US midterm elections 2022
Joe Biden's party won a new US Senate seat on Tuesday with Democrat Raphael Warnock's victory in Georgia, according to television networks.
The incumbent senator defeated Republican Herschel Walker, a former football star and protege of former president Donald Trump.
The victory confirms the very slim Democratic majority -- 51 to 49 -- in the upper house of Congress. — AFP
A US woman who says anti-abortion Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker pressured her into terminating her pregnancy has challenged him to deny her story face-to-face, before next month's runoff election in Georgia.
Walker has previously denied even knowing the woman, who is one of two to come forward alleging they had intimate relations with the former American football star and that he paid for abortions after impregnating them.
The challenge comes as the one-time Dallas Cowboys star prepares to face off again with Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, after neither earned a simple majority of votes in Georgia to win the seat in this month's midterm election.
"Herschel, I never thought you would deny knowing me, or our relationship," said the anonymous accuser at a Los Angeles press conference Tuesday.
"Are you really willing to do anything -- including lying to the voters in Georgia -- to become a senator?" — AFP
Networks say Republicans on Wednesday took control of the US House of Representatives from Democrats, narrowly securing a legislative base to oppose President Joe Biden's agenda for the final two years of his term –- and leaving power in Congress split.
The slim Republican majority in the lower house of the US legislature will be far smaller than the party had been banking on, and Republicans also failed to take control of the Senate in a historically weak performance in the November 8 midterm elections.
NBC and CNN projected the victory for Republicans with at least 218 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives -- the magic number needed to take control. This came a week after millions of Americans went to the polls for the midterms, which typically deliver a rejection of the party in the White House. — AFP
Asian stocks started down on Thursday after inconclusive US midterm election results and a turbulent cryptocurrency market left Wall Street and European markets in a sea of red.
The uncertainty, especially about how the midterm results would impact inflation, transferred to Asia overnight.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Jakarta and Taipei were all trading lower.
"A purple dilemma might be the best way to describe the red-blue tangle that emerged Wednesday. It'll be gridlock, that's for sure," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said of the US midterms.
"Perhaps not the friendliest kind for market participants, many of whom were hoping for a more resounding rebuke of Democrats given inflation realities."
Asian stocks started down on Thursday after inconclusive US midterm election results and a turbulent cryptocurrency market left Wall Street and European markets in a sea of red.
The uncertainty, especially about how the midterm results would impact inflation, transferred to Asia overnight.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Jakarta and Taipei were all trading lower.
"A purple dilemma might be the best way to describe the red-blue tangle that emerged Wednesday. It'll be gridlock, that's for sure," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said of the US midterms.
"Perhaps not the friendliest kind for market participants, many of whom were hoping for a more resounding rebuke of Democrats given inflation realities."
Asian stocks started down on Thursday after inconclusive US midterm election results and a turbulent cryptocurrency market left Wall Street and European markets in a sea of red.
The uncertainty, especially about how the midterm results would impact inflation, transferred to Asia overnight.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Jakarta and Taipei were all trading lower.
"A purple dilemma might be the best way to describe the red-blue tangle that emerged Wednesday. It'll be gridlock, that's for sure," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said of the US midterms.
"Perhaps not the friendliest kind for market participants, many of whom were hoping for a more resounding rebuke of Democrats given inflation realities." — AFP
Republican hopes for a sweeping rebuke of President Joe Biden in congressional elections failed to materialize with both parties picking up seats following a campaign fought against a backdrop of stubbornly high inflation and fears for US democracy.
Republicans needed one seat to wrest control of the evenly-divided Senate but by early Wednesday the only one to change party hands went to the Democrats, with John Fetterman, a burly champion of progressive economic policies, triumphing in Pennsylvania.
In the House of Representatives, early results suggested Republicans were on track to wrest control from Democrats -- but only by a handful of seats, a far cry from their predictions.
Top Republican Kevin McCarthy -- who hopes to be the lower chamber's next speaker -- struck an upbeat note as he addressed supporters in the early hours, telling them: "It is clear that we are going to take the House back."
But Senator Lindsey Graham, a top Trump ally, bluntly conceded to NBC that the election is "definitely not a Republican wave, that's for darn sure."
With Biden's favorability ratings hovering in the low 40s and Republicans pounding him over inflation and crime, many pundits had predicted a drubbing that would have raised new questions on whether America's oldest-ever president, who turns 80 this month, should run again. — AFP
US President Joe Biden will stick to his efforts to develop a greener economy even if Republicans win the midterm elections on Tuesday, his climate envoy John Kerry said at COP27.
Biden's Democrats are facing a gargantuan struggle to hang on to Congress against Republicans who are less favourable to international action on climate change.
A Republican victory could be a boon to former president Donald Trump, who had pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Biden brought the United States back into the pact.
