US citizen Leo, who has clashed with Donald Trump over several issues, submits his vote by post in Chicago
Pope Leo has voted in the US midterm elections – the first time a sitting pontiff is known to have cast a ballot in any political election at any time in history.
Leo, who has clashed with the US president, Donald Trump, over several issues, submitted his vote by post in Chicago, where he was born, the Vatican said on Friday. Leo became the first American leader of the Catholic church last year after the death of Pope Francis.
Independent candidate Bill Hill is threatening to unseat Trump ally Nick Begich with a message of affordability
As Republicans fight to maintain their narrow majority in Congress, they face a unique challenge in Alaska – not from a Democrat, but from an independent commercial fisher and first-time candidate running to flip the state’s lone House seat.
Bill Hill, who is an Alaska Native and has worked in education and construction, has positioned himself as a working-class candidate who will fight to make life more affordable for people like himself and his family.
The president cancelled the events in favor of tele-rallies, as Republicans face a fight to retain control of Congress
Donald Trump cancelled, and then promptly uncancelled, two in-person rallies in Kansas and Iowa this weekend as polls suggest US midterm election races in the previous Republican strongholds could go down to the wire.
On Thursday, just five days before election day, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced the president would no longer host the Kansas and Iowa rallies and instead participate in “a large number of tele-rallies”. The RNC claimed it felt it was in a “strong position” in Kansas and Iowa.
The top federal prosecutor in Alaska confirmed on Friday the existence of a criminal and a civil investigation into an alleged scheme by Democrats to confuse voters by recruiting a spoiler candidate on the ballot for US Senate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent, senator Dan Sullivan.
Speaking at a news conference in Anchorage on Friday, US attorney Michael Heyman cited reporting by the New York Times which suggested that the Senate campaign of Democrat Mary Peltola and national Democrats had, in his words, “orchestrated a sprawling conspiracy to recruit and prop up Daniel J Sullivan as a sham candidate”.
Endorsement not always full-throated but party backing marks major turn after bitter split over nomination
Facing a barrage of extreme attacks from Donald Trump and his allies, the Democratic establishment is finally rallying around progressive Abdul El-Sayed, the party’s candidate in the closely watched US Senate election in Michigan. But the endorsement is not always full-throated, and often even omits his name.
At a rally in Port Huron on Sunday, the US president launched the latest in a wave of Islamophobic rants against El-Sayed, erroneously branding him a “jihadist” and “Muslim Brotherhood member” while invoking 9/11.
There’s a campaign moment I can’t stop thinking about. It happened shortly after the campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, released a shocking attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.
In the ad, as many readers will know by now, Acton’s mother accuses her daughter of lying and tells Ohioans not to vote for her. Acton, 60, says she has not spoken to her mother since she was 12, when she and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody after their stepfather was arrested and charged with raping her. Acton says she last saw her mother at the courthouse, where her mother came to support her husband as her daughter testified against him.
Voters who backed the US president in the last election are saying they can’t vote for him today: ‘This is an abomination’
Outside the Ukrainian educational and cultural center in a quiet Pennsylvania suburb of Jenkintown, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, a banner expressed unqualified gratitude: “Thank you USA for supporting Ukraine.”
Inside, however, the sentiment was altogether different. Irene Skulsky, a retired teacher in her late 70s, voiced indignation at Donald Trump’s sudden turn against her ancestral homeland, which she believed had come close to killing her son, Darko, and a desire to punish his fellow Republicans at next week’s midterm elections.
President Donald Trump’s administration filed a revised lawsuit on Thursday seeking to block Alaska’s election results if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan narrowly loses and, according to a person familiar with the matter, issued more than 40 subpoenas and document requests in its probe.
The revised complaint by the US Justice Department cited a New York Times report that Democratic operatives recruited another candidate named Sullivan who could siphon votes from the incumbent. The Justice Department said the effort was intended to mislead voters and help elect Democratic candidate Mary Peltola.
The suit raises the prospect of a messy fight over a contest that could determine US Senate control in next Tuesday’s midterm elections. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority, while Democrats need a net gain of four seats.
“They orchestrated his sham campaign for the purpose of misleading Alaskan voters and getting Peltola elected,” lawyers for the Justice Department wrote in their amended complaint, referring to a retired teacher named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who is on the ballot without a party affiliation.
