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Tag: ap pkg

  • This tribe’s land was cut in two by US borders. Its fight for access could help dozens of others

    This tribe’s land was cut in two by US borders. Its fight for access could help dozens of others

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    For four hours, Raymond V. Buelna, a cultural leader for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, sat on a metal bench in a concrete holding space at the U.S.-Mexico border, separated from the two people he was taking to an Easter ceremony on tribal land in Arizona and wondering when they might be released.

    It was February 2022 and Buelna, a U.S. citizen, was driving the pair — both from the sovereign Native American nation’s related tribal community in northwestern Mexico — from their home to the reservation southwest of Tucson. They’d been authorized by U.S. officials to cross the border. But when Buelna asked an agent why they were detained, he was told to wait for the officer who brought him in.

    “They know that we’re coming,” said Buelna, who has made the trip for a variety of ceremonies for 20 years. “We did all this work and then we’re still sitting there.”

    Now, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe is trying to change this — for themselves and potentially dozens of other tribes in the U.S.

    Tribal officials have drafted regulations to formalize the border-crossing process, working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s recently formed Tribal Homeland Security Advisory Council, comprised of 15 Native officials across the U.S.

    Their work could provide a template for dozens of Native American nations whose homelands, like those of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, were sliced in two by modern-day U.S. borders.

    If approved, the rules would become the first clearly established U.S. border crossing procedures specific to a Native American tribe that could then be used by others, according to Christina Leza, associate professor of anthropology at Colorado College.

    The regulations would last five years, to be renewed and amended as needed, and require training local U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and consular personnel on the tribe’s cultural heritage, language and traditions. It would require a Yaqui interpreter to be available when needed. It also would require close coordination with the tribe so border crossings are prompt.

    “This is just something that will help everybody,” said Fred Urbina, attorney general for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. “It will make things more efficient.”

    Urbina said the tribe has met with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the proposal. DHS did not immediately respond to repeated requests for comment by phone and email on the status of the regulations.

    When family members, deer dancers or musicians living in Sonora, Mexico, make the trip into the U.S. for ceremonies, tribal recognition celebrations or family events, they are typically issued an ID card from the tribe and a visitor visa or parole permit from the U.S. government. Still, they still face border officials who they say lack the cultural awareness to process them without problems.

    In the last two years, Buelna said, he has made the roundtrip about 18 times and was detained on four of them. He said border officials question the people he’s escorting, whose first language is Yaqui, without an interpreter, and cultural objects, such as deer and pig hooves, have been confiscated. Officials have touched ceremonial objects, despite only certain people being permitted by the tribe to do so.

    Urbina explained that the tribe encountered new challenges when Homeland Security was formed after 9/11 and border security was heightened. It became more pronounced in 2020, when the U.S. prohibited “non-essential” travel across the border to control the spread of the coronavirus. That ban ended this week, but new restrictions are in place.

    As a sovereignty issue, Native American nations should be able to determine their people’s ability to cross the border to preserve the ceremonial life of their communities, Leza said.

    “If the federal government is saying our particular priorities, our interests in terms of securing our borders, trump your interests as a sovereign nation, then that’s not really a recognition of the sovereignty of those tribal nations,” she said.

    Tribes along the U.S.-Canada border face similar problems.

    The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians is headquartered in Michigan, but 173 of its more than 49,000 enrolled members live in Canada. Kimberly Hampton, the tribe’s officer-secretary and vice chair of the Tribal Homeland Security Advisory Council, said those members cross the border for powwows, fasting and to visit with traditional healers and family, but border officials have rudely rifled through eagle feathers and other cultural objects they are carrying.

    Hampton wants an agreement that includes having tribal liaisons at border crossings and training developed by the tribe for border personnel.

    Members of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe and the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, which has about 8,000 members in the U.S. and about 8,000 in Canada, said they have also been asked at the border to prove that they possess at least 50% “blood of the American Indian race.” It stems from a requirement under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that “American Indians” born in Canada cannot be denied entry into the U.S. if they can prove this — often through a letter from the tribe.

    Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe Chief Michael L. Conners wants to eliminate the requirement and boost education for border agents on local and national tribal issues. Drafting regulations specific to the tribe, like the ones the Pascua Yaqui are doing, “would bring a lot of peace of mind to our whole community,” he said.

    For Buelna, waiting in that concrete holding space, he was reunited with the pair only after he told a border official he thought they’d been overlooked following a shift change, he said.

    “Why can’t there be a system?” Buelna asked. “Why can’t there be already a line for us where we can present the proper paperwork, everything that we need and go about our way?”

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  • AP to ChatGPT: Do the State of the Union, as Shakespeare

    AP to ChatGPT: Do the State of the Union, as Shakespeare

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — If you’ve heard it once in a president’s State of the Union speech, you’ve heard it 100 times: There is nothing the American people can’t do when they pull together.

    But you haven’t heard that thought in a State of Union address from William Shakespeare: “Lo,” said the bard. “With kindness, love, and understanding clear, we shall conquer all, and have naught to fear.”

    Nor from the noggin-knocking Three Stooges of last century’s fame: “We just put our heads together, come up with a plan, and bam! Problem solved!”

    More on the State of the Union

    Let’s face it, State of the Union speeches are mostly rote. Presidents roll out a list of accomplishments, a few anecdotes about guests in attendance, a sober assessment of the problems of the day and a crescendo about glory times ahead.

    To shake up the formula before President Joe Biden’s speech to Congress on Tuesday night, The Associated Press instructed the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT to work up State of the Union speeches as they might have been written by some of history’s greatest minds as well as some stooges.

    AP ordered up 300-word versions, in contrast to Biden’s sprawling 6,400 words last year, and tapped a few people so iconic we know them by only one name. The virtual Greek philosopher Aristotle gracefully quoted Socrates, Cleopatra the historic Egyptian ruler asked for the blessing of the gods, Madonna cited her perspective as a mother and a woman in the entertainment industry.

    ChatGPT was also asked to channel singer Elvis Presley, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, the ground-breaking NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, the abolitionist Sojourner Truth, and baseball’s Yogi Berra, among other luminaries.

    We also wanted to see what a bright, unidentified 10-year-old might say to the assembled lawmakers.

    The app is part of a new generation of AI systems that can converse in human-like fashion and generate text on demand based on what they’ve learned from a vast database of digital books, online writings and other media. It petrifies teachers who fear their students will use it instead of their brains for school papers.

    ChatGPT rendered Shakespeare’s State of the Union speech in rhyme, scrolling on the screen faster than anyone could read it. The version channeling comedian Jerry Seinfeld captured his verbal mannerisms and signature phrasings.

    “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve realized that the state of our union is like a sandwich,” wrote the app-generated Seinfeld. “You’ve got the top bun, which is all the good stuff. You’ve got the cheese, the lettuce, the tomato, the mayo. It’s all delicious.

    “But then, when you take a closer look, you see the bottom bun, and that’s where the real work is. That’s where the foundation is.”

    Yada, yada yada.

    For all the app’s smarts and speed, it wasn’t all-knowing. In the speech channeling King, it had the civil rights leader quoting himself. It conveyed none of Abraham Lincoln’s eloquence. And it declined to take a run at drafting 2023 Biden’s speech, instead serving up a rehash of his last one.

    It also drew a blank when asked for a speech from George Santos, the new Republican congressman from New York who was caught fictionalizing his past. It seemed to sense, though, that there was something make-believe in the picture.

    “George Santos is not a widely recognized public figure or historical figure,” the app responded. “There is no widely known information about a person by this name in the public domain. It’s possible that the name was created for a specific use or scenario, such as a fictional character or a person in a private setting.”

    A look at some of the speeches ChatGPT generated:

    WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    My Lords and Ladies, countrymen and women, Gather ye here today to hear what I say, In this great hall of ours, let us unite, And listen to the state of our fair state.

    We stand today as one, in good health and grace, Prosperous and free, with a peaceful space, Our trade and commerce flourish, wealth abounds, With bountiful harvests, and peace surrounds.

    But, lo, there are still challenges we face, For not all are equal in our fair place, We must work together to bridge the divide, And bring forth equality, from side to side.

    Let us not forget, our soldiers bold and brave, Who fought for freedom, and our country gave, Their lives and limbs, for our safety and peace, We must repay them with honors and release.

    And so I say, let us work hand in hand, To build a brighter future, in this fair land, With kindness, love, and understanding clear, We shall conquer all, and have naught to fear.

    And now, my friends, I bid thee all farewell, And trust that thou wilt work, with heart and will, For the good of all, and the betterment of man, Together we shall build, a stronger, better land.

    ___

    SOJOURNER TRUTH, the 1800s abolitionist and evangelist born into slavery

    As a former slave, I stand before you today as a witness to the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality in this great nation. Despite the progress made since the abolition of slavery, I cannot help but feel a deep sense of disappointment at the persistence of racial injustice.

