaccinated against the coronavirus (he now barely mentions vaccines in his speeches).Kathy Barnette, a Senate candidate who mounted a late surge in Pennsylvania with ideas even more extreme than Oz, told the Reuters news agency: “Maga doesn’t belong to him. Trump coined the word. He does not own it.” Kandiss Taylor, a similarly far-right candidate for governor of Georgia, backs Trump’s false claims of voter fraud but is unsure whether she would vote for him again in 2024. She said in an interview with the Guardian: “It’s not about him. The people of America chose him and he’s the one that we elected. Will I vote for him in 2024? It all depends on what happens between now and then and who runs against him.”A further sign of fracturing came this week when Cawthorn, smarting from his defeat in North Carolina, swore revenge on “cowardly and weak” members of his own party and declared: “It’s time for the rise of the new right, it’s time for Dark Maga to truly take command.”The anti-democratic implication was that the end justifies the means in an existential struggle for America. Cawthorn named allies including the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Trump himself, suggesting that the former president has already turned to the dark side.Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who belonged to the rightwing Tea Party movement, said: “Maga’s dark enough on its own … Trumpism has metastasised beyond Trump and it’ll go in a bunch of different dark, eerie places but it’s all the same thing. Trumpism now is the dominant strain in the party.”Maga’s identity crisis comes as Biden and other Democratic leaders seek to brand their opponents as “Ultra-Maga Republicans” in the hope that labelling the entire party as extremist will be more effective in the midterms than a singular focus on Trump (though he and his supporters have embraced “Ultra-Maga” in merchandise and fundraising emails).Yet while Trump’s status as a kingmaker has been diminished, and his “Stop the steal” obsession is wearing thin, it would be unwise to extrapolate too much from primaries where it was always going to be hard to oust popular, well-funded incumbents.Trump continues to raise vast sums of money and command loyalty from most Republicans in Congress as well as from the Republican National Committee. Polls suggest that he is more popular with the Republican base now than when he won the nomination for president in 2016. His “America first” mantra is now in the party’s DNA; even the candidates he does not endorse typically do endorse him.Walsh, who challenged Trump in the 2020 presidential primary and now hosts a podcast, added: “Nothing has changed. This is Trump’s party and everything that’s happened this primary season just continues to reflect that … Wake me up when an anti-Trump Republican wins a primary. That would be news.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Trump is no kingmaker in the Republican party. That is increasingly clear | Ben Davis

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      Trump is no kingmaker in the Republican party. That is increasingly clearBen DavisThis week’s primaries showed that voters value delivering on priorities above endorsements The most eye-catching result of Tuesday’s suite of midterm primaries is Georgia’s incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, demolishing former senator David Perdue in his re-election primary. Former president Donald Trump has spent the better part of the last two years publicly savaging Kemp for the latter’s refusal to unilaterally overturn President Joe Biden’s Georgia win in the 2020 election. Despite Trump’s public support and universal name recognition, Perdue is losing by landslide margins in every corner of the state. Trump also targeted the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and attorney general, Chris Carr, who are both up over Trump’s endorsees by large margins.Trump still won’t shut up. He’s doing Democrats running for office a huge favor | Robert ReichRead moreThis is a continuation of a trend we have seen in Republican primaries thus far this cycle. Many Trump-endorsed candidates have lost, including Representative Madison Cawthorn, or been held to fairly low percentages, such as the Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and JD Vance. It’s clear that the 2020 election and personal loyalty to Trump have diminishing returns with Republican primary voters.While any Republican would certainly love to have Trump’s endorsement, he’s far from a kingmaker in the party. Fundamentally, most Republican voters vote Republican for the same reasons they always did: lower taxes and imposing conservative culture war policies on others. Elected officials whom Republican voters perceive as governing well and delivering results will be rewarded regardless of whether they tried to “stop the steal”. In the end, Trump’s single-minded fixation on the election, which most voters even in his own party consider a distraction, could do real damage to his prospects in 2024.On the Democratic side, both sides of the party’s civil war seem to have been drawn into a stalemate. The party’s centrist wing has landed on a potent strategy after being punched in the mouth by superior progressive organization and small-dollar fundraising in the last two cycles. Centrists used the OH-11 special election between Nina Turner and Shontel Brown to pioneer waiting until late in the race and then dropping enormous amounts of outside money through pro-Israel Pacs like Democratic Majority for Israel and Aipac to overwhelm progressives and leave them unable to counter. This strategy was used again to rapidly close an enormous lead in PA-12, but progressives were just able to pull out a win for candidate Summer Lee. As of this writing, the TX-28 race between progressive Jessica Cisneros and the conservative incumbent Henry Cuellar remains too close to call.The commonality across Democratic primaries is that voters value loyalty. DMFI and Aipac’s ads do not ever mention Israel. They savage progressive candidates for alleged disloyalty to the party and its agenda (ironically given Aipac’s endorsement of more than 100 Republican lawmakers who supported overturning the 2020 election). Progressive wins, however, have used the same attack. Despite unitary control of government, the Democratic party has no legislative accomplishments of note. Democratic voters understand that this is due primarily to the intransigence of specific lawmakers. The Pennsylvania Senate nominee John Fetterman hammered opponent Conor Lamb on ending the filibuster and his votes against the party’s agenda. The No Labels “unbreakable nine” who stymied Biden’s Build Back Better agenda have been bleeding out, with Kurt Schrader and Carolyn Bourdeaux losing by large margins and Henry Cuellar in serious danger. Democratic voters want more than anything a functional governing majority that is able to deliver clear results.Across both parties, it’s clear that voters value candidates they believe will govern and deliver on their priorities, far more than endorsements. Democrats who have endorsements from Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi but spent the past two years stymying their agenda will be punished, while Republicans that deliver wins will be rewarded even if they anger Donald Trump.
