Trump rides high on Musk’s endorsement as red wave swells
Former president in buoyant mood as Republicans poised to make huge gains among Hispanics in midterm elections
ELON MUSK urged Americans to vote for a Republican-controlled Congress as they headed to the polls for the midterm elections today.
Mr Musk, the chief executive of Twitter, said “independent minded” voters would determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill and pressed them to deliver a check on Joe Biden’s mandate.
It came amid growing Republican optimism that the party could seize control of both chambers of Congress.
“Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties; therefore, I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the presidency is Democratic,” Mr Musk told his 114million Twitter followers.
The intervention prompted outcry from critics who accused Mr Musk of abusing his recent acquisition of the platform. He had previously argued Twitter must be “politically neutral” for it to “deserve public trust”. The world’s richest man has already clashed with Democrats after signalling he will relax content moderation on Twitter and welcome Donald Trump back to the network.
He recently became mired in a misinformation row after sharing a baseless conspiracy theory about the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Mr Musk, who bought Twitter for $44billion, later deleted that tweet.
His new rules for the platform appeared to remove some policies in place ahead of the midterm elections, including that which flagged “misleading information”.
The billionaire predicted a “massive red wave” in the 2022 cycle earlier this year, when he said that he had cast his first vote for Republican Mayra Flores, the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress, who represents his Texas district.
Ms Flores is among an estimated record number of Republican Hispanic candidates running for Congress, with polls showing the GOP poised to make their largest gains among Hispanic voters in years.
Donald Trump has seized on the momentum, boasting that Hispanic voters were joining his movement “by the millions”.
On Sunday, the former president told a crowd dominated by Hispanic Americans in Miami, Florida: “We welcome you to our party and our movement with open, open, open, beautiful arms.” Hispanic voters could determine the outcome of critical Senate races, including in Nevada and Arizona, where they account for 20 and 30 per cent of the electorate respectively.
Strategists have attributed the shift in part to complacency among Democrats, who have outperformed among the demographic for decades.
A Washington Post-ipsos poll found that Democrats’ advantage with voters who identify as Hispanic has fallen from 40 points in 2018 to 27 points in 2022.
The trend seems to have accelerated in recent months, with Democrats holding a five-point lead over Republicans among Latino voters in a late-october Wall Street Journal poll, a narrower advantage than the Democrats’ 11-point lead in August.
Speaking in a Miami suburb, Mr Trump, 76, credited his own hard-line immigration policies with bringing more Latino voters into the GOP fold.
Mr Trump said Hispanics were the “biggest fans” of his border wall.
He said: “We’re setting records [among Hispanics]... they understood crimes much better than the fools we have in DC”.
By contrast, Democrats wanted to lead the country towards “communism”, he told the crowd in southern Florida, home to many who have fled Leftist regimes in Cuba and Venezuela.
It formed part of a multi-state election-eve tour by Mr Trump amid growing Republican optimism they can seize control of both chambers of Congress in today’s midterm elections.
In anticipation, Mr Trump is reported to have pressured top Republicans to launch impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden.
Mr Trump, the only US president to have been impeached twice, has called his top allies on Capitol Hill to ask “how many times” they intend to impeach Mr Biden and other high-ranking Democrats, according to Rolling Stone.
Mr Trump’s spree of events has also been seen as a prelude to a leadership campaign. An official declaration could come within days of the midterms.
Asked when Mr Trump will declare, Kellyanne Conway, who is advising him, said she had just talked to him about it. She told Fox News: “He said ‘I think you’re going to be very, very, very happy. Wait and see.’”