Politics

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin appeals court is refusing to block a lower court’s ruling banning the practice known as ballot spoiling, which allows voters who already submitted an absentee ballot to void it and vote again.

The state appeals court decided Thursday against hearing an appeal of a Waukesha County circuit court judge’s ruling this month in favor of a conservative group founded by prominent Republicans. The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission scheduled an emergency meeting for Friday afternoon to react to the ruling, which comes less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election.

Wisconsin voters have been submitting absentee ballots by mail for weeks and in person since Monday. As of Thursday, more than 419,000 ballots had been cast either by mail or in person, according to the elections commission.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson are both on the ballot in tight races. Johnson’s race could determine which party has majority control of the Senate and the next governor will be in position to either enact or reject bills passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature heading into the 2024 presidential election.

The appeals court on Oct. 10 agreed to put the lower court’s ruling on hold while it decided whether to hear the appeal from the elections commission, the Democratic National Committee and Rise, Inc., a group that works to get college students to vote. The appeals court’s ruling lifted that hold as of 3 p.m. on Friday. The elections commission was meeting at 12:30 p.m.

The order from Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, required the elections commission to inform municipal clerks and local election officials that its guidance on ballot spoiling issued Aug. 1 had been withdrawn. Schimel also forbid the commission from issuing any future guidance related to ballot spoiling that is not allowed under the law.

Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections filed the lawsuit last month. The group was created in July by former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove, GOP donor Steve Wynn and others. It has also filed election-related lawsuits in the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Ballot spoiling got more attention in Wisconsin during the August primary after a Republican candidate for governor and three top Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate dropped out of the races, but their names were still on the ballots. The elections commission made clear then that voters who had cast their ballots for one of them absentee could spoil it and vote again for someone still in the race.

RITE argued that the practice in Wisconsin is both against the law and creates additional opportunities for fraud and confusion. The elections commission did not immediately provide numbers of how many ballots were spoiled by voters in recent elections.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida voters are deciding whether to get rid of a commission that meets every 20 years to recommend changes to the state constitution, the only such panel among the U.S. states that refers amendments directly to a statewide ballot.

Opponents of the Constitution Revision Commission say it has gone beyond its original mandate, lacks accountability and has become a venue for new statewide policy to be proposed to a group of temporary officials who — in contrast to the elected Legislature — are unelected appointees.

The commission isn’t the only way to refer state amendments to voters. The Legislature can do so, as can citizens through initiative petitions.

Still, some citizen groups don’t want to lose the commission, which Common Cause Florida calls “an important pathway Floridians have to change their state’s constitution.” The group is urging voters to reject the measure in voting that started in Florida on Oct. 24 and culminates Nov. 8.

The commission was created in the late 1960s and met in 1977-78, 1997-98 and 2017-18. Its critics say it was only intended to propose clean-up language or delete obsolete provisions, though the constitution gives it broad authority to set its own rules, procedures and agenda.

The governor, Senate president, House speaker — who in some years can be all from the same political party — appoint 33 of the panel’s members. The Supreme Court chief justice appoints three members, and the attorney general is an automatic appointee.

Critics say the panel’s membership is politically driven and includes unaccountable bureaucrats, political donors and lobbyists.

“It’s run by people who follow no rules and who are not elected,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, who sponsored the bill to put the measure on the ballot. “What we see is this body who, with one-party control of the Legislature and governor’s mansion, can effectively rewrite the constitution and I think that’s something both Republicans and Democrats should be concerned about.”

In the latest meeting, the commission placed seven proposed constitutional amendments on the 2018 ballot. Voters approved all seven. Some lawmakers complained that the commission had bundled different subjects into single proposed amendments. For example, one measure banned oil drilling in state waters and also barred vaping in places where smoking is banned.

In any case, the commission’s recommended ballot issues were overshadowed that year by a citizens’ initiative measure to automatically restore voting rights for most felons who have completed their sentences, which also passed. Republican lawmakers later insisted the law be clarified to require that felons pay all fines, restitution and legal fees as part of their sentences to regain their right to vote.