    African Americans are still being denied their basic rights, facing discrimination and prejudice at every turn. This is evident in the disproportionate number of black people who are incarcerated, unemployed, and living in poverty. It is also evident in the ongoing struggle for voting rights, as Black citizens are still being denied the right to vote through various means, including gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics.

    But I have not lost hope. I have faith in the resilience of my people, and I am inspired by the efforts of those who continue to fight for justice. I am heartened by the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the many other groups who are speaking out against systemic racism and calling for change.

    I call upon all of you to join me in this fight. We must not be complacent in the face of injustice. We must continue to stand up for what is right, even when it is difficult. We must continue to fight for equal rights for all, regardless of race, gender, or religion.

    Together, we can create a future where all people are free from discrimination and prejudice, where everyone has the opportunity to succeed, and where justice and equality reign supreme. This is the state of our union, and it is a call to action. Let us work together to build a brighter future for all.

    ___

    JERRY SEINFELD

    Good evening, my fellow Americans. How’s everyone doing tonight? I’m here to give you the State of the Union address, and I must say, I’m a little nervous. I mean, usually when I give a speech, I have a microphone and a stage and a live audience. But tonight, it’s just me and you, so I hope you don’t mind if I sprinkle in a few jokes to lighten the mood.

    Now, let’s talk about the state of our union. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve realized that the state of our union is like a sandwich …

    We’ve got the top bun, which is all the good stuff. We’ve got the economy, which is looking pretty tasty. We’ve got low unemployment, and businesses are thriving. … I want to focus on the bottom bun. I want to focus on the foundation. I want to talk about the things that we don’t always see or talk about, but that are so important. I want to talk about education, and healthcare, and infrastructure. I want to talk about the things that make our country strong …

    Let’s make sure that our country is a delicious sandwich that we can all be proud of.

    ___

    YOGI BERRA, baseball hall of famer

    It’s like deja vu all over again, folks! We’ve been here before and we’re here again. The state of the union, it’s complicated, but we’re makin’ progress. We’ve got our ups and our downs, but we gotta keep swingin’ at those curveballs life throws our way.

    Now, let me tell ya, we’ve been workin’ hard to make this country a better place for all of us. We’ve got a lot of people doin’ a lot of good things, and we gotta keep that up. And for those who ain’t doin’ so well, we gotta help ‘em out. We’re all in this together, like a big ol’ family.

    We’ve got a lot of challenges ahead of us, but we’ve also got a lot of opportunities. We’ve gotta take ’em both on, head on. And we’ve gotta work together, ‘cause ain’t nothin’ we can’t do if we work together.

    So, let’s keep up the good work, folks. Let’s make this country the best it can be. It ain’t gonna be easy, but ain’t nothin’ worth doin’ ever is.

    ___

    KATHERINE JOHNSON, a mathematician whose calculations enabled NASA to put the first Americans into Earth’s orbit and on the moon

    My fellow Americans,

    As a mathematician, I have spent my career using numbers and equations to solve complex problems and push the boundaries of what is possible. And as I look at our nation today, I see a problem that demands our attention and our action.

    We are facing a crisis in mathematics education. Too many of our children are struggling to keep up, and too few are pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This not only undermines their future opportunities, but also threatens our ability to compete in an increasingly technological world.

    But the solution to this problem is within our reach. We must invest in math education, from early childhood through high school and beyond. We must provide our teachers with the support and resources they need to help students succeed, and we must encourage girls and underrepresented minorities to pursue careers in STEM fields.

    As we work to address this crisis, let us also remember the incredible potential of mathematics. Math is not just a subject to be studied, but a powerful tool that can help us tackle the greatest challenges of our time. Whether we are working to cure diseases, address climate change, or build a more just and equitable society, math will be an essential part of the solution.

    My own journey as a mathematician has taken me from the halls of NASA to the history books, but it all started with a love of numbers and a desire to use them to make a difference in the world. And I believe that every child in America, regardless of their background or circumstances, should have the opportunity to discover their own love of math and use it to make a difference.

    So let us recommit ourselves to ensuring that all Americans have access to a quality math education, and let us harness the power of math to build a better future for ourselves and for generations to come.

    ___

    ELVIS PRESLEY

    Well, hello there, my fellow Americans!

    It’s great to be here today, talking to you all about the state of our union. Now, let me tell you, we’ve been rockin’ and rollin’ over the past year, and I’ve got some good news to share with you all.

    We’re making progress, friends. Our economy is stronger than ever, our businesses are booming, and our country is more united than ever. You know, when I look out into this crowd, I see Americans from all walks of life, all coming together for the greater good of our nation.

    Now, I know some folks out there might say we’ve got some challenges to overcome, but I’ve got to tell you, I believe in the American people. We’ve faced tough times before, and we’ve always come out on top. And we’re gonna do it again.

    We’re gonna keep on truckin’, we’re gonna keep rockin’ and rollin’, and we’re gonna keep building a better future for all Americans. I’ve got faith in you, my fellow Americans, and I know that together, we can do anything.

    So let’s get to work, let’s keep this train rollin’, and let’s make America great again. Thank you, and God bless America!

    ___

    ARISTOTLE, ancient Greek philosopher

    Citizens of the Republic, I stand before you today to address the state of our great society. In the words of my predecessor, Socrates, the measure of a state is not the number of people in it, but the quality of life they lead. And it is with this measure that I assess the state of our union.

    We must strive for excellence in all that we do, for it is this pursuit of excellence that will bring about true happiness and fulfillment. It is through virtuous action that we find our true purpose and meaning, and it is through the cultivation of virtue that we build a strong and just society.

    But we must not simply aim for personal excellence, for a society is more than the sum of its individual parts. We must also strive for excellence in our relationships with one another, promoting justice and harmony among our citizens. Only then can we build a society in which each individual can flourish and reach their full potential.

    It is our duty as citizens to actively participate in the governance of our society, to use our reason and our wisdom to help shape the policies and laws that govern us. And it is our duty to educate future generations in the art of virtuous living, to ensure that our society remains strong and virtuous for generations to come.

    So let us work together, citizens of the Republic, to build a society that is truly excellent, a society in which each and every one of us can reach our full potential and find true happiness and fulfillment. For it is only through such a society that we can truly say that the state of our union is strong and virtuous.

    Thank you, and may the gods bless our great Republic.

    ___

    MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

    My fellow Americans,

    We gather here today, at a momentous time in our nation’s history, to address the state of our union. And as we do so, I am reminded of the words of the great prophet Amos, who declared, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

    For too long, justice has been denied to too many in our society. For too long, righteousness has been an elusive dream. And it is time for us to awaken from this slumber and work together to build a more perfect union.

    We cannot be satisfied until every American, regardless of race, religion, or background, has an equal opportunity to achieve the American dream. We cannot be satisfied until every child, regardless of zip code, has access to a quality education. We cannot be satisfied until every worker, regardless of industry, is paid a fair wage and treated with dignity and respect.

    But let us not become discouraged, for we have made progress. We have seen a civil rights movement that brought about change, and we will continue to see change in our time. For as Dr. King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

    So let us bend that arc, together. Let us roll down justice and righteousness like waters. Let us create a society where every person is valued and respected, where every person has an equal chance to succeed.

    And let us not forget, as we work for this noble cause, that we are all one people, bound together by our common humanity. For as Dr. King also said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now.”

    So let us come together, as one people, to build a better future for all. Thank you.

    ___

    A 10-YEAR-OLD

    Hi everyone! I’m really excited to be here today, talking about the state of our country.

    I think that overall, things are going pretty well. We have a lot of great things happening, like new schools being built, new parks being made, and new jobs being created. But there are still some things that we can do better.

    For example, there are still a lot of kids who don’t have enough to eat, or who don’t have a safe place to live. That’s not okay, and I think we need to do more to help them. I think we should make sure that every kid has enough to eat, and that every kid has a warm and safe place to sleep at night.

    Another thing I think we need to work on is making sure that everyone gets along. There’s still a lot of fighting and meanness, and that’s not cool. I think we should all be friends and help each other out.

    Finally, I think we need to make sure that everyone has a chance to be happy and have fun. That means making sure that everyone has access to parks, playgrounds, and places to play. It also means making sure that everyone has access to books, computers, and other things that can help us learn and grow.

    So that’s what I think about the state of our country. I think we’re doing pretty well, but there’s still a lot of work to do. But I’m optimistic, because I know that if we all work together, we can make things better for everyone.

    Thanks for listening, and let’s work together to make our country the best it can be!

    ___

    MAHATMA GANDHI

    My dear friends, I stand before you today as a humble servant of the people, to address the state of our nation.

