Hostilities run high in closing days of Michigan’s race for governor
MIDLAND, Mich. — The closing days of Michigan’s midterm elections for governor and other statewide offices have erupted right into a scramble, with tightening polls, hostile tones and dire warnings from each parties.
“Because the state of Michigan goes, so goes the entire country, and as america of America goes, so goes the globe,” Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told supporters Tuesday afternoon within the Detroit suburb of Clawson. “The entire world is counting on us.”
Michigan is a key battleground this yr. Former President Donald Trump, who has rallied other Republicans across the false concept that the 2020 election was stolen from within the state and elsewhere — has prioritized the state, endorsing election-denying candidates from governor on right down to the state Legislature.
Election officials are bracing for trouble — while still hoping for the very best
Election officials in a number of the most closely watched jurisdictions across the country say they’re bracing for a recent wave of conspiracy-fueled threats — whilst they continue to be confident of their ability to do their jobs under heightened scrutiny.
In interviews with a dozen local election officials within the swing states of Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, most expressed concern that the election denialism and conspiracy theories they’ve spent the last two years combating have already taken on recent life, fueling isolated yet alarming incidents at drop box locations in Arizona and Pennsylvania, for instance.
Those officials also warned that the prospect of delayed leads to their states as a result of the closeness of contests and ballot counting rules, amongst other possible aspects, could invite a fresh round of conspiracies or suggestions of wrongdoing that result in a recent round of harassment. Still, they expressed no doubts about their ability to conduct a secure and accurate count
Recent Hampshire GOP Senate candidate Bolduc says man attempted to punch him before debate
Recent Hampshire GOP Senate candidate Don Bolduc said he was involved in an altercation with a libertarian podcaster prior to a debate against Sen. Maggie Hassan at St. Anselm College on Wednesday night.
Throughout the debate, Bolduc accused a person of attempting to “strike out” at him. Bolduc’s campaign followed up with an announcement echoing the GOP candidate’s claim, saying that a person in the gang “attempted to punch” him before being arrested.
In an announcement, the Goffstown Police Department said Joseph Hart, 37, of Greenville, Rhode Island, was detained and charged with criminal trespass and disorderly conduct after a “disturbance occurred” outside the event.
Police said Hart was instructed by St. Anselm College to go away the property as supporters for each candidates gathered before the event. They said Hart later approached Bolduc, who was greeting his supporters. Officers converged on the world and all parties were separated, police said.
The statement doesn’t explicitly mention an attempted assault. Video shared on social media from various angles also calls into query the claim that Bolduc himself was targeted with a punch.
Hassan and her campaign have condemned the incident.
“The behavior of the Libertarian Party agitators toward Don Bolduc last night was despicable,” Hassan tweeted. “I need to thank the Goffstown Police and St. Anselm College for his or her commitment to keeping everyone secure.”
White House chief of staff says inflation continues to be ‘No. 1 problem’
Asked in an interview with MSNBC on Thursday what the Biden administration was doing to arrange for a possible recession after the Federal Reserve announced one other rate of interest hike, White House chief of staff Ron Klain said that the U.S. was “not in a recession.”
Klain said that while inflation continues to be the “No. 1 problem” facing the White House, unemployment claims remain low and the stock market is stronger than it was under former President Donald Trump’s administration.
Klain also held up a replica of Thursday’s Recent York Times with a front page article about Republican proposals to alter Social Security and Medicare circled in red marker.
“Front page of the Recent York Times shows that the Republicans are saying that in the event that they get control of the Congress, they intend to slash Social Security, they intend to slash Medicare,” Klain said. “We’d like to elucidate that.”
NAACP calls on radio stations to take down Stephen Miller group’s ad about ‘racism against white people’
The NAACP is looking on radio stations to stop airing an ad by the right-wing group America First Legal that accuses “the left” and a few Democratic leaders of promoting “racism against white people.”
Within the letter sent Wednesday to a series of radio stations in Georgia, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said he was “deeply troubled by the false and misleading radio advertisements transmitted through your radio station,” calling them “race-baiting advertisements” which might be “obviously false.”
“Airing such advertisements makes a station a knowing participant within the spread of disinformation designed to enrage and frighten white voters and tap into the basest instincts of those that might be persuaded by such intentionally dishonest rhetoric,” Johnson wrote, adding: “These advertisements are false, misleading, and deceptive. We demand that you just refuse to proceed airing these advertisements.”
America First Legal is led by Stephen Miller, a former Trump White House adviser with a status as a combative hard-liner. The ads, taking President Joe Biden’s remarks out of context, accuse him of prioritizing non-whites over whites for Covid relief funds, while also criticizing corporations. “The left’s anti-white bigotry must stop,” a narrator says.
