Category Archives: Republicans

Biden fights to stop midterms defeat as Republicans poised for sweeping gains

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Momentum appears to be with Republicans capitalising on economic frustration as experts say party peaking at right time

Joe Biden is fighting a rearguard action to stave off defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections as Republicans look poised to make sweeping gains in the US Congress, setting up two years of political trench warfare.

The president, along with former president Barack Obama, has been criss-crossing America in a last-ditch bid to persuade voters that a Democratic victory is critical not only to Biden’s legislative agenda but the preservation of American democracy.

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

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Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate’s staffer opened the envelope and is under medical supervision, spokesperson says

Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake closed a campaign office after an envelope containing “suspicious white powder” was delivered to the premises on Saturday, according to reports.

A member of the candidate’s staff unwittingly opened the envelope and is now under “medical supervision”, campaign spokesperson Colton Duncan told CNN.

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Republicans and Democrats make last arguments as midterms loom

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Democrats frame election as referendum on US democracy while Republicans say they will better address economic woes

US political leaders from both sides of the aisle on Sunday made their closing arguments to voters two days before the hotly contested midterm elections, with several top Democrats framing the election as a referendum on American democracy.

President Joe Biden accused Republicans of reveling in political violence, saying hundreds of the party’s candidates for state, federal and local office were “election deniers, who say that I did not win the election, even though hundreds of attempts to challenge have all failed, even in Republican courts”.

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‘He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of Trump

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Part Trump rally, part religious service, and much conspiracy theory thrown in – on the eve of the midterms, Ed Pilkington visits the ReAwaken America tour

“There is a man by the name of Donald,” the voice on the recording says. “God said, ‘You have been determined through your prayers to influence this nation … I will open that door that you prayed about, and when it comes time for the election you will be elected.”

Three thousand people are packed into an overflowing auditorium, many with arms raised and eyes closed in prayer. The recording to which they are listening is from April 2013 and of Kim Clement, a late South African preacher, as he prophesies the first coming of Donald Trump.

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Trump speeds down runway of presidential bid as he stumps for midterm election picks

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Ex-president strikes familiar notes at Pennsylvania rally as he swipes at potential rival ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ and effectively kicks off another run for White House

A Boeing 757 plane halted on the runway with “Trump” emblazoned on the side in giant gold letters. Loudspeakers boomed Elvis Presley’s Dixie, Village People’s YMCA and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA. Donald Trump descended stairs to rapturous cheers and whistles from thousands of supporters.

Officially, the former US president was rallying at a regional airport to support Republicans candidates in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Unofficially, he was already accelerating down the runway of a 2024 campaign for the White House.

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Republicans appear better positioned than ever ahead of midterms

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History shows that the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm, and Democrats seem likely to follow that pattern

With just a few days left before polls close in America’s crucial midterm elections, Republicans appear better positioned than ever to regain control of the House of Representatives and potentially the Senate as well.

History shows that the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections, and despite some optimistic signs over the summer, Democrats now seem likely to follow that pattern on 8 November.

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Democrat John Fetterman gets boost from Oprah Winfrey in key Senate race – live

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In less than an hour, Twitter employees expect official notification of whether or not they will keep their jobs under Elon Musk’s ownership.

A bloodbath is expected, and Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco has been closed today while the news is delivered and employees digest their fates, or, as Musk may prefer, let the news “sink in”.

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Chuck Schumer insists Democrats can hold or expand Senate majority – as it happened

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In Pennsylvania, Chris McGreal reports that a major pro-Israel group is facing criticism for backing Republicans who denied the 2020 election, but not a Democratic candidate who would make history if elected:

More than 240 Jewish American voters in Pittsburgh have signed a letter denouncing the US’s largest pro-Israel group for backing extremist Republican election candidates while spending millions of dollars to oppose a Democrat who would be Pennsylvania’s first Black female member of Congress.

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‘Get ready’: Trump’s third White House run appears a matter of when not if

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Flurry of reports suggests former president will move swiftly after midterms, as soon as 14 November – but who will challenge him?

As the midterm elections loom and Republican hopes of retaking Congress rise, it appears to be a matter of when, not if, Donald Trump will announce his third White House run.

The former president has trailed another campaign ever since his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, a contest Trump refused to concede, pursuing the lie about electoral fraud which fueled the deadly attack on Congress and his second impeachment.

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Biden addresses nation on threats to democracy ahead of midterms – live

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The president speaks against election deniers running for office, saying they are leading a path to ‘chaos in America’

Donald Trump’s lawyers tailored their petition specifically to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas for reasons both practical and symbolic, Politico reports.

Thomas is well known for his conservative jurisprudence, but Politico notes he is also the justice responsible for handling emergency filings out of Georgia – which means he would get the Trump legal team’s petition about its election conduct, Politico says.

