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  • GOP senator from North Dakota faces Democratic challenger making her 2nd US Senate bid

    GOP senator from North Dakota faces Democratic challenger making her 2nd US Senate bid

    BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A Republican U.S. senator from North Dakota who wrested the seat away from a Democrat in 2018 is facing a challenge Tuesday from another Democrat making her second Senate run.

    U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer is confronting Democrat Katrina Christiansen in his bid for reelection in the conservative Great Plains state with a majority of Republican voters.

    A former U.S. House member and public utilities regulator, Cramer, 63, captured the seat from Democrat Heidi Heitkamp in 2018 in one of the most closely watched Senate races that year.

    Christiansen, who ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Sen. John Hoeven in 2022, cast herself as a problem solver and highlighted her rural and impoverished upbringing amid the nation’s farm crisis in challenging Cramer. The 43-year-old opponent has a doctorate in agricultural engineering and had worked as an engineer at an ethanol plant before taking a position as an assistant engineering professor at the University of Jamestown.

    Cramer is a longtime supporter of former President Donald Trump. He’s known for his approachable but blunt manner. He has been a player for decades in state GOP politics, including as a young state party chairman in the early 1990s when Republicans began turning the tables on North Dakota’s then-dominant Democrats.

    Christiansen argued that since heading to Washington, Cramer has lost touch with North Dakota issues. She raised those claims in one television ad featuring rancher Frank Tomac, who supports Trump and says, “When they go to Washington like Kevin Cramer, folks back home suffer.”

    Cramer served in the U.S. House from 2013 to 2019, and on the state’s Public Service Commission from 2003 to 2012. He also has served as state tourism director and economic development and finance director under then-Gov. Ed Schafer.

    Cramer has been campaigning while his son Ian Cramer faces charges in connection with a December 2023 vehicle pursuit and crash that killed a sheriff’s deputy, Paul Martin, in Mercer County northwest of the state capital of Bismarck. Ian Cramer pleaded guilty to all the charges, including a homicide offense, in September and has yet to be sentenced.

  • Democrats defend Michigan’s open Senate seat, a rare opportunity for Republicans

    Democrats defend Michigan’s open Senate seat, a rare opportunity for Republicans

    DETROIT (AP) — Michigan voters are deciding between Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin and Republican former congressman Mike Rogers in a tight U.S. Senate battleground contest that could sway the balance of federal power.

    Slotkin had a clear head start, but as Republicans became more confident about Donald Trump’s presidential prospects in Michigan, the contest drew more attention from funders who believed Rogers had a good chance of becoming the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat in the state in 30 years.

    The race could determine whether Democrats continue to hold their slim majority in the Senate, where they are defending more seats than Republicans in this election.

    Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and third-term representative, launched her Senate campaign shortly after Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced her retirement in early 2023. With a largely uncontested primary, Slotkin built a significant fundraising advantage, much of which she has poured into ads during the race’s final month. She’s also gained high-profile support from figures like former President Barack Obama and Stabenow, who have helped her on the campaign trail in the final month.

    On the Republican side, Rogers faced multiple challengers for the party’s nomination, including former Reps. Justin Amash and Peter Meijer, the latter of whom withdrew before the Aug. 6 primary. Rogers served in the U.S. House from 2001 to 2015 and chaired the House Intelligence Committee.

    Rogers would become the first Republican since Spence Abraham in 1994 to win a U.S. Senate race in Michigan.

    The presidential race at the top of the ticket could significantly influence the outcome. Rogers repeatedly accused Slotkin of voting “100% with the Biden-Harris agenda” and aligned himself closely with Republican nominee Donald Trump, who endorsed him.

    Slotkin used her funding advantage to establish her narrative early, aiming to connect both with her base and disillusioned Republicans.

    “For the Republicans who feel like their party has left them over the last few years, you will always have an open door in my office,” Slotkin said during their only debate.

    Metro Detroit could be an area of vulnerability for Slotkin, with frustration over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war affecting down-ballot Democrats. Slotkin, who is Jewish, has supported Israel while criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Many leaders of the state’s large Muslim community voiced frustration that she and other Democrats haven’t advocated more forcefully for Palestinians.