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy also called for a state investigation into the allegation and said in an interview with News Nation that any finding of illegality “may in fact impact whether someone is seated in the US Senate.”
Peltola’s campaign did not immediately respond to the amended complaint but has previously said it had “no involvement with either Sullivan campaign.”
Dispute over candidates sharing Sullivan surname
The Times reported on Wednesday that Peltola aides worked with campaign lawyers and staff at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to recruit two candidates who could siphon votes from the incumbent Republican Sullivan, including Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.
Peltola’s former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, who was fired in August, told the Times that Peltola was aware of the effort.
The DSCC has denied involvement and accused Republicans of propping up candidates of their own in other races. Reuters was unable to independently verify the Times report.
Daniel J. Sullivan has previously denied in interviews with US news outlets that his aim is to cause confusion or divert votes from Dan S. Sullivan.
Trump presses legal challenge ahead of vote
Trump, who for years has sowed doubts about the fairness of US elections, had pushed the Justice Department to bring the Alaska case even before the Times report, seeking to preemptively block Alaska from certifying Peltola, a former congresswoman, if she were to win the election.
Trump told reporters earlier on Thursday: “It’s hard to believe that she could even be allowed to run. Frankly, I don’t know how you can allow somebody like that to run. It’s so unfair.”
Jessica Levinson, a professor who specializes in election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said that as long as Daniel J. Sullivan, the challenger to the incumbent, didn’t conceal financial support, his campaign likely didn’t break any laws and political parties are allowed to mislead the public.
Policing such behavior would open the door to the government investigating why candidates choose to run and why voters support them, she said. “To the extent that people are uncomfortable with two Sullivans, I would offer you’re probably going to be uncomfortable with a really high level of government intrusion into our elections as well.”
Justice Department also investigates California voting
The Department of Justice has also escalated another legal campaign in California, where it has been investigating alleged voting by noncitizens.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office received grand jury subpoenas as part of the probe, according to copies of subpoenas seen by Reuters on Thursday.
The subpoenas, dated last week, seek records related to the county’s response to prior letters from the Trump administration warning of evidence that noncitizens are on the state’s voter roll. They also seek documents about the county’s efforts to prevent noncitizens from voting.
California has previously said the state’s safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
Trump and Democrats intensify final campaign push
As campaigning enters its final few days, the White House has shelved plans for Trump to appear on Saturday in Kansas, the site of an unexpectedly competitive Senate campaign, a Republican campaign official said.
“I don’t feel like I have to go to Kansas,” Trump told reporters.
Instead, the president will participate in more than 20 virtual campaign appearances before Tuesday, a White House official said.
Trump held a rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Thursday, his second visit in two weeks to a state where opinion polls show an unexpectedly close Senate race between Republican Darline Graham and Democrat Annie Andrews.
Speaking about the hotly contested Michigan Senate race, where progressive Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed holds a small lead in most polls over Republican Mike Rogers, Trump continued his identity-based attacks on El-Sayed, a Muslim, by saying at the rally that “if you’re Black or if you’re Jewish, and if you vote for Abdul, you’re crazy.”
With control of the Senate at stake, both parties are deploying their biggest names in the closing days of the campaign, with Trump stumping for Republicans and former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigning for Democrats in competitive races.
Harris stumped in Macon, Georgia, at a get-out-the-vote effort. Democrats are aiming to reelect Senator Jon Ossoff, who leads in polling, and hope that Keisha Lance Bottoms, locked in a tight race, can become the first woman elected as governor in the state.
Trump’s approval rating stood at 32% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday, near a record low, as Americans sour on the high cost of living and the war with Iran.
More than 44 million Americans had already voted as of Thursday evening, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. A total of 45.9 million voted early in the 2022 midterms.
Candidate for Ohio governor confirms campaign no longer airing ad that smeared rival and was defended by Trump
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for Ohio governor, confirmed on Thursday that his campaign is no longer airing an attack ad that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.
The ad prompted a wave of revulsion since Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, lost custody of her daughter in 1978, when her second husband, Cledith Arthur, was charged with raping her daughter between the ages of 10 and 12.
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