Politics

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds was elected Wednesday to lead the Republican Governors Association as she increases her national political profile days after easily winning a second term as governor.

Reynolds’ election as chairwoman of the group will put her in charge of raising money in 2023 for the Republican governors’ largest fundraising organization. Governor races next year include Kentucky and Louisiana, now held by Democrats, and Mississippi.

Reynolds served as vice-chair of the association in 2022, and her new role will give her a larger national presence. It follows her selection to give the Republican televised response last March to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

In the past, Republicans such as Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Chris Christie have used the role heading the governors’ association to sow party goodwill and broaden their donor network as they planned presidential campaigns.

Reynolds hasn’t indicated interest in running for president.

The vote for Reynolds to chair the RGA came in Florida, a day after former President Donald Trump announced his plans for another run for the White House. Some speakers at the organization’s meeting cast doubt on whether Trump’s campaign would succeed.

Reynolds has been a strong supporter of Trump and appeared with him at a rally Nov. 3 in Sioux City, Iowa.

There were 36 governor races on the ballot this year. Democrats won back governorships in Maryland, Massachusetts and Arizona, and held on in swing states Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Republican Joe Lombardo beat incumbent Democrat Steve Sisolak in battleground Nevada, while Republican governors won easily in Florida, Georgia and Ohio.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A push by top Republicans in Kansas to punish party officials who backed an independent candidate for governor is shining a spotlight on an internal rift that could hinder GOP leaders’ efforts to steer the state to the right over Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s objections.

Many Republicans blame independent state Sen. Dennis Pyle’s campaign for Kelly’s narrow reelection victory Nov. 8 over three-term Republican state Attorney General Derek Schmidt. But five hard-right lawmakers said in a Facebook statement this week that GOP “establishment manipulations” were the culprit and denounced the state party’s chair.

While Republicans nationally are unsettled by ex-President Donald Trump’s bid to win back the White House in 2024, the Kansas conflict boiled over because state GOP Chair Mike Kuckelman convened the party’s Loyalty Committee the day after the election. The committee enforces a party ban on its officials supporting non-Republicans.

“Kuckelman and the Republican establishment, we are done with you,” the lawmakers concluded in a posting on the Facebook page of state Sen. Mark Steffen, a south-central Kansas Republican.

Kuckelman, a Kansas City area attorney, plans to retire as chair in February, when his two-year term ends. Three of the statement’s signers said they plan to remain Republicans, while two others did not respond to emails seeking comment.

“I fix problems. I do not run from them,” Steffen said in an email Thursday. “As such, it is Republican Christian values that I adhere to and advance. Values that build great societies.”

Kelly won reelection with a little less than 50% of the vote and faces GOP legislative supermajorities that can override her vetoes — if Republicans remain unified.

The party’s Loyalty Committee this week stripped about 40 officials of party decision-making posts such as voting-precinct committee spots. However, Kuckelman said Thursday that the sanctions have been suspended to give those officials a chance to have appeals heard by the state party’s larger executive committee.

The hard right remained skeptical of Schmidt despite his conservative record as attorney general. He was an aide to moderate Republican U.S. senators early and served as Kansas Senate majority leader with a moderate Senate president before being elected attorney general in 2010.

Pyle also was among the Legislature’s most conservative Republicans before leaving the GOP to run for governor. Kuckelman and other GOP leaders contend Pyle took votes from Schmidt and decreased Republican turnout by making conservatives less enthusiastic about him.

“That election was a perfect example of how divided houses fall,” said Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita Republican.

The GOP dissenters argue that the state party establishment ignored conservatives’ misgivings and improperly treated Schmidt as the Republican nominee well ahead of the August primary. Pyle has called Schmidt a weak candidate.

“I plan to remain a principled Republican that honors the will of the People and respects the Republican Party platform,” said another dissenter, central Kansas state Sen. Alicia Straub.

Kuckelman saw the lawmakers statement as an attempt to tamp down the widespread Republican anger over support for Pyle.