It’s not the first time voters have been asked to abolish the commission. In 1980, voters rejected a similar ballot question, with 56.5% voting no and 43.5% voting yes. That’s when the governor’s office and Legislature were controlled by Democrats. They’re now controlled by Republicans.

Back in 1980 such ballot measures required a simple majority of yes votes to pass. However, they now require a higher hurdle, with approval by 60% of voters.

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GROVEPORT, Ohio (AP) — Ruth and Boyd Boone are longtime Ohio Republican voters, eager to reelect their GOP governor. But when it comes to the Senate, they’re not so sure.

Both are skeptical of JD Vance, the venture capitalist and author-turned-first time candidate who won the Republican nomination with former President Donald Trump’s backing.

“I don’t like him at all,” said Boyd, 80, who owns a farm outside of Ashville. “I don’t think he gives a blank about Ohio. I think he just thinks he’s going to be the senator.”

Both he and Ruth, 77, also said they like what they hear from Democrat Tim Ryan, the 10-term congressman running against Vance as a moderate — though they also have their reservations, including about his support for abortion rights.

“It’s going to be right down to the wire,” said Ruth of her decision, even as she picked up a yard sign for another Republican, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, from canvassers in a Kroger parking lot.

That ambivalence underscores a surprising dynamic in Ohio, where Vance is hoping to ride to Washington on a wave of national discontent with Democrats. Less than two weeks before Election Day, the race is more competitive than initially expected. While Vance may still win in a state that Trump carried by 8 percentage points twice, most polls show Vance and Ryan roughly tied, even as incumbent Republican Gov. Mike DeWine leads his Democratic rival by double digits.

Campaigning recently in a red and white windbreaker and sneakers, Ryan stressed his working class roots and cast Vance as an outsider and “extremist” more interested in notching a title than serving Ohioans.

But the Democrat’s blue collar campaign sometimes sounds like a broadside against his own party.

“We have got to get this country back focused on the stress that working people are under every single day,” he said at a union hall in Niles, where he grew up, peppering his speech with profanities. “I don’t give a s—- who you voted for,” he told the room of Democratic activists and union organizers.

Indeed, Ryan sometimes sounds less like a candidate for Senate than a doomsday prophet warning national Democrats that they are on the precipice of disaster if they abandon the working class voters who were once the heart of the party’s base.

“We will not be a national party unless we have the working class back on our side and that’s what this election is all about,” Ryan said, his voice straining as he stood flanked by labor leaders at P.J. McIntyre’s Irish pub in Cleveland later that afternoon.

It’s a message that has resonated with voters like Christine Varwig, 54, a Toledo school board member who said that Ryan speaks her “language.”

“He gets us,” Varwig said at a backyard union gathering in Toledo, where Ryan, a former quarterback, tossed around a football, sipped beer and played tug-of war. (He lost but won a re-match.) ”When he talks about his grandfather, it reminds me of my own grandparents, and so we can relate.”

But across the state, it was clear what Ryan is up against. On a recent weekday morning at 9 a.m., the Thirsty Cowboy bar in Republican stronghold Medina was packed with several hundred Vance supporters, fired up and angry, with cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in hand.

“I think people are fed up,” Vance said as he railed against high grocery bills, rising gas prices and a porous border and blamed the country’s woes on failed leadership in Washington.

After sparking concern within the GOP for largely disappearing from the campaign trail over the summer, Vance has crossed the state with conservative firebrands including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Jr. At events, he talks about being raised by his grandparents as his mother struggled with opioid addiction — a story he turned into the best-selling memoir-turned movie “Hillbilly Elegy.” And he revs up his crowds by lacing into Ryan, painting the congressman as a “complete fraud” who has tried to sell himself as a moderate but votes with President Joe Biden — a theme Republicans have hit hard in ads.

“My message is pretty clear: Tim Ryan has been in office for 20 years, ladies and gentlemen, he’s had his chance. Let’s send him back to Youngstown and force him to get a real job,” Vance said as he campaigned later that afternoon with Cruz outside the Spread Eagle Tavern in Hanoverton, where several hundred people had gathered on a crisp fall afternoon next to several hulking tractors.

The crowd included Lettie Davis, 63, who works at a local car dealership, where a life-size cardboard cutout of Trump greets customers but where business has suffered from supply chain issues and soaring interest rates.

