Politics

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – A group representing the top judges in all 50 states is urging the U.S. Supreme Court not to shield actions taken by state legislatures affecting federal elections – such as reconfiguring electoral districts and imposing voting restrictions – from the scrutiny of state courts.

The bipartisan Conference of Chief Justices filed the brief on Tuesday in a closely watched case involving a map drawn by the Republican-led North Carolina legislature of the state’s 14 U.S. House of Representatives districts. The state’s top court struck down the map on Feb. 4, concluding that the districts were crafted in a manner intentionally biased against Democrats, diluting their “fundamental right to equal voting power.”

The Conference of Chief Justices argued that the U.S. Constitution does not prevent state courts from reviewing such congressional maps for violations of state constitutions, as the Republican state legislators defending the map argue.

The North Carolina Supreme Court rejected the Republican arguments seeking to exempt U.S. congressional electoral maps from legal review in state courts. A lower state court on Feb. 23 rejected a redrawn map submitted by the legislature and instead adopted a different map drawn by a bipartisan group of experts.

The conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case in its next term, which begins in October, with a decision due by June.

The Republican defense of the North Carolina legislature’s map relies on a legal theory called the “independent state legislature doctrine” that is gaining traction in conservative legal circles and, if endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court, would vastly increase politicians’ control over how elections are conducted.

Under that doctrine, language in the U.S. Constitution called the Election Clause gives state legislatures, not state courts or other entities, authority over election rules including the drawing of electoral districts.

The Conference of Chief Justices in its brief said that argument flew in the face of history and that the Constitution does not bar states from allowing their courts to review state election under their state constitutions.

“The Elections Clause does not derogate from state courts’ authority to decide what state election law is, including whether it comports with state and U.S. Constitutions,” the conference’s lawyers wrote.

Two groups of plaintiffs, including Democratic voters and an environmental group, sued after North Carolina’s legislature passed its version of the congressional map last November. The plaintiffs argued that the map violated the North Carolina state constitution’s provisions concerning free elections and freedom of assembly, among others.

The dispute is one of numerous U.S. legal battles over the composition of electoral districts, which are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes measured in a national census, last taken in 2020. In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain.

Republicans also have enacted voting restrictions in various states that they say are needed to combat fraud but critics contend are intended to reduce the voting power of Democrats.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) – Steve Bannon, a onetime top strategist for former U.S. President Donald Trump and recipient of a presidential pardon, is expected to surrender to New York authorities on Thursday to face a new indictment, a person familiar with the matter said.

Bannon in 2020 was accused in federal court of defrauding donors to a fund to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but that indictment was dismissed after he was pardoned in the final hours of Trump’s presidency.

The new indictment is for state criminal charges that may mirror parts of the earlier federal case, though it is unclear because the indictment is still sealed, the person said.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Bannon himself issued a statement Tuesday night, after the Washington Post first reported the new indictment.

“This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system,” Bannon said in the statement.

He said Manhattan federal prosecutors did the same thing in August 2020 to try to take him out of that year’s election.

“It didn’t work then; it certainly won’t work now,” Bannon said.

Bannon is expected to appear in state court in Manhattan on Thursday and then be released pending trial, the person said.

A president can pardon people for federal crimes but not state crimes.

Bannon is not the first Trump ally to be charged in state court. In 2019, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office attempted to pursue former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on felony charges, including mortgage fraud, that were similar to crimes for which Manafort had been convicted in federal court.

But the charges were dismissed after rulings that they amounted to double jeopardy, or trying someone twice for the same conduct. Manafort was pardoned by Trump in 2020.

Bannon had pleaded not guilty in the federal case, but double jeopardy may not apply because he was never tried.

Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who were charged alongside Bannon in the federal “We Build the Wall” case, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in April.

Bannon runs a popular hard-right podcast, “War Room,” where he regularly promotes pro-Trump information and hosts guests who deny that Trump lost the 2020 election.

In July, Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the select committee investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, a verdict the panel called a “victory for the rule of law.”

Bannon was a main adviser to Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, then served as his chief White House strategist during 2017 before a falling out that was later patched up.