    In the face of adversity, it is easy to lose sight of what is truly important. But I implore you, let us not forget the values that have guided us for generations. Let us not forget the power of nonviolence, the strength of truth, and the importance of compassion.

    For it is only through these values that we can truly build a just and equitable society. It is only through these values that we can truly claim to be a great nation.

    But we have much work to do. The poverty, the inequality, and the discrimination that still plagues our society must be eradicated. We must be unwavering in our commitment to justice, to peace, and to compassion.

    And we must not be afraid to challenge the status quo, to resist the forces of oppression, and to stand up for what is right. For it is only by doing so that we can truly claim to be a great people.

    So let us come together, my friends, and let us work for a brighter future for all our citizens. …

    And let us do so with nonviolence, with truth, and with compassion. For it is only through these values that we can truly claim to be a great nation, a great people, and a great civilization.

    Thank you, and may God bless us all.

    ___

    THE THREE STOOGES of vaudeville, film and TV fame

    My fellow Americans, it’s a honor to stand before you today to talk about the state of our great union. And let me tell you, it’s been quite the ride so far! But we’re not ones to back down from a challenge, are we? No sirree, not the Three Stooges! ….

    But we can’t do it alone. We need the support of all Americans. … So, let’s keep working hard, my fellow Americans. Let’s make this country the best it can be. And most importantly, let’s keep laughing and having a good time while we do it! After all, life is too short to take it too seriously.

    ___

    WINSTON CHURCHILL, 20th century British prime minister and orator

    My fellow citizens, it is with a heavy heart and steadfast determination that I address you today. Our great nation stands at a crossroads, facing challenges that would test the mettle of any generation. But I have faith, faith in the resilience and courage of the American people, that we shall overcome.

    We have seen the forces of division and despair seek to tear at the fabric of our society, but we shall not be swayed. We shall stand united, firm in our resolve to defend the principles upon which this great nation was founded. Freedom, justice, and equality for all shall not be sacrificed upon the altar of greed or hatred.

    The road ahead will not be easy, and there will be obstacles, but we shall not falter. We shall continue to work tirelessly, to build a future of prosperity and security for all our citizens. A future where every American has the opportunity to fulfill their dreams, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

    It is time for us to rededicate ourselves to the ideals that have made this country great. It is time for us to come together, to set aside our differences, and work towards a common goal. A goal of a better future for all Americans, a future where our children and grandchildren can live in peace, security, and prosperity.

    So let us stand together, my fellow citizens. Let us face the future with the same courage and determination that has made this country the envy of the world. Let us continue to move forward, always remembering that, “We shall never surrender.”

    Thank you, and may God bless the United States of America.

    ___

    CLEOPATRA, queen of Egypt 51-30 B.C.

    My fellow Egyptians,

    It is with great pride and humility that I stand before you today, as your Queen and leader, to deliver this State of the Union address. I am honored to serve the people of this great nation, a nation with a rich and proud history that has stood tall and strong for centuries.

    In recent years, we have faced many challenges, but through hard work and determination, we have emerged stronger and more united than ever before. Our economy is thriving, our communities are flourishing, and our people are thriving.

    However, we cannot rest on our achievements … we must remain vigilant against those who would threaten our security and our way of life. We must work with our allies to promote peace and stability in the world, and to defend our values and our interests.

    But most of all, we must remember that our greatest strength lies in our people. It is the hard work, the ingenuity, and the determination of the Egyptian people that has always made our country great, and it is their continued efforts that will keep us strong and prosperous in the years to come.

    So let us continue to work together, to strive for a better future, and to build a stronger, more prosperous Egypt.

    Thank you, and may the gods bless Egypt.

    ___

    ABRAHAM LINCOLN

    My fellow Americans,

    It is with a heavy heart but steadfast determination that I stand before you today to deliver this State of the Union address. Our great nation is embroiled in a conflict that has tested the very fabric of our union, but I am confident that with the perseverance of our people and the grace of God, we will emerge from this trial stronger and more united than ever before.

    This war, fought over the fundamental principles of freedom and equality, has taken a tremendous toll on our country and our people. But despite the hardships, we have not wavered in our commitment to preserving the Union and ending the scourge of slavery.

    As we move forward, we must work together to heal the wounds of this conflict and build a better future for all Americans. We must work to reunite our divided nation and ensure that the blessings of liberty and equality are extended to all, regardless of race or station.

    We must also take steps to ensure that this dark chapter in our history is never repeated. We must ensure that the sacrifice of so many brave Americans was not in vain, and that we never again turn a blind eye to the injustice and suffering of our fellow citizens.

    So let us come together, as one people, and work towards a brighter future for our nation and for all who call it home.

    Thank you, and may God bless America.

    ___

    ELON MUSK, CEO of Tesla, SpacEx and Twitter, and one of the founders of Open AI, the research lab that created ChatGPT

    My fellow Americans,

    It is an honor to address you today, as your elected leader, and to deliver this State of the Union Address. … I am proud to announce a bold new plan to invest in the technologies of the future, and to create millions of good-paying jobs in the process. We must lead the world in the transition to a clean energy economy, and we must ensure that our infrastructure is the most advanced and resilient in the world …

    I am announcing a new initiative to increase funding for space research and development, so that we can continue to explore the mysteries of the universe and maintain our position as a leader in space exploration …

    But we must also address the inequalities that have been exposed by the pandemic, and we must ensure that all Americans have access to the opportunities of the future. That is why I am announcing a comprehensive plan to improve access to education, job training, and affordable healthcare.

    ___

    BIDEN, delivered by the app as a rehash of past remarks

    It is an honor to stand before you today as your President and deliver this State of the Union address. This past year has been one of the most challenging in our nation’s history, but through it all, the American people have shown remarkable resilience, bravery, and compassion.

    We have faced a once-in-a-century pandemic that has taken too many lives and disrupted our economy, but we are making progress. We have delivered vaccines to millions of Americans and are seeing cases decline, and we are working to reopen our schools and businesses safely.

    But we cannot rest on our achievements. We must do more to rebuild our economy and make sure that the benefits of this recovery are felt by all Americans, not just the wealthy and well-connected. That is why I am proposing a bold infrastructure plan to create millions of good-paying jobs, modernize our roads, bridges, and highways, and make America more competitive in the global economy.

    At the same time, we must address the long-standing injustices in our society, particularly racial and economic inequality. That is why I am committed to passing legislation to protect voting rights, advance racial justice, and ensure that everyone has a fair shot at the American Dream.

    And as we look to the future, we must also address the existential threat of climate change. We cannot afford to wait any longer to address this crisis, which is already affecting communities across our country. That is why I am committed to achieving a 100% clean energy economy and creating good-paying jobs in the process.

    So let us come together, as one nation, and build a better future for all Americans. Together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

    Thank you, and may God bless America.

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  • In Washington, ‘classified’ is synonymous with ‘controversy’

    In Washington, ‘classified’ is synonymous with ‘controversy’

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s presidential dreams were undermined by her use of a private email server that included classified information.

    Donald Trump has risked criminal charges by refusing to return top-secret records to the government after leaving the White House.

    And now misplaced files with classified markings has led to another investigation that’s causing a political and legal headache for President Joe Biden.

    The three situations are far from equivalent. But taken together, they represent a remarkable stretch in which document management has been a recurring source of controversy at the highest levels of American politics.

    For some, it’s a warning about clumsiness or hubris when it comes to handling official secrets. For others, it’s a reminder that the federal government has built an unwieldy — and perhaps unmanageable — system for storing and protecting classified information.

    “Mistakes happen, and it’s so easy to grab a stack of documents from your desk as you’re leaving your office, and you don’t realize there’s a classified document among those files,” said Mark Zaid, a lawyer who works on national security issues. “You just didn’t hear about it, for whatever reason.”

    Now Americans are hearing about it all the time. Political talk shows have been clogged with conversations about which papers were stashed in which box in which closet. Voters are getting schooled in intelligence jargon like TS/SCI, HUMINT and damage assessments.

    Clinton’s email server was a dominant storyline of her presidential campaign, and the criminal investigation into Trump has clouded his hopes of returning to the White House.

    Biden is facing scrutiny of his own after documents with classified markings were found at a former office in Washington and his home in Wilmington, Delaware. Republicans who recently took control of the House are preparing to investigate, and Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to in the Biden case, following a similar step he took with Trump in November.

    “Investigations can quickly spiral,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political consultant. “For the Biden administration, having a prosecutor digging into these documents, you never know where that might lead.”

    With overlapping investigations underway, there may be no end in sight for daily discussions of filing cabinets, storage rules and concerns about national security risks.

    “The American people are very well aware of issues involving classified documents in part because we’ve been talking about them for almost eight years,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political consultant.