      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America
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      Georgia primaries deliver blow to Trump’s grip on Republican party – live

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      It was supposed to be the moment of Donald Trump’s triumphant revenge over Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and the other RINOs (Republicans in name only) he excoriated for rebuffing his big lie of a stolen presidential election.But as his chosen candidates fell one by one in Tuesday’s primary elections, a new reality was dawning over the former president: the total control the self-appointed kingmaker believed he still wielded over the Republican party is no longer intact.Reaction to last night’s events was coming in on Wednesday, although, notably, nothing yet from the former president himself, who put his reputation and – for once his money – behind former senator David Perdue’s doomed attempt to unseat Kemp.But others had plenty to say.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was among a number of senior Republicans, including ex-vice president Mike Pence, to back Kemp, celebrated the demise of Trump’s “vendetta tour” in a tweet.Enormous win tonight for @BrianKempGA. I am so proud of and happy for my friend—and just as importantly for the Georgia GOP and the people of Georgia. They were not going to kick out a great Governor or be willing participants in the DJT Vendetta Tour.— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) May 25, 2022
      Kemp goes on to face Democrat Stacy Abrams – who won her party’s primary Tuesday unopposed in November in a rematch of their 2018 battle, which Kemp won narrowly.Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, secured the Republican nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.The state’s Republican party was quick to celebrate:Congratulations Brad Raffensperger, Republican nominee for Secretary of State#LeadRight #gapol #GeorgiaOnTheLine pic.twitter.com/12BrILSlvm— GAGOP (@GaRepublicans) May 25, 2022
      And Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Not all Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia fell: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter.But Republican leaders will worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall. And that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.My colleague Lauren Gambino has this look at how Trump’s chosen candidates went down, and how Kemp’s victory marks a “resounding setback” for the former president’s quest to punish those who dared to cross him:Resounding setback for Trump as Kemp wins Republican primary in GeorgiaRead moreThanks for following the US politics blog today. We’re closing down here, but you can keep up with developments in our live blog covering the Texas elementary school massacre here.Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party loosened with defeat for his “big lie” candidates in several key Georgia primary races. But the former president was more focused on his weekend appearance at the national rifle association’s weekend convention in Houston.Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary from last week might not be settled until next month after the state’s elections chief said the deadlocked race between Trump’s pick, celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz, and David McCormick, was headed for a recount.Here’s what else we followed:
      Joe Biden’s hopes of taming inflation before November’s midterm elections were dashed by an economic outlook released by the congressional budget office on Wednesday afternoon that says the crisis will persist into next year.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would not immediately bring gun legislation to a vote because of Republican opposition.
      Public approval of the supreme court dropped sharply to 44% following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn the Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide, according to a Marquette Law School poll.
      Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.
      Joe Biden’s hopes of taming inflation before November’s midterm elections look to have been dashed by an economic outlook released by the congressional budget office on Wednesday afternoon that says the crisis will persist into next year.High prices and the soaring cost of gas threaten to derail Democrats’ hopes of retaining control of Congress in the fall, and Biden last week promised tackling them was his “top domestic priority”.Wednesday’s report from the non-partisan agency predicts the consumer price index will rise 6.1% this year and 3.1% in 2023, the Associated Press said. This forecast suggests that inflation will slow from current annual levels of 8.3%, yet would still be dramatically above a long-term baseline of 2.3%.The CBO cautions its numbers “are subject to considerable uncertainty, in part because of the ongoing pandemic and other world events,” including Russia’s war in Ukraine.Maya MacGuineas, president of the committee for a responsible federal budget, told the AP ahead of the report’s release that the pandemic, war in Ukraine and other factors point to the importance of reducing the annual deficit.“Unfortunately, the underlying story here is one of fiscally unsustainable positions and on top of that, we have this added challenge of inflation and a reminder that external shocks continue to come at us,” she said. CBO Director Phillip Swagel highlights the main findings of “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2022 to 2032,” which was released today. https://t.co/AanxPE9ctK— U.S. CBO (@USCBO) May 25, 2022
      Joe Biden is about to sign an executive order increasing accountability in law enforcement and creating a national database of police misconduct.In a statement from the White House, the president says the steps are needed following the killing two years ago of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Two years ago, the murder of George Floyd exposed for many what Black and Brown communities have long known and experienced – that we must do more to ensure that our nation lives up to its founding promise of fair and impartial justice for all.