Bannon, 68, championed “America First” right-wing populism and fierce opposition to immigration that became hallmarks of Trump’s presidency.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Luc Cohen; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found in the FBI’s search last month of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The Post report, which cited people familiar with the matter, did not identify the foreign government discussed in the document, nor did it indicate whether the foreign government was friendly or hostile to the United States.

An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the report. Trump representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The FBI recovered more than 11,000 government documents and photographs during its Aug. 8 search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, according to court records.

According to the Post report, some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations that require special clearances, not just top-secret clearance.

Some of the documents are so restricted that even some of the Biden administration’s senior-most national security officials were not authorized to review them, the Post said.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Trump for removing government records from the White House after he departed in January 2021 and storing them at Mar-a-Lago.

On Monday, a federal judge agreed to Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review records seized in the FBI search, a move that is likely to delay the Justice Department’s criminal investigation.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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PROVO, Utah (AP) — Campaigning at a park filled with 19th-century pushcarts on a state holiday honoring Utah’s early Mormon pioneers, Evan McMullin glad hands voters as he strolls past potato sack races and beverage stands selling cold, sugary drinks under a sweltering sun.

The independent U.S. Senate candidate who won the official backing of Utah’s Democratic Party in this year’s midterm election harks back to Utah’s pioneer days as he explains his quest to unseat two-term Republican Sen. Mike Lee.

“When our ancestors arrived, the only way to make this harsh but very beautiful place work in order for them to survive and thrive was to work together,” said McMullin, who casts his candidacy as an opportunity to ”unite Americans across party lines to protect democracy.”

To defeat Lee, McMullin’s idealized call for cross-party unity will have to do a lot more than just win over Democrats and a few disgruntled conservatives. Republicans have won every U.S. Senate race in Utah since 1976.

It’s been six years since McMullin, a soft-spoken former Republican congressional staffer, emerged as a third-party candidate as a conservative alternative to Donald Trump. McMullin won 21.5% of the vote in Utah in 2016, the most of any third-party candidate in the country. Trump still breezed to victory.

McMullin warned in a New York Times op-ed after Trump’s election that he was an authoritarian who “undermined critical democratic norms including peaceful debate and transitions of power.” This year, McMullin is hitting that message even harder, denouncing his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents.

McMullin has cast both Trump and Lee as threats to democracy, noting text messages obtained by the Jan. 6 House committee that show Lee discussing legally dubious schemes to keep Trump in power, before shifting course, backing away and voting to certify the election results.

“Authoritarians serve themselves and the small cadres that surround them,” McMullin, an ex-CIA officer, said. “They never solve problems.”

As both parties jockey for control of the evenly split Senate, the peculiar Republican-versus-independent contest has transformed Utah from an electoral afterthought into a possible spoiler. Conservative groups like Club for Growth are spending millions to defend Lee.

If McMullin were to win in November, he would become the Senate’s third independent, joining Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Both caucus with the Democrats, though McMullin has said he wouldn’t caucus with either party.

Both Lee and McMullin are vying for voters like Cindy Kemp of Lehi, who credits Trump for the country’s thriving pre-pandemic economy but was often fed up with his public persona.

“With Trump and everything, we were like, ‘What do we do?’” Kemp said after speaking to McMullin in Provo. “But he did good for the country.”

She plans to vote for McMullin.

Eighty miles (129 kilometers) north at a junior livestock auction in Ogden, Lee wears ostrich skin cowboy boots and sits cross-legged on a folding chair. Mingling with voters amid the the sound of squealing hogs after purchasing a sheep at the auction, he acknowledges the race defies traditional two-party dynamics yet hews closely to conventional Republican talking points: government spending, inflation and polling showing widespread disapproval of President Joe Biden.

In response to questions about prominent midterm election issues, Lee repeatedly prefaces his answers by circling back to a reminder that McMullin has been “embraced and endorsed and funded by the Democratic Party.”

Lee, a one-time critic of the former president who even voted for McMullin in protest of Trump in the 2016 election, dismisses McMullin’s alarm bells about extremism and says their race has less to do with Trump than Biden.

