Midterm Elections Updates: Liz Cheney Endorses Democrat Tim Ryan in Senate Race

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) campaigns with Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) at an Evening for Patriotism and Bipartisanship event in East Lansing, Mich., on Nov. 1, 2022. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The latest on the midterm elections.

____

Liz Cheney Backs Democrat Tim Ryan in Contested Ohio Senate Race

Embattled Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has endorsed Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) in Ohio’s tight U.S. Senate race.

Ryan is running against Republican candidate J.D. Vance, a lawyer and author known for his book “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Discussing the race, Cheney told PBS’s Judy Woodruff on Nov. 1, “I would not vote for J.D. Vance.”

Asked if she would support Ryan if she were an Ohio voter, Cheney responded, “I would.”

Cheney has been anathema among Republicans during the 117th Congress for her role on the Jan. 6 Committee, which other Republicans have described as little more than a “partisan witch hunt” directed against former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Ryan is the second Democrat to receive Cheney’s backing. On Oct. 27, the outgoing Wyoming lawmaker threw her support behind Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).

Read the full article here

___

South Dakota’s Noem Shores Up Support With Youngkin, Gabbard

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem was looking to shore up support for her South Dakota reelection bid Wednesday through a series of rallies with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Noem has risen to national prominence within the GOP during her term as the state’s first female governor. The Republican governor has outspent her Democratic opponent, state lawmaker Jamie Smith, in the midterm election by nearly 6-to-1.

Noem crisscrossed between the state’s largest cities for three rallies Wednesday. Smith, meanwhile, embarked on an RV tour that will circle the state.

Noem has focused on ensuring her base turns out on Election Day. She called the race “close” at the rally with Youngkin.

The rally drew a few hundred people to a Sioux Falls convention hall who laughed along as Noem gifted a cowboy hat to Youngkin. The Virginia governor in turn launched basketballs into the crowd.

Noem allied herself closely with former President Donald Trump early on during the COVID-19 pandemic and derided mandating business closures or masks. The position garnered her national attention in the GOP, and she has staked out right-wing positions on abortion and education.

Noem claimed Smith had “attacked me every day for not shutting down the state and letting businesses stay open.”

Noem has tried to tie Smith to President Joe Biden, who she says is “too extreme” for South Dakota—a state where voter rolls have almost twice as many Republicans as Democrats.

____

Masters Closes the Gap with Kelly in Arizona Race for US Senate

A week ago, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) led Republican challenger Blake Masters with six percentage points. Now, with just days to go before the Nov. 8 election, a new poll by Wick shows Masters closing the gap as Kelly’s lead has dropped to two percent.

Additionally, according to FiveThirtyEight, Wick’s poll aligns with other polls conducted just a week earlier. An OH Predictive Insight’s poll conducted from Oct. 24–26 showed Kelly at 48 percent and Masters at 46 percent. In fact, except for one poll by Siena College/The New York Times showing Kelly with a six-point lead, all of the latest polls show that the race between Kelly and Masters is neck-in-neck.

These polls happened after Masters and Kelly squared off in a debate where Masters toned down his partisan stance in what appeared to be an effort to court Arizona’s more moderate political voters.

_____

Appeals Court Upholds New York Absentee Ballot Law, Reversing Earlier Ruling

An appeals court in New York on Nov. 1 upheld a state absentee ballot law, reversing an earlier ruling that found the law unconstitutional.

The law, enacted in 2022, says that “In no event may a court order a ballot that has been counted to be uncounted.” New York Supreme Court Justice Dianne Freestone ruled in October that the clause violated the Constitution and ordered all election boards in the state to segregate absentee ballots and hold them until a post-Election Day canvass.

The New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division vacated that order, ruling that Republicans who challenged the law waited too long and that granting them relief would disrupt the midterm election.

Read the full article here

_____

Poll: More Americans Planning Early Voting in 2022 Than During Past Three Midterms

A higher percentage of U.S. voters this year are planning to vote ahead of the 2022 Election Day or have already voted, as compared to other recent midterms, according to a poll released Wednesday.

A Gallup poll found that some 41 percent of registered voters have already voted or are planning to vote before Nov. 8, which is up from 34 percent during the 2018 midterms. It noted that during the 2014 and 2010 midterms, only about 26 percent said they planned to vote or had already voted.

However, the poll, which was carried out between Oct. 3 and Oct. 20, said that just 2 percent said they voted. The other 39 percent said they were planning to cast their ballots before next Tuesday.

____

Democrat Strategists Express Alarm Over GOP Gains in New York Ahead of Midterms

Some Democrat strategists have expressed alarm by recent Republican gains and warned incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul could be defeated next week.

New York has not elected a Republican candidate for governor in decades. An aggregate of polls from RealClearPolitics shows that Hochul’s alleged lead over Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) has shrunk in recent weeks, coming as Zeldin has repeatedly targeted Hochul and Democrats for what he said are their soft-on-crime policies—prompting Hochul to declare herself the “underdog” in the race last week.

“I’m worried. I think every Democrat should be worried,” Rich Azzopardi, founder and principal of Bulldog Strategies and a former spokesman for Andrew Cuomo’s administration, told The Hill.

Read the full article here

____

Pence Backs GOP’s Kemp as Democrat Abrams Hits on Medicaid

Former Vice President Mike Pence took the stage Tuesday in Georgia to reinforce the main thrusts of Gov. Brian Kemp’s case for reelection against Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, arguing that Kemp has been good for Georgia’s economy and Abrams is soft on crime.