“What they’re doing is trying to dig themselves out of a hole that they’ve placed themselves in,” Kuckelman said.

Pyle, Steffen and Straub already had been stripped of most Senate committee assignments by Masterson in February in a fight over redistricting. Senate rules forced Pyle to surrender his last remaining assignment when he registered as an unaffiliated voter in June.

Masterson told reporters this week that he hasn’t decided whether to punish Steffen and Straub further. Kuckelman acknowledged that the Loyalty Committee can’t touch elected lawmakers like them who don’t hold party positions.

And while three Kansas House members signed the statement, Rep. Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who’s expected to become House speaker in January, said he doesn’t plan to punish the two who were reelected. Hawkins said removing people from committees would mean others would have to “take up the slack.”

One of the House members, southwestern Kansas Rep. Tatum Lee, who lost a primary race when she was drawn into a district with another GOP incumbent, said in an email: “The statement I signed on to earlier in the week is to put on notice the traitors in our midst that our values nor our vote are for sale and that any cheap imitation or perversion of our platform is a slap in the face to Liberty.”

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Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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ATLANTA (AP) — Four days after Election Day, with a bitter, high-profile race for Arizona governor still up in the air, Ohio’s secretary of state broke an unspoken protocol among top election officials.

“Dear Arizona, need some advice on how to run an election the right way?” Frank LaRose, a Republican, chided his counterparts on Twitter. “Your process is obviously not working.”

Though not as fast as most would like, the process actually was working as designed and as it has for years in a state where the vast majority of voters cast mailed ballots. What’s different is that many of the races were so close that winners couldn’t be quickly determined, a frustration that has become more common as Arizona has evolved into one of the nation’s most hotly contested political battlegrounds.

The governor’s race eventually was called for the Democrat, Katie Hobbs, four days after LaRose sent his social media blast — with about 17,000 votes separating the candidates out of more than 2.5 million cast.

Arizona isn’t the only state where votes were still being counted a week later. Even in Ohio, where the margins for Republican candidates were wide enough for all top races to be called on election night, counties were still tallying late-arriving mailed, military and overseas ballots nearly a week after Election Day. One state legislative race had yet to be called.

In California, where voting by mail has greatly expanded, five U.S. House races had remained uncalled. The state’s vote counting process has been in the spotlight this week because California’s congressional districts had become pivotal for determining which party would control the House. The call for Republicans finally came late Wednesday after enough results had been released in a Los Angeles County seat.

Lengthy vote counts can frustrate candidates and their supporters, but they don’t indicate anything is wrong with the voting or the tallying of ballots. Counting even in races where a winner can be called on election night doesn’t stop until every eligible ballot has been verified and counted, and that takes time — sometimes a few days or even a week or more.

Many states allow mail ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and received within a set period of time. Those ballots then have to be verified and counted.

Also in many states, voters who return mail ballots with technical problems have a certain number of days for them to fixed. In Georgia’s Bartow County, the last ballots were counted late Monday afternoon, about 30 minutes before local officials certified the election.

“A lot of the important work we do for elections happens after Election Day,” said Joseph Kirk, the county’s election supervisor.

A week after the election, officials across the country were still counting ballots cast by military personnel or Americans who are overseas, as well as ballots that were cast provisionally when there were questions about eligibility.

Arizona and Nevada still had to count 2% of their ballots as of Tuesday, and in Oregon it was 4%. California at the time still had to count 31% of its estimated outstanding ballots.

Voters in each of those states are automatically mailed a ballot each election. It’s the same in Colorado, where election officials say the state’s vote-by-mail system, developed by both major parties, is working as it has in the past. Attention to the vote count process comes up only when there’s a high-profile race that is exceptionally close, as there is this year with Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s reelection bid in the 3rd Congressional District — still uncalled on Thursday.

