As we’ve mentioned Republican criticism of Joe Biden for trading basketball star Brittney Griner for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, here’s Florida senator Marco Rubio’s considered opinion:
“We have to recognize, even as we’re happy an American’s coming home, it does incentivize the taking of more Americans,” he told reporters on Friday morning.
Continue reading...Arizona senator changes party affiliation and says she will not caucus with Republicans
The US senator Kyrsten Sinema has switched her political affiliation to independent, leaving the Democratic party just days after it won a Senate race in Georgia to secure a 51st seat in the chamber.
“I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington. I registered as an Arizona independent,” she said in an op-ed for Arizona Central, a local media outlet.
Continue reading...More on the Jan 6 committee’s announcement about upcoming criminal referrals.
Committee chairman Bennie G Thompson told reporters today that the committee has decided to make at least one criminal referral.
Continue reading...Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy denounced as ‘two-faced’ by Brian Sicknick’s mother at Congressional Gold Medal event
Senior Republicans Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy were snubbed by law enforcement leaders and a fallen officer’s family at Tuesday’s Congressional Gold Medal award ceremony for Capitol police who defended against the 6 January attacks.
The pair were denounced as “two-faced” by the mother of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after a mob of Donald Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol building and forced politicians to flee for their lives.
Continue reading...Court allows early voting on a Saturday as polling shows Democrat Raphael Warnock with a lead over Herschel Walker
Thanks to a Georgia supreme court ruling, a week of early voting on Saturday began in nearly two dozen counties in the state for a contentious runoff between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican opponent Herschel Walker.
Recent polling commissioned by AARP shows Warnock with a four point lead over the Donald Trump-endorsed Walker ahead of the December 6 election.
Continue reading...Legislation on the debt ceiling, civil liberties and elections is still possible before Republican House majority kicks in
As a new era of divided government looms in the US, Democrats are rushing to complete a lengthy legislative to-do list that includes landmark civil liberties legislation, a routine but critical spending package and a bill to prevent another January 6.
There are only a handful of working days left before the balance of power in Congress shifts and Democrats’ unified control of government in Washington ends. In January, Republicans will claim the gavel in the House, giving them veto power over much of Joe Biden’s agenda.
Continue reading...Several politicians voice concerns about dominance of ticket sales company after botched release for singer’s tour
A US Senate antitrust panel will go ahead with a hearing on the lack of competition in the country’s ticketing industry after Ticketmaster’s problems last week managing the sale of Taylor Swift tickets.
Tickemaster’s parent company, Live Nation, has blamed presale problems for Swift’s Eras tour – the pop superstar’s first US tour in five years – on “unprecedented demand” and an effort to keep out bots run by ticket scalpers.
Continue reading...Speaking of Trump and lawyers, another of his former top White House officials is going to South Carolina’s high court to stop a subpoena from a Georgia prosecutor looking into meddling in the state’s 2020 election, Politico reports:
The appeal to South Carolina’s supreme court by Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff for his final months in the White House, is the latest development in his lengthy battle to resist the summons from Fanni Willis. She’s the district attorney in Fulton county, which contains most of Atlanta, and has empaneled a special grand jury to look into attempts by Trump’s allies to interfere in Joe Biden’s election victory in the state.
Continue reading...Merrick Garland names Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor, as special counsel to decide whether to bring charges against Trump
Why didn’t last week’s midterm elections produce a landslide victory for Republicans? Why did so many people vote for Democrats, despite Joe Biden’s approval rating being underwater for more than a year?
Definitive answers to these questions are elusive, no matter how important they may be. The Guardian surveyed readers for their views on last Tuesday’s polls, and you can read what they had to say below:
Continue reading...Last week’s elections produced winners, losers and candidates like Kari Lake.
The Associated Press has already called the Arizona governor’s race for Democrat Katie Hobbs, but her Republican challenger Lake is refusing to concede. She said as much in a video released to supporters today:
Continue reading...Twice-impeached ex-president makes expected election announcement despite shaky midterms and surge from rival Ron DeSantis
Donald Trump on Tuesday night announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, likely sparking another period of tumult in US politics and especially his own political party.
“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said from ballroom of his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he stood on a stage crowded with American flags and Make America Great Again banners.
Continue reading...Democrats are behind in several districts needed to secure control of Congress’ lower chamber for another two years
The Senate will this week vote on a bill to codify same-sex marriage rights, Semafor reports.
Same-sex marriage rights are currently established nationwide by a supreme court ruling, but Democrats are trying to pass a law protecting the rights after rightwing justice Clarence Thomas in June mulled overturning the ruling.
