Politics

By Alexandra Ulmer

ATLANTA (Reuters) – The crushing defeat of David Perdue in Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia likely delighted Donald Trump’s adversaries, who have been keeping scorecards to measure the performance of election candidates backed by the former president.

Trump has weighed in on November’s midterm elections like no former president, announcing more than 190 endorsements and holding rallies with his proteges. The success of his endorsees is seen as a key sign of his continued influence over the party as he hints at another run for the White House in 2024.

But political analysts and Republican strategists caution that any jubilation among Trump’s enemies over Perdue’s loss to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is short-sighted, and that any scorecard is a poor barometer for the state of Trumpism in the United States in 2022.

While Trump’s candidates have had mixed success so far this year in party primaries, many Republican voters still embrace Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, as well as his right-wing, “America First” populist ideology. And failure to win Trump’s endorsement has not stopped some Republican candidates from going hard-right to try to win over his base.

“In 2016, Trump was really the only candidate running as that sort of populist. Now it’s increasingly what most Republican primary candidates sound like,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant.

That underlines the continuation of the Trump-led metamorphosis of the Republican Party since he was voted out of the White House in 2020, even as some party leaders seek to move the party away from Trumpism, the strategists and analysts said.

“I think the No. 1 thing Trump has absolutely changed in the party is that Republicans don’t even try playing nice anymore. My side has become more angry,” said Republican strategist Chuck Warren.

THE PEOPLE’S MAGA

Trump’s kingmaker status was put to the test this month when several high-profile, Trump-backed candidates faced Republican primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

Around two-thirds of high-profile candidates backed by Trump triumphed in their contests in May, although some were running unopposed or against weak challengers. One race, the Republican senate contest in Pennsylvania between television personality Mehmet Oz, who received Trump’s endorsement, and former hedge fund executive David McCormick, has yet to be decided.

In another race on Tuesday, for Georgia’s secretary of state position, incumbent Brad Raffensperger narrowly avoided a run-off against Trump-endorsed Rep. Jody Hice.

In lobbying for the former president’s endorsement, both men cast aside their elite backgrounds to espouse the Trump-style populism that now resonates with Republicans.

The primary was shaken up by Kathy Barnette, a conservative political commentator, who came from nowhere at the 11th hour to tighten a race that had until then appeared to be a two-man contest. While she finished a distant third in the primaries, analysts said she was emblematic of how Trump’s Make America Great Again movement has expanded beyond his control.

“MAGA does not belong to President Trump,” Barnette said during a Republican debate last month, even as Trump spoke out against her. “Although he coined the word, MAGA actually belongs to the people.”

Republican voters in Pennsylvania also backed Trump-endorsed far-right candidate Doug Mastriano for governor, who supports abortion bans with no exceptions and backs Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Mastriano won his contest.

In North Carolina, Republican voters powered Trump-backed Representative Ted Budd, who voted to overturn Biden’s election win, to victory in the state’s Republican Senate nomination.

Georgia’s governor’s race, where Perdue was pummeled on Tuesday by Kemp, shows how the Republican Party has shifted to the right, irrespective of how Trump-endorsed candidates perform in these primaries.

While Kemp did not entertain Trump’s conspiracy theories of 2020 election fraud, he did enact sweeping voting restrictions, limited abortions and expanded gun rights.

But voters were only willing to follow Trump so far in backing flawed candidates in May’s nominating contests.

In North Carolina, voters ousted scandal-plagued congressman Madison Cawthorn despite Trump’s last-minute plea to give him “a second chance.” And in Nebraska, Trump’s choice for governor, Charles Herbster, lost amid accusations that he had sexually harassed several women.

With months of primaries still to come, it is much too early to know the final tallies on Trump’s scorecard.

But what is already clear, analysts say, is that Trump’s winning 2016 strategy to seize on the issues bitterly polarizing Americans is increasingly being emulated by Republican candidates this year and enthusiastically embraced by party supporters.

The spread of this right-wing populism may ultimately open the door for more challengers to Trump’s vice-like grip on the party ahead of the next presidential election, said Conant, the Republican strategist.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer, Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

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By Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Centrist U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar seeks to hold off progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Tuesday in a high-profile south Texas Democratic primary battle that illustrates sharp dividing lines over immigration and abortion rights.