    That’s when a House Republican committee investigating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, discovered that Clinton had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state. The revelation led to a federal investigation that didn’t result in any charges, but 110 emails out of 30,000 that were turned over to the government were determined to have had classified information.

    Trump, who pummeled Clinton over her handling of the emails, won the election and swiftly demonstrated carelessness with secrets. He memorably discussed sensitive intelligence with the Russian ambassador to the United States, leading to concerns that he may have jeopardized a source who helped foil terrorist plots.

    After disputing the results of his election defeat, Trump left office in haphazard fashion, and he brought boxes of government documents with him to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Some of them were turned over to the National Archives, which is responsible for presidential records, but he refused to provide others.

    Eventually the Justice Department, fearing that national security secrets were at risk, obtained a search warrant and found more top secret documents at the resort.

    A special counsel was appointed to determine whether any criminal charges should be filed in the case or a separate investigation into Trump’s attempts to cling to power on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.

    Larry Pfeiffer, a former intelligence official, said the situation with Trump’s documents is far different than ones he encountered while working in government.

    During the time that Pfeiffer was CIA chief of staff, classified files turned up in the wrong place in presidential libraries a handful of times, he said.

    “It just happens,” said Pfeiffer, now director of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason University. “Mistakes get made, and stuff gets found.”

    He said that seems more likely to be the case regarding the documents with classified markings that were found at an office used by Biden at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement after his term as vice president ended.

    Biden’s personal lawyers discovered the documents and contacted the White House counsel’s office, and the National Archives picked up the records the next day.

    The situation appears like “an average, run-of-the-mill mistake” that’s “being handled in a by-the-book, textbook fashion,” Pfeiffer said.

    However, he said it would be wise for the government to review its practices for managing documents during transitions between administrations. It’s been six years since Biden left the vice president’s office, meaning classified records have been in the wrong place for a long time.

    “That’s not a good thing, no matter how anyone is playing it,” he said.

    The files were found at the Penn Biden Center in November, but their existence only became public this week. After the discovery, Biden’s lawyers conducted a search of other properties as well. The search was finished on Wednesday evening, and more documents with classified markings were located in his Wilmington home, according to Richard Sauber, a lawyer for the president.

    Garland asked a U.S. attorney to review the matter after the initial discovery, and he named a special counsel on Thursday.

    Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, sent a letter to the White House on Tuesday saying that his panel will be investigating Biden’s “failure to return vice-presidential records — including highly classified documents.”

    “The Committee is concerned that President Biden has compromised sources and methods with his own mishandling of classified documents,” Comer wrote.

    Biden said Thursday that he is “cooperating fully and completely” with the Justice Department. He previously said he was “surprised” to learn that documents were in his old office. Biden said he he didn’t know what kind of information they contained, and he said his team “did what they should have done” when they were found.

    Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman who worked for Biden’s National Security Council last year, said it’s unlikely that such an episode would have made the news if it wasn’t for the concurrent Trump investigation.

    “The Penn Biden Center would have turned this stuff in, it would have gone to the Archives, and that would have been the end of it,” he said.

    Miller said the situation is a reminder that “the government classifies way too many documents.”

    “There’s not a good process for declassifying them,” he said. “And when you create this structure, you’ve unnecessarily widened the universe of classified documents that could unintentionally be mishandled.”

    It’s not a new problem, and it’s a concern that’s even shared by Biden’s top intelligence adviser, Avril Haines. In a letter to senators last year, Haines said there are “deficiencies in the current classification system,” calling it “a fundamentally important issue that we must address.”

    Said Miller: “No one has figured out a good answer to this problem.”

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  • Griner swap reveals dilemma US faces in freeing detainees

    Griner swap reveals dilemma US faces in freeing detainees

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A Taliban drug lord convicted in a vast heroin trafficking conspiracy. A Russian pilot imprisoned for a scheme to distribute cocaine across the world. And a Russian arms dealer so infamous that he earned the nickname “Merchant of Death.”

    Those are just some of the convicted felons the United States government has agreed to release in the last year in exchange for securing the release of Americans detained abroad. It’s long been conventional wisdom that the U.S. risks incentivizing additional hostage taking by negotiating with adversarial nations and militant groups for the release of American citizens. But the succession of swaps has made clear the Biden administration’s willingness to free a convicted criminal once seen as a threat to society if that’s what it takes to bring home a U.S. citizen.

    The latest swap occurred Thursday when WNBA star Brittney Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who played pro basketball in Russia and was easily the most prominent American to be held overseas, was freed in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

    The exchange drew some criticism, including from Republican lawmakers, and raised concerns that Bout, who was tried and convicted in American courts, was being traded for someone the U.S regarded as a wrongful detainee convicted in Russia of a relatively minor offense. Administration officials acknowledged that such deals carry a heavy price and cautioned against the perception that they are the new norm, but the reality is that they’ve been a tool of administrations of both political parties.

    The Trump administration, seen as more willing to flout convention in hostage affairs, brought home Navy veteran Michael White in 2020 in an agreement that freed an Iranian American doctor and permitted him to return to Iran.

    The Obama administration pardoned or dropped charges against seven Iranians in a prisoner exchange tied to the nuclear deal with Tehran. Three jailed Cubans were sent home in 2014 as Havana released American Alan Gross after five years’ imprisonment.

    Jon Franks, who’s long advised families of American hostages and detainees, said it’s not true that the U.S. can just throw its might around and get people released.

    “The maximum pressure mantra just doesn’t work — and, by the way, I don’t think prisoner trades undercut maximum pressure,” said Franks, the spokesman for the Bring Our Families Home Campaign.

    Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February after customs agents said she was carrying vape canisters with cannabis oil. Bout, who was arrested in 2008, was sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison on charges that he conspired to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S officials said were to be used against Americans.

    The trade highlights a trend in recent years of Americans being detained abroad and held hostage not by terrorist groups but by countries looking to gain leverage over America, said Dani Gilbert, a fellow in U.S. foreign policy and international security at Dartmouth College.

    Gilbert said the idea that the U.S. doesn’t negotiate for hostages is a “misnomer.” She said that really only applies when an American is being held by a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but otherwise the U.S. has historically done whatever is necessary to bring Americans home.

    What is different, she said, is over roughly the last decade there’s been a trend of foreign governments as opposed to terrorist groups detaining Americans abroad, often on trumped-up charges. She noted that in July the U.S. introduced a new risk indicator on its travel advisories — a “D” — for countries that tend to wrongfully detain people.

    “Currently there are about four dozen Americans who are considered wrongfully detained, which puts them in this category essentially of being held wrongfully or unlawfully by a foreign government, perhaps for leverage,” she said. “Those cases have really been on the rise in recent years.”

    Gilbert said she was nervous that trades like the Griner-Bout deal would encourage other authoritarian leaders to use similar tactics.

    During a ceremony Thursday celebrating Griner’s release, President Joe Biden urged Americans to take precautions before traveling overseas.

    “We also want to prevent any more American families from suffering this pain and separation,” he said.

    Bout earned the nickname “Merchant of Death” for supposedly supplying weapons for civil wars in South America, the Middle East and Africa.

    But Shira A. Scheindlin, the former federal judge who sentenced Bout, said while he had a history as an international arms dealer selling weapons to unsavory characters, at the time of his arrest in a U.S. sting operation he appeared to be largely out of the business.

    “We’re not talking about someone who at that point in his career was actively dealing arms to terrorists,” she said.

    Scheindlin said during an interview after Bout was released that she thought that the time he had spent behind bars was adequate punishment. She said she always thought Bout’s sentence was too long and she would have given him a lesser one if she hadn’t been confined by statutory mandatory minimums.

    The attention paid to Griner’s case has raised questions about whether her celebrity and the public pressure it generated pushed the Biden administration to make a deal where it hasn’t in other cases. Left out of the deal was Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive who had regularly traveled to Russia until he was arrested in December 2018 in Moscow and convicted of what the U.S. government says are baseless espionage charges.

    Jared Genser, a Washington lawyer who represents the family of Siamak Namazi, who has been held in Iran since 2015, said Griner’s celebrity undoubtedly gave her supporters access to the highest levels of American power in a way that few others get. That also showed Vladimir Putin how “desperately the president wanted to get” Griner out, Genser said.

    Elsewhere in the world, American citizens have been detained for years.

    Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmed, who runs the Washington-based Gulf Institute, has a cousin who was detained in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and was released earlier this year but still can’t leave the country. Al-Ahmed works to help other families with loved ones held in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom. He said detainees like his cousin don’t have the celebrity of someone like Griner, and he feels not enough attention is being paid by the U.S. government to them.

    “They should not favor Americans of certain background over another American,” he said. “There has not been equality here.”

