Midterm Elections | featured news

Republican Jesse Kelly was still basking in the glow of his victory in an Arizona congressional primary when the Democratic congresswoman he's trying to unseat released a scathing TV ad branding him "a risk" who would gamble away people's retirement savings.

It will go down as one of the most painful openings to a political debate in recent memory. Gov. Jan Brewer stumbled and stammered through her opening statement during a televised debate Wednesday night, suffering through an embarrassing, cringe-eliciting pause that lasted more than 10 seconds.

The recession and how to turn around California's sky-high jobless rate loomed large Wednesday as Sen. Barbara Boxer and GOP challenger Carly Fiorina hold their first debate.

Senator Lisa Murkowski conceded in her Republican primary race to Joe Miller, a lawyer from Fairbanks backed by Tea Party activists and Sarah Palin.

It's one heck of a head start heading into November. The margin is by far the largest ever earned by the GOP since the polling firm began tracking the generic ballot question — asking whether voters prefer a Democrat or Republican congressional candidate — in 1942.

If Democrats had doubts about the voter unrest that threatens to rob them of their majority in Congress, they needed only look from the Capitol this weekend to the opposite end of the National Mall.

In rare simultaneous campaigning, each faults the other on past experience or the lack of it.Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown argued Thursday that his experience makes him the only candidate who can right California, and he slashed at Republican rival Meg Whitman by calling her a neophyte who has run an ugly and inaccurate campaign against him.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's retrial will begin early next year, well after the midterm Congressional elections this fall. Federal Judge James Zagel said Thursday he would set a retrial date for early January.

Rep. Kendrick Meek is the Democratic nominee for Senate, overcoming billionaire Jeff Greene's massive television and mail onslaught to win a bitter Florida primary. Meek will face off against Gov. Charlie Crist and Republican Marco Rubio in November.

John McCain sailed to nomination for a fifth Senate term Tuesday over an Arizona challenger with tea party support, while big-spending political novice Rick Scott beat an insider in Florida's Republican gubernatorial primary as voters split on the merits of establishment candidates vs. outsiders.