Politics

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge Friday refused to bar a group from monitoring outdoor ballot boxes in Arizona’s largest county where watchers have shown up armed and in ballistic vests, saying to do so could violate the monitors’ constitutional rights.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi said the case remained open and that the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans could try again to make its argument against a group calling itself Clean Elections USA. A second plantiff, Voto Latino, was removed from the case.

Liburdi concluded that “while this case certainly presents serious questions, the Court cannot craft an injunction without violating the First Amendment.”

Local and federal law enforcement have been alarmed by reports of people, including some who were masked and armed, watching 24-hour ballot boxes in Maricopa County — Arizona’s most populous county — and rural Yavapai County as midterm elections near. Some voters have complained alleging voter intimidation after people watching the boxes took photos and videos, and followed voters.

Arizona law states electioneers and monitors must remain 75-foot (23-meter) from a voting location.

“Plaintiffs have not provided the Court with any evidence that Defendants’ conduct constitutes a true threat,” the judge wrote. “On this record, Defendants have not made any statements threatening to commit acts of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”

The Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans said it was disappointed.

“We continue to believe that Clean Elections USA’s intimidation and harassment is unlawful,” it said, adding it would “seek immediate appellate review and emergency relief.”

Liburdi issued his ruling two days after a hearing on the first of two similar cases. The attorney for Clean Elections USA had argued that such a broad restraining order would be unconstitutional.

A second lawsuit involving charges of voter intimidation at drop boxes in Arizona’s Yavapai County has since been merged with the first one.

Sheriff’s deputies are providing security around the two outdoor drop boxes in Maricopa County after a pair of people carrying guns and wearing bulletproof vests showed up at a box in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa. The county’s other 24-hour outdoor drop box is at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in downtown Phoenix, which is now surrounded by a chain link fence.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, has called on voters to immediately report any intimidation to police and file a complaint with his office. Arizona’s secretary of state this week said her office has received six cases of potential voter intimidation to the state attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as a threatening email sent to the state elections director.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona has vowed to prosecute any violations of federal law but said local police were at the “front line in efforts to ensure that all qualified voters are able to exercise their right to vote free of intimidation or other election abuses.”

“We will vigorously safeguard all Arizonans’ rights to freely and lawfully cast their ballot during the election,” the office said Wednesday. “As the several election threat-related cases pending federal felony charges from alleged criminal activity arising out of our State show, acts which cross the line will not go unaddressed.”

Meanwhile, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, an Arizona state agency, voted unanimously Thursday to have its legal counsel seek a court order if necessary to stop the monitoring group from using the “Clean Elections” name. The commission created in 1998 to provide voters with nonpartisan elections information said it has been barraged with angry calls from people confusing it with the monitoring group.

The second lawsuit that was folded into the first case involves ballot boxes in Arizona’s Yavapai County, where the League of Women Voters alleges voters have been intimidated by Clean Elections USA, along with The Lions of Liberty and the Yavapai County Preparedness team, which are associated with the far-right anti-government group Oath Keepers.

Luke Cilano, a Lions of Liberty board member, said the organization had dropped its “Operation Drop Box” initiative on Wednesday “due to being lumped in with people who don’t adhere to the law and our rules of engagement.”

Cilano said the “official stand down order” to all members was in response to the pending litigation.

“Our goal is not to scare people and keep them from voting,” he said. “We love our country very much.”

Cilano said The Lions of Liberty is in no way associated with Clean Elections USA. He said his group is connected to the Yavapai County Preparedness Team, but the team was not involved in ballot box monitoring.

Similar groups around the United States have embraced a film that has been discredited called “2000 Mules” that claims people were paid to travel among drop boxes and stuff them with fraudulent ballots during the 2020 presidential vote.

There’s no evidence for the notion that a network of Democrat-associated ballot “mules” has conspired to collect and deliver ballots to drop boxes, either in the 2020 presidential vote or in the upcoming midterm elections.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge Friday refused to bar a group from monitoring outdoor ballot boxes in Arizona’s largest county where watchers have shown up armed and in ballistic vests, saying to do so could violate the monitors’ constitutional rights.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi said the case remained open and that the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans could try again to make its argument against a group calling itself Clean Elections USA. A second plantiff, Voto Latino, was removed from the case.

Liburdi concluded that “while this case certainly presents serious questions, the Court cannot craft an injunction without violating the First Amendment.”

Local and federal law enforcement have been alarmed by reports of people, including some who were masked and armed, watching 24-hour ballot boxes in Maricopa County — Arizona’s most populous county — and rural Yavapai County as midterm elections near. Some voters have complained alleging voter intimidation after people watching the boxes took photos and videos, and followed voters.