“No one in Georgia’s history has done more to create jobs, cut taxes, restore sanity to your schools, put criminals behind bars, protect the unborn, and secure all the God-given liberties enshrined in the Constitution of the United States than Gov. Brian Kemp,” Pence told about 150 people in Cumming, part of a belt of Republican-dominated Atlanta exurbs key to Kemp’s reelection.

____

Arizona County’s Ballot Hand-count Plan Challenged in Court

An Arizona county’s plan to hand count all ballots cast in next week’s election has triggered a court challenge, marking the latest twist to the effort by rural Cochise County to mollify skeptics distrustful of its vote-counting equipment.

The lawsuit came Monday as Democrats agreed to help provide volunteers to assist in the tally of an estimated 50,000 early and Election Day ballots in the Republican-heavy county, which strongly backed former President Donald Trump in 2020.

_____

Top Senator Says Republicans Will Get 52 Senate Seats During 2022 Midterms

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, predicted the GOP will take at least 52 seats in the upcoming midterms.

“We’re gonna get 52 plus,” Scott said in an interview Sunday on CNN. “Herschel Walker will win in Georgia, we’re going to keep all 21 of ours. [Mehmet] Oz is going to win against [John] Fetterman in Pennsylvania. Adam Laxalt will win in Nevada.”

Scott suggested Republican Blake Masters could also prevail against incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) for Arizona’s Senate seat.

Read the full article here

_____

Some Voters Cast Wrong Ballots in Split Nashville District

Election officials said Tuesday that some Tennessee voters have cast ballots in the wrong congressional district in Nashville—a city that Republican lawmakers carved three ways during redistricting in hopes of flipping a Democratic seat.

At least one precinct has been affected, which includes the 7th Congressional contest that pits Democratic candidate, Odessa Kelly, against Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green.

____

Liz Cheney Visits Michigan to Support Democrat Slotkin Bid

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney visited Michigan on Tuesday to support Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who the Wyoming representative crossed party lines to endorse last week in a first.

Slotkin is a two-term House member competing against Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s redrawn 7th Congressional District, which includes Lansing. The contest is among the most expensive House races in the country and is considered a toss-up. ____

As Housing Prices Surge, Rent Control is Back on the Ballot

Liberty McCoy was out Saturday urging voters to pass a Nov. 8 ballot measure to limit rent increases in Pasadena because she’s afraid she’ll be priced out of the city where she grew up and where her aging parents live.

The librarian and her husband, a freelance consultant, received notice of a $100 monthly rent increase last year and another for $150 this year, bringing the rent on their home outside Los Angeles to $2,350 a month. They can absorb the increases for now—but not forever.

“A lot of times people are like, ‘Well, just try and pick up and move to someplace cheaper,'” the 44-year-old said. “But I have a job locally, my family, my friends. It would be a big challenge to uproot my entire life chasing cheaper rent.”

With rental prices skyrocketing and affordable housing in short supply, inflation-weary tenants in cities and counties across the country are turning to the ballot box for relief. Supporters say rent control policies on the Nov. 8 ballot are the best short-term option to dampen rising rents and ensure vulnerable residents remain housed.

_____

Biden Lashes Out at DeSantis, Calling the Potential 2024 Rival ‘Trump Incarnate’

President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be another version of former President Trump, while the state’s Democrat gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist is facing an increasing deficit in polls ahead of the midterms’ final week.

“Charlie is running against Donald Trump incarnate,” Biden said at a fundraiser for Crist’s campaign in Golden Beach before denouncing the incumbent governor—a major adversary of the Biden White House who can also be his potential 2024 rival. “This guy doesn’t fit any of the categories I talked about. The way he deals, the way he denies,” Biden added.

The president’s sharp criticism drew a remarkable contrast from the cordial meeting between the two earlier in October, when he toured Hurricane Ian damage with DeSantis and praised the governor in front of the cameras, for doing a “good job” handling the storm recovery.

____

Schmitt Leads by Double Digit in Missouri Senate Race: Poll

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is now leading Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine by a double-digit in the Senate race as midterms are just one week away, the recent poll shows.

According to a survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill released Nov. 1, 51 percent of potential voters favored Schmitt while just 39 percent backed Valentine for the Senate with 6 percent staying undecided.

The latest poll also sees Schmitt’s lead in terms of favorability. Fifty-four percent of interviewees held favorable views of the Republican candidate while 37 percent showed negative perceptions of him.

_____

Judge Restricts Group From Carrying Firearms, Speaking or Taking Videos at Arizona Ballot Drop Boxes

A federal judge in Arizona on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order against Clean Elections USA, a grassroots organization aimed at maintaining election integrity.

The temporary restraining order (pdf), issued by Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdim, limits Clean Elections USA, which has been observing drop boxes in Arizona, from carrying out certain actions at the ballot boxes.

Specifically, members of Clean Elections USA or its associates are barred from coming within 75 feet of a ballot drop box or a building housing a drop box, speaking or yelling at people within 75 feet of the drop box, unless they are yelled at first; or openly carrying firearms or wearing body armor within 250 feet of ballot drop boxes.

_____

Jack Phillips, Zachary Stieber, Rita Li, Hannah Ng, Katie Spence, Katabella Roberts, Joseph Lord, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.