Category Archives: US midterm elections 2022

Abortion is key motivator for Democratic-leaning voters in US midterms, poll finds

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More than half claim they are more motivated to vote than in previous elections, with 50% of those people citing abortion

More than half of Democratic-leaning voters say abortion has become a crucial motivation for them to vote in next month’s US midterm elections, according to a recent poll.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) conducted in September reveals that June’s supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade has put a fire under Democratic voters, with more than half claiming they are more motivated to vote than in previous elections, and 50% of those citing as their prime reason the ruling on abortion.

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Next January 6 hearing to focus on warnings of violence leading up to Capitol attack – live

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Panel intends to detail how White House and Secret Service were told of potential for violence in days leading up to insurrection

President Joe Biden signaled today he is ready to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for pushing Opec+ to slash oil production.

Speaking as he was departing the White House for a trip to Colorado, Biden said, “We’re going to react to Saudi Arabia and we’re doing consultation when they come back. We will take action.”

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Republicans oppose social spending – will it cost them in the midterms?

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In Mississippi, poverty is high and water problems blight the state. But Republicans seem adamantly against spending to help their constituents

In his four decades as mayor of Glendora, a Mississippi Delta town surrounded by creeks, fields and not much else, Johnnie B Thomas has gotten used to bad news.

He’s seen the town’s main drag grow desolate as its few businesses closed down, and the sole clinic follow suit. He’s watched storms drop trees on to houses – including his own, mortally wounding his wife. He pleaded for help as the seemingly unstoppable force that was Covid infected and killed his neighbors, a younger brother among them.

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Kevin McCarthy claimed Trump had no idea his supporters carried out Capitol attack – as it happened

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Top Republican House made claim in meeting with police officers despite ex-president having urged supporters to ‘fight like hell’

Republicans looking to win in the upcoming midterms have campaigned on high inflation and rising crime. But over the weekend, Alabama’s Republican senator Tommy Tuberville resorted to another tactic: racism.

“They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit!” Tuberville declared in a speech on Saturday.

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Abrams denies accusation she refused to recognize Kemp as winner in 2018

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‘I acknowledged it repeatedly,’ says Georgia gubernatorial nominee who faces Kemp rematch, but insists voter suppression is an issue

Democratic organizer Stacey Abrams on Sunday pushed back on the accusation that she refused to acknowledge Brian Kemp as the winner of Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial election, the same politician she is once again competing with for the governor’s mansion.

On Fox News Sunday, host Shannon Bream played a 2019 speech in which Abrams said “we won”, but Abrams said the clip was taken out of context.

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Republican Chuck Grassley vows to vote against a national abortion ban

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The longest-tenured US senator joins a growing chorus of conservative lawmakers opposed to such a restriction

The longest-tenured Republican in the US Senate has pledged to vote against a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy which a prominent fellow party member and chamber colleague proposed last month, joining a growing chorus of conservative lawmakers opposed to that idea.

Chuck Grassley, who’s been one of Iowa’s senators since 1980 and is seeking an eighth term in his seat during November’s midterms, expressed his opposition to such a ban during a televised debate Thursday night with his Democratic challenger Mike Franken.

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Democrats seek revenge after Opec+ cuts oil production ahead of midterms – live

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Three lawmakers come out with bill that essentially declares Saudi Arabia is no longer an ally of Washington

A Democratic senator has joined in on the calls to punish Saudi Arabia for backing the Opec+ cut to global oil production:

Meanwhile, John Kennedy, the Republican senator who two years ago proposed a similar measure to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for not cutting production even as global demand was crashing – thereby driving prices below the cost of production for American oil firms – today blames Biden for the Opec+ cut:

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Herschel Walker: anti-abortion Senate nominee denies media report he paid for abortion in 2009

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Republican candidate for US Senate in Georgia who has vehemently opposed abortion rights denies a media report he paid for an abortion for an anonymous former girlfriend in 2009, describing it as ‘a flat out lie’

A Republican nominee for the US Senate, who strongly opposes abortion rights, has denied a Daily Beast report that he paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend in 2009. Herschel Walker, a former American football player who is running for the US Senate in Georgia, called the accusation a “flat-out lie” and says he will sue the news outlet for defamation.

