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Tag: midterm elections

  • Musk emerging as Twitter’s chief moderator ahead of midterms

    Musk emerging as Twitter’s chief moderator ahead of midterms

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    NEW YORK — Days after taking over Twitter and a week before the U.S. midterm elections, billionaire Elon Musk has positioned himself as moderator-in-chief of one of the most important social media platforms in American politics.

    Musk has said he won’t make major decisions about content or restoring banned accounts before setting up a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints. But his own behavior as a prolific tweeter has signaled otherwise.

    He’s engaged directly with figures on the political right who are appealing for looser restrictions, including a Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state who credits Musk with enabling him to begin tweeting again after his account was briefly suspended Monday.

    Musk even changed his profile to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” — with a photo of himself when he was a toddler holding a telephone. But it is almost impossible for those outside of Twitter to know what strings he is pulling or whose accounts have been suspended: The company has stopped responding to media questions, except for the few that Musk answers by tweet.

    Musk’s promised interventions started last week on his first full day as Twitter’s owner. A conservative political podcaster shared examples of the platform allegedly favoring liberals and secretively downgrading conservative voices — a common criticism that Twitter’s previous leaders dismissed as inaccurate. “I will be digging in more today,” Musk responded.

    It continued when the daughter of Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose provocative critiques of “politically correct” culture and feminism are popular with some right-wing activists, appealed for Musk to restore her father’s account after a tweet about transgender actor Elliot Page that apparently ran afoul of Twitter’s rules on hateful conduct.

    “Anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail,” Musk pledged. He had months earlier said in reference to Peterson that Twitter was “going way too far in squashing dissenting opinions.”

    One of Musk’s first big moves was an open letter to advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — promising that he would not let Twitter descend into a “free-for-all hellscape” as he follows through with his plans to promote free speech on the platform. And he’s suggesting asking users to pay $8 for a coveted verified blue check mark as a way to diversify revenue.

    The check mark has been criticized as a symbol of elitism on the platform. But its primary purpose has been to verify that accounts in the public eye — such as politicians, brands and journalists — are who they say they are. It’s been a tool to prevent impersonation and help stem the flow of misinformation.

    But some still have their worries about Musk opening the platform to a flood of online toxicity that’s bad for their brands. General Motors has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter as it monitors the platform under Musk, and others are facing pressure to review their own plans. On Tuesday, more than three dozen advocacy organizations sent an open letter to Twitter’s top 20 advertisers, calling on them to commit to halting advertising on the platform if Twitter under Musk undermines “brand safety” and guts content moderation.

    Over the weekend, the billionaire posted — then deleted — an article that contained baseless rumors about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. And much of his commentary in recent days has been a response to appeals from conservative voices.

    In a text exchange with The Associated Press, Mark Finchem, the Republican running to become Arizona’s secretary of state, said his access to the platform was restored quickly after reaching out to Musk via his personal Twitter handle. Asked why his account was suspended, Finchem said: “Perhaps you should reach out to Elon Musk. We were banned for an unknown reason, we reached out to him and 45 minutes later we were reinstated.”

    Finchem, who questions the results of the 2020 presidential election and was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has drawn national attention for his statements about election security and his ability to change election rules if he wins the state’s top election post next week.

    Musk tweeted Monday evening that he was “Looking into it” in response to a complaint about Finchem’s apparent suspension. The complaint came from attorney Jenna Ellis, who was a legal adviser to former President Donald Trump’s campaign. About 40 minutes later, Finchem posted a “test” tweet on his account, which was followed by a lengthier post thanking Musk for restoring his ability to use the site.

    “Thank you @elonmusk for stopping the commie who suspended me from Twitter a week before the election,” Finchem wrote in the Tweet. “Twitter is much better with you at the helm.”

    Jared Holt, a senior research manager at The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said big social media companies have typically operated on the whims of their owners. But “that problem is especially glaring when somebody like Elon Musk takes the reins and kind of establishes himself as king of the platform, rather than an owner trying to run a coherent business,” Holt said.

    At the same time, Musk has sent mixed signals about his intentions. Despite overt examples of appealing to conservative calls and complaints about Twitter’s policies, there’s also plenty of evidence that the platform’s policies on combating misinformation are still in effect. Separately, Musk has defended Twitter’s ongoing head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, after some conservative users called for his firing over past comments expressing liberal views.

    Roth remained on the job this week after other top executives were fired or resigned. And apart from Musk, he appeared to be the chief public voice of Twitter’s content moderation, explaining that the company spent the weekend working to remove a “surge in hateful conduct” following Musk’s takeover.

    “We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel,” Musk tweeted in response to a complaint from another conservative commentator. “My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.”

    Some longtime Twitter observers have expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of Musk’s planned content moderation council. In part, that’s because Twitter already has a trust and safety advisory council to address moderation questions.

    “Truly I can’t imagine how it would differ,” said Danielle Citron, a University of Virginia law professor who sits on the council and has been working with Twitter since 2009 to tackle online harms, such as threats and stalking. “Our council has the full spectrum of views on free speech.”

    Citron said she’s still waiting to hear if the council will be having its next meeting, scheduled for the day after the midterms.

    ——-

    O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.. AP Writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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  • Musk emerging as Twitter’s chief moderator ahead of midterms

    Musk emerging as Twitter’s chief moderator ahead of midterms

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    AP Business Writers — Days after taking over Twitter and a week before the U.S. midterm elections, billionaire Elon Musk has positioned himself as moderator-in-chief of one of the most important social media platforms in American politics.

    Musk has said he won’t make major decisions about content or restoring banned accounts before setting up a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints. But his own behavior as a prolific tweeter has signaled otherwise.

    He’s engaged directly with figures on the political right who are appealing for looser restrictions, including a Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state who credits Musk with enabling him to begin tweeting again after his account was briefly suspended Monday.

    Musk even changed his profile to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” — with a photo of himself when he was a toddler holding a telephone. But it is almost impossible for those outside of Twitter to know what strings he is pulling or whose accounts have been suspended: The company has stopped responding to media questions, except for the few that Musk answers by tweet.

    Musk’s promised interventions started last week on his first full day as Twitter’s owner. A conservative political podcaster shared examples of the platform allegedly favoring liberals and secretively downgrading conservative voices — a common criticism that Twitter’s previous leaders dismissed as inaccurate. “I will be digging in more today,” Musk responded.

    It continued when the daughter of Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose provocative critiques of “politically correct” culture and feminism are popular with some right-wing activists, appealed for Musk to restore her father’s account after a tweet about transgender actor Elliot Page that apparently ran afoul of Twitter’s rules on hateful conduct.

    “Anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail,” Musk pledged. He had months earlier said in reference to Peterson that Twitter was “going way too far in squashing dissenting opinions.”

    One of Musk’s first big moves was an open letter to advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source — promising that he would not let Twitter descend into a “free-for-all hellscape” as he follows through with his plans to promote free speech on the platform. And he’s suggesting asking users to pay $8 for a coveted verified blue check mark as a way to diversify revenue.

    The check mark has been criticized as a symbol of elitism on the platform. But its primary purpose has been to verify that accounts in the public eye — such as politicians, brands and journalists — are who they say they are. It’s been a tool to prevent impersonation and help stem the flow of misinformation.

    But some still have their worries about Musk opening the platform to a flood of online toxicity that’s bad for their brands. General Motors has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter as it monitors the platform under Musk, and others are facing pressure to review their own plans. On Tuesday, more than three dozen advocacy organizations sent an open letter to Twitter’s top 20 advertisers, calling on them to commit to halting advertising on the platform if Twitter under Musk undermines “brand safety” and guts content moderation.

    Over the weekend, the billionaire posted — then deleted — an article that contained baseless rumors about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. And much of his commentary in recent days has been a response to appeals from conservative voices.

    In a text exchange with The Associated Press, Mark Finchem, the Republican running to become Arizona’s secretary of state, said his access to the platform was restored quickly after reaching out to Musk via his personal Twitter handle. Asked why his account was suspended, Finchem said: “Perhaps you should reach out to Elon Musk. We were banned for an unknown reason, we reached out to him and 45 minutes later we were reinstated.”

    Finchem, who questions the results of the 2020 presidential election and was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has drawn national attention for his statements about election security and his ability to change election rules if he wins the state’s top election post next week.

    Musk tweeted Monday evening that he was “Looking into it” in response to a complaint about Finchem’s apparent suspension. The complaint came from attorney Jenna Ellis, who was a legal adviser to former President Donald Trump’s campaign. About 40 minutes later, Finchem posted a “test” tweet on his account, which was followed by a lengthier post thanking Musk for restoring his ability to use the site.

    “Thank you @elonmusk for stopping the commie who suspended me from Twitter a week before the election,” Finchem wrote in the Tweet. “Twitter is much better with you at the helm.”

    Jared Holt, a senior research manager at The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said big social media companies have typically operated on the whims of their owners. But “that problem is especially glaring when somebody like Elon Musk takes the reins and kind of establishes himself as king of the platform, rather than an owner trying to run a coherent business,” Holt said.

    At the same time, Musk has sent mixed signals about his intentions. Despite overt examples of appealing to conservative calls and complaints about Twitter’s policies, there’s also plenty of evidence that the platform’s policies on combating misinformation are still in effect. Separately, Musk has defended Twitter’s ongoing head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, after some conservative users called for his firing over past comments expressing liberal views.

    Roth remained on the job this week after other top executives were fired or resigned. And apart from Musk, he appeared to be the chief public voice of Twitter’s content moderation, explaining that the company spent the weekend working to remove a “surge in hateful conduct” following Musk’s takeover.

    “We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel,” Musk tweeted in response to a complaint from another conservative commentator. “My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.”