“We love him,” she said of Vance. “He’s down to earth, which I really like. And he has a lot to offer from his past, with his mom and all that. So he’s like the rest of us.”

“For a first-time candidate, he’s doing well,” said Steven Clifford, 68, a longtime Republican from Stark County.

Trump’s decision to endorse Vance, despite years of Vance’s criticism, helped the novice candidate seal the nomination in a competitive GOP primary. That turned him into one of Trump’s earliest success stories, helping the defeated president cement his status as a GOP kingmaker. But it also sparked fierce local backlash from supporters of rival candidates, who urged Trump to reconsider.

East Palestine’s Peggy Caratelli, 64, who initially backed Vance rival Josh Mandel, said it took her some time to come around to Trump’s decision. But now she is fully onboard.

“So some of us were not very happy about (the endorsement.) But we figure Trump is smarter than we are. So there is a reason,” she said. “You know, (Vance) was an anti-Trumper. But he was very quick to explain why he felt that way and why he changed his mind.”

“I think he’s seen the error of his ways. We forgive him,” added Don Ridge, 65, from Winona, who said he sees similarities between Trump and Vance.

Ryan, in an interview after a long day of campaigning, said he was confident he would ultimately prevail, in part by winning over the kinds of Republicans and independents in the state who have long backed party moderates like DeWine and retiring Sen. Rob Portman but have soured on Trump’s brand. He’s hoping some DeWine voters will split their tickets and cast their ballots for him, too.

“They like the fact that I’m running as an independent-minded guy who’s willing to take on his own party,” he said of voters.

Vance is publicly dismissive of his opponent’s chances.

“I think the media has constantly tried to tell a story that Tim Ryan is somehow keeping this race close. In reality, I think we’re going to win and I think we’re going to win pretty convincingly,” he said in an interview.

Through it all, Ryan has been largely ignored by the national Democratic Party as groups focus on defending vulnerable incumbents and flipping other Republican-held seats, even as Republicans have been pouring money into Ohio for attack ads against Ryan. That includes $28 million from the Mitch McConnell-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund from Labor Day through the election, and $2.4 million from Trump’s MAGA Inc. Super PAC, which is expected to continue spending in the state.

Ryan has his own robust fundraising operation and has actually outraised Vance. But the decision by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee not to invest more in the race to date has left some Democrats fuming.

“If he ends up losing by a point or two, that’s on them, 100%,” said Chris Monaghan, 51, who works with sheet metal workers in Toledo.

“I personally think it’s shameful. … We are so close,” said Varwig, the school board member who also works as an office manager at the Lucas County Democratic Party. She said that every day she meets Republicans who walk into the office and ask for Ryan signs.

“That says something,” she said. “They are completely turned off by Vance, completely turned off. The Republicans that I’ve talked to, they are sick of the Trump-Vance messaging.”

But nationally, both parties sense that the dynamics are trending in Republicans’ favor. And the GOP is relying on voters like Kimberly Kell, 61, a software engineer from Groveport who was hoping to retire this year but has put off her plans because of her battered retirement savings.

Kell hasn’t been following local politics or the Senate race, but plans to vote Republican because she’s angry at Biden.

“The only thing I really follow is listening to the presidential stuff, which I could just choke on,” she said. She plans to vote, “all Republican, down the board.”

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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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ATLANTA (AP) — Barack Obama is trying to do something he couldn’t during two terms as president: help Democrats succeed in national midterm elections when they already hold the White House.

Of course, Obama is more popular than he was back then, and now it’s President Joe Biden, his former vice president, who faces the prospects of a November rebuke.

Obama begins a hopscotch across battleground states Friday in Georgia, and he will travel Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

The itinerary, which includes rallies with Democratic candidates for federal and state offices, comes as Biden and Democrats try to stave off a strong Republican push to upend Democrats’ narrow majorities in the House and Senate and claim key governorships ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

With Biden’s job approval ratings in the low 40s amid sustained inflation, he’s an albatross for Democrats like Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. But party strategists see Obama as having extensive reach even in a time of hyperpartisanship and economic uncertainty.