Arizona law states electioneers and monitors must remain 75-foot (23-meter) from a voting location.

“Plaintiffs have not provided the Court with any evidence that Defendants’ conduct constitutes a true threat,” the judge wrote. “On this record, Defendants have not made any statements threatening to commit acts of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”

The Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans said it was disappointed.

“We continue to believe that Clean Elections USA’s intimidation and harassment is unlawful,” it said, adding it would “seek immediate appellate review and emergency relief.”

A second lawsuit involving charges of voter intimidation at drop boxes in Arizona’s Yavapai County has since been merged with the first one.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, has called on voters to immediately report any intimidation to police and file a complaint with his office. Arizona’s secretary of state this week said her office has received six cases of potential voter intimidation to the state attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as a threatening email sent to the state elections director.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona has vowed to prosecute any violations of federal law but said local police were at the “front line in efforts to ensure that all qualified voters are able to exercise their right to vote free of intimidation or other election abuses.”

“We will vigorously safeguard all Arizonans’ rights to freely and lawfully cast their ballot during the election,” the office said Wednesday. “As the several election threat-related cases pending federal felony charges from alleged criminal activity arising out of our State show, acts which cross the line will not go unaddressed.”

The second lawsuit that was folded into the first case involves ballot boxes in Arizona’s Yavapai County, where the League of Women Voters alleges voters have been intimidated by Clean Elections USA, along with The Lions of Liberty and the Yavapai County Preparedness team, which are associated with the far-right anti-government group Oath Keepers.

Luke Cilano, a Lions of Liberty board member, said the organization had dropped its “Operation Drop Box” initiative on Wednesday “due to being lumped in with people who don’t adhere to the law and our rules of engagement.”

Cilano said the “official stand down order” to all members was in response to the pending litigation.

“Our goal is not to scare people and keep them from voting,” he said. “We love our country very much.”

Cilano said The Lions of Liberty is in no way associated with Clean Elections USA. He said his group is connected to the Yavapai County Preparedness Team, but the team was not involved in ballot box monitoring.

There’s no evidence for the notion that a network of Democrat-associated ballot “mules” has conspired to collect and deliver ballots to drop boxes, either in the 2020 presidential vote or in the upcoming midterm elections.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Police say a suspect in the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, has been arrested on attempted homicide, assault and other charges.

An intruder attacked and severely beat Pelosi’s husband with a hammer in the couple’s San Francisco home early Friday while searching for the Democratic leader and chillingly shouting: “Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?”

Police were called to the home to check on Paul Pelosi at about 2:30 a.m. when they discovered the 82–year–old and the suspect, 42–year–old David Depape, both grabbing onto the hammer, said Police Chief William Scott. The intruder yanked it from Pelosi and began beating him before being subdued and arrested by officers.

The speaker was in Washington, where she had been scheduled to appear with Vice President Kamala Harris at a fundraising event Saturday night for the LGBTQ group Human Rights Campaign, 11 days before congressional elections that have been filled with harsh, sometimes violent rhetoric. Pelosi canceled her appearance.

The intruder’s shouts in Pelosi’s California home were an unsettling echo of the chants during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, when rioters trying to stop Joe Biden’s election searched menacingly through the halls for the speaker. Police said a motive for Friday’s intrusion was still being determined, but three people with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that Depape targeted Pelosi’s home. Those people were not authorized to talk publicly about an ongoing probe and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police gave few details on the suspect or his motives. But the attack raised questions about the safety of members of Congress and their families. Threats to lawmakers are at an all–time high almost two years after the Capitol insurrection. In the current midterm election campaigns, crime and public safety have emerged as top concerns among Americans.

Paul Pelosi was severely beaten, suffering blunt force trauma after he was struck several times in the head. He was admitted to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for his injuries, the hospital confirmed. His condition was not immediately available, but Pelosi’s spokesman has said he would recover.

Lawmakers from both parties reacted with shock and expressed their well wishes to the Pelosi family.

“What happened to Paul Pelosi was a dastardly act,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D–N.Y. “I spoke with Speaker Pelosi earlier this morning and conveyed my deepest concern and heartfelt wishes to her husband and their family, and I wish him a speedy recovery.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Twitter, “Horrified and disgusted by the reports that Paul Pelosi was assaulted in his and Speaker Pelosi’s home last night. Grateful to hear that Paul is on track to make a full recovery and that law enforcement including our stellar Capitol Police are on the case.”

In 2021, Capitol Police investigated around 9,600 threats made against members of Congress, and several members have been physically attacked in recent years. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D–Ariz., was shot in the head at an event outside a Tucson grocery store in 2011, and Rep. Steve Scalise, R–La., was severely injured when a gunman opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball team practice in 2017.