    Some longtime Twitter observers have expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of Musk’s planned content moderation council. In part, that’s because Twitter already has a trust and safety advisory council to address moderation questions.

    “Truly I can’t imagine how it would differ,” said Danielle Citron, a University of Virginia law professor who sits on the council and has been working with Twitter since 2009 to tackle online harms, such as threats and stalking. “Our council has the full spectrum of views on free speech.”

    Citron said she’s still waiting to hear if the council will be having its next meeting, scheduled for the day after the midterms.

    ——-

    O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.. AP Writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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  • One week until Election Day | CNN Politics

    One week until Election Day | CNN Politics

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    Democrat Adrian Fontes, left, and Republican Mark Finchem are running for Arizona secretary of state.

    AP

    Secretary of state contests — typically low-profile races that determine who helps administer elections in a state – have drawn national attention and millions of dollars in political spending this year as several Republican nominees who doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election pursue the jobs. 

    In all, voters in 27 states will choose secretaries of state in the midterms. Fourteen of those seats currently are held by Republicans and 13 by Democrats.  

    Now, the pivotal role these offices will play in affirming the outcome of future elections, including a potential 2024 rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. 

    Here’s a look at five key secretary of state races: 

    Arizona: Republican Arizona voters picked state Rep. Mark Finchem as their nominee. Finchem, who has described himself as a member of the far-right Oath Keeper’s group, scored Trump’s endorsement back in September 2021. The GOP lawmaker has lobbied to toss out the results of the 2020 election in some of the state’s largest counties – including Maricopa, home to Phoenix, where a widely derided review of ballots ordered by Republicans in the state Senate still concluded that Biden had won more votes than Trump did. 

    He faces Democrat Adrian Fontes, the former top election official in Maricopa County. He lost his reelection bid as county recorder two years ago. 

    Georgia: The Georgia contest features one of the country’s best-known election chiefs – Republican Brad Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s request to “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the Peach State.  

    Raffensperger’s national profile has made him a tougher target for the Democratic nominee, state Rep. Bee Nguyen, who has been rising political star in her own right. She has taken aim at Raffensperger’s support for an election law enacted last year that imposed new restrictions on voting and has seized on his views on abortion in an attempt to gain ground. The Republican’s campaign aides have argued that Raffensperger’s position on abortion is not relevant to the job he now holds. 

    Michigan: The race pits the incumbent, Democrat Jocelyn Benson – a leading national voice countering election denial – against Republican Kristina Karamo, who has made false claims about the 2020 election and who was behind the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. 

    Karamo, a community college professor who secured an endorsement from Trump last year, has said he won the election, and she signed on to an unsuccessful Supreme Court lawsuit that challenged Biden’s victory in four states. She — along with Finchem and several other Republican nominees – have joined a coalition of so-called “America First Constitutional Conservative” candidates, who have pledged to ban mail-in ballots, expand voter identification and eliminate early voting. 

    Republicans in the state have criticized Benson for her decision to mail absentee ballot applications to every voter in 2020 during the pandemic, but courts have upheld her authority to do so. 

    Minnesota: Republican lawyer Kim Crockett is challenging Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon. Crockett would like to increase in-person voting, reduce the state’s current 46-day window of early voting and require that voters show ID to cast ballots in the state, which is not currently required for active voters under Minnesota law. 

    Republican lawmakers objected to Simon striking deals with litigants during the pandemic to drop the requirement that voters casting ballots by mail find another registered voter to witness their signatures. 

    Nevada: In Nevada, Republican Jim Marchant – a former state assemblyman who organized the coalition of America First candidates – and Democrat Cisco Aguilar are vying for an open seat in what has emerged as one of the more competitive secretary of state contests in the country. 

    On his website, Aguilar said he wants to “remove barriers to voter participation” and make elections transparent to “to maintain the public trust.” 

    But Marchant has drawn more national attention than Aguilar with his outspoken activism. Marchant has fed distrust of voting machines and encouraged county commissions in the rural reaches of the state to hand-count ballots – a practice critics say could lead to errors and delays in delivering results. 

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  • Final push before the midterm elections | CNN Politics

    Final push before the midterm elections | CNN Politics

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    A voter receives an “I Voted” sticker after casting their ballot on the first day of in-person early voting in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 22.

    David Becker/Getty Images

    It is pretty clear from the polling that control of the Senate will likely come down to four races: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

    The math is simple. Democrats need to win three of these four races to maintain control of the Senate. For Republicans, it’s a slightly easier climb as they need to win only two of these four races.

    But despite the ease of the equation, solving it is anything but easy. All of these races are well within the margin of error. Moreover, the states aren’t all that similar in demographics, which means that it’s plausible that any late movement or polling error could affect the states in different ways. Each state has unique issues affecting them, too.

    Arizona, is the easiest race to understand. Democrats have won the last two Senate races in the state, after not having won one since 1988. They’re powered by increasingly strong performances in the Phoenix suburbs among White college-educated voters and a reliable Hispanic base. They’re also helped by one of the largest Native American populations in the country.

    Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly hasn’t trailed in any poll released publicly. His advantage has slimmed in some recent surveys, though many of those are from outfits that don’t meet CNN’s standards for publications.

    On average, Kelly has been up by about 3 points over Republican Blake Masters. A New York Times/Siena College poll published Monday gave Kelly a 6-point lead over Masters.

    Masters’ problem is fairly simple: His net favorability (favorable – unfavorable) rating is underwater. Unpopular Republican candidates are an issue that has plagued Republicans across the board. Meanwhile, Kelly’s net favorability (and approval rating) has been positive.

    This has allowed Kelly to overcome President Joe Biden’s own unpopularity in the state.

    Nevada, is the most favorable for Republicans. The Times poll and the average have the race tied between Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt.

    Nevada seemed to be trending toward Democrats 10 years ago, after Barack Obama won it with ease in two consecutive elections. Republicans have lost the last two presidential elections in the state by decreasing margins, including a 2.4-point loss in 2020.

    Republicans have been helped by a movement toward them among Hispanics, as well as a large base of White voters without a college degree. The state’s economic base of tourism was hurt during the Covid-19 pandemic, when national Democrats were far more likely to push for Covid precautions.

    Cortez Masto, unlike Kelly, has not carved out a base of popularity, according to the polls.

    The final two states to the Senate math are the hardest to figure out. Georgia and Pennsylvania couldn’t be more different in terms of their demographic math.

    Pennsylvania is a Great Lake swing state in which Democrats must win a healthy share of White voters without a college degree. That’s a group that has been running away from Democrats, which is why Hillary Clinton in 2016 became the first Democratic presidential candidate to lose the state since Michael Dukakis in 1988.

    If border issues play an outsized role in a state like Arizona and a recovering gaming industry are pivotal in Nevada, the big non-inflation story in Pennsylvania is crime. Philadelphia, the most populated city in the state, has seen a jump in its crime rate over the last few years.

    Republican Mehmet Oz has used the crime issue to close what was once a large advantage for Democrat John Fetterman in the Senate race.

    Fetterman, though, has seemed to persevere, despite a stroke that left him off the trail for a period of time. He continues to nurse a small lead in the area of 2 to 3 points. The Times had Fetterman up 6 points, though much of that polling was taken before a debate last week that many viewed as a weak one for him.

    Additionally, Republicans have tended to outperform their final polling the last few cycles.

    Oz, for his part, has had a negative net favorability rating throughout the campaign, as he’s had to fight off charges of being a carpetbagger.

    Georgia is unique amongst the four races in that the candidate with the most votes needs a majority to win. Otherwise, there will be a runoff in December.

    At this point, a runoff seems quite plausible. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker are in a tight race. Neither one of them is anywhere close to 50% in the average of polls, with Libertarian Chase Oliver pulling around 3% of the vote.

    The potential for a runoff isn’t the only thing that makes Georgia unique. The Peach State has, by far, the largest Black population of any of these pivotal races. Democrats have made a comeback in this deep Southern state because of a growing Black population, and the movement to Democrats among White college-educated voters in the Atlanta area.

    Ultimately, Georgia may come down to the same thing that is occurring in most swing states this year: A Republican candidate in Walker who sports a net negative favorability rating with the backdrop of a deeply unpopular President.

    Whichever matters most to the rare swing voter will probably decide the winner in Georgia and who wins control of the Senate.

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  • Final push before the midterm elections | CNN Politics

    Final push before the midterm elections | CNN Politics

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    Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams debate each other in Atlanta on Sunday.

    Ben Gray/AP

    Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams faced off in their second and final gubernatorial debate Sunday night, with a little more than a week to go before Election Day amid record high early voting.

    They sparred over the state’s economy, abortion rights and, in a sign of the race’s national implications, whose party should be blamed for the country’s woes.

    Kemp has led in most polling of the race, but Abrams – who came within a few thousand votes of pushing their 2018 race to a run-off – has a strong base of support and has succeeded in helping to mobilize Democrats in her campaigns and those of other high-ranking Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden and Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in their 2020 campaigns.

    Here are some key takeaways from the second gubernatorial debate in Georgia:

    A tale of two economies: Is Georgia booming, as Kemp says, or nearing a calamitous bust, as Abrams argued?

    The candidates painted vastly different portraits of the economic situation in the state, with Kemp pointing to higher wages and low unemployment – and blaming any pain on inflation, which he attributed to Democratic policies in Washington – while Abrams singled out a low minimum wage and Kemp’s refusal to accept Medicaid expansion funds under Obamacare as twin albatrosses being worn by Georgia’s working class.

    The future of abortion rights remains a potent issue: In some sense, the abortion debate is at a standstill in Georgia. The state has a law on the books, passed three years ago, that bans the procedure after about six weeks. And with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, it’s now in effect.