“Obama occupies a rare place in our politics today,” said David Axelrod, who helped shape Obama’s campaigns from his days in the Illinois state Senate through two presidential elections. “He obviously has great appeal to Democrats. But he’s also well-liked by independent voters.”

Neither Biden nor former President Donald Trump can claim that, Axelrod and others noted, even as both men also ratchet up their campaigning ahead of the Nov. 8 elections.

“Barack Obama is the best messenger we’ve got in our party, and he’s the most popular political figure in the country in either party,” said Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat and prominent political commentator.

Obama left office in January 2017 with a 59% approval rating, and Gallup measured his post-presidential approval at 63% the following year, the last time the organization surveyed former presidents. That’s considerably higher than his ratings in 2010, when Democrats lost control of the House in a midterm election that Obama called a “shellacking.” In his second midterm election four years later, the GOP regained control of the Senate.

Swimming against those historical tides, Biden traveled Thursday to Syracuse, New York, for a rare appearance in a competitive congressional district. After months of Republican attacks over inflation, he offered a closing economic argument buoyed somewhat by news of 2.6% GDP growth in the third quarter after two previous quarters of retraction.

“Democrats are building a better America for everyone with an economy … where everyone does well,” Biden said.

Yet Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said Obama is better positioned to take that same argument to Americans who haven’t decided whom to vote for or whether to vote at all.

“If it’s just a straight-up referendum on Democrats and the economy, then we’re screwed,” Smith said, acknowledging that no incumbent party wants to run amid sustained inflation. “But you have to make the election a choice between the two parties, crystallize the differences.”

Obama, she said, did that in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections “by winning over a lot of working-class white voters and others we don’t always think about as part of the ‘Obama coalition.’”

He couldn’t replicate it in midterms, but he’s not the president this time. Smith and Axelrod said that means Obama can more deftly position himself above the fray to defend Democratic accomplishments, from the specifics of the Inflation Reduction Act to the COVID-19 pandemic relief package that many Democrats have avoided touting because Republicans blame it for inflation. Smith said Obama can remind voters of years of Republican attacks on his 2010 health care law that now seems to be a permanent and generally accepted part of the U.S. health insurance market.

Beyond those policy arguments, Sellers noted that Obama, as the first Black president, “connects especially with Black and brown voters,” a bond reflected in the opening days of his itinerary.

In Atlanta, he’ll be on stage with Warnock, the first Black U.S. senator in Georgia history, and Stacey Abrams, who’s vying to become the first Black female governor in American history. Warnock faces a stiff challenge from Republican nominee Herschel Walker, who is also Black. Abrams is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who narrowly defeated her four years ago.

In Michigan, Obama will campaign in Detroit with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is being challenged by Republican Tudor Dixon, and in Wisconsin he’ll be in Milwaukee with Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who is trying to oust Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Each city is where the state’s Black population is most concentrated. Obama’s Pennsylvania swing will include Philadelphia, another city where Democrats must get a strong turnout from Black voters to win competitive races for Senate and governor.

With the Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties and Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the deciding vote, any Senate contest could end up deciding which party controls the chamber for the next two years. Among the tightest Senate battlegrounds, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three where Black turnout could be most critical to Democratic fortunes.

Plans have been in the works for Obama and Biden to campaign together in Pennsylvania, though neither the White House nor Obama’s office has confirmed details.

A wider embrace for Obama is a turnabout from his two midterm elections. But it’s at least partly a rite of passage for former presidents. “Most of them — maybe not President Trump, but most of them — are viewed more favorably after they leave office,” Axelrod said.

Notably, during Obama’s presidency, former President Bill Clinton was the in-demand surrogate heavyweight, especially for moderates trying to survive Republican surges in 2010 and 2014. Clinton was a pivotal voice for Obama’s reelection effort in 2012, with Obama dubbing him the “secretary of explaining stuff” after Clinton’s sweeping endorsement address at the Democratic convention as Obama was locked in a tight contest with Republican Mitt Romney.

“Bill Clinton was the MVP for us in 2012,” Axelrod said.

Now, Clinton is two decades removed from the White House, and the #MeToo movement has forced some people to reevaluate his history of sexual misconduct allegations.