“Trump’s not on the ballot. This one is not about him,” Lee said as he walked through a cattle corral talking about the effects of inflation on feed and fuel prices.

“People in Utah feel strongly about the horrible state of affairs that Joe Biden has brought and the horrible conditions that we’re now facing with inflation and all that goes along with it.”

McMullin acknowledges issues like inflation and abortion rights are focal points in Senate races nationwide. Still, his campaign is laser-focused on what he believes are growing threats to democracy from power-hungry extremists willing to abandon it. It’s difficult to fix issues like air quality near the Great Salt Lake or buoy economically depressed coal towns in Carbon County, he said, without a functional, representative democracy.

“It’s democracy. And it’s what democracy allows us to do,” McMullin explains.

Although he says voters he speaks to largely agree having a functional government in Washington is important, McMullin is aware opinions clash within the coalition he hopes to unite behind him.

He insists voters are less polarized than people assume, yet despite that belief, offers carefully calibrated answers on polarizing topics such as abortion. He talks about “standing up to the extremes that want to criminalize women” and rejects abortion bans that don’t have exceptions for rape, but says he “doesn’t have all the answers” rather than articulating when he thinks abortion should be legal and when it shouldn’t.

Much like Lee repeatedly references McMullin’s Democratic Party support, McMullin repeatedly prefaces explanations about where he stands on issues by referencing “our coalition” — a group he says is the same one that supports Sen. Mitt Romney and includes Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents.

The “coalition,” he said, also supports investing in more modern infrastructure, but he doesn’t clarify his position on the billions in infrastructure spending approved since Democrats took control of Washington.

Back at the Weber County Fair, Lee says recently approved spending will exacerbate inflation and expand the role of government in everyday life.

“It’s pretty relevant if the party that has endorsed you and is funding you and is backing you is behind a $750 billion spending boondoggle at a time we’re in a recession and at a time we’re experiencing rampant inflation,” Lee said of McMullin.

Although Lee’s frequent “no” votes on bipartisan legislation garner criticism, they endear him to legions of Utah Republicans who call him “a fighter” and like that he isn’t afraid to disrupt Washington.

“He fights for us and takes what we say and takes it to heart. Not like other politicians, who lie to us and do different things, like Mitt Romney,” Heidi Hadley of Plain City said after meeting Lee at the fair.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found in the FBI’s search last month of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The Post report, which cited people familiar with the matter, did not identify the foreign government discussed in the document, nor did it indicate whether the foreign government was friendly or hostile to the United States.

Trump representatives and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

The FBI recovered more than 11,000 government documents and photographs during its Aug. 8 search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, according to court records.

According to the Post report, some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations that require special clearances, not just top-secret clearance.

Some of the documents are so restricted that even some of the Biden administration’s senior-most national security officials were not authorized to review them, the Post said.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Trump for removing government records from the White House after he departed in January 2021 and storing them at Mar-a-Lago.

On Monday, a federal judge agreed to Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review records seized in the FBI search, a move that is likely to delay the Justice Department’s criminal investigation.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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(Reuters) -Steve Bannon, a prominent associate of former U.S. President Donald Trump, is expected to face a new criminal indictment and surrender to state prosecutors on Thursday, the Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Bannon’s prosecution will likely mirror aspects of a federal case in which Bannon was pardoned, the paper reported on Tuesday. https://wapo.st/3qi9xFg

In 2021, Trump granted clemency to Bannon as part of a wave of pardons and commutations issued in his final hours in office.

Bannon was charged with swindling the president’s supporters in connection with an effort to raise private funds to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

He pleaded not guilty.

The details of the new indictment could not be confirmed, the Washington Post said. A spokesperson for Bannon dismissed it as a political ploy.

“This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system,” the spokesperson said in an email to Reuters.

The state case will be handled in the New York Supreme Court by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the Washington Post said.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney declined to comment on the report.

“The SDNY (Southern District of New York) did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the election. It didn’t work then, it certainly won’t work now,” Bannon said in a statement issued by his spokesperson.