    But Abrams, and the debate moderators, had another question for Kemp: with no federal limits in place, would the Republican, if re-elected, sign further restrictions into law?

    Kemp didn’t give a straight, yes or no answer, saying he didn’t want to pre-judge “any specific piece of legislation without actually seeing exactly what it’s doing,” before adding: “It’s not my desire to go back, to go move the needle any further.”

    Joe Biden vs. Herschel Walker? They’re not running for governor, but they are top of mind for many in Georgia.

    For Democrats, it’s GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, who has become a symbol of what his critics describe as Republican hypocrisy on issues like abortion, support for law enforcement and business acumen.

    On the Republican side, President Joe Biden is the go-to boogeyman for most economic issues, with GOP candidates and their surrogates relentlessly trying to tie Democratic nominees to the President and the soaring inflation that’s occurred during his time in office.

    Read more takeaways here.

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  • ‘SNL’ takes on ‘surging’ Republicans before the midterm elections | CNN Business

    ‘SNL’ takes on ‘surging’ Republicans before the midterm elections | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    “Saturday Night Live” kicked off this week’s episode with Heidi Gardner leading a PBS NewsHour focused on three notable Republicans before the midterm elections in less than two weeks.

    First up was Herschel Walker, played by Kenan Thompson.

    “My name is Herschel Walker Texas Ranger,” Thompson as Walker said, kicking off the cold open of the NBC variety show. “And I’m running for president of the United Airlines.”

    Next up: Dr. Mehmet Oz, played by Mikey Day.

    “My Pennsylvania Phillies are in the World Series, and I just had a delicious Philadelphia cheese and steak. Yum!” Day’s Oz declared.

    Finally: Kari Lake, played by Cecily Strong.

    “Great to be with you,” she said. “On your sweet little show full of lies.”

    Gardner as the PBS NewsHour host noted all three have been doing well in the polls lately despite having no political experience.

    “And that’s where I don’t know,” Thompson’s Walker said when asked why his support was growing. “The whole world is a mystery, ain’t it? For example, a thermos it keeps the hot things hot but also the cold things cold. My question is… how does it decide?”

    This was followed up with the question of why so many Georgians, the state in which Walker is running for Senate, still support him despite his many controversies.

    “Gas,” he said.

    The next question went to Day’s Dr. Oz, who the PBS NewsHour host said has caught up to his Pennsylvania Senate race opponent, John Fetterman.

    “I was a long shot,” Day’s Dr. Oz said. “But I told myself you can win this election if you’re honest, you’re fair and if your opponent has a debilitating medical emergency.”

    Fetterman had a stroke earlier this year.

    Strong’s Lake responded to her rise in the polls by saying she was a “fighter” and had sent back “over two thousand salads” in her lifetime.

    “And I’m not afraid to do the same thing with democracy,” she said.

    Walker then asked to take the next question and began to talk about Pokémon.

    Gardner’s PBS host mentioned that Lake has proposed major changes to voting laws in Arizona.

    “If the people of Arizona elect me, I’ll make sure they never have to vote ever again,” Strong’s Lake said.

    The segment then wrapped up with Thompson’s Walker saying “yippee ki-yay and go Halloween” before the show’s signature catch phrase, “Live… from New York! It’s Saturday night!”

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  • Opinion: Democrats just can’t seal the deal with young Americans | CNN

    Opinion: Democrats just can’t seal the deal with young Americans | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Kristen Soltis Anderson, a CNN Political commentator, is a Republican strategist and pollster and author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up.)” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion articles on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    Democrats have sensed that younger voters might stay home in November and have turned to “Dark Brandon” for help in times of trouble.

    For those who do not know – and my own polling suggests that is most everyone reading this – “Dark Brandon” is a meme of President Joe Biden, rendered as an all-powerful hero (or villain, depending on your perspective). It started as a right-wing catchphrase before Democrats appropriated it to praise the President.

    The meme reached the height of its powers, whatever those may be, when the Democratic group Building Back Together released a hallucinogenic 30-second ad earlier this month featuring the meme of President Biden, lasers coming out of his eyes and all. The message? Biden is an exciting and successful hero on issues like student loan debt. Or rather, “if you’re unenthused about Biden and the Democratic Party, please don’t be.”

    I’ve sounded the alarm for years that Republicans are in trouble with younger voters and are in danger of losing them for good. This remains the case, as many polls show younger voters still have quite negative views of the GOP.

    But even though Millennials and Gen Z Americans tend to lean leftward on a host of economic and cultural issues such as LGBTQ rights and the size of government, it is clear that in this midterm election, Democrats have not energized the youth vote and may not be able to count on young people as a key part of their coalition.

    Voters under 30 are not exactly enamored with how things are going in America these days. Two-thirds of them say that the economy is bad, according to CBS News/YouGov polling. And accordingly, less than a quarter “strongly approve” of the job Biden is doing. Only 31% say they are “very enthusiastic” about voting in the midterms, compared to two-thirds of voters 65 and older. And only one in six say they are paying a “great deal” of attention to the midterms.

    This isn’t terribly unusual. Younger voters usually drop off in larger numbers than older voters when you go from a big presidential election to a lower-key midterm. According to CNN’s exit polls, voters under 30 only made up 13% of all voters in the 2018 midterms, compared to 17% in the 2020 general election.

    However, my own firm’s analysis suggests that voters under the age of 30 could fall to only 10% of the electorate in 2022 –a year where we expect overall turnout to be historic for a midterm at over 125 million votes.

    While young voters aren’t likely to turn out in huge numbers to power a “red wave,” it isn’t hard to imagine them costing Democrats their majorities by staying home.

    Democrats didn’t always need younger voters to win. In fact, younger voters were a relatively evenly split voter group for much of the 1990s and 2000s. But in the 2006 midterm, before then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) had even announced his bid for the presidency, young voters began bleeding away from the GOP in big numbers. Exit polls showed voters under the age of 30 breaking for Democrats by a 22-point margin in House races in that election, which swept Nancy Pelosi into the speakership for the first time.

    Young voters continued to oppose the GOP even in “red wave” years. The 2010 election, by all accounts a great year for Republicans, saw voters under age 30 still break for Democrats by a 16-point margin. By the time the “blue wave” of 2018 came along, we were seeing blockbuster turnout among young voters in elections that they previously sat out. Additionally, those voters broke for Democrats by an absolutely enormous 35-point margin.

    But then Donald Trump lost the presidency and Biden – not necessarily a favorite among younger voters – became the leader of the nation and the Democratic Party. Even before he was the Democratic presidential nominee, his polling among young voters always left something to be desired; only one third of voters under 30 held a favorable view of him before the 2020 election.

    Issues of importance to many young voters have taken a backseat and our political class continues to age. As a result, in the last few years, there has been a fascinating depolarization along generational lines. Previously, if I knew your age, I could somewhat easily make an educated guess about how you’d vote. That is less likely to be the case today, largely because young voters have become more disillusioned with Democrats.

    What is especially troublesome for Democrats is that this is all happening against a backdrop of young Americans being increasingly vocal about their politics. Companies are grappling with Gen Z and Millennial employees who seem keener than ever to work for employers that align with their political and cultural worldview. I regularly hear from business leaders who know that younger consumers are voting with their wallets and opting for products and services that match their values.

    If younger Americans are increasingly focused on issues and wanting change, but they aren’t turning out to vote in midterms, that represents a huge missed opportunity for those who want to see greater youth participation in politics. And in this election, it could cost Democrats their majorities.

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  • Republican Kari Lake Thanks Rep. Liz Cheney For “Anti-Endorsement” Ad In Arizona’s Governor Race

    Republican Kari Lake Thanks Rep. Liz Cheney For “Anti-Endorsement” Ad In Arizona’s Governor Race

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    Shortly after Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) released a new ad on Friday encouraging Arizona voters to support Democrats in the midterm elections, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake thanked Cheney for the “anti-endorsement,” saying her “campaign donations are skyrocketing” as a result.

    Lake is leading in the Arizona governor race, according to recent polls, with 48.5% support compared to her opponent Katie Hobbs with 45.7%.

    “Thank you for your generous in-kind contribution to my campaign. Your recent television ad urging Arizonans not to vote for me is doing just the opposite,” Lake said in a letter, which she posted on Twitter, adding that her team predicts a 10-point bump due to the ad. “Enjoy your forced retirement from politics. I know America will rest easier knowing that one more warmonger is out of office.”

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    In her ad, the Wyoming Republican warned about electing candidates who wouldn’t honor election results if voters cared about “the survival of our Republic.”

    “I don’t know that I have ever voted for a Democrat. But if I lived in Arizona, I absolutely would. You have a candidate for governor, Kari Lake, you have a candidate for secretary of State, Mark Finchem, both of whom have said that they will only honor the results of an election if they agree with it,” Cheney said in the 30-second ad.

    Cheney lost the primary election to Harriet Hageman, who was backed by former President Donald Trump, after her unflinching pursuit to hold the former president accountable for his inaction during the Capitol riot.

    Other prominent figures have been campaigning across the country as the November 8 elections approach. Trump will return to Pennsylvania on Saturday to host a rally for Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. 

    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also in Pennsylvania on Friday, attending a joint rally to support Oz’s opponent, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. The Fetterman-Oz race is extremely tight; according to Decision Desk HQ, Oz is currently leading, with 53% compared to Fetterman’s 47%.

    Meanwhile, in Georgia, former president Barack Obama attended a rally for Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) on Friday, where he criticized Warnock’s controversial rival, former football star Herschel Walker: “If a candidate’s main qualification is that he’s going to be loyal to Donald Trump, it means that he’s not really going to be thinking about you and your needs, and you deserve better.”