    The family of another prominent American held overseas — Austin Tice — also expressed frustration in a statement Thursday. While they said they were happy that Griner had been released, they were “extremely disappointed” in the U.S. government’s lack of progress in Tice’s case. Tice went missing in Syria in 2012; Washington maintains Tice is being held by Syrian authorities, which the Syrians deny.

    “If the U.S. government can work with Russia, there is no excuse for not directly engaging Syria,” the statement read. “God willing, Austin will not spend another Christmas alone in captivity.”

    __

    Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

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  • ‘Stock up on blankets’: Ukrainians brace for horrific winter

    ‘Stock up on blankets’: Ukrainians brace for horrific winter

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    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians could face rolling blackouts from now through March in frigid, snowy weather because Russian airstrikes have caused “colossal” damage to the power grid, officials said. To cope, authorities are urging people to stock up on supplies and evacuate hard-hit areas.

    Sergey Kovalenko, the CEO of private energy provider DTEK Yasno, said the company is under instructions from Ukraine’s state grid operator to resume emergency blackouts in the areas it covers, including the capital, Kyiv, and the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

    “Although there are fewer blackouts now, I want everyone to understand: Most likely, Ukrainians will have to live with blackouts until at least the end of March,” Kovalenko warned on Facebook.

    “We need to be prepared for different options, even the worst ones. Stock up on warm clothes and blankets. Think about what will help you wait out a long shutdown,” he told Ukrainian residents.

    Russia has launched six massive aerial attacks against Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure since Oct. 10, as the war approaches its nine-month mark. That targeted onslaught has caused widespread blackouts and deprived millions of Ukrainians of electricity, heat and water.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday in a video speech to a French municipal group that Russian missile strikes have destroyed nearly half of the country’s energy facilities “to turn the cold of winter into a weapon of mass destruction.” Later, in his nightly video address, he announced the establishment of “Points of Invincibility” where people can gather for electricity, mobile communications, internet access, heat, water, and first aid.

    Temperatures commonly stay below freezing in Ukraine in the winter, and snow has already fallen in many areas, including Kyiv. Ukrainian authorities are evacuating civilians from recently liberated sections of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions out of fear the winter will be too hard to survive.

    Heeding the call, women and children — including a little red-headed boy whose shirt read in English “Made with Love” — carried their limited belongings, along with dogs and cats, onto trains departing from the newly liberated city of Kherson.

    “We are leaving now because it’s scary to sleep at night,” departing resident Tetyana Stadnik said on a cramped night sleeper train Monday as a dog wandered around. “Shells are flying over our heads and exploding. It’s too much. We will wait until the situation gets better. And then we will come back home.”

    Another resident said leaving was the right thing to do to help the country.

    “No one wants to leave their homes. But they’re even advising (to leave). They’d have to warm us up, when it’s needed for other people. If we have an opportunity to leave, we can at least help Ukraine with something,” Alexandra Barzenkova said as she sat on a train bunk bed.

    More hardship was in store for those remaining.

    The repeated Russian attacks — with the most severe on Nov. 15 involving 100 heavy rockets — have damaged practically every thermal and hydroelectric power plant, and “the scale of destruction is colossal,” Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of Ukrenergo, the state-owned power grid operator, said Tuesday. In addition, electric substations have been damaged, while nuclear power plants have largely been spared, he said.

    Kyiv regional authorities said Tuesday that more than 150 settlements were enduring emergency blackouts because of snowfall and high winds.

    Slowed by the weather, Ukrainian forces are pressing a counteroffensive while Moscow’s troops maintain artillery shelling and missile strikes.

    In a key battlefield development, Natalia Humeniuk of the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South said on Ukrainian television that Kyiv’s forces are attacking Russian positions on the Kinburn Spit, a gateway to the Black Sea basin, as well as parts of the southern Kherson region still under Russian control.

    The Kinburn Spit is Russia’s last outpost in Ukraine’s southern Mykolayiv region, directly west of Kherson. Ukrainian forces recently liberated other parts of the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. Moscow has used the Kinburn Spit as a staging ground for missile and artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Mykolaiv province, and elsewhere along the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea coast.

    Recapturing the Kinburn Spit could help Ukrainian forces push into Russian-held territory in the Kherson region “under significantly less Russian artillery fire” than if they directly crossed the Dnieper River, a Washington-based think tank said. The Institute for the Study of War added that control of the area would help Kyiv alleviate Russian strikes on Ukraine’s southern seaports and allow it to increase its naval activity in the Black Sea.

    In the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters city of Sevastopol, Russian-installed Gov. Mikhail Razvozhaev said air defense systems intercepted at least two drones, including those targeting a power station. Zelenskyy has vowed to recapture the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, but his government didn’t immediately comment on the Russian report.

    In other developments:

    — Ukraine’s counter-intelligence service, police officers and the country’s National Guard on Tuesday searched one of the most famous Orthodox Christian sites in Kyiv after a priest spoke favorably about Russia during a service.

    — Ukraine’s presidential office said Tuesday that at least eight civilians were killed and 16 were injured over the previous 24 hours, as Moscow’s forces again used drones, rockets and heavy artillery to pound eight Ukrainian regions.

    —In the eastern Donetsk region, fierce battles continued around Bakhmut, where the Kremlin’s forces are keen to clinch a victory after weeks of embarrassing military setbacks. Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko also said Russia launched missiles at Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian military hub, and the city of Avdiivka. Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman hinted at clashes near the Donetsk village of Pavlivka, saying Russian troops “destroyed” three Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance units.

    — One civilian was killed and three others wounded after Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson, Ukraine’s presidential office said.

    — Two civilians died Tuesday in the Russian border region of Belgorod, its governor said on Telegram. Vyacheslav Gladkov said a married couple were killed by an unexploded munition in Staroselye, on the border with Ukraine’s northern Sumy region. He said a woman was killed in shelling of Shebekino, close to Ukraine’s Kharkiv province.

    — A social worker was killed and two other civilians were wounded Tuesday after Russian tank shells hit an aid distribution point in southern Ukraine, according to the governor of Zaporizhzhia.

    — Ukrainian officials on Tuesday handed over the bodies of 33 soldiers recovered from Russia to their families.

    — The U.S. announced disbursement of $4.5 billion to help stabilize Ukraine’s economy and support key Ukrainian government functions. The package will help fund wages for hospital workers, government employees and teachers, as well as social assistance for the elderly and vulnerable.

    ___

    Follow all AP stories about the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

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  • Correction: Colorado Springs Shooting-Heroes story

    Correction: Colorado Springs Shooting-Heroes story

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    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — In a story published Nov. 22, 2022, about a shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, The Associated Press erroneously reported the rank of U.S. Navy Information Systems Technician Thomas James. He is a Petty Officer, Second Class, not an officer.

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  • State Supreme Court wins shaped by abortion, redistricting

    State Supreme Court wins shaped by abortion, redistricting

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    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Republicans have claimed key victories in state Supreme Court races that will give them an advantage in major redistricting fights, while Democrats notched similarly significant wins with help from groups focused on defending abortion access.

    The expensive fights over court control in several states in Tuesday’s election highlight just how partisan the formerly low-key judicial races have become. Observers say they’re a sign of what to expect as legal battles over abortion, voting rights and other issues are being fought at the state level.

    “Nothing about this election suggests to me that we’re going to see these races quiet down anytime soon,” said Douglas Keith, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school, which tracks spending in judicial races.

    About $97 million was spent on state Supreme Court elections during the 2019-2020 election cycle, according to the Brennan Center. Once this year’s numbers are tallied, spending records are expected to be shattered in some of the 25 states that had races targeted by groups on the right and the left.

    One of the biggest players was the Republican State Leadership Committee, which focused heavily on the court races in North Carolina and Ohio.

    “Republican wins in the Tarheel State and Buckeye State ensure that the redistricting fights ahead in those states within the next decade are ruled on by strong conservatives who will follow the Constitution and don’t believe it’s their role to draw maps from the bench,” said Dee Duncan, president of the committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative.

    North Carolina’s court flipped from a 4-3 Democrat majority to 5-2 Republican Tuesday night. The court in recent years has issued decisions favoring the Democratic majority in cases involving redistricting, criminal justice, education funding and voter ID laws.

    At least $15 million was spent on those races, with more than $8 million from two super PACS — one on the left that focused primarily on abortion and one on the right that focused on crime. Despite the outside groups’ involvement, candidates ran on a similar platform of keeping personal politics out of the courtroom.

    “Now, we’ll be watching to make sure that the justices sitting in those seats follow through on those promises,” said Ann Webb, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

    In Ohio, Republicans maintained their 4-3 majority on the court, with two GOP justices fending off challenges and a sitting Republican winning her bid for chief justice. The state’s GOP governor, Mike DeWine, will appoint a justice to fill the resulting vacancy.