Members of Congress have received additional dollars for security at their homes, but some have pushed for yet more protection as people have shown up at their homes and as members have received an increasing number of threatening communications. Nancy Pelosi, who is second in line of succession to the president, has a protective detail that was in Washington with her. She’d just returned this week from a security conference in Europe.

Often at Nancy Pelosi’s side during formal events in Washington, Paul Pelosi is a wealthy investor who largely remains on the West Coast. The couple have five adult children and many grandchildren. They have been married 59 years.

Earlier this year, Paul Pelosi pleaded guilty to misdemeanor driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in California’s wine country and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation.

The Pelosi home in the wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood has been the scene of several protests in the past few years. After Nancy Pelosi was seen on video getting her hair done at a salon while many were shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, stylists protested outside with curling irons. Members of the Chinese community protested outside recently before Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.

And during debates over the federal stimulus package protesters scrawled anarchy signs in black paint across the garage door, along with “cancel rent,” and “we want everything.” They left a pig’s head on the driveway.

Meanwhile, wishes of support and concern poured in.

“We have been to many events with the Pelosis over the last 2 decades and we’ve had lots of occasions to talk about both of our families and the challenges of being part of a political family. Thinking about the Pelosi family today,” tweeted Sen. Roy Blunt, R–Mo.

White House press secretary Karine Jean–Pierre said that President Biden had also been in contact with Nancy Pelosi.

“The president is praying for Paul Pelosi and for Speaker Pelosi’s whole family,” Jean–Pierre said. “This morning he called Speaker Pelosi to express his support after this horrible attack. He is also very glad that a full recovery is expected. The president continues to condemn all violence, and asks that the family’s desire for privacy be respected.”

At the Capitol, Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont, the Senate president who is third in the presidential line of succession, said he had known Paul Pelosi “forever.” He said, “It’s just horrible.”

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Why has The Associated Press tallied votes and declared winners in U.S. elections since the middle of the 19th century? Because no one else does.

Unlike the case in other democracies, the Founding Fathers didn’t establish a national clearinghouse for counting the vote, and the states all do it a little differently.

So every U.S. election night, The Associated Press counts the nation’s votes, tallying millions of ballots and determining which candidates have won their races. It’s been done that way since 1848, when the AP declared the election of Zachary Taylor as president.

Here’s the rundown on the AP’s role in election race calling:

HOW DID THE AP GET THIS JOB?

Basically, no one wanted to wait for weeks to find out who won elections.

The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College — a series of state elections to pick the president — to empower states in terms of their own elections processes. But they didn’t stand up a centralized entity to count every citizen’s vote.

Instead, each state determines its own voting rules, laws and procedures, including when polls close, which means counting doesn’t happen all at once.

“Once we split it into 50 parts, with 50 sets of rules, it’s a big job to try to compile all of that,” said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. “Especially if you’re aiming to get a timely report out.”

News organizations began tallying votes themselves, including the AP, which AP Election Decision Editor Stephen Ohlemacher said began with “our own version of the Pony Express,” gathering vote totals from far-flung areas in the 1848 election. As technology evolved, so did that process, with AP eventually transmitting vote counts by teletype to centralized race-calling operations on the East Coast.

Even in general elections, states used to vote on different days, until the advanced technology of knowing how other places had voted led to the practice of a single Election Day.

U.S. television networks began doing their own analyses in the 1960 race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, examining data and calling winners one state at a time.

AP now uses a network of thousands of stringers and vote center clerks who take feeds, scrape official state websites for data and electronically add up votes across the country.

There is a national elections entity, the Federal Election Commission, which regulates some aspects of federal elections, like administering and enforcing federal campaign finance laws, and financing of federal campaigns. But the FEC has no oversight over election results, laws or vote counting.

HAVE THERE BEEN PROBLEMS?

Yes. In 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune famously splayed “Dewey Defeats Truman” across the front page when early numbers made it look like Thomas Dewey was ahead. The tide turned, and President Harry S. Truman defied pollsters by scoring an upset victory.

In 2000, the major TV networks and the AP called Florida for Democrat Al Gore, relying largely on Election Day polling. As the votes were counted everyone reversed course. The networks declared that Republican George W. Bush had carried the state, only to later retract that decision, too.

The AP held off on making the second call, deeming the race too close. More than a month later, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stopped a recount and locked in Bush’s narrow victory.

“It was a very tense situation,” Ohlemacher said. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to not make a call.”

By two decades later, the AP’s process had further evolved, and in 2020, the AP was 99.9% accurate in all the race calls it made and perfect in declaring winners in the presidential and congressional races in each state.