The Daily Beast published claims from a woman who says Walker paid for her abortion when they were dating. The woman, who was not named, claimed the allegation was supported by a receipt showing a $575 payment for the procedure, along with a get-well card, purportedly from Walker.

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She’s Georgia’s great blue hope – but can Stacey Abrams win a crucial race?

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Georgia in focus: Despite being hailed as architect of Georgia’s political transformation, Abrams is still an underdog in her rematch with Brian Kemp

Stacey Abrams was a high school senior the first time she was invited to the Georgia governor’s mansion. It was for a ceremony honoring the state’s class valedictorians, and Abrams was her school’s top academic achiever. At the time, her family did not own a car, so Abrams and her parents rode the bus from their working-class suburb to the stately mansion in downtown Atlanta.

When they arrived, Abrams recalls a guard emerging from the security booth. Eyeing the bus, he told them: “This is a private event. You don’t belong here.” Never mind that her invitation was tucked into her mother’s handbag or that her name was second on the list of invitees.

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The ‘all-out’ effort to overcome Georgia’s new restrictive voting bill

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SB202 is forcing officials and voting rights groups to use every resource to ensure elections run smoothly

In 2021, the Election Integrity Act sent shockwaves across Georgia as citizens learned of new restrictions, such as curbing the way churches could provide pizza and water to voters. However, there are much broader effects of the bill being felt across the state as communities across Georgia prepare for midterm elections, the first major election since the signing of the controversial bill.

The 98-page bill, also called SB202, impacts a litany of election elements ranging from voter ID laws to the distance at which food and water can be distributed to voters waiting in line. Election officials say they are being forced to use every resource at their disposal to navigate the bill and ensure this election season runs smoothly. But there is widespread concern that the new law will create fresh barriers to voters of color and the changing Georgia electorate.

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US intelligence resumes national security review of Mar-a-Lago documents – as it happened

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Joe Biden says attacks Republicans’ midterms agenda, saying real goal is to ban abortion nationwide

The Trump-appointed World Bank president David Malpass is under fire for deflecting on the question of humans causing climate change, and Axios reports the Biden administration is mulling an effort to remove him.

Appointed in 2019, Malpass, a Republican, worked in the Treasury under Trump and also at global financial crisis-casualty Bear Stearns. While Axios reports Biden officials have long been suspicious of him, the uproar began when Malpass replied, “I don’t even know -- I’m not a scientist and that is not a question,” when asked at an event on Tuesday if he believed climate change is manmade.

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Kamala Harris says ‘everything on the line’ in midterm elections

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Vice-president warns that the elections will determine whether ‘age-old sanctity’ of right to vote would be protected

Kamala Harris warned on Sunday that the midterm elections in November would determine whether the “age-old sanctity” of the right to vote would be protected in the US or whether “so-called extremist leaders around the country” would continue to restrict access to the ballot box.

With just 56 days to go until the elections, and with the paper-thin Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress, the vice-president said that “everything is on the line in these elections”.

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Ad campaign targets Latino voters as key bloc for Democrats in midterms

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Non-profit Voto Latino aims to challenge Republican ‘disinformation’ in key battleground states

With midterm elections on the horizon, Americans are subject to a flurry of Democratic and Republican ads. As the second-largest voting bloc in 2020, Latino voters are expected to play a significant role in the 2022 elections. They are therefore a key target group.

One non-profit, Voto Latino, aims to fight political disinformation and communicate with self-identified moderate Latino voters through a series of ads.

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Could unexpected Democratic gains foil a midterm Republican victory?

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A string of favorable outcomes for the party, coupled with backlash from supreme court’s abortion ban, could galvanize Biden supporters

Joe Biden travels to the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on Monday, determined to reframe America’s midterm elections as a defining choice between democracy and the extremism of Donald Trump.