  • US Rep. John Curtis is favored to win Mitt Romney’s open Senate seat in Utah

    US Rep. John Curtis is favored to win Mitt Romney’s open Senate seat in Utah

    PROVO, Utah (AP) — Utah voters are poised to decide whether a Republican representative or his lesser-known Democratic opponent will succeed Mitt Romney in the U.S. Senate.

    U.S. Rep. John Curtis, the longest-serving member of Utah’s House delegation, is highly favored to win in a deep red state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1970. He is viewed as a moderate Republican in the manner of Romney but pledges to carve out his own brand of conservatism if elected.

    Curtis faces Democrat Caroline Gleich, a mountaineer and environmental activist from Park City, who has tried to convince voters that her opponent is not as moderate as he might seem.

    Both are vying to succeed one of Washington’s most prominent centrists and an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump.

    The candidates have often sparred over their differing approaches to climate change, a top issue for both.

    Curtis, 64, is the founder of the Conservative Climate Caucus on Capitol Hill. The coalition pitches GOP alternatives to Democratic climate policies that Curtis says aim to lower emissions without compromising American jobs or economic principles.

    During his seven years in Congress, Curtis has developed a reputation for pushing back against party leaders, such as Trump, who have falsely claimed that climate change is a hoax.

    Gleich, 38, has accused Curtis of pandering to the fossil fuel industry and has criticized him for voting against proposals posed by Democrats that she said could have better protected public lands, air and water.

    Moderate Republicans tend to prevail in statewide elections in Utah, as evidenced by Curtis’ win over a Trump-backed mayor in the June GOP primary.

    Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who make up about half of the state’s 3.4 million residents, have been a reliably Republican voting bloc for decades. But many have been hesitant to embrace Trump and his allies, saying the former president’s brash style and comments about immigrants and refugees clash with their religious beliefs.

    Polls statewide open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.

  • GOP Gov. Jim Justice battles Democrat Glenn Elliott for US Senate seat from West Virginia

    GOP Gov. Jim Justice battles Democrat Glenn Elliott for US Senate seat from West Virginia

    CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Voters in ruby red West Virginia will decide Tuesday whether a U.S. Senate seat will flip to Republican.

    Two-term GOP Gov. Jim Justice faced Democratic former Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott for the right to succeed Sen. Joe Manchin. Manchin decided not to seek reelection and switched from Democrat to independent earlier this year. Before he changed parties, Manchin was the only Democrat holding statewide office.

    Republicans have not held both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats since 1958.

    Justice boldly declared himself the winner more than a month before the election.

    The 73-year-old Justice hoped to continue taking advantage of former President Donald Trump’s popularity in West Virginia. Trump won the presidential race in the state by 42 percentage points in 2016 and 39 points in 2020. Justice was elected governor as a Democrat in 2016, then switched to the GOP seven months after entering office, taking the stage at an event with Trump to make the announcement.

    More than a month before the election, Justice declared himself the winner and said he saw no need to debate Elliott. Justice pointed out that he easily won his primary over U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney despite not putting up any election signs.

    While Elliott embarked on a tour of all 55 counties this summer, Justice conducted few campaign stops, instead making economic development announcements in his capacity as governor, bringing along his pet English bulldog, Babydog. Justice also mixed in political talk during his weekly online media briefings, often criticizing President Joe Biden’s policies.

    A former billionaire, Justice and his family own dozens of businesses, including the posh Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. Justice spent considerable time as governor addressing court challenges that sought late business payments and fines.

    Elliott, a 52-year-old lawyer who once served as a legislative assistant to the late U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, said he’s a Democrat because of an intrinsic identification with “the underdog,” and a belief that unions built the American middle class and separated the U.S. economy from other nations in the mid-20th century.

    Polls statewide open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.

  • Republican Jim Banks, Democrat Valerie McCray vying for Indiana’s open Senate seat

    Republican Jim Banks, Democrat Valerie McCray vying for Indiana’s open Senate seat

    INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Republican Jim Banks, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump, is seeking to capture Indiana’s open U.S. Senate seat in the reliably conservative state against Democrat Valerie McCray.

