2022 Midterm election news as Democrats, GOP fight to control Senate, House of Representatives
Live updates from the 2022 Midterm Election campaign trail as Republicans and Democrats begin the final weeks of campaigning before election day in November. Stay up-to-date on events and latest news surrounding the 2022 midterms from Fox News!
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Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman used his stroke recovery to target his Republican opponent during a rally Saturday, joking that he has an excuse for his verbal mix-ups while mocking Dr. Mehmet Oz's viral mispronunciation of a grocery store chain.
"As you know, I had a stroke," Fetterman told a crowd in Pittsburgh during a rally. "Oh and I'm so grateful to be here today now after surviving that better and better, you know?"
Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, has taken criticism for not being open about his health since his May stroke, which occurred days before he handily won the Democratic nomination for Senate. Oz and others have raised questions about whether the 52-year-old former mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, is up to the task of serving in the Senate.
"You know, the only lingering issue that I have after that stroke is sometimes auditory processing, sometimes. And, every now and then, I might miss a word or, sometimes, you know, I might mush two words together," Fetterman said before bringing up a video of Oz that his campaign has mocked all summer.
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Crime is on the rise in major cities across the country and many Republicans seeking election to the Senate have put the issue at the forefront of their campaigns.
Recent poll indicates that voters believe Republicans are more equipped to handle the issue that is now of more importance to them than abortion, just weeks away from the November midterm elections.
According to the survey produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates in New York City, the economy (89%), education (77%) and inflation (76%) topped out the issues voters consider "highly important" as midterms loom, but those issues were followed closely by crime at 69%, which beat out abortion at 62%.
Read More: Strategists and political experts weigh effect of GOP's focus on crime ahead of midterms
Supporters of Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke spoke out ahead of Friday's gubernatorial debate with Gov. Greg Abbott, telling Fox News what amnesty would mean for immigrants, and the country.
"If we granted amnesty, we would cut out the coyotes and the illegal activity. And I believe a lot of deaths," a voter named Martha told Fox News. She backs O'Rourke in his support of a path to citizenship for migrants who have crossed into Texas illegally.
Voters also responded to Abbott's program of bussing migrants to left-leaning sanctuary cities across the country, accusing the Republican governor of using migrants as pawns for a political stunt.
"He bussed people and lied to them when they were already trying to be legal here," one voter told Fox News.
Abbott holds an eight-point lead over O'Rourke, according to RealClearPolitics' average.
During the Friday night debate at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Abbott accused O'Rourke of wanting to perpetuate the policies that led to an influx of migrants flowing over the southern border.
"It's clear that Beto just wants to perpetuate the open border policies and mischaracterize exactly what is going on," Abbott said during the debate.
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GOP candidate for New Mexico governor Mark Ronchetti tore into incumbent Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on crime Friday during the first debate ahead of the November midterm elections.
Ronchetti said citizens of Albuquerque lived the reality of high crime every day, pushing back on Lujan Grisham's suggestion that her Republican opponent didn't understand the issue because he's "never even been to a legislative session.”
“Are you kidding me? Everybody in Albuquerque lives it. We live it, governor — we live the crime everyday,” Ronchetti replied, according to video tweeted by the Republican Governor's Association.
“You don’t have to go to the Roundhouse [state capitol] because you guys don't have any crime in the Roundhouse. It's the exact reason you're so out of touch with the problems we have," Ronchetti said.
Ronchetti accused Lujan Grisham of blaming high crime on a lack of police after making it easier to sue officers, which he said dampened recruitment for law enforcement.
Lujan Grisham at times went after her Republican opponent's abortion position, stating: “If Mark Ronchetti was governor today, abortion would be illegal in the state of New Mexico.”
The Democrat incumbent accused Ronchetti of flip-flopping on his pro-life positions in order to get elected, according to a video tweeted from Lujan Grisham's account.
"He's playing right out of the Republican playbook nationally: Say anything to get elected, but work toward a national ban on abortion," Lujan Grisham said.
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, attends a House Financial Services Committee hearing titled Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy featuring testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in Rayburn Building on February 27, 2018. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/ Getty Images)
Vulnerable Democratic Texas Congressman Vicente Gonzalez missed a number of votes in the House of Representatives this week, citing the "ongoing public health emergency" of COVID-19 as his reason to vote remotely while he attended a number of events in his home state instead.
The embattled Democrat opted to vote by proxy, the process in which a member of Congress can have another member vote on legislation in their absence, choosing Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., to vote in his stead.
"I continue to be unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency and hereby grant the authority to caste my vote by proxy to the Honorable Lou Correa (California), who has agreed to serve as my proxy," Gonzalez's official proxy letter stated.