      The incident sparked one of the largest social movements this country has ever seen, with calls from all corners to acknowledge the legacy of systemic racism in our criminal justice system and in our institutions more broadly. As well as creating the database, Biden’s order bans the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints unless deadly force is authorized, and restricts the use of no-knock entries, such as the one used by police in Kentucky who killed an unarmed Black woman, Breonna Taylor, at her home in March 2020. It also requires new standards that limit the use of force and require de-escalation for all federal agencies, among other measures.I’ve called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but Senate Republicans have stood in the way of progress. That’s why this afternoon, I’m taking action and signing an Executive Order that delivers the most significant police reform in decades.— President Biden (@POTUS) May 25, 2022
      The Biden administration blames Republicans in the senate for blocking the George Floyd justice in policing act, forcing the president to take executive action.Read more:Biden to sign police reform executive order on George Floyd anniversaryRead morePennsylvania’s top election official said Wednesday that last week’s Republican Senate primary is heading for a recount, with no winner likely until June.Celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz is virtually deadlocked with former treasure official David McCormick in the hotly contested race to take on Democratic nominee John Fetterman in November’s election.Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, said in a statement that the vote totals for the top two finishers fell well within the 0.5% margin for an automatic recount after the deadline for counties to report unofficial totals.Oz, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, led McCormick by 902 votes, or 0.07% of 1,343,643 ballots reported by the state by Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.The agency said it would not declare a winner until the recount is complete, possibly as late as 8 June.Counties continued counting hundreds of ballots on Wednesday, including provisional, military and overseas absentee ballots.He might have lost the endorsement of Donald Trump, but Republican Alabama congressman Mo Brooks’s challenge for a US Senate seat is very much alive, and heading for a June runoff.Some analysts expected the loss of Trump’s backing, a revenge act for Brooks’s comments that he believed voters should look forward instead of dwelling on the 2020 election that the former president lost, would be fatal.But Brooks, formerly a staunch Trump ally and mouthpiece, earned enough if the vote on Tuesday to secure a runoff with Katie Britt, former chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby, whose retirement opened up the Alabama seat.Trump initially endorsed Brooks, but pulled his backing in March.“Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went ‘woke’ and stated, referring to the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, ‘Put that behind you, put that behind you,’ despite the fact that the Election was rife with fraud and irregularities,” Trump said in a statement. In response, Brooks, a six-term congressman, issued an angry statement claiming Trump had asked him to “rescind” the 2020 election and remove Joe Biden from the White House.Brooks was a prominent figure at the “Save America” rally at the Ellipse in Washington DC on 6 January 2021 that preceded the storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters. “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks told the crowd before the riot.It’s been a lively morning so far in US political news and there is more to come, so do stay tuned, Here’s where things stand:
      Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar was still locked in a tight primary runoff race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Wednesday, but has already faced criticism from the party’s progressive wing in Congress due to his anti-abortion and pro-gun views.
      Senate Democrats declined on Wednesday to bring gun safety legislation to a vote right now, with leader Chuck Schumer saying that he knows that the bills will not pass due to Republican opposition.
      Public approval of the US Supreme Court has dropped sharply following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade.
      Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.
      The former president faced a resounding setback as Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp won the state’s Republican primary, defeating former senator David Perdue, a Trump ally who embraced the myth of a stolen election.
