Two years ago, Georgia was the state that decided control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. This year, its importance will be slightly diminished – but that doesn’t mean the results of Tuesday’s run-off election between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker won’t be closely watched.
Democrats won enough seats in last month’s midterm elections to control Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, but only by a margin so slim they’ll need vice-president Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes on legislation Republicans don’t support. But if Warnock wins, the Democrats will control the chamber outright, and the influence of senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who repeatedly acted as spoilers for some of Joe Biden’s policy proposals over the past two years, will be lessened.
A victory by Walker will put Republicans one seat away from retaking control of the chamber, and perhaps mark the unofficial start of the campaign to do so in 2024. In that election, Democrats will be defending Senate seats in a number of states that typically vote Republican, such as Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. They would only need to lose one for the GOP to return to the majority.
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Here’s what else happened today:
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Former vice-president Mike Pence and Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski are among the few Republicans to condemn Trump’s call for the “termination” of the constitution.
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Kamala Harris will swear in Los Angeles’s new mayor Karen Bass next week. Bass will be the first Black woman to lead the city.
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Democrats have vastly outspent Republicans in the contest for Georgia’s Senate seat.
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The supreme court’s conservative majority appeared ready to side with a Christian graphic designer who refused to make a website for a same-sex couple in a case over Colorado’s anti-discrimination law. The arguments also featured some eyebrow-raising comments from conservative justice Samuel Alito.
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Manhattan’s district attorney has added a former justice department official with extensive Trump experience as he continues an inquiry into an alleged hush-money payment by the former president.
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Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker are in the home stretch of campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s run-off election for Georgia’s Senate seat. Polls indicate Warnock has the edge, while the weather may undercut Walker’s hopes that Republican voters will turn out massively for him tomorrow. Meanwhile, in New York, jurors are deliberating in the tax fraud trial of Donald Trump’s business.
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Here’s what else has happened so far today:
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Former vice-president Mike Pence and Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski are among the few Republicans to condemn Trump’s call for the “termination” of the constitution.
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Kamala Harris will swear in Los Angeles’s new mayor Karen Bass next week. Bass will be the first Black woman to lead the city.
-
Democrats have vastly outspent Republicans in the contest for Georgia’s Senate seat.
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Jurors in Manhattan will today start deliberating over whether to convict the Trump Organization in its tax fraud trial, Politico reports.
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Former president Donald Trump’s business is facing $1.6 m in fines if jurors determine that it avoided taxes through a scheme to pay its executives with under-the-table perks. Trump is not facing charges in the case, but a conviction could further tarnish his reputation as he once again seeks the White House in 2024.
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Closing arguments wrapped up last week, and a verdict could come as soon as today. Defense attorneys have argued Trump knew nothing about the scheme, and said Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer who has already pleaded guilty to tax charges, is to blame for the fraud.
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Good morning