The nonpartisan website FactCheck.org analyzed the claims within the ad and located that in several instances, “the rhetoric doesn’t match the facts.”
The letter, first reported by NBC News, is below.
Nevada ACLU requests investigation into alleged partisan hand-count
RENO, Nev. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada asked the state’s secretary of state Wednesday to analyze what it called a “coordinated partisan election administration effort” during rural Nye County’s hand-count of mail-in ballots that was shut down last week until after polls close.
The ACLU said a hand-count volunteer openly carrying a firearm removed an ACLU observer from a hand-count tally room, which the organization said it recently discovered was Nye County GOP Central Committee Vice Chair Laura Larsen.
The ACLU said the situation “poses questions” surrounding Nye County interim clerk Mark Kampf’s delegation of authority to partisan officials to remove observers from hand-count rooms, particularly during a hand-count process that deals with tabulation of ballots.
It’s the most recent development in a conflict between the agricultural county’s election administration and the ACLU that has spanned lawsuits, infighting and a Nevada Supreme Court ruling late on Oct. 27 that prompted Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, to shut down the hand-counting until after polls close on Election Day.
Alaska Senate race fueled by Trump, McConnell feud
A Republican goes to win the Alaska Senate race, but that hasn’t stopped Mitch McConnell from plowing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the deep-red state.
McConnell allies say he simply desires to protect Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who faces a serious challenge from fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka. But strategists see a proxy war playing out between McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate minority leader, and his chief antagonist, former President Donald Trump, who’s backing Tshibaka.
“He and Mitch are really at war,” said a Republican senator, speaking on condition of anonymity to debate internal Republican politics. “Mitch has really taken some actions to poke at Trump.”
Tshibaka is one in every of a vanishingly small variety of Republican Senate candidates who’ve publicly said they might deliver on one in every of Trump’s primary political ambitions: ousting McConnell from Senate leadership.
Obama rips into Arizona GOP candidates at rally
Former President Barack Obama skewered Arizona GOP candidates during a rally in Phoenix on Wednesday night. Obama warned that democracy is under threat within the battleground state, pointing to GOP candidates Blake Masters and Kari Lake who’ve pushed false claims of a stolen 2020 election.
Obama said he would not have expected Lake, who worked as a neighborhood news anchor and interviewed him when he was president, to push a series of baseless of conspiracy theories. Lake is facing Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in a decent race for governor.
“It’s a little bit fuzzy, but I do know this — on the time, I don’t remember considering that she was the sort of one who would push debunked Covid remedies, or promise to issue a declaration of invasion at our border, or claim with none evidence that the 2020 election was stolen,” he said. “I suppose that stuff got here later because she found it convenient, because she thought, well here’s a chance to get attention.”
Obama also described Masters, who’s difficult Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., as a “lackey Republican politician.”
“Campaign backed by a tech billionaire who questioned the worth of democracy? Check. Wants to offer tax cuts to big corporations which might be jacking up prices on consumers? Check,” the previous president said.
Biden launches final, four-state campaign swing
With just days left before the midterm elections, President Joe Biden is about to travel to 4 states, starting with Recent Mexico on Thursday.
Biden will deliver remarks on student debt relief at Central Recent Mexico Community College in Albuquerque before participating in a rally for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who’s facing a challenge from former TV meteorologist and GOP nominee Mark Ronchetti.
Later Thursday, the president will travel to the San Diego area for an event for Rep. Mike Levin at MiraCosta College. Republican nominee Brian Maryott has gone after Levin over inflation, gas prices and rising crime.
Biden will spend a part of Friday and Saturday in Chicago to campaign for Rep. Sean Casten, D-In poor health., who’s facing a stiff challenge from Republican Keith Pekau. The president will then head to Pennsylvania to campaign with former President Barack Obama for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro, who faces GOP candidate Doug Mastriano, and Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman, who’s locked in an in depth race with Republican Mehmet Oz that might determine which party controls the Senate.
The itinerary illustrates Biden’s limited political clout and suggests the president, whose approval rating stays underwater, has concluded he may be best by shoring up support for Democratic candidates in areas he easily won in 2020.
Highlights from Wednesday
- Just catching up? Here’s what you missed on Wednesday. President Joe Biden forged the midterm elections as a “defining moment” for democracy as threats of political violence and voter intimidation loom large. In a speech Wednesday night, Biden said election deniers pose an existential threat to democracy, and he doubled down on linking last week’s attack on Paul Pelosi to the Jan. 6 riot.
- Republicans contended that poll watchers in town of Green Bay, Wis., weren’t getting appropriate access to an early voting site, while complaints surfaced over aggressive third-party tactics inside and outdoors the polling place.
- Greater than 100 state and native election jurisdictions have been waitlisted for help after contacting the federal government to make sure the digital security of their election-related systems ahead of next week’s election.