“It’s always been dicey to bring in national Democrats in a midterm, and it doesn’t help when they bring a lot of baggage,” Smith said of Clinton.

Axelrod was more circumspect, saying simply, “It’s a different time.”

But he said Obama and Clinton have a similar approach.

“What Clinton and Obama share is a kind of unique ability to colloquialize complicated political arguments of the time, just talk in common-sense terms,” Axelrod said. “They’re storytellers. I think you’ll see that again when he’s out there.”

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

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This story has been corrected to show Abrams, not Kemp, is trying to unseat the governor.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will cast his midterm election ballot this weekend in his home state of Delaware, where in-person early voting begins Friday.

The White House said Biden will vote alongside his granddaughter Natalie, 18, who is a first-time voter. The Democratic president is casting his ballot as his party is facing an uphill battle to hold on to control of Congress and as Democrats have made a priority of encouraging their supporters to vote early in jurisdictions where it is available to maximize turnout.

Biden’s trip to his polling place comes as he is spending a long weekend at his Wilmington home. He’ll make a brief trip to nearby Philadelphia on Friday night to attend an event for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party with Vice President Kamala Harris. A Democratic official said the fundraiser will raise $1 million for the state party, with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in a close race against GOP nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz for a critical U.S. Senate seat.

Last month, Biden made a quick last-minute trip to Wilmington to cast his ballot in the state’s Democratic primary. At the time, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden’s schedule required the brief Air Force One jaunt to Wilmington to vote.

“He thought it was important to exercise his constitutional right to vote, as I just mentioned, and set an example by showing the importance of voting,” she told reporters. “He also had the opportunity to say hello to poll workers and thank them for their work. And we know how under attack poll workers have been these past several years.”

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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Alaskans want results, not “partisan political rhetoric,” as she faced her Donald Trump-backed Republican rival Kelly Tshibaka in a televised debate Thursday. Tshibaka questioned the value of Murkowski’s seniority and said it’s time for a change.

Murkowski “cannot accomplish in the next six years what she hasn’t been able to accomplish in the last 21 years,” Tshibaka said.

Murkowski, who has held the seat since late 2002 and is the most senior member of Alaska’s congressional delegation, said the race is about “who can best deliver for Alaska.” Murkowski pointed to and defended her record.

The debate, held less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 ranked choice election, also included Democrat Pat Chesbro, who has significantly trailed Murkowski and Tshibaka in fundraising. The other candidate on the ballot, Republican Buzz Kelley, who finished fourth in the August primary, last month suspended his campaign and endorsed Tshibaka.

Trump, who came to Alaska in July for a rally with Tshibaka and Republican Sarah Palin, whose House run he’s endorsed, participated in a tele-rally for Tshibaka earlier this week. He called Murkowski “one of the worst senators even imaginable.” He criticized her for voting for the “insane impeachment” and for opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Murkowski, who has a reputation as a centrist, was censured by state Republican party leaders last year for reasons including her criticism of Trump and vote to convict him during his second impeachment trial last year. He was acquitted.

State party leaders endorsed Tshibaka’s campaign.

Murkowski has said that while she’s a lifelong registered Republican she does not “pledge allegiance to a party.” She has emphasized a willingness to work across party lines and in campaign ads used the tag: “I’m for Alaska, always.”

Murkowski recently said she planned to rank U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, first in the race for Alaska’s only House seat, a decision criticized by Tshibaka.

Peltola won an August special election for the seat that was held for 49 years by Republican Rep. Don Young, who died in March. Peltola, who served in the state Legislature with Murkowski, said she planned to rank Murkowski first on her ballot, too.

The wide-ranging debate touched on topics including the Arctic, the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response and protecting youth from gun violence.

Murkowski defended bipartisan legislation passed earlier this year that she said helps address school security and mental health resources. The measure also “ensures that we are still able to provide for our Second Amendment protections while making sure that those who should not be possessing guns do not have them,” she said.

Under the bill, there will be money to help states enforce so-called red flag laws that help authorities temporarily take guns from people considered threatening and for other states’ violence prevention programs. Murkowski’s office, when the bill passed, labeled as a myth any suggestion that the measure “forces states” that don’t have red flag laws to adopt them.