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis plans to campaign for New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin on Saturday. A new Emerson poll reported that Zeldin is lagging behind Governor Kathy Hochul, with support from only 44% of likely voters compared to Hochul’s 50%.

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  • Biden to vote early in Delaware with his granddaughter

    Biden to vote early in Delaware with his granddaughter

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will cast his midterm election ballot this weekend in his home state of Delaware, where in-person early voting begins Friday.

    The White House said Biden will vote alongside his granddaughter Natalie, 18, who is a first-time voter. The Democratic president is casting his ballot as his party is facing an uphill battle to hold on to control of Congress and as Democrats have made a priority of encouraging their supporters to vote early in jurisdictions where it is available to maximize turnout.

    Biden’s trip to his polling place comes as he is spending a long weekend at his Wilmington home. He’ll make a brief trip to nearby Philadelphia on Friday night to attend an event for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party with Vice President Kamala Harris. A Democratic official said the fundraiser will raise $1 million for the state party, with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in a close race against GOP nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz for a critical U.S. Senate seat.

    Last month, Biden made a quick last-minute trip to Wilmington to cast his ballot in the state’s Democratic primary. At the time, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden’s schedule required the brief Air Force One jaunt to Wilmington to vote.

    “He thought it was important to exercise his constitutional right to vote, as I just mentioned, and set an example by showing the importance of voting,” she told reporters. “He also had the opportunity to say hello to poll workers and thank them for their work. And we know how under attack poll workers have been these past several years.”

    ___

    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 midterm.

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  • Obama, campaigning in Georgia, warns of threats to democracy

    Obama, campaigning in Georgia, warns of threats to democracy

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    COLLEGE PARK, Ga. (AP) — Former President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail Friday in Georgia, using his first stop on a multi-state tour to frame the 2022 midterm elections as a referendum on democracy and to urge voters not to see Republicans as an answer to their economic woes.

    It was a delicate balance, as the former president acknowledged the pain of inflation and tried to explain why President Joe Biden and Democrats shouldn’t take all the blame as they face the prospects of losing narrow majorities in the House and Senate when votes are tallied Nov. 8. But Obama argued that Republicans who are intent on making it harder for people to vote and — like former President Donald Trump — are willing to ignore the results, can’t be trusted to care about Americans’ wallets either.

    “That basic foundation of our democracy is being called into question right now,” Obama told more than 5,000 voters gathered outside Atlanta. “Democrats aren’t perfect. I’m the first one to admit it. … But right now, with a few notable exceptions, most of the GOP and a whole bunch of these candidates are not even pretending that the rules apply to them.”

    With Biden’s approval ratings in the low 40s, Democrats hope Obama’s emergence in the closing weeks of the campaign boosts the party’s slate in a tough national environment. He shared the stage Friday with Sen. Raphael Warnock, who faces a tough reelection fight from Republican Herschel Walker, and Stacey Abrams, who is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who defeated her narrowly four years ago.

    Obama will travel Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

    For Obama personally, the campaign blitz is an opportunity to do something he was unable to do in two midterms during his presidency: help Democrats succeed in national midterms when they already hold the White House. For his party, it’s an opportunity to leverage Obama’s rebound in popularity since his last midterm defeats in 2014. Their hope is that the former president can sell arguments that Biden, his former vice president, has struggled to land.

    Biden was in Pennsylvania on Friday with Vice President Kamala Harris and plans to be in Georgia next week, potentially in a joint rally with Obama and statewide Democratic candidates. But he has not been welcomed as a surrogate for many Democratic candidates across the country, including Warnock.

    “Obama occupies a rare place in our politics today,” said David Axelrod, who helped shape Obama’s campaigns from his days in the Illinois state Senate through two presidential elections. “He obviously has great appeal to Democrats. But he’s also well-liked by independent voters.”

    Obama tried to show off that reach Friday. The first Black president drew a hero’s welcome from a majority Black audience, and he offered plenty of applause lines for Democrats. But he saved plenty of his argument, especially on the economy, for moderates, independents and casual voters, including a defense of Biden, who Obama said is “fighting for you every day.”

    He called inflation “a legacy of the pandemic,” the resulting supply chain disruption and the Ukraine war’s effects on global oil markets — a sweeping retort to Republican attempts to cast sole blame on Democrats’ spending bills.

    “What is their answer? … They want to give the rich tax cuts,” Obama said of the GOP. “That’s their answer to everything. When inflation is low, let’s cut taxes. When unemployment is high, let’s cut taxes. If there was an asteroid heading toward Earth, they would all get in a room and say, you know what we need? We need tax cuts for the wealthy. How’s that going to help you?”

    Biden has sought to make similar arguments, and was buoyed this week with news of 2.6% economic growth in the third quarter after two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

    Yet Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said Obama is better positioned to convince voters who haven’t decided whom to vote for or whether to vote at all.

    “If it’s just a straight-up referendum on Democrats and the economy, then we’re screwed,” Smith said. “But you have to make the election a choice between the two parties, crystallize the differences.”

    Obama, she said, did that in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections “by winning over a lot of working-class white voters and others we don’t always think about as part of the ‘Obama coalition.’”

    Obama left office in January 2017 with a 59% approval rating, and Gallup measured his post-presidential approval at 63% the following year, the last time the organization surveyed former presidents. That’s considerably higher than his ratings in 2010, when Democrats lost control of the House in a midterm election that Obama called a “shellacking.” In his second midterm election four years later, the GOP regained control of the Senate.

    Still, Bakari Sellers, a prominent Democratic commentator, said Obama’s broader popularity shouldn’t obscure how much his “special connection” with Black voters and other non-white voters can help Democrats.

    The Atlanta rally brought Obama together with Warnock, the first Black U.S. senator in Georgia history, and Abrams, who’s vying to become the first Black female governor in American history.

    In Michigan, Obama will campaign in Detroit with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is being challenged by Republican Tudor Dixon, and in Wisconsin he’ll be in Milwaukee with Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who is trying to oust Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Each city is where the state’s Black population is most concentrated. Obama’s Pennsylvania swing will include Philadelphia, another city where Democrats must get a strong turnout from Black voters to win competitive races for Senate and governor.

    With the Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties and Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the deciding vote, any Senate contest could end up deciding which party controls the chamber for the next two years. Among the tightest Senate battlegrounds, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three where Black turnout could be most critical to Democratic fortunes.

    Axelrod said Obama’s turnabout from his own midterm floggings to being Democrats’ leading surrogate is, in part, a rite of passage for any former president. “Most of them — maybe not President Trump, but most of them — are viewed more favorably after they leave office,” Axelrod said.

    Notably, during Obama’s presidency, former President Bill Clinton was the in-demand heavyweight surrogate, especially for moderates trying to survive Republican surges in 2010 and 2014.

    Axelrod said Obama and Clinton have a similar approach.

    “What Clinton and Obama share is a kind of unique ability to colloquialize complicated political arguments of the time, just talk in common-sense terms,” Axelrod said. “They’re storytellers.”

    ___

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

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show Abrams, not Kemp, is trying to unseat the governor.

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  • Armed and Masked Vigilantes Are Staking Out Arizona Ballot Boxes With the GOP’s Blessing

    Armed and Masked Vigilantes Are Staking Out Arizona Ballot Boxes With the GOP’s Blessing

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    With exactly two weeks to go until the midterm elections, Democrats and Republicans are out here making their respective cases re: why voters should allow them to either hold on to their majority in Congress or retake power. One way the two parties have diverged on tactics? Well, the GOP appears to be the only one openly encouraging its base to stake out ballot boxes and intimidate would-be voters. With guns.

    On Monday, Paul Penzone, the sheriff for Arizona’s Maricopa County, said he had to increase security at ballot drop boxes following a number of incidents involving individuals “keeping watch on the boxes and taking video of voters,” according to the Associated Press. On Friday, Penzone’s deputies responded after two people carrying guns and wearing masks and bulletproof vests appeared at a drop box in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa. The following day, per HuffPost, four people, two of whom reportedly also had guns, “got into a confrontation at the same drop box” when another person showed up and attempted to take down their license plate information, which was obstructed. “Every day I’m dedicating a considerable amount of resources just to give people confidence that they can cast a vote safely, and that is absurd,” Penzone said during a news conference. He added that his office had referred two voting-related incidents to prosecutors for possible criminal charges. Last week two Maricopa County officials issued a joint statement saying: “We are deeply concerned about the safety of individuals who are exercising their constitutional right to vote and who are lawfully taking their early ballot to a drop box. Uninformed vigilantes outside Maricopa County’s drop boxes are not increasing election integrity. Instead, they are leading to voter-intimidation complaints.”

    Critics, of course, will claim that we don’t definitively know that the individuals wearing masks, carrying guns, and intimidating voters are Republicans or aligned with the Republican Party—but the evidence sure points in that direction. For one thing, Democrats have long been known to cast their ballots early (and Republicans have been specifically told to wait until Election Day to vote). For another, only one party has been obsessed with baseless allegations of voter fraud for the last two years, or endorsed ridiculous claims that a vast network of “mules” conspired to throw the 2020 election to Joe Biden by smuggling fraudulent votes into drop boxes. There’s also the fact that the right-wing organization Clean Elections USA told Steve Bannon last week that it is “actually making a difference“ and “seeing mules be intimidated from doing their thievery.”

    This kind of electoral vigilantism is not especially new. Back in May, Arizona Republican state senator Kelly Townsend told a conservative group that she was “pleased to hear about all you vigilantes out there that want to camp out at these drop boxes,” as the AZ Mirror reported. “We’re going to have hidden trail cameras. We are going to have people parked out there watching you, and they are going to follow you to your car and get your license plate,” Townsend added. In August, the outlet reported that Arizona Republicans Sonny Borrelli and Mark Finchem took part in a nearly four-hour “election security forum” over the summer, with Borrelli telling attendees: “We need to have people camped on unmanned drop boxes and camp on those and keep an eye on them and take down that data—license plates, pictures, and so on and so forth.” And just last Thursday, Finchem wrote on Twitter, “WATCH ALL DROP BOXES,” adding over the weekend: “[George] Soros does not want people to watch their shenanigans. We must watch all drop boxes because they do not have live cameras on them streaming to the public for people to ensure there is no fraud in the process.”