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Republicans urged to purge extremists after attack on House speaker’s husband – live

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Leading historian warns that assault of Paul Pelosi was not an aberration amid erosion of democratic norms

Supreme court chief justice John Roberts has temporarily stopped the Internal Revenue Service from turning over Donald Trump’s tax returns to a House committee, Reuters reports.

The decision comes after Trump yesterday petitioned the high court to review lower court rulings that allowed the Democratic-led House ways and means committee to receive six years of the former president’s filings. According to the New York Times, Roberts, who handles petitions filed in Washington, wants the House committee to respond by Thursday:

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US school criticizes Republican Senate candidate for repeating false litter box claim

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Don Bolduc, who is running in New Hampshire against Democrat Maggie Hassan, spreads anti-trans rightwing trope

A New Hampshire school has rebuked the Republican US Senate candidate Don Bolduc for claiming schoolchildren were identifying as “furries and fuzzies” in classrooms, using litter trays and licking themselves and each other.

“I wish I was making it up,” Bolduc, a retired special forces general, said last week.

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Georgia governor debate: Kemp silent on question over harsher abortion restrictions

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Republican Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams spar in final gubernatorial debate before midterms

In the final televised debate with Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams before their November election, Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, refused to say whether he would support harsher abortion restrictions if re-elected to a second term and if fellow Republicans dominating the state legislature sent them to his desk.

At WSB-TV’s Channel 2 Action debate Sunday, Kemp, a Republican, said it was not his “desire to go move the needle any further” on abortion restrictions in Georgia, adding that he would look into additional restrictions passed by state lawmakers “when the time comes.” Kemp at a previous debate had said he “would not” support new abortion limits.

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Attack on Pelosi’s husband heightens fears of increasing US political violence

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Hammer assault on Paul Pelosi is latest in series of violent and threatening acts as midterm elections loom

The bloody hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has sparked increased fears over political violence in America just weeks before the country’s crucial midterm elections.

The assault – by someone who reportedly entered the Democratic leader’s home specifically in search of her – comes amid an alarming rise in violent rhetoric and threats targeting US lawmakers.

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Man who attacked speaker’s husband Paul Pelosi facing attempted homicide charge – as it happened

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Paul Pelosi was attacked at San Francisco home while House speaker was in Washington

The Guardian’s Joan E Greve has taken a close look at Democrats’ chances ahead of the 8 November midterms, and finds things are not looking good for Joe Biden’s party:

With less than two weeks to go until election day, Democrats’ hopes of defying political history and keeping their narrow majorities in the House and Senate appear to be fading, as many of the party’s candidates go on the defensive in the final days of campaigning.

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Senator Tom Cotton brags about ignoring Trump impeachment evidence

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New book by Arkansas senator, a Republican presidential hopeful, also suggests president did not understand military procedures

In January 2020, the rightwing Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton said he would vote to acquit Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial because despite senators having “heard from 17 witnesses … and received more than 28,000 pages of documents”, Democrats had not presented their case correctly.

According to Cotton, the senators who sat through so much evidence would “perform the role intended for us by the founders, of providing the ‘cool and deliberate sense of the community’, as it says in Federalist 63”.

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Republican Liz Cheney endorses Michigan Democrat in midterm elections – as it happened

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Joe Biden plans to use his speech at a semiconductor factory in New York today to make the case that the economy is benefiting from Democratic policies, and Republicans would undo that progress, CNN reports.

“We can talk about what we’ve done, all these huge legislative wins, ‘til we’re blue in the face,” a Democratic campaign official told the network. “If people can’t feel it, it doesn’t matter at this point.”

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Republican and Trump critic Liz Cheney to campaign for Michigan Democrat

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Wyoming congresswoman, who lost her Republican primary, endorses Elissa Slotkin in seventh congressional district

Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney on Thursday endorsed Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and plans to campaign for her.

It is the first time that Cheney, a critic of Donald Trump who lost her Republican primary, has crossed party lines to formally support a Democrat.

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Second woman says Herschel Walker pressured her to have abortion

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Lawyer Gloria Allred introduces woman as Jane Doe who alleges anti-abortion candidate drove her to a clinic in the 1990s

Another woman has claimed that Herschel Walker pressured her into having an abortion and drove her to a clinic to obtain one.

On Wednesday, lawyer Gloria Allred – who has represented numerous alleged victims of sexual misconduct and assault – introduced to reporters a woman who alleges Walker, the anti-abortion Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, took her to an abortion clinic to have an abortion in the 1990s.

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Fetterman’s performance in high-stakes Pennsylvania debate splits Democrats – live

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Joe Biden is the oldest president ever inaugurated, and will turn 80 this year – but still plans to run for re-election, according to a reporter who recently interviewed the president, Martin Pengelly reports:

Joe Biden is “totally running” for a second term, the MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart has said, just days after interviewing the US president.

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