Some have seized on the ballot counting process in Arizona’s Maricopa County, by far the state’s most populous, to question the integrity of the election. Supporters of Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor, have said it’s suspicious that it took days to count ballots. Lake has criticized Election Day’s transformation into what she calls “Election Week” and has not conceded the race.

Former President Donald Trump said in a social media post, “I assume everyone is watching Arizona as the great Kari Lake’s easy election win is slowly, yet systematically, being drained away from her, and from the American people.”

Some criticism is based on a misunderstanding of the process. Vote totals change as more ballots are counted, and that can mean one candidate pulls ahead of the other.

Ohio Republican LaRose said in an interview after his tweet that he favors his state’s process, in which the state releases results only on election night and then a second time after all ballots have been processed. He said releasing results incrementally, as Arizona does, can promote “wild conspiracy theories” and puts pressure on election workers.

Contributing to the challenges in Maricopa County was a massive influx of mail ballots dropped off on Election Day. Ahead of the election, conservative activists who falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump had urged supporters not to vote until the last minute or to turn in their mail ballots as late as possible as a way of preventing — in their view — Democrats from rigging the election.

There is no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in the 2020 election or this year’s. Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said there are no signs that voting systems changed or deleted votes, or were compromised in any way.

Mail ballots take longer to count because of the numerous verification steps built into the process to guard against potential fraud. These include matching ballots to the voter registration database and verifying signature or identification information.

“You can’t discount the impact that having to process mail ballots has had,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former local election official in Utah and Colorado who now advises federal and state officials on election administration and security. “All those things take time to do it right.”

Utah is the only Republican-led state to mail ballots to all active voters. The vote by-mail system has been implemented gradually over the past decade, and voters are overwhelmingly supportive, even though counting in close races can take weeks. In 2020, 92% of the state’s electorate used mail ballots.

This year, Republicans won Utah statewide races by convincing margins, but the outcome in one congressional district has in some years been decided by a percentage point or less. That meant the winner was not determined for several weeks, and yet the wait did not generate complaints from members of either party, said former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, who lost reelection to the seat in 2020.

“It’s unfortunate when people really are selective in their complaints about elections,” he said, comparing voting by mail in Utah to other states. “Nationally, it seems like it is disingenuous. You have to wonder what their motives are when they find problems in races where they lose, but see no problems in the races that they win.”

Utah, a state that voted for Trump twice, still had 8% of its estimated ballots yet to count as of Tuesday. Simply because the counting continues long after Election Day is no reason for alarm, said Ryan Cowley, Utah’s director of elections.

He said tens of thousands voters waited until Election Day to submit their mail ballots.

“The way I view it as you can either have it really fast or you can have it really accurate, but you can’t really have both,” Cowley said.

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Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio. Associated Press writers Jim Anderson in Denver; Sam Metz in Salt Lake City;and Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon, contributed to this report.

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

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DENVER (AP) — Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s lead has decreased against Democrat Adam Frisch in the tight race for a U.S. House seat representing a largely rural swath of Colorado.

Boebert, a conservative firebrand, saw her lead fall to about 615 votes with new results Thursday in a race that’s being closely watched across the country as Republicans try to bolster their advantage in the U.S. House after clinching a narrow majority Wednesday night.

Boebert’s margin puts the race within the threshold that would trigger a mandatory recount in the district. In Colorado, an automatic recount is triggered when the margin of votes between the top two candidates is at or below 0.5% of the leading candidate’s vote total. On Thursday afternoon, that margin was just below 0.4%.

Boebert is a Trump loyalist who gained widespread notoriety and a spot on the so-called “MAGA Squad” with her combative style. She had been favored to win reelection in the sprawling 3rd Congressional District after redistricting made the conservative district more Republican.

Frisch, a businessman who served on the city council in the posh ski town of Aspen, tried to lure Republican voters by downplaying his Democratic Party affiliation and tapping into GOP disillusionment with Boebert’s polarizing rhetoric and what he called her brand of “angertainment.”

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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will not seek a leadership position in the new Congress, a pivotal realignment making way for a new generation of leaders after Democrats lost control of the House to Republicans in the midterm elections.