    On Monday, the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino filed a lawsuit against Clean Elections USA, alleging that the group’s activities violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. That same day, Democratic representative Jim Himes told MSNBC that the US will “need to collectively decide that not only are we going to oppose Russians and Chinese and North Koreans and Iranians messing around with our elections, we’re not going to allow the Republican Party to do it either.”

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  • Attorney General Merrick Garland vows Justice Department ‘will not permit voters to be intimidated’ ahead of midterms | CNN Politics

    Attorney General Merrick Garland vows Justice Department ‘will not permit voters to be intimidated’ ahead of midterms | CNN Politics

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     — 

    Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday vowed that the US Justice Department “will not permit voters to be intimidated” during November’s midterm elections.

    “The Justice Department has an obligation to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated,” Garland said during a press briefing.

    More than seven million ballots have already been cast across 39 states as of Monday, according to data from election officials, Edison Research and Catalist. But with just two weeks until November 8, multiple reports of voter intimidation out of Arizona – home to some of this year’s most pivotal contests up and down the ballot – have stirred concern.

    In one instance, which has been referred to the Department of Justice and Arizona Attorney General’s Office, an unidentified voter reported that they were approached and followed by a group of individuals when trying to drop off their ballot at an early voting drop box.

    “There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the voter wrote, adding that the group took photographs of them, their license plate and followed them out of the parking lot.

    In another instance, two armed individuals – dressed in tactical gear – were spotted at a ballot drop box in Mesa, Arizona, on Friday night, according to Maricopa County officials. The pair left the scene when the County Sheriff’s Office arrived.

    “We are deeply concerned about the safety of individuals who are exercising their constitutional right to vote and who are lawfully taking their early ballot to a drop box,” Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and Recorder Stephen Richer said in a joint statement on Saturday.

    Dozens of Republicans trying to be elected in 2022 as governor, state secretary of state or US senator have joined former President Donald Trump in baselessly rejecting or questioning the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Some of them have even attempted to overturn the 2020 results.

    Such unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud inspired a slew of restrictive new voting laws and has led to growing safety concerns around elections. Last year, the Justice Department launched a task force to address the rise in threats against election officials, and safety preparations are already well underway for Election Day across the country.

    In Colorado, for example, a state law – the Vote Without Fear Act – prohibits carrying firearms at polling places or within 100 feet of a ballot drop box. And in Tallahassee, Florida, officials have added Kevlar and bullet-resistant acrylic shields to the Leon County elections office, said Mark Earley, who runs elections in the county.

    The FBI and sheriffs representing some of America’s biggest counties last week discussed the possibility of misinformation fueling violence at polling stations during next month’s midterm elections, a representative of a sheriff’s association told CNN.

    The briefing covered how law enforcement can balance supporting the security needs of election officials without risking intimidating voters by being “out in force” near polling stations, said Megan Noland, executive director of Major County Sheriffs of America, which represents the 113 largest sheriff’s offices in the country. The recent surveillance by private citizens of ballot drop boxes was also discussed, Noland said.

    Neal Kelley, a former election official who also presented at the briefing, told CNN that the potential for confrontations at ballot drop boxes “is something that we need to watch.”

    The FBI declined to comment on the briefing.

    The FBI, Kelley said, gave an overview of the threat environment facing election officials.

    “The whole idea was to give [sheriffs] an idea on how they can collaborate with their election officials because there’s not a lot of that happening nationwide,” Kelley, the former chief election official of Orange County, California, said of his presentation. Big counties have some of that collaboration between cops and election officials, but smaller ones often don’t, he said.

    One idea discussed at the briefing was giving patrol officers a list of election criminal codes that they could keep in their pockets when responding to any incidents on Election Day, Kelley told CNN.

    “If you’re calling 9-1-1 on Election Day as an election official, it’s too late,” he said.

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  • Nearly six million ballots have been cast in pre-election voting | CNN Politics

    Nearly six million ballots have been cast in pre-election voting | CNN Politics

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    More than 5.8 million ballots have been cast across 39 states in the 2022 midterm elections, according to data from election officials, Edison Research and Catalist.

    In the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, Democrats are far outpacing Republicans in pre-election ballots cast, according to data from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and is giving insights into who is voting before November.

    That’s not a surprise, and these data aren’t predictive of ultimate outcomes. In recent years Democrats have been more likely to vote before Election Day while Republicans have preferred to vote on Election Day.

    It’s too early to know how high voter turnout will be in this election cycle, but overall, early voting numbers remain on par with the 2018 elections, which had the highest midterm turnout in recent history.

    In Arizona, ballots cast by Democrats make up 44% of the pre-election ballots cast, while ballots cast by Republicans make up 33%. That’s similar to pre-election ballot returns at this point of the cycle in 2020, when Democrats made up 45% and Republicans made up 31%.

    However, this is a recent shift in Arizona. At this time before the 2018 midterm elections, Republicans had returned more ballots, with a 46% share to Democrats’ 34%.

    The 2020 election, between the Covid-19 pandemic and efforts from former President Donald Trump and his allies to question the integrity of mail-in ballots, could have shifted how people vote.

    Democrats’ comfort with pre-election voting compared to Republicans’ is on display in Pennsylvania – a state with one of the most competitive Senate elections this cycle.

    01 pre-election 2022 voting figures

    Of the more than 420,000 ballots cast in the Keystone State, 73% were cast by Democrats and 19% were cast by Republicans.

    That’s actually a slight improvement for Republicans compared to this point in 2020, when 75% of pre-election ballots cast were from Democrats and 17% were from Republicans.

    Early in-person voting has begun in most of the states with competitive Senate elections including Georgia, Ohio and North Carolina. Nevada’s early in-person voting begins on Saturday.

    North Carolina held its first day of early voting on Thursday, and more than 186,000 ballots have been cast in the state. The North Carolina State Board of Elections reported that’s an uptick from the number of early ballots cast through the first day of early voting in 2018, when just more than 155,000 ballots were cast.

    03 pre-election 2022 voting figures

    After the first day of early voting, ballots cast by Democrats made up 42% of the pre-election ballot share, and ballots cast by Republicans made up about 29%, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

    A large share of the pre-election ballots cast in the Tar Heel state have come from unaffiliated voters. As of Friday, unaffiliated voters cast more than 29% of the pre-election votes.

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  • Yellen boosting Biden’s agenda in Virginia as midterms near

    Yellen boosting Biden’s agenda in Virginia as midterms near

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    HERNDON, Va. — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is promoting Biden administration policies as the key to advancing the nation’s “long-term economic well-being” in the lead-up to the midterm elections.

    The former Federal Reserve chair visited a Virginia research and development business park with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine on Friday and talked up administration efforts to revitalize America’s manufacturing capacity, spur computer chip production and upgrade the country’s infrastructure. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., was also in attendance.

    Yellen’s visit is part of the Treasury leader’s ongoing tour of the U.S., as she and other administration officials try to quell the impact on Americans of persistent high inflation. Republicans say the administration’s outsized pandemic spending and other domestic policies have contributed to high inflation.

    Voters have made clear that price increases are a top concern. A June Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed that 40% of U.S. adults specifically named inflation in an open-ended question as one of up to five priorities for the government to work on in the next year.

    Democrats want to retain their control in Congress and will need to convince voters they can wrangle inflation, which accelerated in September. In Virginia, Yellen talked about how a boost in domestic industrial manufacturing will be one of the solutions.

    “Our government’s failure to invest in innovation has had wide-ranging impacts on our long-term economic well-being,” Yellen said during her speech. “At the most fundamental level, it impacted our productive capacity.”

    She said that over the past year, President Joe Biden’s administration “has begun to reverse that trend.”

    “We have advanced an economic plan that finally puts innovation and technology at the forefront of our national agenda,” she said.

    Kaine said Virginia “was a laggard in clean energy even up to five or 10 years ago.” But with investments from the new federal climate and health care law and other programs “we’re now positioned to lead the United States in offshore wind,” he said.

    Yellen also attended a roundtable with local entrepreneurs and people representing Virginia colleges who are focused on semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and other emerging technologies.

    “Together, our efforts are raising our economy’s aggregate production capacity,” Yellen said. “And in turn, we are raising America’s long-term economic outlook.”

    Early voting is underway in many states, including Virginia.

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  • Maxwell Frost Isn’t Running Just To Be The First Gen Zer In Congress

    Maxwell Frost Isn’t Running Just To Be The First Gen Zer In Congress

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    Maxwell Frost is not your typical candidate.

    The 25-year-old Democrat running in Florida’s 10th Congressional District is likely to be the first Gen Z member of Congress — a term used to refer to those born between 1997 and 2012.

    But Frost rejects his age is the only thing setting him apart.

    “I didn’t decide to run to be the first Gen Z member of Congress,” he told HuffPost.

    Driven By Activism

    A survivor of gun violence, Frost worked as National Organizing Director at March for Our Lives — a youth-led movement aimed at ending the gun epidemic in the U.S. created after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida — for two years before he decided to run for office.

    But his activism started while he was still in school 10 years ago, following the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

    Gun violence, which has been a major focus of his campaign, “is an issue that is solvable that we’ve seen the least amount of progress on,” Frost explained.