Fighting for every vote, the US president will mark Labor Day with growing confidence as opinion polls suggest that, while Republicans still have the lead, Democrats now have the momentum heading into the home stretch.

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Trump calls FBI, DoJ ‘vicious monsters’ in first rally since Mar-a-Lago search

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Former president also calls Joe Biden’s Philadelphia address the ‘most vicious, hateful, divisive speech’

Speaking in Pennsylvania on Saturday, at his first rally since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for top-secret material taken from the White House and since Joe Biden used a primetime address to warn that Republicans were assaulting US democracy, Donald Trump lashed out.

The former president said: “The FBI and the justice department have become vicious monsters, controlled by radical-left scoundrels, lawyers and the media, who tell them what to do.”

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Biden targets Trump and says ‘anyone who fails to condemn violence is a threat to democracy’ – live

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Biden speaks at White House and takes swipe at former president, but says not all Trump supporters are threat to America

At the White House press briefing just now, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke on Joe Biden’s speech last night where he warned that Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to democracy.

“The president was trying to give the American people a choice: how do we move forward in this inflection point?” Jean-Pierre said. “When it comes to the soul of the nation, that is something the president has talked about for years… He has been concerned about where our democracy is going.”

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Biden ‘determined to ban assault weapons’ as he lays out crime prevention plans – as it happened

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President details his Safer America Plan in Pennsylvania speech and says funding police provides ‘peace of mind’

The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is holding a gaggle aboard Air Force One, as Joe Biden heads to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to talk about gun safety.

The first topic in the gaggle is the flooding in Mississippi and the failure of the Jackson area water treatment services, which has caused a crisis over clean drinking water.

US Secret Service official Tony Ornato, a figure of intense interest to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack, has retired from the agency. He was an eyewitness to some of the most critical incidents involving Donald Trump in the hours leading up to the deadly assault on the US Capitol.

NBC News reported that Trump has hired a criminal attorney who was once Florida’s solicitor to his legal team. Chris Kise is expected to make his first appearance in federal court in West Palm Beach on Thursday when district judge Aileen Cannon mulls Trump’s request for a special master to oversee the justice department’s review of classified materials seized by the FBI at his home.

We’re awaiting at any moment the justice department’s legal response to Trump’s request, which will be a lengthy filing running up to 40 pages after Cannon waived a 20-page limit imposed by the court.

Incumbent Democratic Arizona senator Mark Kelly leads Republican challenger Blake Masters by more than three points in a poll released today, appearing to confirm a growing belief within the party that pro-choice messaging on abortion will be vote-winner in November’s midterms.

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Critics denounce Lindsey Graham for warning of ‘riots in the street’ if Trump indicted – as it happened

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Justice department faces deadline for detailed inventory of files while ex-president’s team must argue for review by special master

More from Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe on the legal case around the FBI search and seizure of classified documents from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club-resort and home.

Tribe v Oz

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Student loan forgiveness: Biden to outline $10,000 debt relief plan – live

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President had campaigned on promise of loan forgiveness of up to $10,000 for those struggling with student debt
• Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documents in filing

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The GOP is teeing up their counter-attack to Biden’s impending announcement on student debt relief, decrying it as a “bribe” that will be paid for by American taxpayers.

Here’s what the Senate Republicans said on Twitter:

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Democrats’ hopes rise for midterms amid backlash over abortion access

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Democrat Pat Ryan made abortion central to his campaign, and defeated Republican Mark Molinaro in contested House election

After months of bracing for staggering losses, Democrats are suddenly filled with a sense of optimism that the 2022 midterm elections could defy historical precedent and see them perform strongly, especially by highlighting the Republican threat to abortion rights.

On Tuesday night, Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Mark Molinaro in a fiercely contested special House election in New York’s Hudson Valley, in a contest that was seen as a barometer of impact of the US supreme court’s decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion.

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