Pelosi announced in a spirited speech on the House floor that she will step aside after leading Democrats for nearly 20 years and in the aftermath of the brutal attack on her husband, Paul, last month in their San Francisco home.

“Now we must move boldly into the future,” Pelosi said. “The hour has come for a new generation.”

The California Democrat, who rose to become the nation’s first woman to wield the speaker’s gavel, said she would remain in Congress as the representative from San Francisco, a position she has held for 35 years, when the new Congress convenes in January.

It’s an unusual choice for a party leader to stay on after withdrawing from congressional leadership but one befitting of Pelosi, who has long defied convention in pursuing power in Washington.

Democrats cheered Pelosi as she arrived in the chamber at noon. On short notice, lawmakers filled the House, at least on the Democratic side, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined. The Speaker’s Gallery filled with Pelosi staff and guest. Some Republicans, including some newly-elected members, also attended.

By announcing her decision, Pelosi could launch a domino effect in House Democratic leadership ahead of internal party elections next month as Democrats reorganize as the minority party for the new Congress.

Pelosi’s leadership team, with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, has long moved as a triumvirate. Hoyer and Clyburn are also making decisions about their futures.

All now in their 80s, the three House Democratic leaders have faced restless colleagues eager for them to step aside and allow a new generation to take charge.

Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California have similarly moved as a trio, all working toward becoming the next generation of leaders. Jeffries could make history if he enters the race to become the nation’s first Black speaker of the House.

One idea circulating on Capitol Hill was that Pelosi and the others could emerge as emeritus leaders as they pass the baton to new Democrats.

Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black American in Congress, has said he has no interest in being speaker or leader of the minority at this point in his life but expects to stay in Congress next year.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she will not seek a leadership position in the new Congress, ending a historic run as the first woman with the gavel and making way for a new generation to steer the party after Democrats lost control of the House to Republicans in the midterm elections.

In a spirited speech on the House floor, Pelosi announced that she will step aside after leading Democrats for nearly 20 years and in the aftermath of the brutal attack on her husband, Paul, last month in their San Francisco home — and after having done “the people’s work.”

The California Democrat, a pivotal figure in U.S. history and perhaps the most powerful speaker in modern times, said she would remain in Congress as the representative from San Francisco, a position she has held for 35 years, when the new Congress convenes in January.

“I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress,” she said. “For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect.”

Now, she said, “we must move boldly into the future.”

Dressed in white in a nod to the suffragettes, Pelosi was greeted with cheers as she arrived for the hastily called address. She received a standing ovation when she closed, lawmakers and guests one by one crowding her with hugs, many taking selfies of a moment in history.

President Joe Biden, who had encouraged Pelosi to stay on as Democratic leader, spoke with Pelosi in the morning and congratulated her on her historic tenure as speaker of the House.

“History will note she is the most consequential Speaker of the House of Representatives in our history,” Biden said in a statement, noting her ability to win unity from her caucus and her “absolute dignity.”

It’s an unusual choice for a party leader to stay on after withdrawing from congressional leadership, but not without precedent and Pelosi has long defied convention in pursuing power in Washington.

In an interview with reporters after her announcement, Pelosi said she won’t endorse anyone in the race to succeed her and she won’t sit on any committees as a rank-and-file lawmaker. She said the attack on her husband “made me think again about staying.”

But in the end, after the election, she decided to step down.

“I quite frankly, personally, have been ready to leave for a while,” she said. “Because there are things I want to do. I like to dance, I like to sing. There’s a life out there, right?”

During her remarks on the House floor, Pelosi recapped her career, from seeing the Capitol the first time as a young girl with her father — a former New Deal congressman and mayor — to serving as speaker alongside U.S. presidents, noting three of the four, but not mentioning Donald Trump.

“Every day I am in awe of the majestic miracle that is American democracy,” she said.