Continue reading...Alabama congressman Mo Brooks, a once-zealous Trump ally, comments after party fails to retake Congress in midterms
Alabama congressman and once-zealous Trump supporter, Mo Brooks, has a remarkable new stance on the political future of his former hero. “It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” he said.
The stark judgment from Brooks was indicative of the deepening and brutal blame game among Republicans which continued on Monday, nearly a week after the party failed to retake Congress in the midterm elections and a day before Trump’s expected announcement of a new presidential campaign.
Continue reading...Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer hail achievement after Nevada victory, while Georgia Senate heads to runoff
Analysts say victory by Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, which secured her party’s control of the Senate for two more years, will be of massive importance to Joe Biden’s plans for filling judicial vacancies.
Retaining the majority in the chamber gives the president the opportunity to keep getting his picks confirmed, something for which the incumbent senator was a key ally even before the midterms.
Continue reading...House control still undecided as Republicans lead and attention pivots to Florida, where Trump is expected to announce 2024 run
As the balance of power in the US House of Representatives remained unresolved on Sunday, Democrats are celebrating the projection that they won control of the Senate, marking a significant victory for Joe Biden as Republicans backed by his presidential predecessor Donald Trump underperformed in key battleground states.
While senior Democrats remained guarded Sunday about the chances of keeping control of both chambers of Congress, House speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the party’s performance in the midterms following months of projections indicating heavy losses.
Continue reading...The race was among the tightest in the country and saw record spending with the incumbent senator nearly beaten
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto managed to hang on to her seat in a close race that nearly saw her beaten by her Republican adversary, with the result leaving control of the US Senate in the hands of Democrats.
After Democratic senator Mark Kelly’s victory in Arizona on Friday, the party now holds a 50-49 edge in the Senate. The Democratic party will retain control of the chamber, no matter how next month’s Georgia runoff plays out, by virtue of vice-president Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
Continue reading...Win takes Democrats to key number of 50 seats in Senate, in blow to Republicans who hoped for ‘red wave’
Democrats have kept control of the Senate after the crucial race in Nevada was announced in their favor, cementing a midterms election performance for the party that widely beat expectations.
Democratic US senator Catherine Cortez Masto has now beaten Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press.
Continue reading...Power of Senate chamber remains at 49-49 as eyes on race between Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto and Adam Laxalt
Mark Kelly, whose win in his Senate race in Arizona moved Democrats to within one seat of retaining control of the chamber, has slammed election deniers and praised his late predecessor, Republican John McCain, in a victory speech in Phoenix.
Kelly was speaking to jubilant supporters on Saturday morning, with his wife Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic congresswoman who was shot and badly injured in an attempted assassination 11 years ago, at his side.
After a long election it can be tempting to remain focused on the things that divide us, but we’ve seen the consequences that come when leaders refuse to accept the truth and focus more on conspiracies of the past than solving the challenges that we face today.
And for the past two years, as we face these challenges, not a day has gone by where I have not remembered that I am sitting in the Senate seat [of] Senator John McCain.
Continue reading...Full live results of the Congressional midterms, seat by seat, as electors across the US vote to decide whether the Republicans or Democrats will control the House of Representatives and Senate
US midterm elections 2022 – latest live news updates
All 435 seats in the lower chamber of the federal congress, the House of Representatives, are re-elected every two years. (There are no term limits, and incumbents are often returned, so there is substantial continuity in the membership). House seats are broadly proportional to population, so California has lots of seats but Montana only a few.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. You can find all our US midterms coverage here
Sheera Frenkel and Steven Lee Myers report for the New York Times that researchers who study election disinformation said most efforts to stoke doubt about the results of the midterms had failed to spread widely. They write:
The major social media platforms all struggled to combat misinformation and disinformation online as the results were tabulated, but researchers who study the problem said efforts to stoke doubt about the outcome of the American democratic process had — at least so far — failed to take root. Some saw it as a hopeful sign of the political system’s resilience, though few declared victory in the fight against misinformation.
According to a New York Times analysis, more than half of 370 candidates who in some way had cast doubt on President Biden’s victory had won their races as of midday on Wednesday. They included 170 members of the House, where Republicans appeared to be closing in on reclaiming a majority. Although the party fell short of the “red wave” that many had anticipated, its successes may have tempered some of the conspiracy theories that emerged early Tuesday.
“There is a lot of anger and noise on the mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook, but the most aggressive statements on the day of the midterms, including calls to violence, are found on the alt platforms including Gab, Parler and Telegram,” said Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, which tracked election disinformation online as part of the Elections Integrity Partnership. Users in some cases called for storming polling stations or using violence, though no significant attacks unfolded on election day.
Continue reading...