Of the votes missed by Gonzalez, the most high-profile was the Friday passage of a largely Democrat-backed bill that avoided a shutdown of the federal government, and was described by some as a crucial piece of legislation.
Read more from Fox News' Brandon Gillespie here.
U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio., (R) and Trump-backed Republican candidate J.D. Vance. (L) (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio., the Democratic nominee running in Ohio's Senate race, claimed he could not attend a House vote Wednesday due to "the ongoing public health emergency," but was actually at a fundraising event in Los Angeles.
“Instead of showing up to work in person and doing the job that Ohio taxpayers hired him to do, Tim Ryan has repeatedly abused the proxy voting system to further his own selfish political goals. It’s bad enough to not show up to work, but it’s even worse to lie about why you’re not showing up," J.D. Vance, Ryan's GOP midterm opponent, stated in a press release Friday. “Earlier this week, Ryan claimed he couldn’t show up to work in person due to ‘the ongoing public health emergency,’ while in reality, he was in California raising money at a high-dollar fundraiser with Hollywood elites.”
Ryan sent a letter to the House clerk Cheryl Johnson Wednesday, claiming COVID-19 was the reason he would be voting by proxy for a scheduled House meeting. It was later reported that Ryan traveled 2,000 miles away from his district to attend a fundraising event in Los Angeles.
“Let’s be clear: Tim Ryan isn’t constantly abusing the proxy system and refusing to vote in person in order to deliver better constituent services for Ohio taxpayers - he’s doing it to campaign and attend out of state fundraisers to further his own selfish political goals. It’s shameful: this is the type of behavior we see all too often from career politicians like Tim who have spent their entire adults lives living off the taxpayers’ dime, while not getting anything done for the people they’re suppose to represent.”
Former President Bill Clinton is urging his fellow Democrats who are seeking election to different offices this November not to allow 'defund the police' or 'socialism' rhetoric impact their election chances.
Clinton's remarks, according to The National Desk , came Thursday during a Georgetown University symposium honoring the late Madeleine Albright when he was asked how the United States should handle threats against democracy.
Former President Bill Clinton attends a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative Action Network in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Feb. 18, 2020. (Reuters/Ricardo Arduengo/File Photo)
"By winning elections," Clinton said, according to the outlet. "You can't go around complaining that people are violating democratic norms when the voters are rewarding them for it, either by staying home or being distracted by last-minute scare tactics."
"I mean, we lost the last two weeks of the 2020 election on defund the police and socialism, and that was our fault," Clinton added. "We shouldn't let that happen."
Clinton also insisted that "politics is about power" and that "elections are zero-sum games."
"The best societies are not zero-sum games," he said. "That's where this term 'norm' comes in."
"And it's difficult for us to realize that we can't beat them with the same strategy they beat us with, because we have a broader coalition," he added. "The people in the middle, especially like suburban, middle-class voters, upper-middle-class voters, they're easy to split, because they've got something to lose. ... So all they have to do is sit around and think about what will scare them with this election."
Clinton's warning to Democrats comes as they seek to hold onto their slim majority in both the House and Senate.
Barbra Streisand claimed "our country was at a crossroads" while former President Donald Trump was in office. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Getty Images for The Hollywood Reporter)
Hollywood icon Barbara Streisand is teaming up with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in an attempt to persuade voters to donate to the Democrats midterm election fund and claiming former President Donald Trump was "pushing fringe conspiracy theories and dangerous lies" during his time in office.
Streisand bashed Trump in the DCCC fundraising pitch, accusing him of "attacking" the democracy and insisting his pro-life stance was "threatening women's rights."
"And I’m so proud our country made the right choice by electing President Biden, protecting our House Majority, and flipping the Senate. But now we’re faced with another make-or-break choice," said a fundraising email attributed to Streisand.
"Trump and his Republicans are doing all they can to retake power and end our Democrats’ important work. So we can either sit back, let them buy their way into power, and take us back to the Trump era," she stated.
Streisand is a vocal Democratic supporter, recently flattering Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., on Twitter. "I am proud of @GavinNewsom as my Governor. He is speaking the truth about the disinformation and cruel stunts of right wing politicians," she shared to social media.
A bill that would ban members of Congress and others from trading stocks may have made progress with its introduction in the House on Tuesday, but it does not appear that lawmakers will take any further action on it before November’s midterm elections.
The House will only be in session and conducting votes on Thursday and Friday before members return home for work in their districts – as well as campaigning – and members are not scheduled to return until November 14, the week after Election Day. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told Punchbowl News that a vote on the stock bill is not likely to take place this week."