At one point, she compared the better-than-expected showing for Democrats in the midterms, the first national election after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, as “proof through the night that our flag was still there,” drawing cheers from colleagues.

The American historian Jon Meacham helped Pelosi with her speech, but an aide said she added that impromptu line herself.

On short notice, lawmakers who have been waiting and wondering about the long-serving leader’s plans filled the House, at least on the Democratic side, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined. He later joined a throng of lawmakers and hugged and kissed Pelosi on the cheek.

The Speaker’s Gallery was filled with Pelosi’s staff and guests. Some Republicans, including some newly elected members, also attended, though House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who’s seeking the speakership in the new Congress, did not, telling reporters afterward that he was “busy, unfortunately.”

Pelosi was twice elected to the speakership and has led Democrats through consequential moments, including passage of the Affordable Care Act with President Barack Obama and the impeachments of President Donald Trump.

Her decision Thursday paves the way for House Democratic leadership elections next month when Democrats reorganize as the minority party for the new Congress.

Pelosi’s leadership team, with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, has long moved as a triumvirate. All now in their 80s, the three House Democratic leaders have faced restless colleagues eager for them to step aside and allow a new generation to take charge.

Hoyer said after Pelosi’s remarks that “it is the time for a new generation of leaders” and that he will also step down from leadership but stay in Congress. Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black American in Congress, has said he expects to stay in Congress next year and hopes to remain at the leadership table.

Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California have similarly moved as a trio, all working toward becoming the next generation of leaders. Jeffries could make history in the future if Democrats regain control, and he enters the race to become the nation’s first Black speaker of the House.

First elected in 1987, Pelosi was among a dozen Democratic women in Congress. She was long ridiculed by Republicans as a San Francisco liberal while steadily rising as a skilled legislator and fundraising powerhouse. Her own Democratic colleagues have intermittently appreciated but also feared her powerful brand of leadership.

Pelosi first became speaker in 2007, saying she had cracked the “marble ceiling,” after Democrats swept to power in the 2006 midterm elections in a backlash to then-President George W. Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When she was poised in 2018 to return as speaker, in the Trump era, she vowed “to show the power of the gavel.”

Pelosi has repeatedly withstood leadership challenges over the years and had suggested in 2018 she would serve four more years as leader. But she had not discussed those plans more recently.

Typically unsentimental, Pelosi let show a rare moment of emotion on the eve of the midterm elections as she held back tears discussing the grave assault on her husband of nearly 60 years.

Paul Pelosi suffered a fractured skull after an intruder broke into their home in the middle the night seeking the Democratic leader. The intruder’s question — “Where is Nancy?” — echoed the chants of the pro-Trump rioters at the Capitol as they hunted for Pelosi and tried to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump.

David DePape is being held without bail on attempted murder and other charges in what authorities said was a political attack.

Historians have noted that other consequential political figures had careers later as rank-and-file members of Congress, including John Quincy Adams, the former president, who went on to serve for nearly 18 years in Congress.

___ Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Farnoush Amiri and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans won control of the U.S. House on Wednesday, returning the party to power in Washington and giving conservatives leverage to blunt President Joe Biden’s agenda and spur a flurry of investigations. But a threadbare majority will pose immediate challenges for GOP leaders and complicate the party’s ability to govern.

More than a week after Election Day, Republicans secured the 218th seat needed to flip the House from Democratic control. The full scope of the party’s majority may not be clear for several more days — or weeks — as votes in competitive races are still being counted.

But they are on track to cobble together what could be the party’s narrowest majority of the 21st century, rivaling 2001, when Republicans had just a nine-seat majority, 221-212 with two independents. That’s far short of the sweeping victory the GOP predicted going into this year’s midterm elections, when the party hoped to reset the agenda on Capitol Hill by capitalizing on economic challenges and Biden’s lagging popularity.

Instead, Democrats showed surprising resilience, holding on to moderate, suburban districts from Virginia to Minnesota and Kansas. The results could complicate House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s plans to become speaker as some conservative members have questioned whether to back him or have imposed conditions for their support.

