Politics Election category, Page 201

LOS ANGELES — An estimated 38.2 million TV viewers watched President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, according to Nielsen ratings. That surpassed the audience of 37.2 million for Donald Trump’s last such address in 2020, but fell short of the 45.6 million who tuned in for Trump’s first...

WASHINGTON — The U.S House has overwhelmingly approved a resolution “steadfastly, staunchly, proudly and fervently” in support of Ukraine. Lawmakers said Wednesday that history was watching the way the world responds as Ukrainians fight to save their Western-style democracy from invasion by Russia. With intensifying urgency, many in Congress said...

DALLAS — U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Texas said Wednesday that he was ending his reelection campaign and admitted having an affair following reports that he had been in a relationship with the widow of an American-born recruiter for the Islamic State group. The North Texas congressman’s announcement came the...

You’re minding your business, going to your job at the U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works, and the next thing you know, you have a front-row seat for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. How does that happen? For Joseph “JoJo” Burgess of Washington, Pa., it started with an...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Republicans forged ahead Tuesday with an overhaul of mine safety regulation that would strip the state of its ability to cite coal companies for unsafe working conditions. They blocked an effort by Democrats to derail the measure. That came a day after dozens of miners...

WASHINGTON — Addressing a concerned nation and anxious world, President Joe Biden vowed in his first State of the Union address Tuesday night to check Russian aggression in Ukraine, tame soaring U.S. inflation and deal with the fading but still dangerous coronavirus. Biden declared that he and all members of...

The Arizona Senate voted Tuesday to censure Republican Wendy Rogers, whose embrace of white nationalism and calls for violence drew condemnation from across the political spectrum. Rogers is in her first term in elected office but has built a national profile among the far right with inflammatory rhetoric and vociferous...

MADISON — The Republican-hired investigator of Wisconsin’s 2020 election testified Tuesday that the state Legislature should “take a very hard look at the option of decertification of the 2020” presidential election, a move that GOP leaders reiterated they won’t make and that nonpartisan attorneys call illegal. Michael Gableman released a...

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s mail-in voting law will remain in place, at least for the near future, despite a state judge’s order that would have made it expire in two weeks, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The justices issued a one-paragraph order that overturned a Feb. 16 decision by Commonwealth...

ATLANTA — As former President Donald Trump sought to lay blame for his 2020 election loss, Georgia’s secretary of state emerged as one of his main targets. Now, with a Trump-endorsed challenger in the Republican primary, Brad Raffensperger is fighting to keep his job. The secretary of state emerged from...

AUSTIN — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott will face Democrat Beto O’Rourke after voters in Texas opened what could be a lengthy, bruising primary season poised to reshape political power from state capitals to Washington. Both easily won their party’s nomination for governor on Tuesday. Abbott is now in a commanding...

WASHINGTON — Facing disquiet at home and danger abroad, President Joe Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address at a precipitous moment for the nation, aiming to navigate the country out of a pandemic, reboot his stalled domestic agenda and confront Russia’s aggression. The speech Tuesday night...

U.S. Rep. Scott Perry has just vanquished one major potential foe in his quest for a 6th term in Congress, as former Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has decided not to seek a rematch of their 2020 race. DePasquale, a Pittsburgh native, was widely considered Perry’s top political threat, with...

WASHINGTON — Karen Downing, a U.S. Navy retiree living on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, voted for Joe Biden in November 2020 — expecting the new president to end the covid-19 crisis and then pivot to tackling broader and long-standing social ills, like alleviating student loan debt and increasing access to mental...

A former Ross Township commissioner is the latest candidate to enter the race to replace U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb. Jeremy Shaffer joins at least three other Republicans vying for the seat representing Beaver County and many suburbs north and west of Pittsburgh. The boundaries of the congressional district were finalized...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Leading Republicans spent much of three days avoiding Donald Trump’s chief grievances or ignoring him altogether as they unified behind a midterm message designed to win back the voters the polarizing former president alienated while in office. That changed Saturday night. Facing thousands of cheering activists at...

Another attempt is underway to privatize Pennsylvania’s state-run liquor system and end the monopoly of state-owned stores being the only place to buy distilled spirits. A proposed constitutional amendment introduced by state Rep. Natalie Mihalek is the latest effort in a decades-long campaign by state Republicans to do away with...

Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene headlined a white nationalist conference in Florida where attendees cheered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and chanted the name of President Vladimir Putin shortly before she was introduced. The Rome lawmaker was the surprise guest at the America First Political Action Conference in Orlando,...

NEWTOWN — The banners and big red video screen all said Dr. Oz, the host gave a rousing introduction and in strode the candidate, Mehmet Oz, to take up the microphone and become the center of attention for more than an hour. Welcome to Oz’s campaign for U.S. Senate, where...

A newly vacant state house district in Pittsburgh’s North Hills has its first candidate. Dr. Arvind Venkat announced his Democratic candidacy on Thursday for Pennsylvania’s 30th State House District. Venkat is an emergency room doctor at Allegheny Health Network, serving as the core ER faculty at Allegheny General Hospital. He...

SCRANTON — Dr. Mehmet Oz leans in to ask a little girl, “Do you remember when your parents thought you were a boy?” The question was but a few seconds of a full 2010 episode of “The Dr. Oz Show” that focused on the experience of raising transgender children. But...

The Rev. Glenn Grayson said he lost “by a fluke” this month in a Democratic committee vote to become the party’s nominee in a special election to fill Jake Wheatley’s former state House seat for the rest of the year. Grayson, 62, tied social worker and community activist Aerion Abney,...

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, says he will step down before his six-year term is up and that he is “absolutely” at peace with the decision. In an interview published Friday by The Oklahoman, the 87-year-old Inhofe said...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday nominated federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman selected to serve on a court that once declared her race unworthy of citizenship and endorsed segregation. Introducing Jackson, Biden called her a “proven...