DOES ANYONE WANT TO CHANGE THIS?

There were criticisms after the contentious 2020 presidential election, which saw challenges to the results from then-President Donald Trump and his allies in a number of states where he lost. After the AP and the major networks called the presidential race for Democrat Joe Biden, Trump tweeted: “Since when does the Lamestream Media call who our next president will be?”

Touting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the days after the election, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani pointed out that the media have no official role in deciding who becomes the U.S. president.

That’s true, but it doesn’t appear there are any major moves to change that system.

And while control of the U.S. House and Senate are hotly contested in this year’s midterm elections, the fact that a presidential race isn’t on the ballot could alleviate concerns about the media’s role, Edmonds said.

“The question about who will control the House or Senate, that almost rises to the level of who will be elected president, though,” he said.

THERE ARE STILL FORMALITIES AFTER COUNTS AND CALLS

Winners may have been called, and concessions may — or may not — have been made, but voting itself is over when polls close on Election Day. There’s still more work to do, as local election officials count and verify results through the canvass and certification process.

That means that race calls are made before results are official. But the AP only declares a winner when it’s certain that the candidate who’s ahead in the count can’t be caught.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

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Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin appeals court is refusing to block a lower court’s ruling banning the practice known as ballot spoiling, which allows voters who already submitted an absentee ballot to void it and vote again.

The state appeals court decided Thursday against hearing an appeal of a Waukesha County circuit court judge’s ruling this month in favor of a conservative group founded by prominent Republicans. The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission scheduled an emergency meeting for Friday afternoon to react to the ruling, which comes less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election.

Wisconsin voters have been submitting absentee ballots by mail for weeks and in person since Monday. As of Thursday, more than 419,000 ballots had been cast either by mail or in person, according to the elections commission.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson are both on the ballot in tight races. Johnson’s race could determine which party has majority control of the Senate and the next governor will be in position to either enact or reject bills passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature heading into the 2024 presidential election.

The appeals court on Oct. 10 agreed to put the lower court’s ruling on hold while it decided whether to hear the appeal from the elections commission, the Democratic National Committee and Rise, Inc., a group that works to get college students to vote. The appeals court’s ruling lifted that hold as of 3 p.m. on Friday. The elections commission was meeting at 12:30 p.m.

The order from Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, required the elections commission to inform municipal clerks and local election officials that its guidance on ballot spoiling issued Aug. 1 had been withdrawn. Schimel also forbid the commission from issuing any future guidance related to ballot spoiling that is not allowed under the law.

Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections filed the lawsuit last month. The group was created in July by former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove, GOP donor Steve Wynn and others. It has also filed election-related lawsuits in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Ballot spoiling got more attention in Wisconsin during the August primary after a Republican candidate for governor and three top Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate dropped out of the races, but their names were still on the ballots. The elections commission made clear then that voters who had cast their ballots for one of them absentee could spoil it and vote again for someone still in the race.

RITE argued that the practice in Wisconsin is both against the law and creates additional opportunities for fraud and confusion. The elections commission did not immediately provide numbers of how many ballots were spoiled by voters in recent elections.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida voters are deciding whether to get rid of a commission that meets every 20 years to recommend changes to the state constitution, the only such panel among the U.S. states that refers amendments directly to a statewide ballot.

Opponents of the Constitution Revision Commission say it has gone beyond its original mandate, lacks accountability and has become a venue for new statewide policy to be proposed to a group of temporary officials who — in contrast to the elected Legislature — are unelected appointees.

The commission isn’t the only way to refer state amendments to voters. The Legislature can do so, as can citizens through initiative petitions.

Still, some citizen groups don’t want to lose the commission, which Common Cause Florida calls “an important pathway Floridians have to change their state’s constitution.” The group is urging voters to reject the measure in voting that started in Florida on Oct. 24 and culminates Nov. 8.

The commission was created in the late 1960s and met in 1977-78, 1997-98 and 2017-18. Its critics say it was only intended to propose clean-up language or delete obsolete provisions, though the constitution gives it broad authority to set its own rules, procedures and agenda.

The governor, Senate president, House speaker — who in some years can be all from the same political party — appoint 33 of the panel’s members. The Supreme Court chief justice appoints three members, and the attorney general is an automatic appointee.

Critics say the panel’s membership is politically driven and includes unaccountable bureaucrats, political donors and lobbyists.

“It’s run by people who follow no rules and who are not elected,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, who sponsored the bill to put the measure on the ballot. “What we see is this body who, with one-party control of the Legislature and governor’s mansion, can effectively rewrite the constitution and I think that’s something both Republicans and Democrats should be concerned about.”