McCarthy celebrated his party having “officially flipped” the House on Twitter on Wednesday night, writing, “Americans are ready for a new direction, and House Republicans are ready to deliver.”

Biden congratulated McCarthy, saying he is “ready to work with House Republicans to deliver results for working families.”

“Last week’s elections demonstrated the strength and resilience of American democracy. There was a strong rejection of election deniers, political violence, and intimidation,” Biden said in a statement. “There was an emphatic statement that, in America, the will of the people prevails.”

He added, that “the future is too promising to be trapped in political warfare.”

The narrow margins have upended Republican politics and prompted finger-pointing about what went wrong. Some in the GOP have blamed Donald Trump for the worse-than-expected outcome. The former president, who announced his third White House bid Tuesday, lifted candidates during this year’s Republican primaries who often questioned the results of the 2020 election or downplayed the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol last year. Many of those struggled to win during the general election.

Despite the GOP’s underwhelming showing, the party will still have notable power. Republicans will take control of key committees, giving them the ability to shape legislation and launch probes of Biden, his family and his administration. There’s particular interest in investigating the overseas business dealings of the president’s son Hunter Biden. Some of the most conservative lawmakers have raised the prospect of impeaching Biden, though that will be much harder for the party to accomplish with a tight majority.

Any legislation that emerges from the House could face steep odds in the Senate, where Democrats won the barest of majorities Saturday. Both parties are looking to a Dec. 6 Senate runoff in Georgia as a last chance to pad their ranks.

With such a potentially slim House majority, there’s also potential for legislative chaos. The dynamic essentially gives an individual member enormous sway over shaping what happens in the chamber. That could lead to particularly tricky circumstances for GOP leaders as they try to win support for must-pass measures that keep the government funded or raise the debt ceiling.

The GOP’s failure to notch more wins — they needed a net gain of five seats to take the majority — was especially surprising because the party went into the election benefiting from congressional maps that were redrawn by Republican legislatures. History was also on Republicans’ side: The party that holds the White House had lost congressional seats during virtually every new president’s first midterm of the modern era.

The new majority will usher in a new group of leaders in Washington. If elected to succeed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the top post, McCarthy would lead what will likely be a rowdy conference of House Republicans, most of whom are aligned with Trump’s bare-knuckle brand of politics. Many Republicans in the incoming Congress rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election, even though claims of widespread fraud were refuted by courts, elections officials and Trump’s own attorney general.

McCarthy won the nomination for House speaker on Tuesday, with a formal vote to come when the new Congress convenes in January.

“I’m proud to announce the era of one-party Democrat rule in Washington is over,” McCarthy said after winning the nomination.

Republican candidates pledged on the campaign trail to cut taxes and tighten border security. GOP lawmakers also could withhold aid to Ukraine as it fights a war with Russia or use the threat of defaulting on the nation’s debt as leverage to extract cuts from social spending and entitlements — though all such pursuits will be tougher given how small the GOP majority may end up being.

As a senator and then vice president, Biden spent a career crafting legislative compromises with Republicans. But as president, he was clear about what he viewed as the threats posed by the current Republican Party.

Biden said the midterms show voters want Democrats and Republicans to find ways to cooperate and govern in a bipartisan manner, but also noted that Republicans didn’t achieve the electoral surge they’d been betting on and vowed, “I’m not going to change anything in any fundamental way.”

AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the national electorate, showed that high inflation and concerns about the fragility of democracy had heavily influenced voters. Half of voters said inflation factored significantly, with groceries, gasoline, housing, food and other costs that have shot up in the past year. Slightly fewer — 44% — said the future of democracy was their primary consideration.

Counter to the GOP’s expectations, Biden didn’t entirely shoulder the blame for inflation, with close to half of voters saying the higher-than-usual prices were more because of factors outside his control. And despite the president bearing criticism from a pessimistic electorate, some of those voters backed Democratic candidates.