Speaking on the sidelines of the UN's COP27 climate summit in Egypt, Kerry said the administration hopes for a favorable outcome in the election.
"Even if we don't, President Biden is more determined than ever to continue what we are doing," Kerry said. — AFP
Donald Trump grabbed the election eve spotlight on Monday to flag an expected announcement on a new White House run, as America prepares to vote in midterms that polls show could land Congress back under Republican control.
The former president, who has never accepted the truth of his 2020 loss, ratcheted up the hints that he would be entering the fray for 2024.
"Not to detract from tomorrow's very important, even critical election... I'm going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida," he told a cheering crowd in Ohio on the eve of polls that will determine control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The brief mention, at the tail end of a typically dark, rambling speech, came as President Joe Biden made a final appeal in an election in which Republicans are well placed to win at least partial control of the levers of government. — AFP
More than 42 million Americans have cast early ballots ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, surpassing the numbers from 2018, the US Elections Project says.
Americans will go to the polls on Tuesday to elect 435 members of the House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate and a host of state and local posts.
Most of the 50 US states allow voters to cast ballots early, either in-person or by mail, a practice which became widespread during the 2020 presidential election, which was held at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the US Elections Project, as of Monday there have been more than 19.3 early votes cast in-person and 22.7 million by mail for a total of 42.03 million.
It said 39.1 million people had voted by the same point in the 2018 midterms. — AFP
President Joe Biden pulled out the stops Sunday to mobilize US voters in defense of democracy, hoping to counter a Republican "red wave" in this week's midterms that could help set Donald Trump on a course back to the White House.
"If you all show up and vote, democracy sustained, not a joke," the 79-year-old tells a rally in upstate New York -- historically Democratic territory -- with two days to go until Tuesday's vote.
"This is your generation's moment to defend it. To preserve it. To choose it," Biden tells the audience at St Lawrence University, turning solemn as he recalled last year's assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters refusing to accept defeat.
At the southern end of the Atlantic coast, in Miami, Trump held a competing rally in support of Florida Republican candidates -- but his own political future was more front and center.
"I will probably have to do it again," teased the 76-year-old, sporting his iconic red hat -- urging supporters to "stay tuned" for his final campaign rally, Monday night in the Midwestern state of Ohio.
Carrying signs saying "Again!" the crowd yelled back "Four more years!" -- the length of a US presidential term. — AFP
He may not be on the ballot in the upcoming US midterm elections, but Donald Trump was still the main draw for Pennsylvania's Republicans Saturday ahead of what they hope will be a "red wave" sweeping control of Congress.
Trump fans gathered at a rally in the city of Latrobe in the battleground state to hear the former president speak and voice their hopes that he will run again for the White House in 2024.
Leslie Boswell, in a red "Trump 2020" T-shirt, said she came to "have fun and vote for Trump" -- or, at least, for Republicans in Tuesday's elections.
The midterms, held two years after the presidential election, are usually seen as a referendum on the current occupant of the White House, and determine control of the House of Representatives and the Senate -- as well as many state governors and other officials.
For Trump's supporters, a Republican victory on Tuesday will help pave the path for their hero to make his triumphant return to power. -- AFP
LGBTQ candidates are running in all 50 US states and the capital Washington for the first time in this year's midterm election, as the community becomes an increasingly powerful voting constituency.
The milestone comes amid a surge in gay and transgender voters that analysts expect to redraw the electoral landscape over the next generation, nudging the conservative US heartland in a more liberal direction.
A new report from the LGBTQ Victory Fund found that of the 1,065 LGBTQ hopefuls who ran primary campaigns for November's midterms, a historic 678 made it onto the ballot -- an 18 percent increase over 2020.
"Voters are sick and tired of the relentless attacks lobbed against the LGBTQ community this year," says Annise Parker, a former Houston mayor who heads the LGBTQ Victory Fund.
"Bigots want us to stay home and stay quiet, but their attacks are backfiring and instead have motivated a new wave of LGBTQ leaders to run for office." — AFP
In the run-up to the high-stakes midterm elections next week, US President Joe Biden is out on the stump in many states.
But his one-time boss, former president Barack Obama, is also campaigning hard to rescue a faltering Democratic Party.
On Friday, the two men spoke at the same time, in two different corners of the United States: Biden in Pennsylvania and Obama in Georgia, two crucial states for Democratic Party aspirations in Congress.
Both presidents have employed nearly the same speech: the need to save American democracy by blocking Donald Trump's Republican Party. — AFP
Follow this thread on the US midterm elections in November, which Philstar.com reporter Kaycee Valmonte will be covering from the ground as part of a reporting tour.
Photo: A voter casts his ballot in the midterm election at the East Midwood Jewish Center polling station in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on Nov. 6, 2018. AFP file
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