In the latest meeting, the commission placed seven proposed constitutional amendments on the 2018 ballot. Voters approved all seven. Some lawmakers complained that the commission had bundled different subjects into single proposed amendments. For example, one measure banned oil drilling in state waters and also barred vaping in places where smoking is banned.

In any case, the commission’s recommended ballot issues were overshadowed that year by a citizens’ initiative measure to automatically restore voting rights for most felons who have completed their sentences, which also passed. Republican lawmakers later insisted the law be clarified to require that felons pay all fines, restitution and legal fees as part of their sentences to regain their right to vote.

It’s not the first time voters have been asked to abolish the commission. In 1980, voters rejected a similar ballot question, with 56.5% voting no and 43.5% voting yes. That’s when the governor’s office and Legislature were controlled by Democrats. They’re now controlled by Republicans.

Back in 1980 such ballot measures required a simple majority of yes votes to pass. However, they now require a higher hurdle, with approval by 60% of voters.

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GROVEPORT, Ohio (AP) — Ruth and Boyd Boone are longtime Ohio Republican voters, eager to reelect their GOP governor. But when it comes to the Senate, they’re not so sure.

Both are skeptical of JD Vance, the venture capitalist and author-turned-first time candidate who won the Republican nomination with former President Donald Trump’s backing.

“I don’t like him at all,” said Boyd, 80, who owns a farm outside of Ashville. “I don’t think he gives a blank about Ohio. I think he just thinks he’s going to be the senator.”

Both he and Ruth, 77, also said they like what they hear from Democrat Tim Ryan, the 10-term congressman running against Vance as a moderate — though they also have their reservations, including about his support for abortion rights.

“It’s going to be right down to the wire,” said Ruth of her decision, even as she picked up a yard sign for another Republican, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, from canvassers in a Kroger parking lot.

That ambivalence underscores a surprising dynamic in Ohio, where Vance is hoping to ride to Washington on a wave of national discontent with Democrats. Less than two weeks before Election Day, the race is more competitive than initially expected. While Vance may still win in a state that Trump carried by 8 percentage points twice, most polls show Vance and Ryan roughly tied, even as incumbent Republican Gov. Mike DeWine leads his Democratic rival by double digits.

Campaigning recently in a red and white windbreaker and sneakers, Ryan stressed his working class roots and cast Vance as an outsider and “extremist” more interested in notching a title than serving Ohioans.

But the Democrat’s blue collar campaign sometimes sounds like a broadside against his own party.

“We have got to get this country back focused on the stress that working people are under every single day,” he said at a union hall in Niles, where he grew up, peppering his speech with profanities. “I don’t give a s—- who you voted for,” he told the room of Democratic activists and union organizers.

Indeed, Ryan sometimes sounds less like a candidate for Senate than a doomsday prophet warning national Democrats that they are on the precipice of disaster if they abandon the working class voters who were once the heart of the party’s base.

“We will not be a national party unless we have the working class back on our side and that’s what this election is all about,” Ryan said, his voice straining as he stood flanked by labor leaders at P.J. McIntyre’s Irish pub in Cleveland later that afternoon.

It’s a message that has resonated with voters like Christine Varwig, 54, a Toledo school board member who said that Ryan speaks her “language.”

“He gets us,” Varwig said at a backyard union gathering in Toledo, where Ryan, a former quarterback, tossed around a football, sipped beer and played tug-of war. (He lost but won a re-match.) ”When he talks about his grandfather, it reminds me of my own grandparents, and so we can relate.”

But across the state, it was clear what Ryan is up against. On a recent weekday morning at 9 a.m., the Thirsty Cowboy bar in Republican stronghold Medina was packed with several hundred Vance supporters, fired up and angry, with cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in hand.

“I think people are fed up,” Vance said as he railed against high grocery bills, rising gas prices and a porous border and blamed the country’s woes on failed leadership in Washington.

After sparking concern within the GOP for largely disappearing from the campaign trail over the summer, Vance has crossed the state with conservative firebrands including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Jr. At events, he talks about being raised by his grandparents as his mother struggled with opioid addiction — a story he turned into the best-selling memoir-turned movie “Hillbilly Elegy.” And he revs up his crowds by lacing into Ryan, painting the congressman as a “complete fraud” who has tried to sell himself as a moderate but votes with President Joe Biden — a theme Republicans have hit hard in ads.

“My message is pretty clear: Tim Ryan has been in office for 20 years, ladies and gentlemen, he’s had his chance. Let’s send him back to Youngstown and force him to get a real job,” Vance said as he campaigned later that afternoon with Cruz outside the Spread Eagle Tavern in Hanoverton, where several hundred people had gathered on a crisp fall afternoon next to several hulking tractors.