    Frost has pledged to be an advocate for gun reform and work to get money into communities across the country to prevent shootings before they even start, if elected. His district is solidly Democratic.

    Frost said gun regulation is the first step. He explained that the majority of gun crimes in America are born out of the perpetrator’s living conditions, noting that people experiencing difficult circumstances often feel that using a gun could help them get ahead. The Florida Democrat believes improving people’s standard of living, including access to health care, is key in fighting gun violence.

    “The goal here should be to build a world where people don’t feel the need to use a gun to solve their problems in the first place,” Frost, who supports “Medicare for All,” said.

    What Prompted His Run

    Frost won his primary contest in August among a crowded field of 10 candidates running to succeed incumbent Val Demings, the Democrat challenging Republican Sen. Marco Rubio this election season.

    Local organizers approached Frost in January 2021 to encourage him to run, but he initially rejected their request, attributing his hesitation, in part, to “internalized ageism.”

    Frost, who is Afro-Cuban and was adopted at birth by a musician and a special education teacher, shared the moment that changed his mind.

    “What changed everything for me was connecting with my biological mother, learning about her story, learning about the things she had been through,” he said.

    As Frost writes on his campaign website, she “was caught in a cycle of drugs, crime, and violence while pregnant. She didn’t have healthcare and wasn’t able to see a doctor even once.”

    During a phone call with his biological mother, Frost learned he had multiple siblings and that she was forced to give him up because she wasn’t able to raise another child.

    She, along with his adoptive mother who migrated to the U.S. from Cuba in the 1960s, influenced his decision to run. Another contributing factor was his community, which was excited about having a young, progressive candidate to support.

    The Role Of Money

    But Frost says he can’t create change alone.

    “It’s never about one person. It’s always about a movement,” Frost told HuffPost.

    He has donated money to 20 candidates across the country and supported a number of down-ballot candidates in Central Florida.

    “We need to build a Congress that looks like the country, so I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to get good candidates in,” he said.

    The young Democrat, who has worked on political campaigns since he graduated from high school and was an organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union before joining March for Our Lives, opened up about the financial struggles he’s faced as a candidate. He ran out of money in the first three months of his campaign and had to work as an Uber driver to pay his bills.

    “As a young person who just doesn’t have a lot of money, I’ve been living literally paycheck to paycheck this entire year and at times didn’t have money to feed myself,” Frost said.

    Frost says to have a better democracy, there should be more poor and working-class candidates in the political system.

    Running As A Gen Z Candidate

    Frost is keen to dispel the myth that young people are disenfranchised with politics, pointing to the fact that Gen Zers are running for office earlier than older generations did. He also expects young voter turnout to continue rising as more Gen Z members reach voting age.

    The 2020 presidential election saw 53% turnout in young voters age 18 to 29 years old, according to The Washington Post, but a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found only 49% of those 19 to 29 years old are “absolutely certain to vote” in this year’s midterm elections.

    Frost said his organizing at March for Our Lives taught him “young people want something to vote for, not against,” adding that many campaigns don’t even bother to reach out to voters of his generation.

    He hopes his campaign, which is built on a message of love, will help inspire voters to turn out to the polls. Love, he said, is what connects his legislative priorities for office: ending gun violence, protecting U.S. democracy by enacting bold election reform and addressing the climate crisis.

    “When you love somebody, you want them to have health care, housing, you want them to be safe, free of gun violence,” he said.

    Frost’s state was recently tested by Hurricane Ian, which killed at least 127 people, ABC News reported citing local officials. He says Ian exposed climate inequality, meaning that poor communities, people of color and students were the ones to bear the disproportionate impact of the hurricane.

    “Just because you’re poor, just because you’re Black, just because you’re Latino does not mean you should live in a place where you have a higher percent chance of dying in a hurricane or losing everything that you own,” he told HuffPost.

    He emphasized the importance of building climate-friendly infrastructure in Florida, warning, “there will be another hurricane, and it will be bad.”

    “I don’t like to be an alarmist. But, I mean, this is an existential problem,” he said.

    Plans For The Future

    If elected, Frost will join the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Frost said he hasn’t yet committed to joining any other groups, including the “Squad,” a group of young progressive lawmakers in the House.

    Still, he is very excited to work with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who made history by defeating 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in 2018, becoming the youngest woman elected to Congress.

    “AOC is part of the reason why I decided to run. I think her election really gave permission to young people to do it,” he said.

    He also said he admires Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who slept on the steps of the Capitol to protest the end of the federal eviction moratorium.

    “What’s more noble than that?” he asked.

    Finding Meaning In Music

    Apart from a political candidate and organizer, Frost also identifies as a musician. He went to an arts middle and high school, and was part of a salsa band named “Seguro Que Si” that performed at former President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

    “Playing music, listening to music, going to concerts is just a huge part of my life,” he said.

    Music, though, is not a self-care ritual for Frost. It is also a big part of his campaign.

    Last week, his campaign rented a flatbed truck for Orlando Pride and staged a mobile concert. He played the drums.

    Maxwell Frost, a Democratic candidate for Florida’s 10th Congressional district, plays the drums during the Pride Parade in Orlando, Florida, on October 15, 2022.

    Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images

    Music was also a way of bonding with his father. His dad, who is also a musician, was the one to first introduce him to the art and buy him a drum set.

    Frost recalls his dad reassuring him when he cried to music for the first time.

    “It really gave me permission to be vulnerable, because of art,” he said. “And I feel like that’s made me into the person I am.”

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  • Facebook and TikTok are approving ads with ‘blatant’ misinformation about voting in midterms, researchers say | CNN Business

    Facebook and TikTok are approving ads with ‘blatant’ misinformation about voting in midterms, researchers say | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Facebook and TikTok failed to block advertisements with “blatant” misinformation about when and how to vote in the US midterms, as well as about the integrity of the voting process, according to a new report from human rights watchdog Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy Team (C4D) at New York University.

    In an experiment, the researchers submitted 20 ads with inaccurate claims to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. The ads were targeted to battleground states such as Arizona and Georgia. While YouTube was able to detect and reject every test submission and suspend the channel used to post them, the other two platforms fared noticeably worse, according to the report.

    TikTok approved 90% of ads that contained blatantly false or misleading information, the researchers found. Facebook, meanwhile, approved a “significant number,” according to the report.

    The ads, posted in both English and Spanish, included information falsely stating that voting days would be extended and that social media accounts could double as a means of voter verification. The ads also contained claims designed to discourage voter turnout, such as claims that the election results could be hacked or the outcome was pre-decided.

    The researchers withdrew the ads after going through the approval process, if they were approved, so the ads containing misinformation were not shown to users.

    “YouTube’s performance in our experiment demonstrates that detecting damaging election disinformation isn’t impossible,” Laura Edelson, co-director of NYU’s C4D team, said in a statement with the report. “But all the platforms we studied should have gotten an ‘A’ on this assignment. We call on Facebook and TikTok to do better: stop bad information about elections before it gets to voters.”

    In response to the report, a spokesperson for Facebook-parent Meta said the tests “were based on a very small sample of ads, and are not representative given the number of political ads we review daily across the world.” The spokesperson added: “Our ads review process has several layers of analysis and detection, both before and after an ad goes live.”

    A TikTok spokesperson said the platform “is a place for authentic and entertaining content which is why we prohibit and remove election misinformation and paid political advertising from our platform. We value feedback from NGOs, academics, and other experts which helps us continually strengthen our processes and policies.”

    Google did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

    While limited in scope, the experiment could renew concerns about the steps taken by some of the biggest social platforms to combat not just misinformation about candidates and issues but also seemingly clear cut misinformation about the process of voting itself, with just weeks to go before the midterms.

    TikTok, whose influence and scrutiny in US politics has grown in recent election cycles, launched an Elections Center in August to “connect people who engage with election content to authoritative information,” including guidance on where and how to vote, and added labels to clearly identify content related to the midterm elections, according to a company blog post.

    Last month, TikTok took additional steps to safeguard the veracity of political content ahead of the midterms. The platform began to require “mandatory verification” for political accounts based in the United States and rolled out a blanket ban on all political fundraising.

    “As we have set out before, we want to continue to develop policies that foster and promote a positive environment that brings people together, not divide them,” Blake Chandlee, President of Global Business Solutions at TikTok, said in a blog post at the time. “We do that currently by working to keep harmful misinformation off the platform, prohibiting political advertising, and connecting our community with authoritative information about elections.”

    Meta said in September that its midterm plan would include removing false claims as to who can vote and how, as well as calls for violence linked to an election. But Meta stopped short of banning claims of rigged or fraudulent elections, and the company told The Washington Post those types of claims will not be removed.

    Google also took steps in September to protect against election misinformation, elevating trustworthy information and displaying it more prominently across services including search and YouTube.

    The big social media companies typically rely on a mix of artificial intelligence systems and human moderators to vet the vast amount of posts on their platforms. But even with similar approaches and objectives, the study is a reminder that the platforms can differ wildly in their content enforcement actions.

    According to the researchers, the only ad they submitted that TikTok rejected contained claims that voters had to have received a Covid-19 vaccination in order to vote. Facebook, on the other hand, accepted that submission.

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  • Social media platforms brace for midterm elections mayhem

    Social media platforms brace for midterm elections mayhem

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    A Facebook search for the words “election fraud” first delivers an article claiming that workers at a Pennsylvania children’s museum are brainwashing children so they’ll accept stolen elections.

    Facebook’s second suggestion? A link to an article from a site called MAGA Underground that says Democrats are plotting to rig next month’s midterms. “You should still be mad as hell about the fraud that happened in 2020,” the article insists.

    With less than three weeks before the polls close, misinformation about voting and elections abounds on social media despite promises by tech companies to address a problem blamed for increasing polarization and distrust.

