Americans are headed to the polls next Tuesday in thousands of contests to decide whether to re-elect or confirm members of Congress and governors, and also mayors, school board members, and judges. There are also hundreds of referendums on the ballot, although perhaps none of those votes has as much long-term potential to change the rules of U.S. democracy as Initiative 194 (I-194) in Montana.

Seguir leyendo

Justin Pearson is playing a game in which the cards were marked in favor of his opponent after play had already begun. Pearson is the Democratic candidate for Congress in Tennessee’s ninth district (TN-9), one of three in the U.S. South that Republicans rushed to redraw in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling in April that curtailed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The decision dealt a fatal blow to one of the major gains of the civil rights era. It banned consideration of race when drawing electoral districts, but the court’s conservative majority approved doing so for political reasons.

Seguir leyendo

Election officials, activists, voting-rights lawyers, legal experts and other watchdogs of U.S. civil society have spent the past year and a half warning about what they describe as a campaign by U.S. President Donald Trump to undermine confidence in the conduct of free and fair elections. Their concern is that he is laying the groundwork to overturn the outcome if it does not favor the Republican Party.

Seguir leyendo

Former vice president Kamala Harris landed in the state of Mississippi on Thursday at the start of a tour to help Democratic candidates in the final stretch of the midterm campaign. The series of campaign events, which began the previous day in Nevada and will continue in the coming days in Georgia, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, also serves as a thermometer for measuring the enthusiasm of potential voters for the notion of Harris running again for the party’s presidential nomination in 2028. That would be four years after her defeat by Donald Trump following a brief and disappointing 107-day surprise run for the White House.

Seguir leyendo

Donald Trump’s second presidency, it was said, would not be like the first. He was back after a period in the wilderness, but with lessons learned; this time he was surrounded by an army of loyalists and not, as in 2017, by a team of aides willing to disagree with him now and then. Nor would it once again be a nonstop spectacle of leaks, backstage betrayals and impulsive firings communicated through social media.

Seguir leyendo

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday fired his brand new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, just five days into the job. The story broke right after Trump told reporters that he had asked Zacharia to reconsider whether she wanted to remain in the job after her bumpy first briefing on Monday.

Seguir leyendo

U.S. President Donald Trump has handed Russian President Vladimir Putin another gift ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, with Republicans increasingly at risk of losing both chambers of Congress.

Seguir leyendo

At a rally, he spoke highly of the backside of John Husted, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Ohio. He has posted one video after another of big cats attacking real people before sharing one — created with artificial intelligence — in which he is seen fending off a fearsome lion, dressed in a suit and with his bare hands. And he has repeated tired memes disrespecting Greenland, as well as an endless stream of clips and videos flattering himself.

Seguir leyendo

On Tuesday, three weeks before the midterms, the White House went back to its news conferences after a 47-day hiatus following the departure of former press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Her successor, Katie Zacharia, made a very brief appearance in which she only took three questions and fell short of the cool aplomb with which Leavitt made a name for herself defending the policies of her boss, President Donald Trump, resorting to lies when necessary.

Seguir leyendo

For the past 96 days, a huge tarp has hung over the facade of the Kennedy Center, a fitting symbol of Donald Trump’s assault on Washington’s cultural institutions.

Seguir leyendo