In July, Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, a verdict the committee called a “victory for the rule of law.”

Bannon was a main adviser to the Republican Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, then served as his chief White House strategist during 2017 before a falling out between them that was later patched up. Bannon also has played an instrumental role in right-wing media.

(Reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Jahnavi Nidumolu in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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ATLANTA (AP) — Most contractors told them they would tear it down. A two-story five-bedroom Victorian built around 1900, it was abandoned and collapsing, with vines reaching its rafters. Elegant features were scavenged long ago. The house’s place in American history was at risk of disappearing.

An Atlanta couple bought the property nevertheless, hoping to fix it up and live there with their two children. Eventually they found partners who also recognized the importance of the house built by early civil rights activist Luther Judson Price.

Kysha and Johnathan Hehn’s renovation plans shifted to fast-forward when a neighbor connected them with “This Old House.” The PBS show chronicled their renovation in eight episodes to stream Sept. 29, weaving Black history in with its usual home improvement tips.

“An old house that has fallen into disrepair is our bread and butter,” the show’s host, Kevin O’Connor, said before a scene involving an antique door. “But Kysha and Jonathan continue to surprise me with their determination that anyone who walks through the house is aware of the legacy.”

Born enslaved by his plantation owner-father, Price was an early Clark College graduate who served as the federally appointed postmaster of South Atlanta, executive secretary of a Masonic order and superintendent of the South Atlanta Methodist Episcopal Church, while his wife, Minnie Wright Price, a graduate of Atlanta University, “shared each of these positions with her husband,” according to their obituaries in the Atlanta Daily World.

The Prices also led voter registration drives for African Americans and organized support for the Republican Party of their time, according to the Atlanta Public Schools, which has a middle school named in his honor.

In the house, the Hehns now plan to create a community space downstairs where people will be welcomed for meetings, to share food and stories and learn about a family that tried to point the South toward justice after the Civil War.

The Prices married in 1889 and built the home several years later along a two-block stretch of Gammon Avenue, flanked by the Gammon Theological Seminary and Price’s general store and post office. It was the hub of what was then called Brownsville, an upwardly mobile community that prospered even as Southern whites crushed federal efforts to help Black people rise from slavery’s political, social and economic legacy.

Then came a nightmare in September 1906, when a white mob that had killed at least 25 Black people in downtown Atlanta and ransacked the area, chasing rumors that Price had supplied his neighbors with weapons.

“Can you imagine seeing this mob of people coming toward you? Just imagine what your emotions would have been, with people coming to your house and neighborhood because of the color of your skin?” said Kysha Hehn, shuddering at the trauma they must have felt.

Price was narrowly rescued, staying at the county jail for his own safety until the violence ended. “A lot of white people in Atlanta who had contact with him went out of their way to protect him,” said his grandson, Farrow Allen.

The massacre prompted an exodus of Black people from Atlanta, and those who stayed were legally disenfranchised. While Luther and Minnie Price lived in the home until his death in 1936, their five children left Georgia, missing a chance at generational wealth through real estate. The home changed hands as the neighborhood declined, its assessed value falling below $7,000 before the Hehns bought it, tax records show.

“The most graceful way to move forward is to be gentle and honest with the past, with pieces of our history that we cannot change, while moving forward with the intention of creating a more peaceful and compassionate world for everyone,” Kysha Hehn said.

One small example: The Hehns urged the show’s producers to avoid saying “master bedroom,” given its connotations of slavery. O’Connor said they made the switch to “primary bedrooms” a while ago.

And while they’ll acknowledge the trauma, she said visitors should know “there were birthdays here. There were celebrations here. We lived in joy, even when that was not what was expected for us to do.”

“Everyone has been so kind and nice,” she added, describing how one couple came over and said “Hey, we have Luther Price’s mantlepiece, do you want it?” They had been keeping it in their basement nearby.

Another cherished discovery was the Ashanti symbol of “Sankofa” they saw in wrought-iron bars protecting a downstairs window.