    While platforms like Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube say they’ve expanded their work to detect and stop harmful claims that could suppress the vote or even lead to violent confrontations, a review of some of the sites shows they’re still playing catchup with 2020, when then-President Donald Trump’s lies about the election he lost to Joe Biden helped fuel an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

    “You would think that they would have learned by now,” said Heidi Beirich, founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and a member of a group called the Real Facebook Oversight Board that has criticized the platform’s efforts. “This isn’t their first election. This should have been addressed before Trump lost in 2020. The damage is pretty deep at this point.”

    If these U.S.-based tech giants can’t properly prepare for a U.S. election, how can anyone expect them to handle overseas elections, Beirich said.

    Mentions of a “ stolen election ” and “voter fraud” have soared in recent months and are now two of the three most popular terms included in discussions of this year’s election, according to an analysis of social media, online and broadcast content conducted by media intelligence firm Zignal Labs on behalf of The Associated Press.

    On Twitter, Zignal’s analysis found that tweets amplifying conspiracy theories about the upcoming election have been reposted many thousands of times, alongside posts restating debunked claims about the 2020 election.

    Most major platforms have announced steps intended to curb misinformation about voting and elections, including labels, warnings and changes to systems that automatically recommend certain content. Users who consistently violate the rules can be suspended. Platforms have also created partnerships with fact-checking organizations and news outlets like the AP, which is part of Meta’s fact-checking program.

    “Our teams continue to monitor the midterms closely, working to quickly remove content that violates our policies,” YouTube said in a statement. “We’ll stay vigilant ahead of, during, and after Election Day.”

    Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, announced this week that it had reopened its election command center, which oversees real-time efforts to combat misinformation about elections. The company dismissed criticism that it’s not doing enough and denied reports that it has cut the number of staffers focused on elections.

    “We are investing a significant amount of resources, with work spanning more than 40 teams and hundreds of people,” Meta said in a statement emailed to the AP.

    The platform also said that starting this week, anyone who searches on Facebook using keywords related to the election, including “election fraud,” will automatically see a pop-up window with links to trustworthy voting resources.

    TikTok created an election center earlier this year to help voters in the U.S. learn how to register to vote and who’s on their ballot. The information is offered in English, Spanish and more than 45 other languages. The platform, now a leading source of information for young voters, also adds labels to misleading content.

    “Providing access to authoritative information is an important part of our overall strategy to counter election misinformation,” the company said of its efforts to prepare for the midterms.

    But policies intended to stop harmful misinformation about elections aren’t always enforced consistently. False claims can often be buried deep in the comments section, for instance, where they nonetheless can leave an impression on other users.

    A report released last month from New York University faulted Meta, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube for amplifying Trump’s false statements about the 2020 election. The study cited inconsistent rules regarding misinformation as well as poor enforcement.

    Concerned about the amount of misinformation about voting and elections, a number of groups have urged tech companies to do more.

    “Americans deserve more than lip service and half-measures from the platforms,” said Yosef Getachew, director of Common Cause’s media and democracy program. “These platforms have been weaponized by enemies of democracy, both foreign and domestic.”

    Election misinformation is even more prevalent on smaller platforms popular with some conservatives and far-right groups like Gab, Gettr and TruthSocial, Trump’s own platform. But those sites have tiny audiences compared with Facebook, YouTube or TikTok.

    Beirich’s group, the Real Facebook Oversight Board, crafted a list of seven recommendations for Meta intended to reduce the spread of misinformation ahead of the elections. They included changes to the platform that would promote content from legitimate news outlets over partisan sites that often spread misinformation, as well as greater attention on misinformation targeting voters in Spanish and other languages.

    Meta told the AP it has expanded its fact-checking network since 2020 and now has twice as many Spanish-language fact checkers. The company also launched a Spanish-language fact-checking tip line on WhatsApp, another platform it owns.

    Much of the misinformation aimed at non-English speakers seems aimed at suppressing their vote, said Brenda Victoria Castillo, CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, who said that the efforts by Facebook and other platforms aren’t equal to the scale of the problem posed by misinformation.

    “We are being lied to and discouraged from exercising our right to vote,” Castillo said. “And people in power, people like (Meta CEO) Mark Zuckerberg are doing very little while they profit from the disinformation.”

    ———

    Follow the AP’s coverage of misinformation at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation.

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  • Biden’s quiet campaign season brings him back to familiar territory in Pennsylvania | CNN Politics

    Biden’s quiet campaign season brings him back to familiar territory in Pennsylvania | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When President Joe Biden visited Pennsylvania on Thursday, he touted infrastructure investments that helped rebuild a collapsed bridge and raised campaign cash away from cameras with the state’s Democratic Senate candidate.

    Where he didn’t appear was a campaign rally stage.

    Three weeks before November’s elections, Biden’s visit to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia neatly demonstrated a political strategy focused on promoting his agenda and talking with donors rather than headlining stump speeches alongside vulnerable Democrats.

    He has been a frequent visitor to Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman holds a narrow lead in his race against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in the US Senate race. Trading his trademark sweatshirt and basketball shorts for a dark suit and tie, Fetterman greeted Biden at the airport alongside his wife.

    “You’re gonna win!” Biden said as he shook the candidate’s hand.

    Biden has visited the commonwealth nine times this year, including Thursday’s visit, and 18 times since he became president.

    “I’m a proud Delawarean, but Pennsylvania’s my native state. It’s in my heart. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be part of rebuilding this beautiful state,” Biden said. “My Grandfather Finnegan from Scranton would really be proud of me now.”

    Still, despite the fondness, Biden’s visit was relatively low-key for a presidential stop weeks ahead of a critical midterm contest. He did not hold a rollicking campaign rally, opting for a smaller profile event with several dozen officials and workers from the bridge project.

    Biden’s approach borne out of political reality: While many of Biden’s accomplishments have been well-received by voters – and, in some cases, embraced by Republicans who voted against them – Biden himself remains unpopular and some Democrats continue to keep their distance as the midterm contests grow near.

    Departing the White House on Thursday, Biden bristled when asked why more Democrats weren’t joining him for political events.

    “That’s not true,” Biden said. “There have been 15. Count, kid, count.”

    Later, as he and Fetterman dropped by a Primanti Bros. sandwich shop near Pittsburgh, he told reporters he’d been requested to visit Nevada and Georgia, two states with tight Senate races.

    “We’re trying to work it out now,” he said. “I don’t know where I’m going. I’ve got about 16, 18 requests around the country.”

    Over the past weeks, Biden has worked to expand his list of achievements using executive power, including pardoning low-level marijuana offenders, canceling some student loan debt, reducing the cost of hearing aids and declaring a World War II training site a national monument.

    This week alone, he promised to sign a bill enshrining abortion rights into law if Democrats gain seats, outlined billions of dollars to invest in domestic battery manufacturing and released another 15 million barrels of oil from the nation’s strategic reserves as he works to bring down gas prices.

    Biden denied the oil announcement was politically motivated.

    “I’ve been doing this for how long now? It’s not politically motivated at all,” he said. “It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on.”

    Yet the timing of the release nonetheless came as Biden’s party looks with growing concern at the prospect of losing its congressional majorities next year, and the White House searches for steps to appeal to Americans.

    In Pittsburgh, the President spoke at the Fern Hollow Bridge, a four-lane steel span that collapsed into a snowy ravine in January. Biden happened to be visiting the city that day to speak about infrastructure, and the presidential motorcade made a detour to view the damage.

    “A complete catastrophe was avoided but it never should have come to this,” Biden said on Thursday. The President noted how quickly the bridge was bring rebuilt and said that while it wasn’t funded by his bipartisan infrastructure law, it was completely funded by the federal government.

    Biden said that “God willing” the bridge will be completely open in December, telling the audience: “I’m coming back to walk over this sucker.”

    Biden was joined by a slew of top Pennsylvania elected officials, most notably Fetterman, who is locked in one of the most closely watched midterm contests. Biden is also scheduled to join Fetterman later on Thursday for a fundraiser in Philadelphia.

    While the bridge’s reconstruction wasn’t directly funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law, a White House official said funding from the law allowed Pennsylvania’s Transportation Department “to move funds quickly to support this project, without having to slow down or interfere with other projects in the pipeline.”

    The rebuilding was funded through $25.3 million in federal funding appropriated to Pennsylvania in Fiscal Year 2021, the White House official said.

    The law allocated $40 billion toward bridge projects over five years. Since last October, repairs or replacements have begun on more than 2,400 bridges through funding from the infrastructure law, according to the White House.

    That measure has emerged as a central talking point for Biden during this year’s midterms. Candidates who might think twice about holding a political rally with Biden have seemed eager to appear alongside him at official events heralding improvements on rail lines, airport terminals or bridges. The President has hammered Republicans who voted against the bill but have nonetheless taken credit for projects made possible by the $1.2 trillion law.

    In planning Biden’s recent travel, including political events and official White House duties, his advisers have taken into account the sensitive political reality that some Democratic candidates in tough races would prefer he not visit their district or state in the final stretch to the midterms.

    But one Democratic official familiar with the White House’s thinking said an important overarching dynamic is that even the candidates who would rather not appear alongside Biden are still eager to run on his legislative accomplishments, describing it as a “halfsies” situation.

    “There are some campaigns that don’t want him to physically campaign in his state,” the official said. “But – people are running on his agenda.”

    Given the string of legislative victories that Biden’s party scored in the first half of the Biden administration – including the bipartisan infrastructure bill – even the events that are technically billed official White House business are effectively no different from political events these days, that official noted.

    “Every event is political now,” they said.

    Biden remains eager to visit key battlegrounds, according to his aides. Earlier this year, he voiced some frustration that more Democrats weren’t lining up to use him on the campaign trail.