    Banks, 45, is strongly favored to win the Senate race in the Hoosier state, which Trump won by large margins in 2016 and 2020.

    Banks is a combative defender of Trump who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He had no challenger in the May primary after a series of legal battles ultimately removed egg farmer John Rust from the Republican ballot.

    The sitting congressman represents northeastern Indiana’s 3rd District. He passed on another House term to run for the Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Mike Braun who is vying for the Indiana governor’s office. Current Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb is term-limited.

    McCray, a clinical psychologist from Indianapolis, is a political newcomer whose name is appearing on a statewide ballot for the first time. In 2022, she sought to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Todd Young in his reelection bid but didn’t get enough signatures to secure a spot on the Democratic primary ballot. The Senate seat Young holds will next be up for election in 2028.

    In this year’s May Democratic primary, McCray, 65, defeated trade association executive Marc Carmichael, a former state representative, to become the first Black woman chosen as an Indiana mainstream party’s nominee for U.S. Senate.

    McCray and Libertarian candidate Andy Horning met for the only Senate debate on Oct. 29, but Banks did not attend.

    Michael Wolf, a professor of political science and department chairman at Purdue-Fort Wayne, said Banks and McCray have largely parroted their national parties’ talking points in the leadup to Election Day, with Banks emphasizing border security and immigration and McCray healthcare and abortion rights.

    He said Banks is a “formidable candidate who’s got name recognition” and a well funded campaign that didn’t have to spend on a GOP primary race because he had no challenger.

    While Wolf said Democrats have been energized by McCray’s candidacy, he notes that the party hasn’t had much luck in statewide elections in recent years as Indiana voters have grown more conservative.

    “She’s got a lot of work to do and she’s working against trends,” he said.

  • Wisconsin Senate race pits Trump-backed millionaire against Democratic incumbent

    Wisconsin Senate race pits Trump-backed millionaire against Democratic incumbent

    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s hotly contested U.S. Senate race pits two-term Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin against Republican Eric Hovde, a millionaire businessman backed by former President Donald Trump who poured millions of his own money into the contest.

    A win by Baldwin is crucial for Democrats to retain their 51-49 majority in the Senate. Democrats are defending 23 seats, including three held by independents who caucus with them. That’s compared with just 11 seats that Republicans hope to keep in their column.

    While Baldwin’s voting record is liberal, she emphasized bipartisanship throughout the campaign. Baldwin became the first statewide Democratic candidate to win an endorsement from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization, in more than 20 years.

    Her first television ad noted that her buy-American bill was signed into law by Trump. In July, she touted Senate committee approval of a bill she co-authored with Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, that seeks to ensure that taxpayer-funded inventions are manufactured in the United States.

    Hovde tried to portray Baldwin as an out-of-touch liberal career politician who didn’t do enough to combat inflation, illegal immigration and crime.

    Hovde’s wealth, primarily his management of Utah-based Sunwest Bank and ownership of a $7 million Laguna Beach, California, estate, has been a key line of attack from Baldwin, who has tried to cast him as an outsider who doesn’t represent Wisconsin values.

    Baldwin also attacked Hovde over his opposition to abortion rights.

    Hovde said he supported the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, but said he would not vote for a federal law banning abortion, leaving it to the states to decide. That is a change of his position from his last run for Senate in 2012, when he “totally opposed” abortion.

    Baldwin’s television ads hit on a consistent theme that Hovde insulted farmers, older residents, parents and others. Hovde, who was born in Madison and owns a house there, accused Baldwin of distorting his comments, lying about his record and misleading voters.

    Baldwin won her first Senate race in 2012, against popular former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, by almost 6 percentage points. Hovde lost to Thompson in that year’s primary.

    Hovde attacked Baldwin for being in elected office since 1987, including the past 12 years in the Senate and 14 in the House before that.