Well, it was just introduced," Hoyer said. "I gotta look at it and see what it is."Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who drafted the bill, told the outlet a failure to vote on the bill by Friday does not mean it has no future.
Read more from Fox News' Ronn Blitzer here.
Texas gubernatorial candidates Greg Abbott, a Republican, and Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat. (Brandon Bell, Jim Bennett/WireImage via Getty Images)
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke go head-to-head on Friday evening, in the first and likely only in-person debate in the Lone Star State's showdown for governor.
The debate — which is being hosted by the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg, along the U.S.-Mexico border — comes with three and a half weeks to go until early voting in Texas begins, and an average of the latest public opinion polls indicate the GOP incumbent holding a healthy upper single digit lead over his Democratic challenger.
Abbott clearly has the most to lose and O’Rourke the most to gain from the debate.
"Without question, if the status quo continues, Abbott is on a clear course to victory," Texas based political scientist Mark Jones told Fox News. "Beto has everything to gain."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/derek-schmidt-responds-attacks-education-ad-kansas-democrats-ahead-gubernatorial-election
FIRST ON FOX: Kansas GOP gubernatorial nominee Derek Schmidt is responding to complaints from Democrats who took aim at his latest ad targeting incumbent Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly over the extended closure of schools and the effect it had on children during the coronavirus pandemic, claiming they amount to an "attack on every Kansas parent."
The ad, titled "Empower Parents," features a woman named Natalie Ellis, a mother of five children who said she is voting for Schmidt in the election this November because Kelly's decision to close schools "did more damage to children than any other governor in Kansas history."
Following the release of Schmidt's ad, several prominent Democrats in the state, including Lt. Gov. David Toland and Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, held a press conference to denounce the ad in an effort to defend Kelly's record on education ahead of the state's upcoming gubernatorial election.
Responding to Democrats in the state, Schmidt, the state's current attorney general, insisted that criticism of the ad amounted to "attacks" on Kansas parents and concluded that Kelly's "loyalists can't defend her record" on education.
"Attacks on this ad are an attack on every Kansas parent, like Natalie, who is disappointed, frustrated and angry about Laura Kelly’s lockdowns and mandates," Schmidt said. "It’s one thing for the governor to tell parents over and over she ‘makes no apologies’ for the damage she's done to our kids, but it’s shameful her team is stooping to attacking Kansas parents because her loyalists can’t defend her record."
Democratic Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, his party's nominee for U.S. senate, greets guests during a campaign event at The Wicked Hop on Aug. 7, 2022 in Milwaukee. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Democratic Wisconsin Senate nominee Mandela Barnes was endorsed last month by a radical anti-police group that has called for defunding and disbanding law enforcement, as well as abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
On its website, Color of Change PAC celebrated Barnes' experience as a former field organizer and state representative, as well as the current lieutenant governor of the state, while calling for voters to make him the first Black senator from Wisconsin.
The group touts itself as the "nation's largest online racial justice organization," and has engaged in sharp rhetoric aimed at law enforcement, as well as policing policies and institutions it claims are "racist."
Last year, Color of Change praised the Minneapolis City Council's decision to hold a vote on whether to disband the city's police department. In a statement of support, the group called policing "a violent institution that must end." The vote, however, ultimately failed.
Read more from Fox News' Brandon Gillespie here.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur's midterm chances look up after new Cook Report rating. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
The Cook Report shifted its ratings in the Democrats favor in Ohio's 9th Congressional District, adjusting the race where incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, is challenging GOP opponent J.R. Majewski, from a "toss-up" to "lean Democrat."
The new rating comes just days after Majewski claimed to have served in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attack, but military reports revealed he was never actually stationed there.
According to an Associated Press report, Majewski is also under fire for saying that he was discharged from his military service and banned from reenlisting due to a fight that occurred in his Air Force dormitory.
Military records again refuted Majewski's claim, suggesting that the real reason he was released from his service was because he was caught driving drunk on an air base in Japan.
The Senate Republican Conference released a new video Friday highlighting the failures of the Biden administration, as well as the issues it said Republicans would address should the party win control of the body in the November midterm elections.
The video, titled "The First Two Years," was narrated by Sen. Jon Barrasso, R-Wyo., and blasts Biden over the rising crime rate, decades-high inflation, border crisis, and the ongoing economic recession plaguing Americans across the country.
The sharp attacks from Republicans come less than 6 weeks before election day, in which Fox News' Power Rankings predict Republicans will win control of the House of Representatives.
Control of the Senate remains a "tossup."
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