Democrats also likely benefited from anger over the Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision cementing a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. Voters in Michigan voted to amend their state constitution to protect abortion rights while far more reliably Republican Kentucky rejected a constitutional amendment declaring no right to an abortion.

Overall, 7 in 10 voters said the high court’s ruling overturning the 1973 decision enshrining abortion rights was an important factor in their midterm decisions. VoteCast also showed the reversal was broadly unpopular. About 6 in 10 say they are angry or dissatisfied by it. And roughly 6 in 10 say they favor a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide.

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

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Republican Rep. Mike Garcia, a former Navy fighter pilot, scored an upset U.S. House win in a strongly Democratic district Wednesday, handing the GOP control of the chamber and giving the party a rare reason to celebrate in a state dominated by Democrats.

The conservative Republican was reelected to a third term in a district that has a 12.5-point Democratic registration edge and was carried by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden by double digits in 2020. It was Garcia’s third consecutive victory over Democrat Christy Smith, a former legislator.

Garcia was first elected in a special election in May 2020, then was reelected two years ago by just 333 votes. He faced an even tougher challenge this year, after his left-leaning district was redrawn and became more solidly Democratic.

With nearly 75% of the ballots counted, Garcia had 54.2%, to 45.8% for Smith.

Garcia, who flew over 30 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom, is the sole GOP House member with a district anchored in heavily Democratic Los Angeles County.

It takes 218 seats to control the House. With the addition of the latest California results, Republicans have locked down 218 seats so far with Democrats claiming 211.

In another key race in the state, Democratic Rep. Mike Levin beat back a tough challenge from Republican businessman Brian Maryott in a Southern California district that straddles Orange and San Diego counties.

With nearly all the votes counted, Levin had 52.65%, to 47.4% for Maryott.

Levin said he was eager to return to Washington to continue working on affordable health care, climate change and assistance for veterans. Biden traveled to the district in the election’s closing days in hopes of giving Levin a boost.

Garcia’s win, which gave Republicans House control, came with a splash of political sass, arriving in a state so solidly Democratic that a Republican hasn’t won a statewide race since 2006. It is also home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. California is known nationally as a liberal monolith, but pockets of conservative strength remain, mainly in the Southern California suburbs and rural and farming stretches.

But even with the wins, Republicans will remain a small minority within the state’s congressional delegation.

Of the state’s 52 seats — the largest delegation in Congress — GOP candidates had captured just nine as of Wednesday. Counting continued in five districts, although one was a matchup between two Democrats.

Smith, a former legislator, had argued Garcia was out of step with district voters: He was endorsed by then-President Trump in 2020, then joined House Republicans who rejected electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania and opposed Trump’s impeachment after the Capitol insurrection. She also highlighted Garcia’s opposition to abortion rights.

Garcia emphasized his military service and pointed to his vote supporting $2,000 stimulus checks as one example of his political independence. He’s also stressed local issues, including concern over illegal marijuana cultivation.

In California, the primary House battlegrounds are Orange County — a suburban expanse southeast of Los Angeles that was once a GOP stronghold but has become increasingly diverse and Democratic — and the Central Valley, an inland stretch sometimes called the nation’s salad bowl for its agricultural production.

The tightest remaining contest in the state emerged in the Central Valley, where Democrat Adam Gray seized a tissue-thin lead over Republican John Duarte for an open seat in District 13.

Underscoring the closeness of the race, Gray’s campaign formed a committee to begin raising money to finance a possible recount. The latest returns showed Gray leading by 600 votes, with nearly 85% of the ballots tabulated.

In Orange County, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter was holding a nearly 3-point edge over Republican Scott Baugh in one of the nation’s marquee races. Baugh had slashed her lead in half earlier this week, but Porter, a star of the party’s progressive wing, rebounded. About 90% of the votes had been counted.

In the Central Valley’s 22nd District, where about two-thirds of the votes have been counted, Republican Rep. David Valadao, who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump, had a 5.6-point margin over Democrat Rudy Salas.