      Donald Trump released a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying that he still plans on attending the NRA convention in Houston this weekend.“America needs real solutions and real leadership in this moment, not politicians and partisanship,” the former president wrote. “That’s why I will keep my longtime commitment to speak in Texas at the NRA Convention and deliver an important address to America.”In his statement, Trump made a peculiar stylistic choice and put the word massacre in quotes.Trump is not cancelling his appearance at the NRA convention this week in Houston, he says on Truth Social pic.twitter.com/BF4WZO6M10— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) May 25, 2022
      Anyway, an interesting twist of irony is that people won’t be able to carry firearms when attending Trump’s speech. It seems this rule is one made by the Secret Service, which told NPR that it has the “authority to preclude firearms from entering sites visited by our protectees, including those located in open-carry states”.For all the live news on the school shooting in Texas, do head over to our other live blog currently running, here.Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar was still locked in a tight primary runoff race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Wednesday, but “the Squad” is already angry, regardless of the result.New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among the most prominent of the party’s progressive wing in Congress, called out its leaders for backing the anti-abortion, pro-gun Cuellar over Cisneros.“On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary,” the politician known as AOC tweeted.“Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it. Accountability isn’t partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership”.On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary. Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it.Accountability isn’t partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 25, 2022
      Senior Democrats including Nancy Pelosi campaigned for Cuellar, a nine-term congressman, as he sought to fend off the challenge from Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration attorney.Cuellar has already declared victory, but according to the Associated Press on Wednesday, the race is still too close to call. Cuellar led Cisneros by 175 votes, or 0.38% of the 45,209 ballots counted by 2am.The winner will face Cassy Garcia, who won the Republican runoff for the seat, in November’s midterm elections.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said on the chamber floor Wednesday morning that he will not be bringing any gun legislation to a vote in the immediate future, saying he knows that the bills will not pass due to Republican opposition.Speaking after Tuesday’s massacre of 19 children and two teachers by a gunman at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I believe that accountability votes are important, but sadly this isn’t a case of the American people not knowing where their senators stand. Americans can cast their vote in November.The Associated Press reported that Schumer swiftly set in motion a pair of firearms background-check bills in response to the school massacre, but acknowledged the unyielding rejection by Congress of previous legislation to curb the national epidemic of gun violence..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If the slaughter of schoolchildren can’t convince Republicans to buck the NRA [national rifle association], what can we do? But he said he would continue to work on advancing bipartisan legislation.Follow our live blog on the Texas school shooting here.From my colleagues Maanvi Singh and Joan E Greve, these are the Guardian’s main takeaways from primary night, which was understandably overshadowed by the massacre of elementary school children in Texas:
      Blow to Donald Trump as a political kingmaker
      Key race for Georgia secretary of state signals defeat for ‘big lie’ candidate
      But Trump acolytes performed better in Arkansas and Texas
      Elementary school shooting casts pall over the night
      Democratic races also hold interest
      Read the full story here for their observations:Five key takeaways: the US midterm electionsRead morePeople who take part in insurrections against the US government can be barred from office, an appeals court said on Tuesday, reversing a ruling in favor of Madison Cawthorn, an extremist Republican politician from North Carolina. Hailing a “major victory”, Free Speech For People, the group which brought the case, said: “This ruling cements the growing judicial consensus that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not shield the insurrectionists of 6 January 2021 – including Donald Trump – from the consequences of their actions.”Cawthorn lost a primary this month and will not return to Congress in November. But Free Speech For People pursued an appeal.It also brought cases against Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, two Arizona Republicans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and an Arizona state representative, Mark Finchem. All have been unsuccessful.The challenges cited the the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war.It says: “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Cawthorn and the other Republicans were closely tied to events around the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. They have denied knowledge of plans for violence.Read the full story:Blow to Madison Cawthorn as appeals court reverses ‘insurrectionist’ rulingRead morePublic approval of the supreme court has dropped sharply following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn the Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide, according to a new poll.Disapproval of the nation’s highest court was especially pronounced among the roughly two-thirds of US adults who oppose overturning Roe, the Associated Press says, while support for the court was high among those in favor, according to the Marquette Law School poll, which also found increased partisan polarization in approval.Approval fell to 44%, with 55% disapproving of how the court is handling its job, the sample of more than 1,000 adults between 9 and 19 May found.In March, 54% approved and 45% disapproved, itself a massive drop from the 66% approval the panel enjoyed in September 2020, the month that long-serving justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.Approval was fairly steady among Republicans from March to May this year, but fell sharply among Democrats and slightly among independents.New Marquette Law School national poll finds overall approval of US Supreme Court has dropped 10 percentage points since March, from 54% to 44%, and disapproval has gone up from 45% to 55%. #mulawpoll— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) May 25, 2022