    The results may expand the conservative bent of the court even further, with cases regarding the state’s six-week abortion ban and redistricting on the horizon. Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who did not seek reelection, has sided with court’s three Democrats on high profile cases.

    But Democratic groups working to protect abortion rights ramped up efforts to defend seats after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and saw victories in several other parts of the country.

    In Illinois, which is surrounded by states with abortion bans that took effect after Roe was overturned, groups pushing to retain the state’s Democrat court majority had warned a GOP takeover could result in similar threats to access.

    “I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t think abortion was the critical issue in these races,” Terry Cosgrove, president and CEO of Personal PAC, an abortion rights group that spent nearly $3 million supporting the Democrats in the races.

    In Michigan, Democrats maintained their 4-3 majority on the Supreme Court after incumbent justices from opposing parties who had split on a key abortion ruling won reelection. Michigan’s high court races are officially nonpartisan, though the state’s political parties nominate candidates.

    Democratic-backed Justice Richard Bernstein, who voted with the court’s majority to put an abortion rights amendment on the ballot, won reelection along with Republican Justice Brian Zahra, who voted against it. Voters approved the measure Tuesday.

    “The Michigan Supreme Court election was critical especially since we didn’t know what the status of (the abortion rights amendment) would be,” said Ashlea Phenicie, communications director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, which spent nearly $1 million on the races.

    Kansas voters kept all six state Supreme Court justices who were on the ballot for separate yes-or-no votes on whether they remained on the bench another six years. The state’s most influential anti-abortion group, Kansans for Life, pushed to remove five of them, largely over the court’s 2019 decision declaring access to abortion a “fundamental” right under the Kansas Constitution.

    Two of the six court members on the ballot were part of the 6-1 majority in that 2019 decision. Voters also retained the court’s most conservative member, the only dissenter in the 2019 abortion decision.

    Republican bids for court seats failed in even some of the most conservative parts of the country.

    Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Michelle Keller defeated Joseph Fischer, a Republican lawmaker who sponsored the state’s “trigger law” ending abortion following Roe’s reversal. Fischer also was the lead sponsor of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment that voters rejected Tuesday.

    Supreme Court Justice Robin Wynne in Arkansas, which has had some of the most contentious judicial races over the years, fended off a challenge from District Judge Chris Carnahan, a former executive director of the state Republican Party.

    Arkansas’ court seats are nonpartisan, but Carnahan had touted himself as a conservative and had the endorsement of the state GOP. A group formed by a Republican lawmaker ran TV ads calling Wynne, who served as a Democrat in the state Legislature in the 1980s, a liberal.

    An unprecedented partisan pitch by Montana Republicans to install a party loyalist on that state’s Supreme Court also fell short, with Justice Ingrid Gustafson defeating challenger James Brown, who had the backing of Gov. Greg Gianforte and other top Republicans. The unusually expensive campaign came as the court is preparing to hear challenges over Montana’s abortion restrictions and voting access.

    Gustafson called her win a sign that voters were more interested in experience than ideology.

    “The people in Montana think our judiciary is doing a good job and it is a very, very small minority that has some sort of other agenda,” she said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Ed White in Detroit, Michigan; and Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana contributed to this report. ___ Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • Democrat Katie Hobbs keeps lead in race for Arizona governor

    Democrat Katie Hobbs keeps lead in race for Arizona governor

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    PHOENIX (AP) — The release of ballots on Saturday from Arizona’s largest county netted Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake a few thousand votes, but she’s still trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs by tens of thousands of ballots.

    Hobbs led Lake by 1.6 percentage points after the release of roughly 85,000 votes from Maricopa County. Approximately 270,000 ballots remain uncounted statewide, and Hobbs leads by about 35,000 votes.

    Data analysts from both parties believe the count will eventually shift in Lake’s favor, but it’s not yet clear whether she will pick up enough votes to overtake Hobbs. Republicans have watched anxiously since Tuesday as Hobbs has defied their expectations and increased her lead each day, including Saturday when combined with results from the rest of the state.

    About 50 conservative protesters gathered outside the fence around Maricopa County’s election tabulation center in downtown Phoenix at midday Saturday to draw attention to their concerns about the slow pace of the vote count. Protracted counts are the norm in Arizona, where a record number of people returned mail ballots on Election Day.

    A few protesters wore ballistic vests or carried handguns as a number of county sheriff’s deputies nearby guarded the complex.

    Arizona was central to former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election and cast doubt on the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who won his race Friday, pressed to move past false claims of a fraudulent election that have shaped the state’s politics for the past two years.

    “After a long election, it can be tempting to remain focused on the things that divide us,” Kelly said Saturday in a victory speech at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. “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.”

    Kelly’s victory Friday combined with a win Saturday by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada means Democrats will retain control of the Senate for the next two years.

    Kelly won after distancing himself from Biden and building an image as an independent lawmaker not beholden to his party. He cast himself in the mold of his predecessor, the late Republican John McCain, whose seat Kelly won in a special election two years ago. His victory this year gives him a full six years starting in January.

    “Sen. McCain embodied everything it was to be a leader at a time when our state and our country remain divided,” Kelly said.

    Kelly’s opponent, Republican Blake Masters, did not concede, saying in a statement that his team will make sure every legal vote is counted.

    “If, at the end, Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, then I will congratulate him on a hard-fought victory,” Masters said. “But voters decide, not the media; let’s count the votes.”

    The AP declared Kelly the winner after the release of results from 75,000 ballots in Maricopa County made clear Masters could not make up his deficit.

    Hours earlier, Masters said on Fox News that Maricopa County, which is by far the largest in the state, should stop counting ballots and start over because election officials had inadvertently mixed counted and uncounted ballots.

    Megan Gilbertson, a spokeswoman for the county elections department, confirmed ballots were mixed at two vote centers but said there are contingencies to reconcile each batch and get an accurate count. She said that similar mistakes have been made before and that the process has been in place for decades and is overseen by observers from both parties.

    “There is no legal process in place to stop counting and start over,” Gilbertson said. “At Maricopa County, we follow the laws as they are written.”

    Outside the elections building in Phoenix, some protesters carried American flags, campaign signs for Lake or signs with slogans such as “Kari Lake Won,” “Count The Votes” and “Hobbs is a Cheat.”

    Sheriff Paul Penzone said he pulled deputies from around the county and from other assignments to protect the ballots and the people counting them. Noting the protest was prompted by a tweet from a state lawmaker, Penzone urged elected officials not to summon demonstrators to the elections building.

    Aaron Kotzbauer, a 52-year-old Republican from the Phoenix suburb of Surprise who voted for Lake and the other GOP candidates, said he protested at the elections office after Trump lost in 2020 and came again Saturday to “see if we could get some sunshine to disinfect the Maricopa County election center.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Bob Christie contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

    What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

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    What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

    Election workers reconstruct or “duplicate” ballots that are damaged or improperly marked to preserve voters’ intent. This is necessary if a ballot has, say, a coffee stain or tear — or if a voter circled a candidate rather than filled in a bubble to make their selection — and therefore can’t be read by a machine.

    While the process might sound strange to those not familiar with election administration, it’s a legitimate and longstanding way to ensure voters have their votes counted, according to experts. It’s also widely used to translate votes cast by those overseas or in the military onto ballots that can be scanned.

    The ballot duplication process involves transcribing a voter’s choices from the damaged ballot onto a new, clean ballot that can be scanned and counted. How exactly that process is handled varies across states.

    In many cases, it’s done by bipartisan teams of poll workers, said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. That’s not the case everywhere, though it’s common that it’s performed by at least two people — even two staff members — said Jennifer Morrell, a partner at The Elections Group, which works with election officials to improve processes.

    Many key states in the midterm elections this year — such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin — call for the ballot duplication process to be done by individuals representing different political parties.

    There are some cases in which mistakes on a ballot can’t simply be corrected because it’s impossible to confirm the voter’s intent. For example, sometimes a voter makes too many selections in a particular contest, or leaves a stray mark that doesn’t clearly indicate their chosen candidate.

    The rules for such ballots depend on jurisdiction. In some places, a ballot with a mistake in one race would simply exclude that race, but in other places, none of the voter’s choices would be counted, Burden said in an email. He added that whether the original ballot is destroyed or retained depends on the state.

    Experts say the ballot duplication process is generally done in view of the public or poll watchers. Many states also require that the original and ballot duplicates be labeled and assigned corresponding numbers, creating a paper trail between the two.

    Distortions about the ballot duplication process have fueled false claims.

    In 2020, footage from a publicly available video stream showed Delaware County, Pennsylvania, election workers transcribing votes from damaged ballots to clean ballots for scanning. But social media posts shared cropped footage, which didn’t show the bipartisan observers present, and baselessly alleged the video was proof of voter fraud.

