Biden midterms latest: President pledges to codify Roe v Wade if Democrats keep Congress

The 2022 midterm elections are scheduled to take place on Tuesday 8 November.

All of the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives will be up for reelection, along with 34 out of 100 seats in the US Senate.

In the states and territories, 39 governors’ races will be decided, in addition to a number of various state and local elections.

Here’s everything you need to know about the 2022 midterm elections.

Former Trump senior aide Kellyanne Conway has joined her one-time boss in endorsing Dr Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race.

She wrote on Twitter that this rival Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman is “the most dangerous man in Pennsylvania, apart from the criminals he released”.

The 2020 presidential election turned Georgia into a battleground for the first time in decades when Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton to win the state.

But the runoff Senate races that following January truly turned the spotlight on Georgia when Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won their respective races.

They became the first two Democrats to win a Georgia Senate race since 2000, when Zell Miller won a special election, and the wins also gave Democrats their precarious 50-50 majority, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as tie-breaker.

With the midterm elections just weeks away from deciding the fate of the Senate, here’s everything you need to know about this all-important race.

The Democratic National Committee is launching a bus tour across at least eight states where many of the party’s closest races are taking place in just three weeks time.

The tour will start on Thursday in Jacksonville, Florida and will travel up I-95 to Pennsylvania through battlegrounds in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, as well as South Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware.

“The DNC has made historic investments earlier than ever before in the midterm elections, and we’re going to continue to do everything we can to energize, mobilise, and turn out voters,” DNC Chair Jamie Harrison said in a statement.

President Joe Biden has vowed to make the first bill he sends to Congress next year will be one that codifies abortion rights — provided Democrats retain control of the House and Senate.

The president stresses the importance of women’s electoral and political power.

Joe Biden will sign legislation protecting access to abortion care into law if Democrats win control of Congress in midterm elections this fall, the president is expected to announce on Tuesday.

In planned remarks to a Democratic National Committee event, the president will announce plans for the first bill he will send to Congress next year, with the aim of signing legislation to codify Roe v Wade protections to mark the US Supreme Court decision’s 50th anniversary.

Alex Woodward has the latest on the president’s move to protect a woman’s right to choose.

Right-wing Utah Senator Mike Lee is facing a surprisingly strong challenge from independent Evan McMullin, whom the Democrats have allowed to make a clear run at the seat. And at last night’s TV debate, Mr Lee looked deeply uncomfortable as his rival asked why, out of all Utah’s Washington delegation, he is the only one still not yet sanctioned by the Putin government:

The polls in Georgia’s all-important Senate and gubernatorial races are looking very different, but what’s already becoming apparent is that interest in both is extremely high – as evidenced by the early voting figures:

Last night’s Ohio Senate debate was exceptionally acrimonious even by the standards of this year’s midterms, with Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican JD Vance going head-to-head for a second time as their race remains on a knife edge.

Mr Ryan made a particularly bold attack on his rival when talking about the subject of excessive fealty to leaders – referencing how before seeking Donald Trump’s endorsement, JD Vance referred to the former president as “America’s Hitler”.