“It’s a bird that’s facing forward, but its neck is craning backward and there’s an egg on its back and the bird is picking up the egg, symbolizing how she’s carrying the wisdom of the past and bringing it forward to the youth,” Kysha Hehn said. “To have this symbol of Sankofa all around where people gathered is just a dream for me.”

___

Warren is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team.

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By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate could add language protecting gay marriage rights to a stopgap bill to keep the federal government funded in a bid to increase pressure on Republicans to support it, a Democratic source said on Tuesday.

Such a move could up the pressure in the evenly divided chamber, as it faces a Sept. 30 deadline to avoid partial federal agency shutdowns when money runs out.

Congress has less than four weeks to pass the measure before returning to the campaign trail for the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when President Joe Biden’s Democrats are expected to lose their thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Control of the Senate is also up for grabs.

Republican cooperation will be necessary in the Senate to pass the temporary funding bill that may last until December, which is needed because the two parties have yet to agree on a dozen regular funding bills. Democrats control the 50-50 Senate thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s top Democrat, vowed to enact the funding package and avoid a government shutdown weeks before the midterms that could rebound on his party, which controls the Senate, the House and the White House.

“Democrats are going to work in good faith to avoid even a hint of a shutdown. And it is my expectation that our Republican colleagues will do the same,” Schumer said in a Tuesday floor speech.

He has previously pledged to hold a vote on a House-passed bill codifying the right to same-sex marriage.

It is not clear that bill will have the 10 Republican votes needed to pass. In recent days, senior Democrats have considered the possibility of adding it to the must-pass funding measure in hopes of ensuring approval, the Democratic source said.

During the August recess both parties worked on revisions to the measure, which could help its prospects, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

UKRAINE AID, DISASTER FUNDING ON THE TABLE

Plenty of controversial issues could roil Congress as it grapples with a massive spending bill.

On Friday, Biden requested $47.1 billion in new spending, including $11.7 billion in emergency funds to help Ukraine in its fight against Russian forces and $22.4 billion in COVID-19 aid.

With many areas of the United States suffering from climate change-related flooding, Western wildfires and other natural disasters, Biden has requested $6.5 billion in aid, along with $4.5 billion to help deal with an outbreak of monkeypox.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin may ramp up his push for a bill reforming the way permits are approved for energy infrastructure projects ranging from pipelines to export facilities. It is a measure that some Democrats could have concerns with because of climate change worries.

Heading into the final two months of the campaign, congressional Democrats were feeling somewhat more optimistic about avoiding massive losses to Republican challengers.

Gasoline prices have fallen and there are signs of a public backlash against the conservative-majority Supreme Court’s overturning abortion rights, which was a Republican Party goal for decades.

Democrats have scored victories this year on popular initiatives, such as gun control, placing a cap on some prescription drug prices and moving toward carbon emissions reductions blamed for climate change.

Nevertheless, Biden’s popularity has suffered because of Americans’ economic worries and COVID-19 pandemic fatigue.

Republican lawmakers undoubtedly will spend this upcoming work session hammering away on such issues.

“These are challenging times for a lot of folks,” Republican Senator Mitt Romney said in a statement last week. “With record inflation, we’re seeing higher prices for food, electricity, gasoline, and more.”

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone, Josie Kao and Jonathan Oatis)

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(Reuters) -California’s grid operator projected record-breaking power demand on Tuesday and called on consumers to conserve energy for the seventh consecutive day to avoid blackouts amid soaring temperatures.

The California Independent System Operator (ISO) urged residents to cut power use in the late afternoon and early evening as the sun sets and the state’s vast supply of solar-generated electricity recedes.

California’s week-long run of record-breaking temperatures is projected to continue this week with highs reaching into the 110s Fahrenheit (mid 40s Celsius) in interior parts of the state, according to the National Weather Service.

The ISO forecast demand would peak at 51,590 megawatts (MW) on Tuesday, topping the current record of 50,270 MW in 2006, before sliding to 49,868 MW on Wednesday.

Late on Tuesday morning, solar was supplying about a third of the state’s power demand.