      Donald Trump’s big lie lost bigly in Georgia on Tuesday night. Some might take this as proof that his spell over the Republican party has finally been broken, but that is what the Republican party wants people to believe. The former president had been waging a personal vendetta against Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for failing to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor.Trump handpicked former senator David Perdue and congressman Jody Hice to challenge Kemp and Raffensperger in the Republican primaries. Both parroted the big lie and both were soundly beaten. It was a tangible sign that even many Trump voters are now weary of “stop the steal” and eager to look forward. It was also a blow to Trump in a primary season where his scattergun endorsements have come up with a decidedly mixed win-loss record.But studying Trump’s recent record as kingmaker misses the point. In fact, it actively helps Republicans create the illusion that they have moved on from “Make America great again” (Maga) even as they continue to push its radical rightwing agenda.It all began with Glenn Youngkin, who last year won election as governor of Virginia as a Trump-lite Republican. He never campaigned alongside the ex-president but also took pains to avoid criticizing him and alienating his base. “Don’t insult Donald Trump but do everything to keep him away,” was how columnist Peggy Noonan put it in the Wall Street Journal.Youngkin projected the image of a safe, sane, old school Republican who could win back suburban and independent voters. But he went Maga by pushing hot button issues such as coronavirus mask mandates, transgender bathrooms and “critical race theory” and portraying his opponent as a “woke” liberal. He flirted with, but did not embrace, Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.The formula has been emulated in various ways by candidates facing extreme Trump-backed challengers. It worked for Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, and now for Kemp in Georgia. Neither should be mistaken for “NeverTrumpers” in the mould of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger or Larry Hogan. Read the full story:Trump-backed nominees lost in Georgia, but can Republicans escape the specter of Maga?Read moreLiz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the 6 January House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.The Wyoming congresswoman and Republican party pariah made the announcement in a tweet that said she was fully vaccinated and boosted, and following federal guidelines.She said she received a positive test this morning, and was “experiencing mild symptoms”. pic.twitter.com/lEoQGk3Ru4— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) May 25, 2022
      If Brian Kemp’s obliteration of David Perdue’s challenge wasn’t bad enough for Donald Trump, the failure of the former president’s pick Jody Hice to topple Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger might have stung even more.Raffensperger was, of course, the recipient of Trump’s infamous call following the 2020 election asking him to “find” the votes he needed to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, which is now the subject of a criminal probe.The refusal of Georgia’s Republican officials to bend to Trump’s will resulted in his furious campaign of vengeance, which fell flat on Tuesday when voters soundly rejected the “big lie” candidates he wanted to install.Raffensperger’s victory wasn’t as sizeable as Kemp’s, but he still achieved more than 50% of the vote, enough to avoid a run-off and win him the Republican nomination outright. Brad Raffensperger found the votes.— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 25, 2022
      My colleague Sam Levine has taken a look at Raffensperger’s victory and how it was, arguably, the biggest blow yet to Trump’s efforts to install compliant officials in positions of authority:Brad Raffensperger defeats Trump bid to oust him as Georgia’s top election officialRead moreIt was supposed to be the moment of Donald Trump’s triumphant revenge over Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and the other RINOs (Republicans in name only) he excoriated for rebuffing his big lie of a stolen presidential election.But as his chosen candidates fell one by one in Tuesday’s primary elections, a new reality was dawning over the former president: the total control the self-appointed kingmaker believed he still wielded over the Republican party is no longer intact.Reaction to last night’s events was coming in on Wednesday, although, notably, nothing yet from the former president himself, who put his reputation and – for once his money – behind former senator David Perdue’s doomed attempt to unseat Kemp.But others had plenty to say.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was among a number of senior Republicans, including ex-vice president Mike Pence, to back Kemp, celebrated the demise of Trump’s “vendetta tour” in a tweet.Enormous win tonight for @BrianKempGA. I am so proud of and happy for my friend—and just as importantly for the Georgia GOP and the people of Georgia. They were not going to kick out a great Governor or be willing participants in the DJT Vendetta Tour.— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) May 25, 2022
      Kemp goes on to face Democrat Stacy Abrams – who won her party’s primary Tuesday unopposed in November in a rematch of their 2018 battle, which Kemp won narrowly.Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, secured the Republican nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.The state’s Republican party was quick to celebrate:Congratulations Brad Raffensperger, Republican nominee for Secretary of State#LeadRight #gapol #GeorgiaOnTheLine pic.twitter.com/12BrILSlvm— GAGOP (@GaRepublicans) May 25, 2022
      And Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Not all Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia fell: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter.But Republican leaders will worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall. And that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.My colleague Lauren Gambino has this look at how Trump’s chosen candidates went down, and how Kemp’s victory marks a “resounding setback” for the former president’s quest to punish those who dared to cross him:Resounding setback for Trump as Kemp wins Republican primary in GeorgiaRead moreGood morning and welcome to the midweek edition of the US politics blog.Donald Trump is facing a cold new reality this morning: the total power he thought he still held over the Republican party is no longer a thing. Resounding defeats for his “big lie” candidates David Perdue, Jody Hice and John Gordon in Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia were a stunning rebuke for what critics have called Trump’s “vendetta tour” – his plan to take out the state’s top officials who rebuffed his efforts to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Former senator Perdue was trounced by incumbent governor Brian Kemp, Hice failed to topple secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, and Gordon fell to attorney general Chris Carr.It wasn’t a total blowout for Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter. But that in itself is alarming Republican leaders, who worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall, and that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.
      In Alabama, Republican congressman Mo Brooks lost Trump’s endorsement, but won enough votes to reach a run-off to hold on to his seat.
      In Texas, attorney general Ken Paxton, who spoke at Trump’s 6 January Washington rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection, saw off a challenge from George P Bush, grandson of former president George HW Bush.
      And the only anti-abortion Democrat in the House, Henry Cuellar, has declared victory over progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in their Texas district.