  • Andy Kim and Curtis Bashaw face off in a New Jersey Senate race opened up by a bribery scandal

    Andy Kim and Curtis Bashaw face off in a New Jersey Senate race opened up by a bribery scandal

    TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey voters are deciding between Democratic U.S. Rep. Andy Kim and hotel developer Curtis Bashaw, a Republican, in the race to fill the Senate seat occupied until recently by Democrat Bob Menendez, who resigned following afederal bribery conviction.

    The Senate race has attracted attention because of Democrats’ razor-thin majority. There’s little margin of error for the party in a state like New Jersey, which hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate in more than 50 years.

    “I very much feel the pressure to make sure that we’re delivering not just for New Jersey, but delivering a majority for this country so I can get the important things done,” Kim said recently.

    The contest pits Kim, a three-term House member from New Jersey’s 3rd District, against Bashaw, a first-time candidate and businessman from Cape May. Four others including Green, Libertarian and Socialist party candidates are on the ballot.

    There’s little suspense surrounding New Jersey’s electoral votes in the contest between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump, who has golf courses across the state and once operated a casino empire in Atlantic City. New Jersey hasn’t gone with a Republican for president since 1988.

    Kim, 42, was first elected to Congress in 2018, defeating Republican Tom MacArthur, a Trump ally. He’s since been re-elected twice. During the campaign, Kim said he would oppose tax breaks for the wealthy and support abortion rights.

    A former Obama administration national security aide, Kim was a Rhodes Scholar and has a Ph.D. from Oxford. He’s presented himself as an unassuming, hard-working official and gained national attention in 2021 when he was spotted cleaning up the U.S. Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, bagging trash.

    Kim was the first Asian-American from New Jersey elected to the House and would become the first Korean-American in the Senate if elected.

    Bashaw has personally financed his campaign with at least $1 million, according to Federal Election Commission records. He gained the GOP nomination in June when he defeated a Trump-backed rival. A first-time candidate, he’s served on several boards including for Stockton University and a state tourism panel.

    Bashaw, 64, has said he considers himself a moderate, noting he supports abortion rights and is a married gay man.

    “When my party’s right, I will support it. But when my party’s not right, I’ll stand up against it,” he said recently.

    Bashaw has said he supports Trump, who’s been a lightning rod in the state. Democrats flipped four congressional seats in the 2018 midterm while Trump was president.

    Kim seized on that in a recent debate.

    “The one endorsement that he has made is for Donald Trump to be president of the United States. And I guess we get a sense of his judgment from that. And it’s something I deeply disagree with,” Kim said.

    The Senate race began chaotically for Democrats. The party, which controls the Legislature and the governorship, found itself with an incumbent senator facing a second federal corruption trial. Menendez was convicted on bribery charges that he traded his office for cash, gold cars and a luxury car, and has resigned. But he’s denied the charges — as he did in the earlier trial, which ended in a hung jury.

    This time, Democrats abandoned him. Kim launched his own race in defiance of Menendez the day after his indictment last fall.

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    But it wasn’t an easy path to the nomination. First lady Tammy Murphy launched a campaign that was well-funded and widely backed by insiders. Kim upended politics in New Jersey when he sued in federal court to stop a practice whereby party leaders were allowed to influence how ballots are drawn up, widely seen as helping preferred candidates. The judge, in an initial ruling, sided with Kim. Murphy dropped out and Kim won easily in June.

    The winner of the Senate race is expected to get an early shot at the job. After Menendez resigned, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy appointed George Helmy as interim senator. The two have said that once the election results are certified in November, Helmy will step down and the governor will appoint the winner to serve the remainder of Menendez’s term, which ends in January.

    Also up for grabs are all of New Jersey’s 12 U.S. House seats. Among them, the 7th District, which stretches from the Delaware River and the Pennsylvania line to the central part of the state, with a slice of the New York suburbs, is perhaps the most closely watched. There, Republican Tom Kean Jr. is running for reelection against former Working Families alliance official Sue Altman, a Democrat. New Jersey’s House delegation has 10 Democrats and three Republicans.

    Votes have poured in for weeks through mail-in ballots and early in-person voting, but results don’t come out until after polls close at 8 p.m. On the ballot as well are all 12 of the state’s House seats.