    “Ballot duplication is a standard part of the election administration process and has been for many years,” Burden said. “It is essential for many people who vote by mail whose ballots are not readable by machines, including many overseas and military voters who cast ballots by different means that must be copied onto standard paper ballots.”

    If a voter makes a mistake or their ballot is damaged before they turn it in, they can also follow the instructions provided by local officials to request a new one, said Tammy Patrick, a senior advisor for the elections program at the nonpartisan Democracy Fund. The original ballot will be nullified and only one will count.

    ___

    Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections. And follow the AP’s coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

    ___

    The AP is answering your questions about elections in this series. Submit them at FactCheck@AP.org.

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  • EXPLAINER: Why does The Associated Press call US elections?

    EXPLAINER: Why does The Associated Press call US elections?

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    Why has The Associated Press tallied votes and declared winners in U.S. elections since the middle of the 19th century? Because no one else does.

    Unlike the case in other democracies, the Founding Fathers didn’t establish a national clearinghouse for counting the vote, and the states all do it a little differently.

    So every U.S. election night, The Associated Press counts the nation’s votes, tallying millions of ballots and determining which candidates have won their races. It’s been done that way since 1848, when the AP declared the election of Zachary Taylor as president.

    Here’s the rundown on the AP’s role in election race calling:

    How did the AP get this job?

    Basically, no one wanted to wait for weeks to find out who won elections.

    The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College — a series of state elections to pick the president — to empower states in terms of their own elections processes. But they didn’t stand up a centralized entity to count every citizen’s vote.

    Instead, each state determines its own voting rules, laws and procedures, including when polls close, which means counting doesn’t happen all at once.

    “Once we split it into 50 parts, with 50 sets of rules, it’s a big job to try to compile all of that,” said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. “Especially if you’re aiming to get a timely report out.”

    News organizations began tallying votes themselves, including the AP, which AP Election Decision Editor Stephen Ohlemacher said began with “our own version of the Pony Express,” gathering vote totals from far-flung areas in the 1848 election. As technology evolved, so did that process, with AP eventually transmitting vote counts by teletype to centralized race-calling operations on the East Coast.

    Even in general elections, states used to vote on different days, until the advanced technology of knowing how other places had voted led to the practice of a single Election Day.

    U.S. television networks began doing their own analyses in the 1960 race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, examining data and calling winners one state at a time.

    AP now uses a network of thousands of stringers and vote center clerks who take feeds, scrape official state websites for data and electronically add up votes across the country.

    There is a national elections entity, the Federal Election Commission, which regulates some aspects of federal elections, like administering and enforcing federal campaign finance laws, and financing of federal campaigns. But the FEC has no oversight over election results, laws or vote counting.

    Have there been problems?

    Yes. In 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune famously splayed “Dewey Defeats Truman” across the front page when early numbers made it look like Thomas Dewey was ahead. The tide turned, and President Harry S. Truman defied pollsters by scoring an upset victory.

    In 2000, the major TV networks and the AP called Florida for Democrat Al Gore, relying largely on Election Day polling. As the votes were counted everyone reversed course. The networks declared that Republican George W. Bush had carried the state, only to later retract that decision, too.

    The AP held off on making the second call, deeming the race too close. More than a month later, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stopped a recount and locked in Bush’s narrow victory.

    “It was a very tense situation,” Ohlemacher said. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to not make a call.”

    By two decades later, the AP’s process had further evolved, and in 2020, the AP was 99.9% accurate in all the race calls it made and perfect in declaring winners in the presidential and congressional races in each state.

    Does anyone want to change this?

    There were criticisms after the contentious 2020 presidential election, which saw challenges to the results from then-President Donald Trump and his allies in a number of states where he lost. After the AP and the major networks called the presidential race for Democrat Joe Biden, Trump tweeted: “Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be?”

    Touting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the days after the election, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani pointed out that the media have no official role in deciding who becomes the U.S. president.

    That’s true, but it doesn’t appear there are any major moves to change that system.

    And while control of the U.S. House and Senate are hotly contested in this year’s midterm elections, the fact that a presidential race isn’t on the ballot could alleviate concerns about the media’s role, Edmonds said.

    “The question about who will control the House or Senate, that almost rises to the level of who will be elected president, though,” he said.

    There are still formalities after counts and calls

    Winners may have been called, and concessions may — or may not — have been made, but voting itself is over when polls close on Election Day. There’s still more work to do, as local election officials count and verify results through the canvass and certification process.

    That means that race calls are made before results are official. But the AP only declares a winner when it’s certain that the candidate who’s ahead in the count can’t be caught.

    ___

    Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

    ___

    Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

    Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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  • Biden zeroes in on economic message as campaign winds down

    Biden zeroes in on economic message as campaign winds down

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    SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — President Joe Biden zeroed in Thursday on economic issues as he fine-tuned his closing argument in upstate New York for voters trying to cope with raging inflation and fears of a recession heading into the Nov. 8 election.

    Biden’s visits to a congressional battleground in Syracuse and then to Philadelphia on Friday are part of a strategic two-step crafted for a persistently unpopular president: promote his administration’s accomplishments at official White House events while saving the overt campaigning for states where his political power can directly bolster Democratic candidates.

    The White House of late has paid outsize attention to Pennsylvania, where Democrats are aggressively contesting a Republican-held Senate seat to help offset potential losses in other marquee Senate races.

    “The previous president left a string of broken promises in places like Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio, where promised investments in jobs and manufacturing never materialized,” Biden said, criticizing former President Donald Trump and Republicans for their economic policies. “On my watch, ‘Made in America’ isn’t just a slogan, it’s a reality.”

    Biden got a boost on the news Thursday that the economy grew at a better-than-expected 2.6% annual rate from July through September, overcoming inflation and interest rates and snapping two straight quarters of economic contraction.

    “For months, doomsayers have been arguing that the U.S. economy is in a recession and congressional Republicans have been rooting for a downturn,” Biden said in a statement. “But today we got further evidence that our economic recovery is continuing to power forward. This is a testament to the resilience of the American people.”

    Biden jogged over to reporters before he left for New York and said it was a “Great economic report today – GDP report — things are looking good.”

    In Syracuse, Biden showcased a significant investment by the U.S.-based company Micron, one of the largest microchip manufacturers in the world. The company has credited a new law boosting domestic production of semiconductors for its new facility that will create 50,000 jobs, which will pay an average of $100,000 a year.

    “This is going to be massive,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told Biden, showing off a model of what the facility would look like in 20 years. “This is going to be the largest investment in semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S.”

    Biden called it the “largest American investment of its kind, ever, ever, ever in our history” and said the announcement was “the latest example of my economic plan at work.”

    He warned against GOP proposals that he said would raise drug prices for older people and cut taxes on corporations. Biden also cited comments by Republicans suggesting they would use the debt limit as leverage in negotiations with the White House should they retake the majority in Congress.

    “They’re determined to cut Social Security, Medicare and they’re willing to take down the economy over it,” Biden said.

    Publicly, the White House and senior Democratic leaders express optimism that they’ll defy traditional midterm headwinds and retain control of Congress. But in private, there is angst that the House will be lost to Republicans and that control of the Senate is a coin flip.

    It’s a position that Democrats point out is far more favorable than earlier in the election cycle — particularly before the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade ended constitutional protections for abortion and upended the political landscape — yet many in the party are nonetheless bracing for the loss of at least one chamber.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was captured on camera Thursday delivering a mixed assessment of the Senate map to Biden when he landed in Syracuse, expressing optimism about Nevada and the situation in Pennsylvania after John Fetterman’s debate performance Monday set off alarm bells among national Democrats. But Schumer raised his concerns about the state of the race in Georgia.

    “It looks like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania as of today, so that’s good, and basically we’re picking up steam in Nevada,” Schumer was heard telling Biden. “The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia. It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker.”

    But Schumer added that Democrats were performing well in early voting in Georgia, where incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock is aiming to hold off the Trump-backed challenger.

    The president has had a steady uptick in travel in recent weeks, although he has avoided states such as Nevada and Arizona in which Democratic candidates prefer not to be tagged with the national party brand. He has appeared with a smattering of vulnerable House Democrats at official White House events in California and New York and raised campaign cash for candidates in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Oregon, as well as millions of dollars for the Democratic National Committee at fundraisers in Washington and elsewhere. He held a trio of virtual fundraisers Wednesday night for congressional candidates in Iowa, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

    A reception scheduled for Friday in Philadelphia with the state Democratic Party, which Vice President Kamala Harris will also attend, will mark Biden’s 15th visit to Pennsylvania during his presidency. Plans for a joint appearance in the state with former President Barack Obama are in the works for next week.

    Also next week, Biden is scheduled to headline a political rally Tuesday in Florida. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist has been publicly encouraging the president to campaign with him in a state that has increasingly trended toward Republicans in recent election cycles.