The election in a district along the U.S.-Mexico border is the third contest between Cuellar, who has held the seat since 2005, and Cisneros, a 28-year-old attorney who failed to unseat him in 2020 but forced him to a runoff in the state’s March primary this year.

The race took on new urgency in recent weeks after a leaked opinion indicated that the Supreme Court could overturn a 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Cuellar, 66, is the lone House Democrat to oppose abortion rights, and abortion-rights groups have spent at least $160,000 to bolster Cisneros’s campaign.

Cuellar has said Cisneros would risk public safety and hurt the local economy by cutting law enforcement funding in a district where many voters work for border patrol agencies.

Cisneros has since distanced herself from her previous call to eliminate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Political analysts have said a Cisneros win could threaten Democrats’ chances to hold the seat in the Nov. 8 election, when Republicans hope to win control of the House of Representatives.

But Cuellar’s strength in the general election shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion, said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas in Austin.

“The reality is that Cisneros has come very close to unseating Cuellar twice at this point,” Blank said. “If he can’t defeat Cisneros, then I think the logic underlying that should come into question.”

Cisneros has benefited from increased name recognition and an FBI investigation that saw raids on Cuellar’s home and office.

Financial disclosures on Friday showed she has out-raised him by almost $1.4 million, and has around $400,000 more cash on hand than Cuellar.

The race is one of several midterm primary battles Tuesday between incumbent House Democrats and progressive challengers.

In Oregon, Jamie McLeod-Skinner looks set to oust moderate incumbent Kurt Schrader, while in Pennsylvania progressive Summer Lee has a slight lead over Steve Irwin. Other progressive challengers like Nina Turner in Ohio have lost.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Alistair Bell)

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The national Republican Party is taking the side of celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s neck-and-neck GOP primary contest for U.S. Senate and opposing a lawsuit that could help former hedge fund CEO David McCormick close the gap in votes.

McCormick’s lawsuit was filed late Monday, less than 24 hours before Tuesday’s deadline for counties to report their unofficial results to the state.

In it, McCormick asks the state Commonwealth Court to require counties to obey a brand-new federal appeals court decision and promptly count mail-in ballots that lack a required handwritten date on the return envelope.

Oz, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has pressed counties not to count the ballots and the Republican National Committee said it would go to court to oppose McCormick.

In a statement, the RNC’s chief counsel, Matt Raymer, said “election laws are meant to be followed, and changing the rules when ballots are already being counted harms the integrity of our elections.”

McCormick’s lawsuit is the first — but likely not the last — lawsuit in the contest between Oz and McCormick.

Oz led McCormick by 992 votes, or 0.07 percentage points, out of 1,341,037 ballots reported by the state as of Tuesday morning.

The race is close enough to trigger Pennsylvania’s automatic recount law, with the separation between the candidates inside the law’s 0.5% margin. The Associated Press will not declare a winner in the race until the likely recount is complete. That could take until June 8.

It’s not clear how many mail-in ballots that lack a handwritten date have been received by counties. Although he trails the vote count, McCormick has been doing better than Oz among mail-in ballots.

In an appearance Monday on a conservative Philadelphia radio talk show, McCormick insisted “every Republican vote should count” and said his campaign believes the federal court decision is binding on counties.

Ruling in a separate case late Friday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state election law’s requirement of a date next to the voter’s signature on the outside of return envelopes was “immaterial.” The lawsuit emerged from a county judicial election last year, and the three-judge panel said it found no reason to refuse counting the ballots in that race.

The ruling went against the position that Republicans in Pennsylvania have taken in courts repeatedly in the past to try to disqualify legal ballots cast on time by eligible voters for technicalities, such as lacking a handwritten date.

The state law requires someone to write a date on the envelope in which they mail in their ballots. However, the envelope is postmarked by the post office and timestamped by counties when they receive it.

Meanwhile, the state law gives no reason that a voter should date the envelope and does not explicitly require a county to throw it out should it lack a date.