  • Polls on US House and Senate races paint a worrying picture for Democrats | US elections 2024

    As many anxious US election watchers constantly refresh the forecast from 538 in the final days before polls close, their attention tends to focus on the presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but the polling website’s forecasts of the battle for House and the Senate paint an even more worrying picture for Democrats.

    As of Saturday evening, 538 gives Trump a 50% chance of winning the presidential race, while Republicans have a comfortable 90% chance of regaining control of the Senate and a narrower 52% chance of maintaining their House majority.

    Those numbers reflect a reality that is chilling to left-leaning Americans: Republicans have a decent shot at winning not just the White House but full control of Congress.

    Even without majorities in both chambers of Congress, Trump’s victory in the presidential race would give him significant control over US foreign policy and the makeup of the federal government, both of which he is seeking to overhaul.

    But a Republican trifecta in Washington would give Trump much more sweeping power to implement his legislative agenda. As the Guardian has outlined through the Stakes project, Trump’s plans include extending tax cuts, rolling back landmark laws signed by Joe Biden and advancing a rightwing cultural agenda.

    One of Republicans’ most oft-repeated campaign promises is that they will extend the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017, many of which are set to expire at the end of 2025. An analysis from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that making the tax cuts permanent would cost $288.5bn in 2026 alone and disproportionately benefit the highest-income households. The highest-income 20% of Americans would receive nearly two-thirds of that tax benefit, compared with just 1% for the lowest-income 20% of Americans.

    Perhaps the most haunting possibility for Democrats is that Republicans would use their governing trifecta in Washington to enact a nationwide abortion ban. Trump has said he would veto such a policy, but his repeated flip-flopping on the issue has raised questions about that claim. Research has shown that existing abortion bans have forced doctors to provide substandard medical care, and they have been blamed for the deaths of at least four women: Josseli Barnica, Nevaeh Crain, Candi Miller and Amber Thurman.

    With majorities in both chambers, Republicans could also allocate vast resources to assist Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants, which has become a central plank of his re-election platform. While US courts have affirmed that presidents have much leeway when it comes to setting immigration policies, Trump will need Congress to appropriate extensive funds to carry out such a massive deportation operation.

    “The United States is now an occupied country,” Trump said at a recent rally in Atlanta. “But on November 5, 2024, that will be liberation day in America.”

    In addition to advancing Trump’s agenda, Republicans would almost certainly be looking to unravel key portions of Biden’s legacy, including the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA marked the country’s most significant response yet to the climate crisis and has spurred significant energy-related investments in many districts, prompting some Republicans to suggest that Congress should preserve some of the law’s provisions while repealing others.

    That quandary reflects a potential problem for Republicans if they win full control of Congress: what will they do with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? When Republicans last held a governing trifecta, during Trump’s first two years in office, they tried and failed to repeal and replace the ACA. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, recently suggested that there would be “no Obamacare” if his party wins big on Tuesday, according to a video published by NBC News.

    But he seemed to caveat that statement by telling supporters: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”

    In recent years, both parties have experienced the pains of governing with narrow congressional majorities, and election experts widely expect the battle for the House and Senate to be especially close this year. During Biden’s first two years in office, his legislative proposals were repeatedly blocked in the Senate despite Democrats holding a majority because of the concerns of two centrist members of their caucus, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

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    When Republicans held a 52-48 majority in the Senate in 2017, they still failed to repeal and replace the ACA because three members of their conference blocked the proposal. Two of those members – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – are still in the Senate today and may be resistant to various components of Trump’s agenda, particularly a potential abortion ban.

    Despite the potential challenges of narrow majorities, Trump has made clear at every turn that he will use his presidential power to its maximum effect if he wins on Tuesday.

    “With your vote this November, we’re going to fire Kamala and we are going to save America,” Trump said at his recent rally in State College, Pennsylvania. “We will never ever back down, and we will never surrender.”

    The voters will have the final say on Tuesday to determine just how much power Trump and his party will have come January.

    Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage: