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      in Elections

      Senate boost for Democrats as two Georgia races look set for runoffs

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      Democratic hopes of wrenching control of the Senate from Republicans received an unexpected boost as it seems likely that two key races in the southern state of Georgia may be headed to runoff races.
      One of the races is definitely headed to a second round in January, while a second Georgia contest and races in North Carolina and Alaska remain undecided, leaving the chamber now deadlocked 48-48. An outcome may now not be known until the new year.
      Republicans look likely to win in North Carolina and Alaska, but Democrats would undoubtedly focus huge amounts of energy and money on trying to win the Georgia runoffs. If both races did go to runoffs – and Democrats were to win them – it would leave the Senate split 50-50, with the vice-president serving as a tie-breaker.
      If Joe Biden is in the White House, that would mean a vice-president Kamala Harris would be the deciding vote in the Senate. If Donald Trump wins a second term, then it would be Mike Pence, the current vice-president.
      “We’re waiting – whether I’m going to be the majority leader or not,” Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday.
      That was still the case on Thursday.
      Counting continued in Georgia on Thursday, where Republican David Perdue was trying to hold off Democrat Jon Ossoff in a multi-candidate race that could also go to a runoff if neither candidate clears the 50% threshold to win.

      There already is a 5 January runoff in the state’s other Senate race. Republican senator Kelly Loeffler will face Democrat Raphael Warnock, a Black pastor at the church where the Rev Martin Luther King preached. Loeffler and Warnock were the top vote-getters in the race, but neither candidate was able to get a majority of the vote needed to win the seat outright.
      In North Carolina, Republican senator Thom Tillis hoped to prevail over Democrat Cal Cunningham, whose sexting affair with a public relations specialist has clouded the race. Republicans were confident they would keep Alaska, where Republican senator Dan Sullivan was faced a challenge by Democratic newcomer Al Gross, a doctor.
      Winning the Senate is vital as America’s complex governmental system of checks and balances gives the upper chamber of congress immense power in limiting a president’s ability to get their legislative agenda passed as well as having influence on key administration and judicial appointment.
      McConnell was one of Barack Obama’s chief legislative adversaries while Obama was in office. The Senate majority leader successfully stalled major initiatives by the Obama administration and Senate Democrats. Under Trump, McConnell has successfully ushered through a wave of judicial confirmations through his chamber.
      He has already signaled that if he were to control the senate under any Biden administration that he would be ruthless in exercising those powers.
      A source close to McConnell reportedly told the Axios website that a Republican held senate would work with Biden on centrist nominees but not allow any “radical progressives” or ones who are controversial with its conservative senators.
      Before the election Democrat hopes had been riding high that they would win control of the Senate and wrest it from McConnell’s grip. A slew of favorable polls had many Democrats even eying gains in traditionally strongly Republican areas like Kansas and South Carolina, and money had been poured into those races. But on the night itself, a stronger than expected Republican surge put paid to those hopes as well as dashed expectations in far more vulnerable seats, like that of Susan Collins in Maine and Joni Ernst in Iowa.
      In the end, Democrats’ gains were in Colorado, where former governor John Hickenlooper defeated senator Cory Gardner, and Arizona, where former astronaut Mark Kelly beat Republican incumbent Martha McSally. But Democrats couldn’t hold on in Alabama, where former college football coach Tommy Tuberville defeated Democrat Doug Jones. More

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      in US Politics

      US Senate and House election results: Politics Weekly Extra podcast

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      As nail-biting as the US presidential election has been, Jonathan Freedland and Lauren Gambino have been following the battle for control of Congress. They discuss the latest in both races.