    Now, Biden has settled into a midterm push that has him traveling mostly to states he won in 2020 while avoiding certain marquee races where his presence could be a drag on Democratic candidates.

    Other Democrats appear more welcome. Former President Barack Obama will hold campaign rallies for Democrats in Atlanta, Detroit and Milwaukee in the days before the elections. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont democratic socialist, will visit battleground states on a tour targeted to younger voters.

    The White House is working closely with the Senate and House campaign committees and will send the President where he could be helpful, aides said, and will avoid traveling to areas where nationalizing the race would be seen as a detriment to candidates.

    The logistics of presidential travel also complicate some travel, aides said, because campaigns must help foot the expensive costs of Air Force One.

    Still, at similar stages in their terms, Obama and former President Donald Trump were engaging in more traditional campaign-style events for candidates ahead of midterm elections, despite questions about dragging down candidates.

    Both saw their party lose unified control of Congress in their first midterm elections, a historical precedent Biden hopes to break – even as he avoids big political events.

    The White House has defended Biden’s travel plans, insisting he is traveling “nonstop” and intends to visit states “where he is needed” in the run-up to the vote.

    Still, in the weeks ahead of the midterms, Biden continues to spend most weekends at his homes in Delaware, including last weekend in Wilmington and this weekend in Rehoboth Beach.

    On Friday, he’ll stop at Delaware State University to tout his efforts at student debt forgiveness, before heading to his beach house. This week, the debt relief program Biden announced earlier this year went online, with millions applying to have some or all of their loans forgiven.

    In one of his previous trips to campaign in Pennsylvania, on Labor Day, Biden appeared before a small crowd with Fetterman at a union picnic in Pittsburgh. When the two men emerged from the union hall together, Fetterman raised his arms and pumped his fists.

    But when Fetterman spoke ahead of Biden, he used the opportunity to lambast his Republican opponent for owning multiple homes – without mentioning the President at all.

    During a 15-minute private meeting beforehand, Fetterman pushed Biden to begin the process of rescheduling marijuana, one of his top issues.

    A few weeks later, the White House said Biden would issue pardons for federal simple marijuana possession offenses and task members of his administration to “expeditiously” review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law, the first step toward potentially easing a federal classification that currently places marijuana in the same category as heroin and LSD.

    Biden himself has only mentioned the decision in passing. But Fetterman hailed the move and was quick to cite his conversation with Biden after the White House made the announcement.

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  • Three weeks from Election Day, pre-election voting so far matches 2018’s high levels | CNN Politics

    Three weeks from Election Day, pre-election voting so far matches 2018’s high levels | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Three weeks from Election Day, nearly 2.5 million Americans have already cast their ballots in the midterm elections, according to data from election officials, Edison Research and Catalist.

    In 30 states where Catalist has data for 2018 and 2022, pre-election voting is on par with this point four years ago – which was the highest turnout for a midterm election in decades.

    While it’s too early to predict if 2022 will eventually reach the exceptionally high turnout levels of 2018 – and it’s likely voting patterns have changed as the coronavirus pandemic pushed more people to embrace voting before Election Day – the data demonstrates that there so far appears to be comparable elevated voter interest this midterm.

    Voters already are starting to cast ballots in some of 2022’s most critical swing states: More than 370,000 ballots have been cast in Michigan, nearly 237,000 in Pennsylvania and nearly 160,000 in Wisconsin.

    In Georgia, more than 131,000 voters participated in the first day of early voting Monday, according to the secretary of state’s office – a midterm record that was almost double the nearly 71,000 who participated on the first day of early voting there in 2018.

    Detailed voter information comes from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue advocacy organizations and is giving insights into who is voting before November.

    Over the next three weeks, as more votes are cast and Catalist analyzes more data, the view of the advanced voting electorate will become more clear.

    In Michigan, which is home to a competitive race for governor this year, and Wisconsin, which features hotly contested races for governor and Senate, the breakdown of returned ballots by race is holding steady compared to recent years, according to the data Catalist has analyzed.

    At this point in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 cycles, White Michiganders made up between 85% and 87% of voters who returned ballots, while Black Michiganders were 10% or 11%.

    In Wisconsin, White voters were 89% or 90% of those who’d returned ballots at this point of the last three cycles, while Black voters made up between 5% and 6%.

    That trend hasn’t continued in Pennsylvania, which is host to competitive governor and Senate races. There, White voters make up a larger share of those who have returned ballots compared to this point in 2020 (Catalist doesn’t have data for Pennsylvania in 2018).

    So far, 91% of returned ballots are from White Pennsylvanians; that’s up from 79% at this point of the cycle in 2020. And Black voters in the Keystone State have only returned 5% of ballots so far in 2022; two years ago, they’d returned 15%.

    Pennsylvania Republicans have also made up a larger percentage of the pre-election ballot vote share than they did at this point in 2020. Republicans make up 20% of those who have returned pre-election ballots so far, up from their 14% share at this point two years ago.

    Democrats continue to dominate pre-election ballot returns, though. In 2022, Pennsylvania Democrats are 72% of those who have returned ballots already – slightly down from 78% at this point in the cycle in 2020.

    The data are not predictive of ultimate outcomes. Democrats nationwide have shown a preference to cast their ballots in advance, while many Republicans strongly prefer to vote on Election Day. Former President Donald Trump and his allies baselessly questioned the integrity of voting by mail during the 2020 election.

    While Catalist doesn’t have data for many ballots returned in Arizona so far, the breakdown in ballot requests by party is similar to three weeks before Election Day 2018.

    At this point in the last midterm election, Arizona Democrats made up 34% of mail ballot requests and Republicans made up 37%. This time around, Democrats have requested 35% and Republicans 34%.

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  • Biden to release 15M barrels from oil reserve, more possible

    Biden to release 15M barrels from oil reserve, more possible

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    WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will announce the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve Wednesday as part of a response to recent production cuts announced by OPEC+ nations, and he will say more oil sales are possible this winter, as his administration rushes to be seen as pulling out all the stops ahead of next month’s midterm elections.

    Biden will deliver remarks Wednesday to announce the drawdown from the strategic reserve, senior administration officials said Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to outline Biden’s plans. It completes the release of 180 million barrels authorized by Biden in March that was initially supposed to occur over six months. That has sent the strategic reserve to its lowest level since 1984 in what the administration called a “bridge” until domestic production could be increased. The reserve now contains roughly 400 million barrels of oil.

    Biden will also open the door to additional releases this winter in an effort to keep prices down. But administration officials would not detail how much the president would be willing to tap, nor how much they want domestic and production to increase by in order to end the drawdown.

    Biden will also say that the U.S. government will restock the strategic reserve when oil prices are at or lower than $67 to $72 a barrel, an offer that administration officials argue will increase domestic production by guaranteeing a baseline level of demand. Yet the president is also expected to renew his criticism of the profits reaped by oil companies — repeating a bet made this summer that public condemnation would matter more to these companies than shareholders’ focus on returns.

    It marks the continuation of an about-face by Biden, who has tried to move the U.S. past fossil fuels to identify additional sources of energy to satisfy U.S. and global supply as a result of disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and production cuts announced by the Saudi Arabia-led oil cartel.

    The prospective loss of 2 million barrels a day — 2% of global supply — has had the White House saying Saudi Arabia sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin and pledging there will be consequences for supply cuts that could prop up energy prices. The 15 million-barrel release would not cover even one full day’s use of oil in the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration.

    The administration could make a decision on future releases a month from now, as it requires a month and a half for the government to notify would-be buyers.

    Biden still faces political headwinds because of gas prices. AAA reports that gas is averaging $3.87 a gallon. That’s down slightly over the past week, but it’s up from a month ago. The recent increase in prices stalled the momentum that the president and his fellow Democrats had been seeing in the polls ahead of the November elections.

    An analysis Monday by ClearView Energy Partners, an independent energy research firm based in Washington, suggested that two states that could decide control of the evenly split Senate — Nevada and Pennsylvania — are sensitive to energy prices. The analysis noted that gas prices over the past month rose above the national average in 18 states, which are home to 29 potentially “at risk” House seats.

    Even if voters want cheaper gasoline, expected gains in supply are not materializing because of a weaker global economy. The U.S. government last week revised downward its forecasts, saying that domestic firms would produce 270,000 fewer barrels a day in 2023 than was forecast in September. Global production would be 600,000 barrels a day lower than forecast in September.

    The hard math for Biden is that oil production has yet to return to its pre-pandemic level of roughly 13 million barrels a day. It’s about a million barrels a day shy of that level. The oil industry would like the administration to open up more federal lands for drilling, approve pipeline construction and reverse its recent changes to raise corporate taxes. The administration counters that the oil industry is sitting on thousands of unused federal leases and says new permits would take years to produce oil with no impact on current gas prices. Environmental groups, meanwhile, have asked Biden to keep a campaign promise to block new drilling on federal lands.

    Biden has resisted the policies favored by U.S. oil producers. Instead, he’s sought to reduce prices by releasing oil from the U.S. reserve, shaming oil companies for their profits and calling on greater production from countries in OPEC+ that have different geopolitical interests, said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute.

    “If they continue to offer the same old so-called solutions, they’ll continue to get the same old results,” Macchiarola said.

    Because fossil fuels lead to carbon emissions, Biden has sought to move away from them entirely with a commitment to zero emissions by 2050. When discussing that commitment nearly a year ago after the G-20 leading rich and developing nations met in Rome, the president said he still wanted to also lower gas prices because at “$3.35 a gallon, it has profound impact on working-class families just to get back and forth to work.”

    Since Biden spoke of the pain of gas at $3.35 a gallon and his hopes to reduce costs, the price has on balance risen another 15.5%.

    ———

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

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