The crowd included Lettie Davis, 63, who works at a local car dealership, where a life-size cardboard cutout of Trump greets customers but where business has suffered from supply chain issues and soaring interest rates.

“We love him,” she said of Vance. “He’s down to earth, which I really like. And he has a lot to offer from his past, with his mom and all that. So he’s like the rest of us.”

“For a first-time candidate, he’s doing well,” said Steven Clifford, 68, a longtime Republican from Stark County.

Trump’s decision to endorse Vance, despite years of Vance’s criticism, helped the novice candidate seal the nomination in a competitive GOP primary. That turned him into one of Trump’s earliest success stories, helping the defeated president cement his status as a GOP kingmaker. But it also sparked fierce local backlash from supporters of rival candidates, who urged Trump to reconsider.

East Palestine’s Peggy Caratelli, 64, who initially backed Vance rival Josh Mandel, said it took her some time to come around to Trump’s decision. But now she is fully onboard.

“So some of us were not very happy about (the endorsement.) But we figure Trump is smarter than we are. So there is a reason,” she said. “You know, (Vance) was an anti-Trumper. But he was very quick to explain why he felt that way and why he changed his mind.”

“I think he’s seen the error of his ways. We forgive him,” added Don Ridge, 65, from Winona, who said he sees similarities between Trump and Vance.

Ryan, in an interview after a long day of campaigning, said he was confident he would ultimately prevail, in part by winning over the kinds of Republicans and independents in the state who have long backed party moderates like DeWine and retiring Sen. Rob Portman but have soured on Trump’s brand. He’s hoping some DeWine voters will split their tickets and cast their ballots for him, too.

“They like the fact that I’m running as an independent-minded guy who’s willing to take on his own party,” he said of voters.

Vance is publicly dismissive of his opponent’s chances.

“I think the media has constantly tried to tell a story that Tim Ryan is somehow keeping this race close. In reality, I think we’re going to win and I think we’re going to win pretty convincingly,” he said in an interview.

Through it all, Ryan has been largely ignored by the national Democratic Party as groups focus on defending vulnerable incumbents and flipping other Republican-held seats, even as Republicans have been pouring money into Ohio for attack ads against Ryan. That includes $28 million from the Mitch McConnell-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund from Labor Day through the election, and $2.4 million from Trump’s MAGA Inc. Super PAC, which is expected to continue spending in the state.

Ryan has his own robust fundraising operation and has actually outraised Vance. But the decision by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee not to invest more in the race to date has left some Democrats fuming.

“If he ends up losing by a point or two, that’s on them, 100%,” said Chris Monaghan, 51, who works with sheet metal workers in Toledo.

“I personally think it’s shameful. … We are so close,” said Varwig, the school board member who also works as an office manager at the Lucas County Democratic Party. She said that every day she meets Republicans who walk into the office and ask for Ryan signs.

“That says something,” she said. “They are completely turned off by Vance, completely turned off. The Republicans that I’ve talked to, they are sick of the Trump-Vance messaging.”

But nationally, both parties sense that the dynamics are trending in Republicans’ favor. And the GOP is relying on voters like Kimberly Kell, 61, a software engineer from Groveport who was hoping to retire this year but has put off her plans because of her battered retirement savings.

Kell hasn’t been following local politics or the Senate race, but plans to vote Republican because she’s angry at Biden.

“The only thing I really follow is listening to the presidential stuff, which I could just choke on,” she said. She plans to vote, “all Republican, down the board.”

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Barack Obama is trying to do something he couldn’t during two terms as president: help Democrats succeed in national midterm elections when they already hold the White House.

Of course, Obama is more popular than he was back then, and now it’s President Joe Biden, his former vice president, who faces the prospects of a November rebuke.

Obama begins a hopscotch across battleground states Friday in Georgia, and he will travel Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

The itinerary, which includes rallies with Democratic candidates for federal and state offices, comes as Biden and Democrats try to stave off a strong Republican push to upend Democrats’ narrow majorities in the House and Senate and claim key governorships ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

With Biden’s job approval ratings in the low 40s amid sustained inflation, he’s an albatross for Democrats like Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. But party strategists see Obama as having extensive reach even in a time of hyperpartisanship and economic uncertainty.

“Obama occupies a rare place in our politics today,” said David Axelrod, who helped shape Obama’s campaigns from his days in the Illinois state Senate through two presidential elections. “He obviously has great appeal to Democrats. But he’s also well-liked by independent voters.”