Tshibaka’s campaign has said red flag laws “can be abused.” And she said Thursday that she would not have voted for the measure she called “extreme.” She said she would like to see more funding for school and mental health counselors.

Chesbro, a former educator, suggested looking at ways to ensure gun owners have their guns locked up.

Chesbro asked Murkowski during the debate how she would change her approach to confirming U.S. Supreme Court justices, noting that Murkowski had voted to confirm justices who earlier this year overturned Roe v. Wade. Murkowski, after a draft of the opinion was leaked, said her “confidence in the court has been rocked.”

Murkowski has expressed support for Roe and abortion rights with limits.

Murkowski called the confirmation process “broken. We are not evaluating nominees based on their competence, their qualifications, their temperament, their independence. We are evaluating them based on what president appointed them.”

She said she takes the evaluation process seriously. “We have got to get back to actually evaluating the criteria, the qualifications, of these nominees,” Murkowski said.

Chesbro, who supports abortion rights, said the “Supreme Court of the land should be the most fair, the most dependable court in the land.” She said she’s worried the court is “unbalanced.”

Tshibaka said she will support “constitutionalist nominees for the Supreme Court, regardless of which president appoints them. I think that the process is fine.”

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PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix police have made an arrest in connection with a burglary at the campaign headquarters for Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor.

Police did not release the person’s name or say whether they believe the crime was politically motivated. Sgt. Phil Krynsky said more information would be released later Thursday.

Hobbs’ campaign manager, Nicole DeMont, has said items were taken during the burglary early Tuesday, but the campaign has declined to say what is missing.

Hobbs is in a tight race against Republican Kari Lake, a former television news anchor. Hobbs has received death threats stemming from falsehoods over the 2020 election in Arizona, which she oversaw as secretary of state.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Post fired an employee on Thursday for putting false and racist content targeting politicians on the newspaper’s website and Twitter feed.

The tweets and fake news stories included calls for the assassinations of President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both Democrats. False tweets had New York’s Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, making violent statements about Gov. Kathy Hochul and hurling racist slurs at New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Another false tweet had Texas Gov. Greg Abbott saying he would “order Border Patrol to start slaughtering illegals.”

The Post, in a statement, said its investigation concluded the acts were committed by an employee, who was fired. No details were released on who the employee was or how one person had the ability to hijack the accounts.

“This morning, we immediately removed the vile and reprehensible content from our website and social media accounts,” the Post said.

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The Georgia prosecutor investigating possible illegal election interference in the 2020 election said Thursday that the Supreme Court should not stand in the way of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s testimony to a grand jury.

In a filing with the high court, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the justices should reject Graham’s plea that they block his testimony while he continues to appeal the order to appear before a special grand jury.

The panel is investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in the state.

Justice Clarence Thomas issued a temporary stay of the testimony while the court more fully considers the issue. Thomas acted on his own as the justice who handles emergency appeals from Georgia. But the entire court is expected to weigh in.

Graham has argued he is shielded from the questioning by a constitutional provision, the speech and debate clause.

Willis said lower courts already have modified the subpoena issued to Graham to foreclose questioning about protected legislative activity, including questioning on any topics related to individual investigation by the Senator into election wrongdoing in Georgia, while allowing questioning only on topics outside the boundaries of legislative activity.

Graham’s testimony, originally sought for late August, has been rescheduled to Nov. 17, according to a new subpoena that was attached to his Supreme Court filing.

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JESUP, Ga. (AP) — Georgia’s top candidates fanned out Thursday to parts of the state that already embrace them, trying to dig up every bit of support they can amid a big turnout in early voting.

For Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, that meant a trip to parts of rural southeastern Georgia that have become among the most GOP-dominated areas of the state. His Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, meanwhile, headed to Milledgeville and Augusta, showing how she visits both cities and small towns, but almost always places with significant numbers of the Black voters who are the backbone of Georgia Democratic politics.

In narrowly divided Georgia, both sides are trying to pry votes out of every cranny, knowing that even as more than 4 million people are likely to vote by Nov. 8, the outcome could be decided by mere thousands of ballots. President Joe Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, while Kemp defeated Abrams by fewer than 55,000 in 2018.

