What to know about the 2022 midterms
- NBC's 2022 midterm elections guide: Everything you need to know.
- One week out, Senate control appears a pure toss-up. Republicans need to gain just one seat to win a majority, with Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada at the center of the fight.
- All 435 U.S. House seats are up for election in the midterms — but just 35 seats are “toss-ups,” according to new ratings released today by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report
- As of Tuesday afternoon, 25,549,715 ballots have been cast nationwide. NBC News is tracking the early vote here. Plan your vote here
Biden campaigns in Florida ahead of midterms
Hillary Clinton says Republicans talk about crime in midterm messaging but 'could care less' about attack on Paul Pelosi
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that while Republicans have campaigned on fighting crime, they "could care less" about the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi.
“Republicans have been talking about nothing but crime. Then when a crime is committed against Paul Pelosi they could care less,” Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee for president, said in an MSNBC interview.
Asked about Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s making light of the attack on Pelosi, Clinton said: “If you have a candidate in your state who laughs about an 82-year-old man being hit with a hammer in his own home, there’s something wrong with that person. Why would they want you to laugh with them about a crime?”
Congress will want to hear from Elon Musk and Twitter — whichever party wins the midterms
Which party controls Congress next year could have big implications for Twitter — and its new “Chief Twit,” Elon Musk.
Democrats, fighting to keep their House and Senate majorities in next week’s midterm elections, are calling for investigations into Twitter and say they don’t trust Musk to police offensive language and election disinformation on the social media platform.
Republicans have cheered on Musk’s $44 billion takeover as he fired Twitter’s top executives, brought in his own team and froze some employee access to internal tools used for content moderation, which the GOP has argued have been used to target and silence conservative voices.
But influential Republicans said they also want to get to the bottom of whether there was political bias and censorship at Twitter and other tech companies before Musk’s takeover. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is poised to become the top Republican on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said he’d like Musk to “institute transparency” and disclose what he unearths as he digs into how content decisions were made under the previous leadership team.
The issues Pennsylvania voters say they care about the most
Text messages with misleading election info hit voters in 5 states
Voters in five states received text messages in recent days containing false information about how to vote, but the company that sent them says it was an error.
The secretaries of state in Kansas and New Jersey warned Monday that voters had been sent incorrect instructions about where to find their polling places. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people received the messages.
The messages appeared to have been personally tailored, with voters getting similar texts identifying names and addresses and purported polling locations, signed by a group called “Voting Futures.”
Movement Labs, a company that specializes in political text message campaigns encouraging progressives to vote, said late Monday that it was behind the texts and that it took “full responsibility for these mistakes and have issued correction texts.”
Biden participates in private fundraiser for DeSantis challenger
Following a speech defending Social Security and Medicare, President Joe Biden participated in a fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist at a private home in Golden Beach, Florida.
Standing on an outdoor patio overlooking the ocean, Biden told a crowd of about 50 people that Crist was running against “Donald Trump incarnate,” referring to GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom Biden has publicly sparred with over issues from immigration to abortion. DeSantis leads Crist in every major poll in Florida.
Biden also addressed the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, calling out Republicans for “making jokes” about the assault instead of condemning violence.
The president is scheduled to wrap up his Florida trip this evening with a political speech at Florida Memorial University.
Pennsylvania's Supreme Court orders election boards not to count undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ordered county election boards to refrain from counting any absentee or mail-in ballots with undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes.
The high court ordered county boards of elections to “segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes.” It was not immediately clear from the order what would happen to the undated or incorrectly dated outer enveloped ballots.
Justices wrote that the court was “evenly divided” over whether failing to count such ballots violated a federal law. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for election officials in the state to count undated mail-in ballots in a 2021 state judgeship race.
In recent elections, roughly 1% to 2% of mail ballots have been rejected, which could have an impact in Pennsylvania's tight Senate race between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz. Former President Donald Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by less than 1 percentage point, and President Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 1 point.
Harris says 'extremism would rule the day' if Republicans win control of Congress
Vice President Kamala Harris warned Tuesday that extremism would take hold on Capitol Hill if Democrats lose their majorities in the House and the Senate in next week’s midterm elections.
“First, imagine if we lost our majorities in the House and the Senate," Harris said at an event in North Carolina for congressional candidates. "If that were to happen, that means that big lies and extremism would rule the day. And we know what would follow."
Harris went on to say issues like contraception and marriage equality were at stake, in addition to other issues.
"With Republican Party leaders in charge, Social Security is on the line, health care and Medicare are on the line,” she said.
Biden, Pence, Obama and other heavy hitters hit the road in final push for voters
Jill Biden casts early ballot in Delaware
After having taught her writing class at Northern Virginia Community College on Tuesday, Jill Biden traveled back to Wilmington, Delaware, to cast an early ballot in the midterm elections.
The first lady voted at the same location on the downtown Wilmington waterfront where President Joe Biden cast his ballot over the weekend.
The first lady showed off her “I voted” sticker as she was leaving the polling location. She is expected to spend the night at the Bidens’ Wilmington house before she travels to Pennsylvania on Wednesday for several political events.