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      The Democrats were hoping for the “blue wave” to crash over the Senate, but that didn’t happen. As it stands, Biden is edging ever closer to the White House but we still don’t know for sure. Democrats are still in control of the lower chamber, and the Republicans still have the upper chamber. There wasn’t a wave, but there were some interesting tidal changes over the last few days and to navigate us through some of these, Jonathan Freedland is joined by senior political reporter for Guardian US Lauren Gambino. Let us know what you think of the podcast. Send your feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on the US elections: a nation dangerously divided | Editorial

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      Whoever wins this year’s election, America remains a country bitterly and evenly divided. It has been more than three decades since the last presidential landslide. Despite polls suggesting that Donald Trump was poised to suffer a sweeping rejection by the voters, there was no repudiation of the president. Rather, just a fraction of the popular vote separates Joe Biden and Mr Trump.
      Our view was that Mr Trump deserved to lose and in a big way. His mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis, which cost hundreds of thousands of American lives, was cause enough. But there were numerous reasons for Mr Trump’s ejection from the White House, given he ran the worst administration in modern US history.
      It is small comfort that Americans understood the threat that Mr Trump represented and turned out in record numbers to vote against him. Yet, as this election depressingly revealed, there was an almost equal and opposite reaction from Mr Trump’s base. The president’s appeal, it seems, has only widened and deepened since he took office. Mr Trump received so many more votes than he did in 2016 that his tally is only surpassed by Mr Biden this year, and Barack Obama in 2008.
      Should he depart, and there are few signs he will do so without a fight, Mr Trump’s legacy will be the politics of anger and hate. It is a tragedy for America that a poisonous division is becoming the norm rather than the exception. The concern in the US is that cultural divisions have gone past the point of no return. The priority for Americans must be to work out a way to stop the political rift from yawning so wide that the two hostile, sometimes armed, camps are incapable of talking to each other.
      The national conversation will not be easy to start, especially given the venomous way in which President Trump conducts politics. If there was any idea that the country could pick up after the election where it left off in 2016, it vanished the moment Mr Trump declared a victory he obviously had not yet won. His claim that his legal team would attempt to block states from counting all the votes that have already been cast, ballots which are widely viewed as certain to skew Democratic, was as outrageous as it was expected.
      Republicans have embraced their inner Trump, which is why democracy itself was on the ballot in 2020. Under Republican control, the US Congress, for the first two years of Trump’s presidency, did not check Mr Trump’s assault on the norms of democratic governance as much as enable it. The Grand Old Party has increasingly turned to policies designed to constrain the majority electorate. Faced with unfavourable demographic change, Republicans have cemented minority rule across American political institutions. The question that Mr Trump now poses is whether Republicans would go as far in their pursuit of power to undo a presidential election.
      The president may be counting on Republicans to subvert longstanding election norms or hope that the supreme court, to which he appointed three justices, will make the final call. If permitted, the ensuing constitutional crisis would dwarf Trumpism’s outrages. It would also play out against a background of heightened political mobilisation, which would bring with it the threat of civic strife.
      There is a real worry that the two main US parties appear locked in a dangerous and ferocious power struggle for control of the government. Mr Trump’s divisive politics have seen elections become a source of volatility in the world’s leading democracy. The margin of control of the Senate is so narrow that it would be foolish to predict who may end up in charge. Democrats retain their hold on the House of Representatives, but with a looser grip than before. This is a zero-sum game, where one party’s loss is another’s gain. Government in America, and its people, will be the losers. More

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      in US Politics

      'The American way': Mitch McConnell defends Trump threat to challenge election results – video

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      ‘We don’t know who won the presidential race yet,’ said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell as he defended Trump’s threat to challenge election results in the supreme court, a statement that drew wide criticism.
      McConnell on Wednesday said Trump should not be criticised for threatening to bring in his lawyers, adding the Biden campaign would do the same.
      ‘In a close election you can anticipate in some of these states you are going to end up in court, (it’s) the American way,’ McConnell said during a news conference in Louisville, Kentucky
      US election 2020 Trump v Biden: Democrats say ‘results indicate we’re on clear path to victory today’ – live More

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      in Elections

      US election 2020 live: Trump and Biden pick up wins as votes counted in Florida

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      Key events

      Show

      10.23pm EST22:23
      Republicans pick up Senate seat in Alabama

      10.17pm EST22:17
      Biden underperforming in Florida and Georgia compared to polls

      10.09pm EST22:09
      Cornyn wins Senate race in Texas

      10.06pm EST22:06
      Trump wins Kansas

      10.02pm EST22:02
      Lindsey Graham wins re-election

      10.00pm EST22:00
      Polls close in four more states

      9.49pm EST21:49
      Democrats pick up first Senate seat with Hickenlooper win

      Live feed

      Show

      10.23pm EST22:23

      Republicans pick up Senate seat in Alabama

      Republican Tommy Tuberville has been declared the winner of the Alabama Senate race, defeating Democratic incumbent Doug Jones.