“We need a reduction in energy use that is two or three times greater than what we’ve seen so far as this historic heat wave continues to intensify,” Elliot Mainzer, CEO of the ISO, said in a statement.

If demand for power exhausts the grid’s electric reserves, the ISO said it would instruct utilities to start imposing rotating outages. It would be the first time the state has taken such a measure since a brutal heat wave in August 2020 forced power cuts over two days to around 800,000 homes and businesses.

U.S. power prices in California and other western states for Tuesday soared to their highest since that 2020 heat wave.

Power prices at the Palo Verde hub in Arizona and SP-15 in Southern California rose to $850 and $505 per megawatt hour, respectively. That was their highest since hitting record highs of $1,311 in Palo Verde and $698 in SP-15 in August 2020 when the ISO last imposed rotating outages.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York and Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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By Steve Holland

WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. (Reuters) -Democratic President Joe Biden on Monday assailed “MAGA Republicans” loyal to former President Donald Trump as he spent Labor Day working to ensure union workers provide strong turnout for Democratic candidates in the November elections.

“We have a choice,” Biden told a union crowd in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. “Trump and the MAGA Republicans made their choice. We can work to have a better America or we can continue down this sliding path to oblivion where we don’t want to go.”

Speaking earlier to hundreds of union leaders and advocates under a bright sun in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the U.S. holiday designated to celebrate the achievements of American workers, Biden said he was not smearing all Republicans. But he slammed those who would defend the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Last week in Philadelphia, Biden blasted Republicans devoted to Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda as a threat to U.S. democracy and willing to overturn democratic elections. Republicans fired back that Biden had campaigned as a unifier in 2020, but was now turning his back on large segments of the American public who voted Republican.

“Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican, not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology. But the extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate and division,” Biden said in Milwaukee.

“There’s no democracy where you can be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy,” he said in a reference to the assault on the U.S. Capitol.

When a heckler erupted, Biden said to leave the protester alone. “Everybody is entitled to be an idiot,” he said. Democrats and mainstream Republicans need to battle against the ideas of the MAGA Republicans, he continued.

“Democracy is at stake,” he said.

Aides say the president is increasingly concerned about anti-democratic trends in the Republican Party, and sees a need to jump into this year’s Congressional elections fight and recast the stakes of his own 2024 re-election bid.

Biden is trying to bolster union support for Democrats ahead of the November midterm Congressional elections, with Democrats’ control of Congress hanging in the balance.

While union members have traditionally supported Democratic candidates, Trump eroded that support as struggling working-class Americans defected to the Republican party. In addition, support by moderate Republicans of some Democratic candidates could be critical to Democrats’ chances of securing some seats in both the House and the Senate.

Republicans have been hammering at the high inflation rate plaguing the U.S. economy ahead of the Nov. 8 elections, claiming that Biden and his policies are responsible.

Monday’s stops give Biden a chance to hone his message on organized labor and urge workers to stay loyal to the Democratic Party in two states with critical midterm races.

In Wisconsin, Democrats hope to re-elect Democratic Governor Tony Evers and help the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, oust Republican Senator Ron Johnson.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats are optimistic that the party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate, John Fetterman, will defeat the Republican television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz. Fetterman appeared at the event with Biden in West Mifflin.

Republicans are favored to win control of the House of Representatives in November and perhaps even the Senate.

The opposition party usually gains seats in the first elections after a new president takes over. But Biden and his team are hopeful that a string of recent legislative successes and voters’ outrage at the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 ruling that recognized women’s constitutional right to abortion will generate strong turnout among Democrats.

Some political pundits see a path for Democrats to hang on to both houses of Congress. Biden, whose own approval rating fell to 38% last week in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, in recent weeks has intensified his attack on Trump and his far-right loyalists to try to drive up strong Democratic turnout and appeal to mainstream Republicans.

“We’ll win if people vote,” Biden said in West Mifflin.

Unions have been increasing in popularity in recent years. A Gallup poll released last week found that 71% of Americans now approve of labor unions, the highest Gallup has recorded on this measure since 1965.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Andrea Ricci and Leslie Adler)

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