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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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AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Democrats held on to a swing district in Maine, as two-term U.S. Rep. Jared Golden beat back a challenge from a former congressman via ranked choice voting for the second time in four years.

Golden won reelection via the ranked round, Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, said Wednesday. He defeated Republican Bruce Poliquin, who held the seat from 2014 to 2018.

Golden had entered the ranked round trailing in 2018, but this election he began the instant runoff with a lead over Poliquin and independent candidate Tiffany Bond.

During the ranked round, votes for third-place finisher Bond were redistributed to the second choices of those who voted for her. Bond was also the third-place finisher in 2018.

State police were deployed around the district to retrieve ballots and memory devices before this year’s ranked tabulation. The retrieval schedule was not made public, but workers for the state were able to start the painstaking vote verification process on Monday. The ranked tabulation then took place Wednesday.

Golden had declared victory in the race last week, and treated the ranked round as a formality this time. He said before the count began that his appeal in rural Maine helped carry him to victory.

“There’s a number of towns we’ve consistently outperformed the party, outperformed the top of the ticket,” Golden said. “We’ve held onto those towns when some Democrats who used to represent them have lost.”

Golden is a Marine Corps veteran who has occasionally deviated from Democratic leadership on major issues, including President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, which he has opposed. Poliquin is a former investment manager and served two years as Maine’s state treasurer.

During the race, Poliquin tried to portray Golden as too liberal for the district. He has voiced opposition to ranked choice voting in the past and filed a lawsuit, later withdrawn, against the method in 2018.

Democrats should make changes such as cutting back on wasteful spending and working to reduce fuel prices, Poliquin said in a Facebook post before the results were announced.

“Biden, Pelosi, Golden and the Democrats should put politics aside and use some common sense to do what’s right while they wield all the authority,” Poliquin wrote. “Maine seniors and families are hurting and winter is just around the corner.”

The politically mixed and geographically vast district is one of two in Maine and includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities, Lewiston and Bangor. It is mostly made up of rural areas in northern and western Maine and the state’s Down East coastline.

The district handed an electoral vote to former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Trump performed even better there in 2020 than in his first election, but Golden held on to the seat that year.

Bond, an attorney, said she felt it was significant that the voters who picked her first ultimately decided the election.

“I’m encouraged that the fate of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District is going to be decided by voters that put candidate quality over the millions wasted on this election,” Bond said. “I hope in future years it’s the majority of us that take away the power to buy our elections.”

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PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters who overwhelmingly cast their ballots by mail have rejected a measure that would have would have required them to add more information to the simple signature and date they now put on the back of the return envelope.

Proposition 309 also would have eliminated the ability of registered voters who do not have a state or federally-issued photo ID with them when they vote in-person to provide other proof of identity to cast a ballot.

New tallies from Maricopa County and several smaller counties released on Wednesday showed there was no chance for the measure to pass. It had been too close to call in the eight days since polls closed on Nov. 8 and was the last of 10 measures on the ballot to be called by The Associated Press.

The measure was falling about 20,000 votes short of passing, well above the margin for a recount under a new law that boosts the difference between ballot measures or candidates from 1/10 of a percent to 1%.

Democrats and voting rights groups said that the changes would lead to more mail-in ballots being rejected and people being turned away at the polls. They also pointed out that citizenship and other requirements for voting are already done during the voter registration process.

Republicans said they were needed to boost election security. The GOP-dominated Legislature put the measure on the ballot.

If it had passed, Proposition 309 would have required voters to write their birthdates and add state-issued voter identification numbers, driver license or identification card numbers or a partial social security number to affidavits rather than just signing and dating them. The back-of-envelope signature used by many counties also would be changed to require that they be placed into a second envelope.

In-person voting requirements also would change, eliminating the ability of voters who don’t have a state, tribal or federal government-issued photo ID on them to vote by presenting two alternate documents, such as a utility bill.

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

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