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Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timelywriter.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

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By Alexandra Ulmer

ATLANTA (Reuters) -Georgia Republicans are expected to reject Donald Trump’s campaign to oust Governor Brian Kemp in Tuesday’s primary election, though polls show they are likely to back the former football star he has endorsed in their U.S. Senate primary.

The former president has backed primary challenges to Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for rejecting his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, which he falsely claims was the result of widespread fraud.

While polls show Kemp with a strong lead and Raffensperger locked in a close race, another Trump endorsee, former football great Herschel Walker, looks set to easily snag the Republican nomination to run for U.S. Senate. Some party leaders worry his controversial past could doom his chances in the November midterm elections.

Republicans are expected to win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 8, though polls and nonpartisan political ratings agencies suggest Democrats have a better chance of holding onto their razor-thin majority in the Senate.

The loss of either chamber would bring President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda to a halt and give Republicans the power to launch distracting and potentially politically damaging investigations.

Trump has made more than 190 endorsements since leaving office, most of which are for incumbent Republicans who face no serious primary opposition. While propelling some candidates in close contests to victory, his endorsement has at times fallen short. Trump’s pick for Nebraska governor, who was accused of groping multiple women, lost his primary race. His nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania is in a race still too close to call a week after voting.

Opinion polls show Georgia incumbent Kemp well above the 50% threshold required to win the nomination outright and avoid a run-off against Trump’s hand-picked challenger, former U.S. Senator David Perdue, who has repeated Trump’s falsehoods about losing Georgia due to widespread voter fraud.

Mike Pence, who was Trump’s vice president, urged voters not to dwell on the past when he campaigned for Kemp on Monday, speaking at a rally in Kennesaw, Georgia.

“Elections are about the future. There are those who want to make this election about the past,” Pence said. “When you say yes to Governor Brian Kemp tomorrow, you will send a deafening message all across America that the Republican Party is the party of the future.”

Echoing other Kemp supporters, Brian Seifried, 52, a retired tech sales executive, said in an interview in Atlanta that he liked Kemp’s pro-business policies, his hard line on immigration, and his move to enact a sweeping set of voting restrictions after the 2020 election, even as he rebuffed pressure from Trump to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

“I was already a supporter of Kemp. I did not consider Perdue at all. President Trump’s endorsement did not have any sway over what I think is best for Georgia,” Seifried said.

Taking a page from Trump’s 2020 election tactics, Perdue on Monday told reporters that he might not accept defeat on Tuesday if he believed results were fraudulent, according to local media.

Perdue also criticized Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is expected to face off against Kemp in a rematch of the 2018 election, after she decried Georgia’s high incarceration and maternal mortality rates.

“She ain’t from here. Let her go back where she came from if she doesn’t like it here,” he said, adding later, “She is demeaning her own race.” Abrams, who is Black, was born in Wisconsin and moved to Georgia with her family as a child.

In other key Tuesday match-ups, U.S. Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who lost Trump’s endorsement after saying it was time to move on from the 2020 election, is among those battling for a Senate seat. And Trump-era White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders is favored to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Arkansas.

In Texas, a Democrat-on-Democrat congressional runoff election pits Henry Cuellar, the sole House Democrat who opposes abortion rights, against progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros. [L2N2XC1QA]

POSSIBLE RUN-OFF

Walker, a former star running back at the University of Georgia and in the NFL, appears poised to win the Republican primary easily, with two-thirds of Republican voters supporting him, according to a Fox News poll published last week.

He would face incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in a race that would invite scrutiny of Walker’s past, including allegations of domestic violence and his struggles with a mental health condition known as dissociative identity disorder.

More than 857,000 Georgians cast ballots during three weeks of early primary voting, a 168% increase compared with primaries in 2018, according to state officials.

Polling has suggested a tight race between Raffensperger, who drew Trump’s ire for resisting his demand to overturn his loss, and Jody Hice, the Trump-backed U.S. congressman seeking to become the state’s top election official.

Andra Gillespie, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said she would not be surprised if the Raffensperger-Hice race went to a run-off. She said Raffensperger had shored up Republican support by pushing a ban on non-citizen voting.