      We’ll have lots more reaction coming up to the primary elections in Georgia and other states that voted Tuesday, so please stay with us. More

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      Five key takeaways: the US midterm elections

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      Five key takeaways: the US midterm electionsRaces from Georgia to Texas were a litmus test of Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican party with some significant losses Blow to Donald Trump as a political kingmakerBrian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, defeated former Senator David Perdue, who had been endorsed by Donald Trump. Perdue’s loss marked a significant defeat for Trump’s reputation as a kingmaker in the Republican party, as the former president has used the power of his endorsement to wield influence over candidates and lawmakers.Perdue’s defeat raises questions about the impact of Trump’s endorsement, particularly for candidates challenging incumbents. In November, Kemp will face off against voting rights leader Stacey Abrams, who won the uncontested race for the Democratic nomination.Key race for Georgia secretary of state signals defeat for ‘big lie’ candidateBrad Raffensperger defeats Trump’s effort to oust him as Georgia’s top election officialRead moreBrad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who attracted Trump’s ire for refusing to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, is projected to win the Republican primary for his position. Raffensperger is above 50% in his race against Trump-backed candidate Jody Hice, who has embraced the former president’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and is expected to avoid a runoff and advance to the November general election.But Trump acolytes performed better in Arkansas and TexasBut Trump acolytes performed better in Arkansas and Texas. Trump’s former press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, secured the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Arkansas, meaning she will likely follow in her father’s footsteps to become governor. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, who filed a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 election, also easily defeated land commissioner George P Bush in his runoff race. Bush’s loss will have long-lasting repercussions for a political dynasty that has produced two presidents and helped shape Texas for several decades.Elementary school shooting casts pall over the nightA shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, cast a devastating shadow over Tuesday’s primaries. At least 19 children and two adults were killed when a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary school. Joe Biden expressed outrage over the tragedy, calling on Congress to pass stricter gun laws. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” Biden said.Lucy McBath, who is the Democratic winner in Georgia’s seventh congressional district, said she has been forced to deliver a very different victory speech than she had planned.“Because just hours ago, we paid for the weapons of war on our streets again with the blood of little children sitting in our schools,” said the representative, who entered politics after her son was shot and killed in 2012. “We cannot be the only nation where one party sits on their hands as children are forced to cover their faces in fear. We are exhausted.”Democratic races also hold interestCongresswoman Lucy McBath defeated fellow House Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux to win the nomination in Georgia’s seventh congressional district. McBath currently represents the sixth congressional district, but she chose to run in the neighboring seventh district after Republican redistricting altered the state’s congressional map. McBath’s victory had particular resonance in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. Since her son’s death, McBath has staunchly advocated for stricter gun laws in honor of his legacy.A winner has still not yet been called in the closely watched runoff race between Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar and Jessica Cisneros in Texas’ 28th congressional district, which pitted a longtime centrist incumbent against a progressive challenger. Progressive groups had rallied around Cisneros, attacking Cuellar over his opposition to abortion rights as the country prepares for the likely reversal of Roe v Wade. But organizations backing Cuellar had spent heavily to help the vulnerable incumbent, and he currently leads Cisneros.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansGeorgiaArkansasTexasDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Brad Raffensperger defeats Trump’s effort to oust him as Georgia’s top election official

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      Brad Raffensperger defeats Trump’s effort to oust him as Georgia’s top election officialThe secretary of state had been excoriated by many in the GOP for refusing to help overturn the 2020 election Brad Raffensperger defeated congressman Jody Hice on Tuesday in a closely watched Republican primary for Georgia secretary of state, a significant victory for a politician who has been scorned by his own party for refusing Donald Trump’s request to overturn the 2020 election.Wins for Kemp and Carr in Georgia show Trump’s grip on GOP slippingRead moreIn a surprise, Raffensperger avoided a runoff and won an outright victory over Hice, getting more than 50% of the vote, according to the election monitoring website Decision Desk HQ. The race was called by the Associated Press and other outlets late on Tuesday night.Raffensperger’s victory is the biggest rebuke so far to Trump in this election season. There have been few other Republicans who have attracted the former president’s wrath for refusing to overturn the election result. Two other Republicans, Georgia governor Brian Kemp and attorney general Chris Carr easily fended off Trump-backed challengers Tuesday evening.There was a record turnout going into election day, and the Republican primary for secretary of state – long an overlooked office – was seen as perhaps the most important test of Donald Trump’s efforts to install allies who have questioned the election results in roles in which they would wield considerable power over election rules. Trump’s preferred candidates have already won GOP nominations in Michigan and Pennsylvania, also critical battleground states, elevating concerns that officials could reject valid election results in 2024 and beyond.Georgia was the only place where Trump was trying to oust a GOP incumbent who explicitly refused his request to overturn the statewide election results. In a January 2021 phone call, Trump infamously asked Raffensperger, a first-term secretary of state, to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the election results.Hice’s