      AP Politics
      (@AP_Politics)
      BREAKING: Republican Tommy Tuberville wins election to U.S. Senate from Alabama, beating incumbent Sen. Doug Jones. #APracecall at 9:10 p.m. CST. #Election2020 #ALelection https://t.co/lGfinjTqT4

      November 4, 2020

      Jones had been widely expected to lose his race, after narrowly winning the seat in a 2017 special election.
      Combined with Democrats flipping Cory Gardner’s seat in Colorado, the two parties have canceled out their Senate gains so far tonight.

      10.17pm EST22:17

      Biden underperforming in Florida and Georgia compared to polls

      We still have a long night ahead of us, but the results so far indicate Joe Biden has underperformed in Florida and Georgia in comparison to his polling there.
      With about 91% of the Florida vote in, Donald Trump leads Biden by about 3 points, 51%-48%.
      In Georgia, where 54% of the vote is in, Trump leads by 13 points, 56%-43%.
      Florida was seen as a toss-up, although a recent poll showed Biden ahead there by 5 points. The Democratic nominee was also seen as slightly favored to win Georgia. More

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      in US Politics

      Section 230: tech CEOs to defend key internet law before Congress

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      [embedded content]
      The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google are expected to tell lawmakers in a rare appearance before Congress that a federal law protecting internet companies is crucial to free expression online.
      Wednesday’s hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai will take place less than a week before election day and was convened to address section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law underpinning US internet regulation that exempts platforms from legal liability for content generated by its users.
      The hearing will investigate “how best to preserve the internet as a forum for open discourse”, according to the Senate judiciary committee, and it comes largely in response to allegations of anti-conservative bias in the tech world.
      Senate Republicans indicated they wanted to question Pichai and Zuckerberg in October to discuss issues related to section 230. Dorsey was added to the mix after Twitter restricted the circulation of a controversial New York Post article that featured potentially hacked materials relating to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
      In prepared testimony for Wednesday’s hearing, Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, said eroding the foundation of section 230 “could collapse how we communicate on the internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies”.
      Facebook’s Zuckerberg warned that tech companies were likely to censor more content to avoid legal risks if section 230 were repealed. “Without section 230, platforms could potentially be held liable for everything people say,” he said.
      The Facebook executive also argued that without the law, tech companies could face liability for doing even basic moderation, such as removing hate speech and harassment. He said he supported “updating” the rules for the internet if it were done with the potential consequences in mind.
      Pichai said Google approached its work without political bias and was able to offer the information it did because of existing legal frameworks such as section 230. “I would urge the committee to be very thoughtful about any changes to section 230 and to be very aware of the consequences those changes might have on businesses and consumers,” Pichai’s written testimony said.
      Republicans’ allegations that tech companies unfairly silence conservative voices is unsubstantiated. In fact, a recent report alleged that Facebook had suppressed progressive content to appease Republican lawmakers.
      Still, Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Twitter and Facebook of censoring him and has zeroed in on section 230 as one of the culprits. Trump has stepped up his criticism since the companies began to label or even remove posts by the president or his campaign that spread misinformation or call for violence.
      “Repeal section 230!!!” Trump tweeted on 6 October, after Twitter added a misinformation warning label to one of his tweets claiming the flu is more deadly than Covid-19.
      Ironically, the repeal of section 230 protections would probably lead social media platforms to take more, not less, action over Trump’s posts, as it would hold them legally liable for any falsehoods he posts. Experts say the effects would be comparable to what was seen with the passage of Fosta/Sesta, legislation that held platforms responsible for sexual service advertisements posted on their sites. The passage of those bills led to the removal of Craigslist personal ads and upended content policies on sites like Tumblr.
      Privacy advocates have long called for the protection of section 230, saying it is integral to internet freedom. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group, called section 230 “the most important law protecting internet speech”.
      The Internet Society, another non-profit organization advocating for internet access, warned that poorly informed policy decisions on section 230 could bring “dire consequences” for what we are able to do online.
      That is because the law applies not only to platforms like Facebook and Twitter but to other internet infrastructure like domain name registries and internet service providers. Without section 230, these entities may have to approve content prior to posting or take other action that would significantly slow the flow of the internet as we know it.
      Despite the warnings, the modification of existing regulations has become a major point of contention in the run-up to the election, with both presidential candidates proposing section 230’s repeal. There have been an additional 20 attempts to amend or revoke the law in the past two years.
      In addition to discussions on reforming the law, the hearing will bring up issues about consumer privacy and media consolidation. On Tuesday, Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate commerce panel, released a report on how big tech platforms have decimated the local news industry, including newspapers and broadcasters.
      The tech executives will begin their testimony at 10am ET and all three will appear remotely.
      Reuters contributed reporting More