“Even though he’s not endorsing the ‘Big Lie’ he’s made an effort to bolster his conservative credentials,” Gillespie said, referring to Trump’s claims about the 2020 election. “He has weathered the storm.”

FACTBOX-Seven races to watch in Georgia, Alabama midterm primaries, Texas run-offsFACTBOX-Power of Trump’s endorsements faces test in 12 U.S. midterm primariesTexas AG Paxton squares off against Bush in Republican run-off

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer, additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell and Mark Porter)

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado will be sworn in Wednesday as New York’s next lieutenant governor, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.

Hochul said Monday she will issue a proclamation for a special election to fill her fellow Democrat’s seat in upstate New York once he resigns. It remains unclear when that will be.

Once a seat becomes vacant, the governor has 10 days to announce a special election held 70 to 80 days later, according to state law.

Hochul said the special election will line up with the Aug. 23 primary for congressional and state Senate seats.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat, has been fulfilling the duties of lieutenant governor since the April 12 resignation of Brian Benjamin, who has proclaimed his innocence following his arrest in a federal corruption investigation.

Delgado has said he wants to leave his seat in Congress to take on the largely ceremonial role of lieutenant governor so he can fight for Hochul’s agenda and serve as a liaison between New Yorkers and local, state and federal partners.

The Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law School graduate was first elected in 2018 as the first upstate New Yorker of color to Congress on campaign promises of universal access to Medicare and eliminating tax loopholes for the rich.

Hochul and Delgado have both faced criticism for leaving open a congressional seat at a time when Democrats are fighting to maintain their U.S. House majority and after state courts stuck down new political maps that Democrats had drawn to cement comfortable majorities for years to come.

Hochul tapped Delgado days after the state’s Court of Appeals rejected the congressional maps in a majority opinion that largely agreed with Republican voters who argued the district boundaries were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

That decision struck down maps that would have reshaped Delgado’s swing 19th Congressional District into a safely Democratic district sweeping from the Hudson Valley up to Albany and west to Binghamton and Utica.

An upstate judge approved a final set of maps that creates an even more vast 19th Congressional District that stretches to Ithaca, in the Finger Lakes wine and tourism region. About 52% of voters in the newly crafted district voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, down from 52% in the Democrats’ failed maps.

Democrat Pat Ryan, who came in second to Delgado in the 2018 Democratic primary for the district, has said he’ll run to succeed him.

Republican candidates Brandon Buccola and Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro are also running for the 19th District seat.

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By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic and Republican U.S. Senate leaders introduced a resolution on Monday backing Sweden and Finland’s bids to join NATO, underscoring support for expanding the alliance despite growing nationalism in the Republican party.

It will take a two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate to approve the expansion of the alliance, requiring “yes” votes from at least 17 Republicans along with every Democrat.

Many U.S. Republicans have been following the lead of former President Donald Trump – the party’s leader – toward more nationalist foreign policy. Trump accused NATO allies of not spending enough on their own defense and excessively burdening the United States.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted Finland and Sweden to apply to join NATO.

In the Senate, 11 Republicans voted “no” last week against legislation providing $40 billion to help Ukraine, with some saying they wanted the funds director to Americans.

Last month, 63 Republican members of the House of Representatives, nearly one-third of the full caucus, opposed a bill reaffirming U.S. support for NATO.

The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, and Jim Risch, the top Republican on the foreign relations panel, joined Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and committee chairman Bob Menendez and other senators in introducing the resolution.

“We fully support their application to become NATO members and are looking forward to their swift ascension in the coming months,” Menendez said in a statement.

McConnell referred to Finland and Sweden as “strong countries with formidable military capabilities” and said in his statement, “both nations’ robust defense funding means their accession would meaningfully bolster our pursuit of greater burden-sharing across the alliance. I fully support the Senate providing its advice and consent as quickly as possible.”

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool)

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HOMEWOOD, Ala. (AP) — Republican Senate hopefuls made last-minute pitches to primary voters Monday in the tight race for the GOP nomination for seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Richard Shelby.

The three leading candidates in Tuesday’s primary — U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, former Shelby aide Katie Britt and veteran Mike Durant — concentrated their efforts in Republican strongholds in north Alabama, attempting to sway undecided primary voters and combat a flurry of negative attack ads in the race.

The fractured field increases the chances the primary will go to a June 21 runoff, which will be required unless a single candidate captures more than 50% of the vote.

Brooks planned a rally in Huntsville with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as he seeks to overcome former President Donald Trump‘s harsh criticisms and decision to rescind his endorsement.

Durant, running on his status as a military veteran and business owner without political experience, received a folded U.S. flag from supporter Ashlie Combs during a stop at a barbecue restaurant in the Birmingham suburb of Homewood.

“I’m in it the for the right reason. I’m in it to serve,” Durant said. “I’m not in it because I’ve aspired to be this my whole life. In fact, I don’t like politics. But we need people like me in Washington.”

Before leading the Business Council of Alabama, Britt served as chief of staff to Shelby, one the Senate’s most senior members and a traditional Republican known for his ability to bring home federal projects and funding to his home state.

Brooks sought a resurgence after a war of words with Trump, who has not endorsed another candidate since withdrawing his backing in March after their relationship soured.

Trump cited Brooks’ languishing performance and accused the conservative congressman of going “woke” for saying it was time to move on from the 2020 presidential outcome and focus on upcoming elections. Brooks said Trump was trying to get him to illegally rescind the election.

Brooks, a six-term congressman from north Alabama, is banking on his long history with Alabama voters to overcome his feud with Trump.

“If you’re a conservative Republican I would submit to you that I’m the only proven conservative in this race. With me there is no rolling the dice to determine how I’m going to go on major public policy issues,” Brooks said at an earlier campaign event, urging people to look up his ratings from the National Rifle Association, Heritage Action and other groups.

Britt planned an afternoon event in Cullman. Before leading the Business Council of Alabama, Britt served as chief of staff to Shelby, one the Senate’s most senior members and a traditional Republican known for his ability to bring home federal projects and funding to his home state.

Britt said while her experience would allow he to “hit the ground running” she would bring a fresh perspective to Washington.

“People want new blood, they want fresh blood. They want something different in the United States Senate. They want that from the top down,” Britt said in an earlier interview with The Associated Press.

Lillie Boddie of Florence, small business owner Karla M. Dupriest of Mobile and Jake Schafer also are on the ballot.

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CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline spiked 33 cents over the past two weeks to $4.71 per gallon.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey said Sunday that the price jump comes amid higher crude oil costs and tight gasoline supplies.

The average price at the pump is $1.61 higher than it was one year ago.

Nationwide, the highest average price for regular-grade gas is in the San Francisco Bay Area, at $6.20 per gallon. The lowest average is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at $3.92 per gallon.

According to the survey, the average price of diesel rose 9 cents over two weeks, to $5.66 a gallon.

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A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research shows only 39 percent of U-S adults approve of Joe Biden’s performance as president.

Notably, his approval rating among Democrats stands at 73 percent, a substantial drop from earlier in his presidency.

Overall, only about 2 in 10 adults say the U.S. is heading in the right direction or the economy is good — both down from a month earlier.

President Joe Biden’s approval rating dipped to the lowest point of his presidency in May, a new poll shows, with deepening pessimism emerging among members of his own Democratic Party.

Only 39% of U.S. adults approve of Biden’s performance as president, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research, dipping from already negative ratings a month earlier.

Overall, only about 2 in 10 adults say the U.S. is heading in the right direction or the economy is good, both down from about 3 in 10 a month earlier. Those drops were concentrated among Democrats, with just 33% within the president’s party saying the country is headed in the right direction, down from 49% in April.

Of particular concern for Biden ahead of the midterm elections, his approval among Democrats stands at 73%, a substantial drop since earlier in his presidency. In AP-NORC polls conducted in 2021, Biden’s approval rating among Democrats never dropped below 82%.

The findings reflect a widespread sense of exasperation in a country facing a cascade of challenges ranging from inflation, gun violence, and a sudden shortage of baby formula to a persistent pandemic.

“I don’t know how much worse it can get,” said Milan Ramsey, a 29-year-old high school counselor and Democrat in Santa Monica, California, who with her husband had to move into her parents’ house to raise their infant son.

Ramsey thinks the economic dysfunction that’s led to her being unable to afford the place where she grew up isn’t Biden’s fault. But she’s alarmed he hasn’t implemented ambitious plans for fighting climate change or fixing health care.

“He hasn’t delivered on any of the promises. I feel like the stimulus checks came out and that was the last win of his administration,” Ramsey said of Biden. “I think he’s tired — and I don’t blame him, I’d be tired too at his age with the career he’s had.”

Republicans have not been warm to Biden for a while. Less than 1 in 10 approve of the president or his handling of the economy, but that’s no different from last month.

Gerry Toranzo, a nurse and a Republican in Chicago, blames Biden for being forced to pinch pennies by taking steps like driving slower to conserve gas after prices have skyrocketed during his administration.

“His policies are destroying the economy,” Toranzo, 46, said of Biden, blaming him for stopping the Keystone XL fuel pipeline to Canada and hamstringing domestic energy production. “It’s a vicious cycle of price increases.”

Overall, two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy. That rating is largely unchanged over the last few months, though elevated slightly since the first two months of the year.

But there are signs that the dissatisfaction with Biden on the economy has deepened. Just 18% of Americans say Biden’s policies have done more to help than hurt the economy, down slightly from 24% in March. Fifty-one percent say they’ve done more to hurt than help, while 30% say they haven’t made much difference either way.

The percentage of Democrats who say Biden’s policies have done more to help dipped from 45% to 37%, though just 18% say they’ve done more to hurt; 44% say they’ve made no difference.

Some Democrats blame other forces for inflation.

“It helped a lot of people, but,” Morales said, “people did not want to go back to work.”

Morales faults Biden on another area of persistent vulnerability to the president — immigration.

Only 38% back Biden on immigration, and Morales is disappointed at the scenes of migrants continuing to cross the southern border. Though he himself is a Mexican immigrant, Morales thinks the U.S. needs to more stringently control its border to have a hope of legalizing deserving migrants who are in the country illegally.

Also, Morales said, there have to be limits. “It’s impossible to bring the whole of Central America and Mexico into this country,” he said.

Another area where Morales faults Biden, albeit mildly, is the war with Ukraine. “We are spending a lot of money going to the Ukraine and all that is going to the deficit,” Morales said.

Overall, 45% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the U.S. relationship with Russia, while 54% disapprove. That’s held steady each month since the war in Ukraine began. Seventy-three percent of Democrats and 15% of Republicans approve.

The new poll shows just 21% of Americans say they have “a great deal of confidence” in Biden’s ability to handle the situation in Ukraine; 39% say they have some confidence and 39% say they have hardly any.

Charles Penn, a retired factory worker in Huntington, Indiana, is satisfied with Biden’s performance on Ukraine.

“I think he’s done alright,” Penn, 68, said of the president.

But overall Penn, an independent who leans Republican, is disappointed with Biden, and blames him for rising prices that have squeezed him in his retirement.

“The Democrats in the long run have screwed up things by pushing for higher wages, like going from $7 an hour to $15 an hour,” Penn said, citing the push for a sharp increase in the federal minimum wage that Biden has embraced. “The other side of it is that if you had Republicans, they’d cut my Social Security.”

Still, Penn thinks Biden should pay the political price.

“He’s captain of the ship, so he’s responsible,” Penn said of the president.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,172 adults was conducted May 12-16 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Sunday that he had returned home after a minor stroke a week ago landed him in the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC.

“It’s great to be back home after a long week. I’m grateful for the generous outpouring of support from everyone and the dedicated care I received from the team at GW,” Van Hollen said in a post on Twitter.

Van Hollen, 63, was admitted to the hospital after experiencing lightheadedness and acute neck pain last Sunday, he said in a statement.

An angiogram indicated that the stroke formed a small venous tear at the back of his head, he said, adding that he was informed there will be no long-term effects.

Van Hollen’s announcement comes after Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, the leading Democratic candidate in the race to replace retiring Republican U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, who had been hospitalized for observation after suffering a stroke last Sunday, was also discharged from hospital.

(Reporting by Katanga Johnson; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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