campaign was built around his denial of the 2020 election results. “The big lie in all of this is that there were no problems in this last election. This last election was filled with problems,” he said during a debate in Atlanta earlier this month. “Election security must be protected and Brad Raffensperger let that ball majorly fall.”He also told reporters after the debate there was nothing that would convince him the 2020 election results were accurate – though Georgia officials confirmed Biden’s victory in the state three times – and that Trump’s phone call with Raffensperger was appropriate.Raffensperger’s campaign has tried to strike a careful balance by appealing to Republican voters’ concerns about fraud while defending the results of the 2020 election. He made the main issue in his campaign preventing non-citizen voting, which is virtually non-existent in Georgia. He also staunchly defended a new state law that imposes new identification requirements on mail-in ballots and prevents handing out food or water within 150 feet of a polling place.“He did not break the law that one time. That does not mean that he does not align with the party’s priorities and with their lies and rhetoric about voting,” Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, which focuses on voter engagement, told the Guardian earlier this month.Raffensperger also bet that voters would ultimately be able to see past lies and disinformation about the 2020 election and reward him for doing his job in 2020.“Jody Hice has been running from one rumor to another for the last 18 months. And how can you have confidence when people that should be holding a responsible position as a sitting congressman should be telling the truth?” he said earlier this month.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Wins for Kemp and Carr in Georgia show Trump’s grip on GOP slipping

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      Wins for Kemp and Carr in Georgia show Trump’s grip on GOP slippingThe former president had sought to oust the governor as part of his crusade to punish those involved in his 2020 defeat Georgia governor Brian Kemp won the state’s Republican primary for governor on Tuesday, easily overcoming a challenge from former senator David Perdue in a resounding setback for Donald Trump.The Associated Press projected Kemp the winner over Perdue, one of a trio of Georgia races on Tuesday night that revealed limits to Trump’s power over the party he has remade in his image. As part of a post-presidential crusade to punish the Republicans he blames for his 2020 defeat, Trump had sought to oust Kemp along with the state’s Republican attorney general and Republican secretary of state.US midterm primaries: five key races to look out forRead moreFueled by retribution after the officials refused to overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia – a contest that multiple reviews determined was won by Joe Biden – Trump courted Perdue, who fully embraced the myth of a stolen election. But Trump’s imprimatur was not enough. Polling in the final weeks of the race showed him trailing far behind the incumbent governor, whose conservative agenda drew the support of many of the state’s big donors and political leaders.Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, appeared poised to secure the party’s nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.Meanwhile, Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Kemp will now face Democrat Stacey Abrams, setting the stage for a rematch of their showdown in 2018, when she narrowly lost the governorship but emerged as a rising star on the left and a prominent advocate for voting rights. The race for governor of Georgia is expected to be one of the fiercely fought contests of the cycle.Bee Nguyen, a state representative and ally of Abrams, appears poised to clinch the Democratic nomination for secretary of state while Carr will face Democratic state senator Jen Jordan in the race for attorney general.Once deeply Republican, Abrams is credited as a leading architect of the party’s expanding electoral power in Georgia, culminating in last year’s election of two Democratic senators.Trump’s misses in Georgia come as Republicans still await the results of a nail-bitingly close Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon who Trump endorsed, is running neck-and-neck with David McCormick, a hedge fund executive.Even in the races where Trump’s preferred candidates lost, the election results so far this primary season are a testament to how entrenched Trump’s big lie has become. In Pennsylvania last week, Republicans nominated Doug Mastriano, one of the most prominent spreaders of misinformation about the 2020 election, putting him in striking distance of the governor’s office.In a sign that not every race was going against Trump in the state, former football star Herschel Walker won the Republican nomination for Senate in what is already shaping up to be a marquee race that could determine control of the evenly-divided chamber.Riding Trump’s endorsement and his own celebrity in a state where football often seems to reign supreme, Walker managed to deflect questions about his academic and business achievements and a history of violence against his ex-wife. Walker, who is Black, will face incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, a longtime civil rights champion and the state’s first Black senator who is running for a full term after winning the seat in a special election in 2021.In the north-west corner of the state, far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene cruised to victory in a primary that tested conservatives’ tolerance for her extremist brand of politics, a week after voters in North Carolina ousted her ideological ally, congressman Madison Cawthorn.While much of the focus was on Republicans, two popular Democratic incumbents reflective of the coalition that powered Biden’s victory in the state squared off in the newly redrawn seventh district. In the end, congresswoman Lucy McBath prevailed in the race over fellow House Democrat, congresswoman Carolyn Bourdeaux to win the party’s nomination, the Associated Press projected.McBath was recruited to run for office after her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed. Since his death, McBath has been an outspoken advocate for stricter gun laws.McBath’s victory came just hours after a shooting occurred at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that left at least 18 children dead.Georgia is one of several states holding primary elections on Tuesday.In Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary under Trump, secured the Republican nomination in the race to become the state’s next governor. Sanders is heavily favored to win the general election in November to replace the current Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, who is term-limited.If