Democratic Senate nominee is eager to push past series of controversies involving allegations of antisemitism

Michigan’s Democratic US senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed apologized to the state’s Jewish Democratic Caucus on Saturday for comments he made after an attack on a synagogue in March, which he tied to Israel’s actions in the Middle East.

“My comments may have been misconstrued to justify something I did not mean to justify,” El-Sayed told reporters after he addressed the caucus at a party convention in Lansing. “To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”

Angie Nixon won one of the biggest upsets in US midterm primaries – and if elected, the Democrat would be the first African American senator in Florida history

The Democratic establishment had the money, the machinery and the candidate with national name recognition. Angie Nixon had a bookshop called Café Resistance and a grassroots campaign for the Senate. On primary election night in Florida, Nixon won in arguably the biggest upset of the primary season. But at least one person was not shocked: Angie Nixon herself. “We weren’t surprised,” the 42-year-old reflects after overcoming a vast fundraising disadvantage to defeat Alex Vindman, a combat veteran who testified against Donald Trump during his first impeachment. “We actually knew we were going to win; we just didn’t know that we were going to win by that much. We put in the work and so super excited about the outcome. It shows that good old-fashioned grassroots organising will beat big money each and every day.”

Nixon won 56.1% of the vote to Vindman’s 43.9%. The result stirred tensions within the Democratic party in a year defined by the struggle between moderates and economic populists. In Florida – a state that has trended increasingly Republican in recent years and is now Trump’s home state – Democrats have now nominated a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who speaks openly about class war.

Ex-House intel committee chair, now running against Abdul El-Sayed, instead saw photo of Osama bin Laden’s body

In a recent fundraising email, the Republican candidate for Michigan’s open US Senate seat, former congressman Mike Rogers, appeared to mislead supporters about his past by suggesting that he had played an active role in the killing of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida who was shot and killed in an American military raid on his compound in Pakistan in 2011.

“When I served as a US army officer and an FBI special agent, I swore a sacred oath to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Rogers wrote, according to a screenshot of the email shared online by Azi Paybarah, a former Washington Post reporter now with Straight Arrow News. “I dedicated my life to keeping our families safe – working in the shadows, hunting down terrorists, and standing on the frontlines of our national security.”

Ex-House intel committee chair, now running against Abdul El-Sayed, instead saw photo of Osama bin Laden’s body

In a recent fundraising email, the Republican candidate for Michigan’s open US Senate seat, former congressman Mike Rogers, appeared to mislead supporters about his past by suggesting that he had played an active role in the killing of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida who was shot and killed in an American military raid on his compound in Pakistan in 2011.

“When I served as a US army officer and an FBI special agent, I swore a sacred oath to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Rogers wrote, according to a screenshot of the email shared online by Azi Paybarah, a former Washington Post reporter now with Straight Arrow News. “I dedicated my life to keeping our families safe – working in the shadows, hunting down terrorists, and standing on the frontlines of our national security.”

In deep red South Carolina, the president helped stoke apprehension of a deeper red surge ahead of November’s US midterm elections

After casting his vote in South Carolina, a man who introduced himself as Chestnut was unwilling to give his full name. “You don’t have a need to know,” the air force veteran declared. He was, however, happy to share his views.

“I’m a true American. I believe in the USA,” said the man, outside Christ the Servant Lutheran church in Conway. “And I don’t believe in communism or socialism.”

The president senses a crisis in his cult of personality. He believes the path to victory is through unwavering devotion

Donald Trump has framed his theme for the midterm elections. It has come to him as naturally and inevitably as staring into the mirror, beyond any logic or argument, his definitive answer to no specific issue, providing no understanding of any particular problem, but transcending all of them. His political theme is more primal than programmatic, more instinctive than analytical, a heartfelt expression to protect his greatest romantic attachment, his obsessive fixation, his idealized object: himself.

Trump’s campaign theme is unrequited love. Unlike the pollsters, media consultants and pundits, he alone has grasped the magnitude and the source of the existential crisis threatening his politics. He has identified the problem for the Republicans as the faltering measure of complete devotion to him. His demand has nothing to do with mutual affection. It is a ploy to reassert his slipping control, a manipulative test to prove loyalty to him, or else. There can be no absolute rule without an absolute ruler; no absolute ruler without absolute submission; no absolute submission without the expression of absolute love. His sadness at its fading gives way to anger, paranoia and greater acts of retribution. He equates the fear he instills as a form of love. Trump accepts subservience, from whatever motive, as affection or its closest equivalent. He cares nothing about sincerity, so it’s all in the show. The less love displayed, the more fear required. Yet there is no rebound, but only deeper rejection.