Neither Biden nor former President Donald Trump can claim that, Axelrod and others noted, even as both men also ratchet up their campaigning ahead of the Nov. 8 elections.

“Barack Obama is the best messenger we’ve got in our party, and he’s the most popular political figure in the country in either party,” said Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat and prominent political commentator.

Obama left office in January 2017 with a 59% approval rating, and Gallup measured his post-presidential approval at 63% the following year, the last time the organization surveyed former presidents. That’s considerably higher than his ratings in 2010, when Democrats lost control of the House in a midterm election that Obama called a “shellacking.” In his second midterm election four years later, the GOP regained control of the Senate.

Swimming against those historical tides, Biden traveled Thursday to Syracuse, New York, for a rare appearance in a competitive congressional district. After months of Republican attacks over inflation, he offered a closing economic argument buoyed somewhat by news of 2.6% GDP growth in the third quarter after two previous quarters of retraction.

“Democrats are building a better America for everyone with an economy … where everyone does well,” Biden said.

Yet Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said Obama is better positioned to take that same argument to Americans who haven’t decided whom to vote for or whether to vote at all.

“If it’s just a straight-up referendum on Democrats and the economy, then we’re screwed,” Smith said, acknowledging that no incumbent party wants to run amid sustained inflation. “But you have to make the election a choice between the two parties, crystallize the differences.”

Obama, she said, did that in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections “by winning over a lot of working-class white voters and others we don’t always think about as part of the ‘Obama coalition.’”

He couldn’t replicate it in midterms, but he’s not the president this time. Smith and Axelrod said that means Obama can more deftly position himself above the fray to defend Democratic accomplishments, from the specifics of the Inflation Reduction Act to the COVID-19 pandemic relief package that many Democrats have avoided touting because Republicans blame it for inflation. Smith said Obama can remind voters of years of Republican attacks on his 2010 health care law that now seems to be a permanent and generally accepted part of the U.S. health insurance market.

Beyond those policy arguments, Sellers noted that Obama, as the first Black president, “connects especially with Black and brown voters,” a bond reflected in the opening days of his itinerary.

In Atlanta, he’ll be on stage with Warnock, the first Black U.S. senator in Georgia history, and Stacey Abrams, who’s vying to become the first Black female governor in American history. Warnock faces a stiff challenge from Republican nominee Herschel Walker, who is also Black. Abrams is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who narrowly defeated her four years ago.

In Michigan, Obama will campaign in Detroit with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is being challenged by Republican Tudor Dixon, and in Wisconsin he’ll be in Milwaukee with Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who is trying to oust Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Each city is where the state’s Black population is most concentrated. Obama’s Pennsylvania swing will include Philadelphia, another city where Democrats must get a strong turnout from Black voters to win competitive races for Senate and governor.

With the Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties and Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the deciding vote, any Senate contest could end up deciding which party controls the chamber for the next two years. Among the tightest Senate battlegrounds, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three where Black turnout could be most critical to Democratic fortunes.

Plans have been in the works for Obama and Biden to campaign together in Pennsylvania, though neither the White House nor Obama’s office has confirmed details.

A wider embrace for Obama is a turnabout from his two midterm elections. But it’s at least partly a rite of passage for former presidents. “Most of them — maybe not President Trump, but most of them — are viewed more favorably after they leave office,” Axelrod said.

Notably, during Obama’s presidency, former President Bill Clinton was the in-demand surrogate heavyweight, especially for moderates trying to survive Republican surges in 2010 and 2014. Clinton was a pivotal voice for Obama’s reelection effort in 2012, with Obama dubbing him the “secretary of explaining stuff” after Clinton’s sweeping endorsement address at the Democratic convention as Obama was locked in a tight contest with Republican Mitt Romney.

“Bill Clinton was the MVP for us in 2012,” Axelrod said.

Now, Clinton is two decades removed from the White House, and the #MeToo movement has forced some people to reevaluate his history of sexual misconduct allegations.

“It’s always been dicey to bring in national Democrats in a midterm, and it doesn’t help when they bring a lot of baggage,” Smith said of Clinton.

Axelrod was more circumspect, saying simply, “It’s a different time.”

But he said Obama and Clinton have a similar approach.

“What Clinton and Obama share is a kind of unique ability to colloquialize complicated political arguments of the time, just talk in common-sense terms,” Axelrod said. “They’re storytellers. I think you’ll see that again when he’s out there.”

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Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

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This story has been corrected to show Abrams, not Kemp, is trying to unseat the governor.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will cast his midterm election ballot this weekend in his home state of Delaware, where in-person early voting begins Friday.