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      in US Politics

      Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to supreme court in major victory for US conservatives

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      The US Senate has confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, delivering Donald Trump a huge but partisan victory just eight days before the election and locking in rightwing domination of the nation’s highest court for years to come.

      The vote was a formality, with senators divided almost entirely along party lines, voting 52 to 48 with just one Republican breaking ranks. But it still marked a seismic moment for Trump, for the supreme court and for American democracy.
      For the president, it meant his legacy on judicial appointees is secure whatever the outcome of next week’s election. Trump will have placed three conservative justices on the court, albeit in highly contentious circumstances.
      For the supreme court, it sealed an unassailable six to three balance between conservatives and liberal justices. The oldest of those conservatives, Clarence Thomas, is 72 and still has potentially many years to serve within his lifetime appointment.
      Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, underlined the political importance of the moment when he said on Sunday: “A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”
      For US democracy, the confirmation gives the conservative justices the upper hand on such hot-button issues as abortion, same-sex marriage and the climate crisis – areas where public opinion is firmly in favor of progressive change.

      Following the vote, a swearing-in ceremony was held at the White House. Trump introduced Barrett saying that her addition to the court carried forward “the cause of freedom”. In her speech, Barrett said she would conduct her new job “independently of both branches [of government] and of my own preferences”.
      She thanked the senate for “the confidence you have placed in me”, ignoring the inconvenient truth that half the political composition of the chamber had turned its back on her.
      The sole rebel from party ranks was the Republican senator Susan Collins who voted against Barrett’s confirmation. Earlier in the day Collins said she had based her decision not on the judge’s qualifications but on a sense of fairness, though Collins’s tough re-election fight in Maine no doubt focused her attention.
      The confirmation will leave a residue of bitter partisan rancor given the Republican rush to push Barrett through days before the election – the closest confirmation to a presidential election in US history – having refused four years ago to countenance Barack Obama’s pick for the supreme court on grounds that the people should decide.
      Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate cast Barrett’s confirmation as one of the “darkest days in the 231-year history” of the Senate in his party’s closing arguments. Addressing his Republican peers, he said: “You may get Amy Coney Barrett on to the supreme court but you will never, never get your credibility back.”
      Joe Biden also protested the confirmation. During a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, he tweeted: “More than 60 million Americans have already voted. They deserve to have their voices heard on who replaced justice Ginsburg.”
      McConnell was dismissive of Democratic laments, deriding them as a 50-year-old tactic. “What they want is activist judges, a small panel of lawyers with elite education to reason backwards from outcomes and enlighten all the rest of us,” he said shortly before the Senate vote was called.
      Barrett, 48, becomes only the fifth woman to sit on the supreme court. Trump moved quickly to nominate her to succeed the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on 18 September at age 87. More

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      Trump plans new White House event for Amy Coney Barrett swearing-in

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      Senate expected to confirm supreme court nominee on MondayPrevious Barrett reception was branded a ‘superspreader event’US politics – live coverageDonald Trump was planning on Monday to dismiss public health concerns and hold a swearing-in ceremony within hours of Amy Coney Barrett’s expected Senate confirmation to the supreme court. Related: Amy Coney Barrett’s past calls into question her pledges of impartiality Continue reading… More