The focus on energizing each party’s base comes amid heavy early turnout in Georgia, where more than 1.25 million voters had already cast ballots as of Thursday and still nine days of early in-person voting to go in some counties. Mail-in ballots, although diminished from the torrent of 2020, are also arriving at county election offices.

Kemp stumped Thursday at a restaurant in rural Jesup, about 65 miles (100 kilometers) southwest of Savannah, where he spoke to roughly 80 people eating fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. Kemp worked the room before and after his speech, shaking hands and taking selfies.

Only 30,000 people live in Jesup and surrounding Wayne County. But it’s a deeply conservative area that Kemp carried with 80% of the vote in 2018.

“We’ve got to do it again this year,” Kemp implored the lunchtime crowd at Altamaha Steak and Seafood. “Because we’re in a fight for the soul of our state.”

Hitting the biggest applause line in his stump speech, Kemp asked the crowd to help him “make sure that Stacey Abrams is not going to be your governor or your next president.”

During his 20-minute speech, Kemp slammed Abrams for supporting prolonged pandemic shutdowns and being insufficiently supportive of police. He also noted that Abrams had been considered a potential vice presidential running mate for Biden, whom Kemp blames for inflation.

“These are the policies that are crushing hard-working Georgians right now,” Kemp said. “Those are the things that policy has done to us. What we’re doing is helping you fight through that.”

At the same time, Abrams was imploring a majority-Black crowd at a plaza in downtown Milledgeville to back her policy-heavy agenda.

“If you want more money in your pocket, say more!,” Abrams shouted, hoarse from campaigning. “If you want more opportunity in your community, say more! If you want more freedom in your lives, say more! If you want more for the future of our children, say more!”

Milledgeville is the largest town in Baldwin County, which is home to a state university, a lakeside retiree community and a substantial Black population. It’s one of a handful of politically competitive rural Georgia counties, with Abrams narrowly losing in 2018 before Biden narrowly won in 2020. And though Abrams must have a big turnout in cities, she’s also trying to mobilize rural Black voters. “I know that Georgia is more than 285,” Abrams told the Milledgeville crowd, referring to the traffic-clotted Interstate 285 loop around Atlanta.

Kemp wasn’t done in Jesup, going on to the crossroads of Nahunta. It’s a place that might draw blank stares among Atlanta Democrats, but it’s the county seat of Brantley County, the most Republican county in Georgia in recent years. Kemp won 91% of the vote there in 2018.

Georgia’s Republican Party grew to dominance combining strong performances in the Atlanta suburbs and rural areas. But the suburban arm of that coalition has faltered with the rise of Donald Trump, with some suburban voters rejecting Trump’s brand of Republican politics. Those defections, along with a growing nonwhite population, have turned a onetime Republican stronghold into the South’s premier swing state. It also means Republicans in Georgia, as they do nationwide, look to rural areas as their most reliable strongholds. Such ultra-Republican areas, including a larger swath of GOP bastions in the mountains north of Atlanta, are typically much whiter than the state as a whole.

Kemp’s host for the Wayne County stop was David Keith, an insurance salesman and former Jesup mayor.

“Hopefully we’re not sitting on our laurels thinking, `Don’t worry, we carried him last time,’” Keith said of Kemp. “He will carry Wayne County, but you’ve got to have a large majority to overtake some of the other areas that aren’t going to be so successful” in turning out Republicans.

That reality has also been reflected in Republican Senate challenger Herschel Walker’s schedule this week. After the first week of early voting took Walker to Democratic-dominated cities like Macon and Athens, Walker has headed into the mountains this week, sometimes dipping into Atlanta exurbs where Republicans still thrive.

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s travels show less of a partisan lean, reflecting a campaign that’s trying to run toward the middle of the electorate. The average county where he’s campaigning in the first two weeks of early voting is only 50% Democratic. But even Warnock is headed back to the heavily Democratic Atlanta suburb of College Park to rally with Abrams and Democratic former President Barack Obama on Friday.

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Amy reported from Milledgeville, Ga.

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For more AP coverage of the midterm elections: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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