The White House said Biden will vote alongside his granddaughter Natalie, 18, who is a first-time voter. The Democratic president is casting his ballot as his party is facing an uphill battle to hold on to control of Congress and as Democrats have made a priority of encouraging their supporters to vote early in jurisdictions where it is available to maximize turnout.

Biden’s trip to his polling place comes as he is spending a long weekend at his Wilmington home. He’ll make a brief trip to nearby Philadelphia on Friday night to attend an event for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party with Vice President Kamala Harris. A Democratic official said the fundraiser will raise $1 million for the state party, with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in a close race against GOP nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz for a critical U.S. Senate seat.

Last month, Biden made a quick last-minute trip to Wilmington to cast his ballot in the state’s Democratic primary. At the time, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden’s schedule required the brief Air Force One jaunt to Wilmington to vote.

“He thought it was important to exercise his constitutional right to vote, as I just mentioned, and set an example by showing the importance of voting,” she told reporters. “He also had the opportunity to say hello to poll workers and thank them for their work. And we know how under attack poll workers have been these past several years.”

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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Alaskans want results, not “partisan political rhetoric,” as she faced her Donald Trump-backed Republican rival Kelly Tshibaka in a televised debate Thursday. Tshibaka questioned the value of Murkowski’s seniority and said it’s time for a change.

Murkowski “cannot accomplish in the next six years what she hasn’t been able to accomplish in the last 21 years,” Tshibaka said.

Murkowski, who has held the seat since late 2002 and is the most senior member of Alaska’s congressional delegation, said the race is about “who can best deliver for Alaska.” Murkowski pointed to and defended her record.

The debate, held less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 ranked choice election, also included Democrat Pat Chesbro, who has significantly trailed Murkowski and Tshibaka in fundraising. The other candidate on the ballot, Republican Buzz Kelley, who finished fourth in the August primary, last month suspended his campaign and endorsed Tshibaka.

Trump, who came to Alaska in July for a rally with Tshibaka and Republican Sarah Palin, whose House run he’s endorsed, participated in a tele-rally for Tshibaka earlier this week. He called Murkowski “one of the worst senators even imaginable.” He criticized her for voting for the “insane impeachment” and for opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Murkowski, who has a reputation as a centrist, was censured by state Republican party leaders last year for reasons including her criticism of Trump and vote to convict him during his second impeachment trial last year. He was acquitted.

State party leaders endorsed Tshibaka’s campaign.

Murkowski has said that while she’s a lifelong registered Republican she does not “pledge allegiance to a party.” She has emphasized a willingness to work across party lines and in campaign ads used the tag: “I’m for Alaska, always.”

Murkowski recently said she planned to rank U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, first in the race for Alaska’s only House seat, a decision criticized by Tshibaka.

Peltola won an August special election for the seat that was held for 49 years by Republican Rep. Don Young, who died in March. Peltola, who served in the state Legislature with Murkowski, said she planned to rank Murkowski first on her ballot, too.

The wide-ranging debate touched on topics including the Arctic, the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response and protecting youth from gun violence.

Murkowski defended bipartisan legislation passed earlier this year that she said helps address school security and mental health resources. The measure also “ensures that we are still able to provide for our Second Amendment protections while making sure that those who should not be possessing guns do not have them,” she said.

Under the bill, there will be money to help states enforce so-called red flag laws that help authorities temporarily take guns from people considered threatening and for other states’ violence prevention programs. Murkowski’s office, when the bill passed, labeled as a myth any suggestion that the measure “forces states” that don’t have red flag laws to adopt them.

Tshibaka’s campaign has said red flag laws “can be abused.” And she said Thursday that she would not have voted for the measure she called “extreme.” She said she would like to see more funding for school and mental health counselors.

Chesbro, a former educator, suggested looking at ways to ensure gun owners have their guns locked up.

Chesbro asked Murkowski during the debate how she would change her approach to confirming U.S. Supreme Court justices, noting that Murkowski had voted to confirm justices who earlier this year overturned Roe v. Wade. Murkowski, after a draft of the opinion was leaked, said her “confidence in the court has been rocked.”

Murkowski has expressed support for Roe and abortion rights with limits.

Murkowski called the confirmation process “broken. We are not evaluating nominees based on their competence, their qualifications, their temperament, their independence. We are evaluating them based on what president appointed them.”

She said she takes the evaluation process seriously. “We have got to get back to actually evaluating the criteria, the qualifications, of these nominees,” Murkowski said.

Chesbro, who supports abortion rights, said the “Supreme Court of the land should be the most fair, the most dependable court in the land.” She said she’s worried the court is “unbalanced.”

Tshibaka said she will support “constitutionalist nominees for the Supreme Court, regardless of which president appoints them. I think that the process is fine.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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