elected, Sanders will follow in the footsteps of her father, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who led the state from 1996 to 2007.In Alabama, the retirement of long-serving Republican senator Richard Shelby, set off another expensive intra-party power struggle for the seat. According to the Associated Press, the primary race was headed for a runoff in June between Katie Britt, the former leader of the Business Council of Alabama, and Republican congressman Mo Brooks, who came in second. Trump initially endorsed Brooks, but rescinded his support when their relationship soured.Meanwhile, in Texas, George P Bush, the former president’s nephew, failed to take down the embattled attorney general, Ken Paxton, in a runoff election that tested the strength of the Bush family’s political dynasty.Paxton, who was endorsed by Trump after leading an unsuccessful lawsuit that asked the US supreme court to overturn the 2020 election, despite no evidence of widespread fraud, is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation related to allegations of corruptions and, separately, was indicted in 2015 for securities fraud. He has denied wrongdoing.And in a competitive Democratic runoff for a House seat in south Texas, centrist congressman Henry Cuellar was in the fight for his political life against progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros. As of early Wednesday, the race was too close to call.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaRepublicansUS politicsStacey AbramsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      US midterm primaries: five key races to look out for

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      US midterm primaries: five key races to look out forElections will test Trump’s enduring hold over Republican party while a progressive tries to unseat a Democratic centrist in Texas It is election night in America as a swath of primary races take place in states ranging from Georgia to Texas to Alabama.Here are some key races to watch out for:Progressive v anti-abortion Democrat: Texas faces pivotal primary runoffRead moreGorgia governor: A big blow for Trump?Trump’s preferred candidate for the Georgia governor’s race is former senator David Perdue but he is badly trailing incumbent Brian Kemp by a significant margin.Trump’s thirst for revenge over Kemp for refusing to block Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, or support the big lie that the election was stolen, became calcified in his backing of Perdue, but if polls prove accurate and his preferred candidate goes down, the value of the once-coveted Trump endorsement will be further eroded.Mike Pence, the once-loyal deputy tipped for his own White House run in 2024, amplified his divergence from Trump by rallying for Kemp in Kennesaw on Monday night. “When you say yes to Governor Brian Kemp tomorrow, you will send a deafening message all across America that the Republican party is the party of the future,” Pence said in another stinging rebuke for Trump’s backwards-looking obsession with his 2020 election defeat.Pence is among a number of senior Republicans who are working to achieve that, however inadvertently. At a conservative conference in Florida in February, Pence said Trump was wrong to think the election could be overturned, and that to try to do so was “un-American”.Georgia secretary of state: Big lie or not?The race in Georgia for the hitherto little-known position of secretary of state has assumed national importance as the holder of that post effectively runs the state’s elections – and Georgia is of paramount importance now in presidential elections.The race on the Republican side is between the incumbent Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who became nationally known for refusing to overturn the 2020 election results, and his Trump-backed challenger and big lie peddler, Congressman Jody Hice.There has been record turnout during early voting, and polls show a close race between Hice and Raffensperger.Georgia Senate: How will Herschel Walker do?One of the biggest Trump-endorsed winners is likely to be the former NFL star Herschel Walker, who is handily placed to win the Republican nomination for senator in Georgia.Walker is, as journalist Justin Glawe observed in this profile for the Guardian, a relatively rare political being: a Black, Trump-supporting Republican with a base consisting largely of white conservatives.Already a household name from his years in football, Walker went into the election with an almost certainly unassailable lead, ahead in some polls by more than 55 points, according to Real Clear Politics.Some Republican opponents have questioned the electability of Walker, a close friend of Trump, according to the Associated Press. He has a history of violence against women and has made multiple gaffes on the campaign trail. He also skipped the primary debates. He has been open about his long struggle with mental illness and acknowledged violent urges.Texas congressional race: A new leftist or will centrism triumph?Texas 28 is a heavily gerrymandered, predominantly Latino congressional district that rides the US-Mexico border, including the city of Laredo, before sprawling across south-central Texas to reach into San Antonio.During the primary election in March, voters there were so split that barely a thousand votes divided the incumbent centrist Democrat Henry Cuellar from insurgent progressive Jessica Cisneros, while neither candidate received the majority they needed to win.As Alexandra Villarreal wrote for the Guardian: “Now, the runoff has come to represent not only a race for the coveted congressional seat, but also a referendum on the future of Democratic politics in Texas and nationally.“The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, House majority whip, James E Clyburn, and House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, have thrown the full-throated support of the Democratic establishment behind Cuellar, while endorsements from progressive icons such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have elevated Cisneros as a rising star on the national stage.”Alabama Senate: Can a Republican ditched by Trump still win?In Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks is looking to show that a Republican can not only survive having the endorsement of Donald Trump taken away, but actually thrive without it.The rightwing politician was a happy Trump follower but made the mistake of saying it was time to look ahead to future elections and not focus on Trump’s loss in 2020’s election – which Trump falsely says was stolen from him.That was enough for a furious Trump to pull his backing. But Brooks remains competitive in a race that seems likely to head to a runoff next month, with no candidate winning more than 50%.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansDemocratsexplainersReuse this content More