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Control of the Senate in 2022 Hinges on These 10 Races
The fate of the U.S. Senate may hinge on the following top 5 battleground states: Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin when the 2022 midterm election rolls around.
“For a few months, Georgia was the center of the American political universe. Biden painted the state the lightest shade of blue after decades of Republican wins, and Democrats flipped two Senate seats to capture control of the chamber. Now one of those winners, Sen. Raphael Warnock, is defending the seat he won in a special election in a potentially tougher political climate,” MSNBC reported. “A former pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Warnock has been a progressive voice in the Senate, advocating for voting rights and economic aid to struggling Americans.”
Warnock has a shot of winning the seat with his likely opponent being Herschel Walker, a University of Georgia football hero who won the Heisman Trophy in 1982.
In Arizona, retired NASA astronaut and Navy pilot Mark Kelly, who won a special election in 2020, is expected to win his re-election campaign for a six-year term next fall. The Democrat outperformed Biden by more than 40,000 votes in a historically red state that has become one of the most competitive in the country. His opponents are “election fraud” believers Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Blake Masters.
Switching over to Pennsylvania, “Democrats have their best chance at a Senate pickup here next year with an open seat left by the retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman has dominated the fundraising race and is leading his chief rival, Rep. Conor Lamb, in primary polls. Also in the race are Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta,” MSNBC stated.
In Nevada, the matchup is set against first-term Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican former state attorney general Adam Laxalt, who is endorsed by Trump and the favorite of the party establishment in Washington. Laxalt was co-chair of Trump’s Nevada campaign and challenged the election results in the state after Biden won.
“Wisconsin has been a nail-biter in recent presidential elections. Trump won the state by less than 1 point in 2016 and lost it by less than 1 point in 2020,” according to the MSNBC report. “In the Democratic primary, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has sought to solidify his early position, releasing an internal poll in the fall that shows him with a commanding lead, ahead of Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson… Will Republican incumbent Ron Johnson run for a third term? He has held his cards close to the vest and, earlier this month, punted again when NBC News asked if he’ll run. While Johnson defied skeptics in his 2010 and 2016 bids, Democrats see an opening to paint him outside the mainstream with his transformation into a culture warrior and his flirtation with the nativist ‘great replacement’ theory.”
An additional five races may help shape the future of the United States beginning in 2022.
In North Carolina, Democrats are backing former state Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley. The Granite State of New Hampshire was the GOP’s best chance to flip a Democratic seat next year — until Gov. Chris Sununu, the target of aggressive recruiting, decided against running so add another tally to the Democrats here. In Ohio, Republican Sen. Rob Portman is not seeking re-election, which leaves his seat up for the taking. It’s a tight one, but Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan is the front-runner in a primary that also includes Morgan Harper, a progressive attorney.
Moving over to Florida, Sen. Mark Rubio may be throwing his hat back into the presidential ring if he doesn’t win a third term, which could potentially go to Democratic Rep. Val Demings, however unlikely based on recent poll numbers.
Then there’s the deep-red state of Missouri where GOP voters nominated Eric Greitens — a former governor who left office mired in scandal — to succeed Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican not seeking re-election. The Republican field also includes state Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long and attorney Mark McCloskey, best known for waving a gun at Black Lives Matter protesters outside his St. Louis home in 2020, MSNBC reported. A poll of likely GOP primary voters this month by the political news service Missouri Scout found Greitens and Schmitt locked in a close race, with Hartzler a distant third.
Democrats currently lead the chamber, but will it hold? That’s the expensive question to be answered in 2022.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