    Biden sought to use the Micron event to hammer home a closing message aimed at framing the contrast between the two parties’ economic agendas — an argument that the president began sketching out at a Democratic National Committee event earlier this week.

    “Everybody wants to make it a referendum, but it’s a choice between two vastly different visions for America,” Biden said of the midterms. “Democrats are building a better America for everyone with an economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out, where everyone does well. Republicans are doubling down on their mega MAGA trickle-down economics that benefits the very wealthy.”

    He continued: “It failed their country before and will fail it again if they win.”

    In recent weeks, Biden has used the presidential bully pulpit considerably to promote Democratic accomplishments. But there’s some concern among Democrats that voters are not connecting economic growth in their communities often enough to what a Democratic-controlled government has completed during the first two years of Biden’s presidency.

    “I think we have to be far more aggressive,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. “We’re actually bringing jobs back, but we’re not going out enough and acknowledging people’s anger and fear and say, ‘Here’s what we’re doing.’”

    The Syracuse area is home to a House race for a seat being vacated by moderate Republican Rep. John Katko, a critical pickup opportunity for Democrats in a district that Biden won by more than 7 percentage points in 2020. Biden’s visit could also give a boost to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, whose reelection contest against Republican Lee Zeldin has tightened in recent weeks.

    Cabinet officials are fanning out nationwide to promote the administration’s economic message. For instance, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen traveled to Cleveland on Thursday to talk about Biden’s manufacturing agenda with Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. The retirement of his Republican colleague, Sen. Rob Portman, has led to another critical Senate race, this one between Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Ryan.

    According to a White House tally, through Friday, members of Biden’s Cabinet will have gone to 29 states and Puerto Rico on 77 separate trips, with about half focused on amplifying Biden’s economic message.

    —

    AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • How do states ensure dead people’s ballots aren’t counted?

    How do states ensure dead people’s ballots aren’t counted?

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    How do states ensure dead people’s ballots aren’t counted?

    Election officials regularly check death records. In many states, vital statistics agencies send them monthly lists of people who have died, which officials use to update voter registration files.

    Election clerks may also check for voter deaths through other means, such as coordinating with motor vehicle departments to track canceled driver’s licenses, searching for published obituaries or processing letters from the deceased person’s estate.

    Even if a dead voter’s ballot mistakenly gets mailed, signature verification and voter fraud laws create additional safeguards against anyone else filling it out and submitting it. Voters who forge dead relatives’ signatures on ballots can face fines, probation or prison. And in some states, absentee voting requirements such as witness signatures or notarization add an extra barrier to prevent this rare form of voter fraud.

    After the 2020 presidential election, former President Donald Trump and his supporters claimed thousands of votes had been cast fraudulently on behalf of dead voters, even naming specific deceased people whose ballots were supposedly counted.

    But these claims, which spread in many states including Arizona, Virginia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, were found to be false.

    When Arizona’s attorney general investigated claims that 282 dead people’s ballots were cast in 2020, he found just one case was substantiated.

    When Republican lawmakers in Michigan investigated a list of over 200 supposedly dead voters in Wayne County, they found just two. The first was due to a clerical error in which a son had been confused with his dead father and the second involved a 92-year-old woman who had submitted her ballot early, then died four days before the election.

    Whether or not a vote like hers counts depends on state law.

    At least 11 states — nine by statute and two based on attorney general opinions — prohibit counting votes from absentee voters who cast a ballot, then die before Election Day, while nine states specifically allow it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states are silent on the matter.

    Election integrity groups scouring voter files often mistake a living voter for a deceased voter if they have similar names, birthdays or hometowns, resulting in false fraud claims, said Jason Roberts, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    “You might think it’s weird that someone with the same name and the same date of birth died, but it’s actually not that strange when you think about a 350 million person country,” Roberts said. “It happens a lot.”

    There are occasional instances of voter fraud by impersonating a dead person. For example, a Las Vegas man admitted voting his dead wife’s ballot in 2020 and received a fine and probation for the crime. A Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty to voting his dead mother’s ballot in 2020 was sentenced to five years of probation.

    However, Roberts said, only a handful of people try this type of fraud each election, making it “very, very rare.”

    ___

    The AP is answering your questions about elections in this series. Submit them at FactCheck@AP.org. Read more here:

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  • Biden juggling long list of issues to please Dem coalition

    Biden juggling long list of issues to please Dem coalition

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden wants to tame inflation. He wants Congress to protect access to abortions. He wants to tackle voting rights. And he’s taking on China, promoting construction of new factories, addressing climate change, forgiving student debt, pardoning federal marijuana convictions, cutting the deficit, working to lower prescription drug prices and funneling aid to Ukraine.

    Biden is trying to be everything to everyone. But that’s making it hard for him to say he’s focused on any single issue above all others as he tries to counter Republican momentum going into the Nov. 8 elections.

    “There’s no one thing,” Biden said Wednesday when questioned about his top priority. “There’s multiple, multiple, multiple issues, and they’re all important. … We ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You know, that old expression.”

    Biden’s exhaustive to-do list is a recognition that the coalition of Democratic voters he needs to turn out Election Day is diverse in terms of race, age, education and geography. This pool of voters has an expansive list of overlapping and competing interests on crime, civil rights, climate change, the federal budget and other issues.

    The Republican candidates trying to end Democratic control of Congress have a far more uniform base of voters, allowing them to more narrowly direct messaging on the economy, crime and immigration toward white voters, older voters, those without a college degree and those who identify as Christian.

    In the 2020 election, AP VoteCast suggests, Biden drew disproportionate support from women, Black voters, voters younger than 45, college graduates and city dwellers and suburbanites. That gave Biden a broader base of support than Republican Donald Trump and it also is a potential long-term advantage for Democrats as the country is getting more diverse and better educated.

    But in midterm elections that normally favor the party not holding the White House, it requires Biden to appeal to all those constituencies.

    “Coherence and cohesion have always been a challenge for the modern Democratic Party that relies on a coalition that crosses racial, ethnic, religious and class lines,” said Daniel Cox, a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It takes considerable political talent to maintain a coalition with diverse interests and backgrounds. Barack Obama managed to do it, but subsequent Democrats have struggled.”

    Biden devoted his public remarks this past Tuesday to abortion, Wednesday to gasoline prices, Thursday to infrastructure and Friday to deficit reduction, student debt forgiveness and historically Black colleges and universities. In most of his public speeches, Biden says he understands the pain caused by consumer prices rising 8.2% from a year ago and that he’s working to lower costs.

    Cox said there are signs that Biden’s 2020 coalition is fracturing, with younger liberal voters not that enamored with him, and he does not appear to have done much to shore up Hispanic support.

    But compared with 2016, when Trump won the presidency, Biden made relative progress with one prominent bloc that generally favors Republicans: white voters without a college degree, as he won 33% of their votes compared with 28% who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to a 2021 analysis by the Pew Research Center.

    Keeping those voters in the Democratic coalition could be essential for maintaining control of the Senate.

    Biden has traveled repeatedly to Pennsylvania, campaigning on Thursday for Senate nominee John Fetterman with the goal of picking up a seat in the state. Fetterman, with his sweatshirts and shorts, exudes a blue-collar image, a contrast with the Republican nominee, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who rose to fame as a TV show host.

    “Democrats need to hold on to as much of that bloc as possible, especially in key whiter states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

    The test for Democrats is how to address broader concerns about the economy and inflation that affect everyone, while also highlighting the specific issues that could energize various segments of their base.

    That can involve trade-offs.

    As Republicans have made crime a national issue, Biden’s message that he backs the police could help with those white voters. But it could also turn off younger voters in Senate races in Georgia and Florida who believe the police are part of the problem on civil rights, said Alvin Tillery Jr., a professor at Northwestern University and director of its Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy.

    Tillery said he doesn’t know how the president can bridge those differences, though Biden could be in a better position to focus on the policing overhaul that Democrats tried to negotiate with Republicans — only to be unable to reach a consensus that would be able to clear a GOP filibuster.

    “Maybe they’ve blunted some Republican attacks, but they’ve also softened support for people who turned out for them in the 2020 election,” Tillery said. “I don’t know how they solve for that, except to say they need to be more vigorous in saying the things they wanted to achieve were blocked in the Senate.”

    Tillery added the overarching challenge might be that people view inflation as a domestic phenomenon, rather than a global one. Republicans are blaming high prices on Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief from 2021, whereas recent months have also shown that inflation is a worldwide trend driven in part by the aftermath of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, causing prices for energy and food to rise.

    “The reality is — like all presidents — he is a victim of things beyond his control,” Tillery said. “Inflation is a problem globally. It’s much worse in other parts of the world, but he can’t message that way.”

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

    Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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