Senate, November Elections | featured news

The big money battle in the US Senate race, which had been tilted in Republican Joe Miller's favor, evened out some on Tuesday with a big advertising push from a coalition of unions and Alaska Native corporations.

Former wrestling executive Linda McMahon, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Connecticut, says she will limit herself to two terms if she is elected Nov. 2.

Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller says his family benefited from Medicaid and a state-run health care program for low-income children and pregnant women.Miller previously acknowledged receiving federal farm subsidies for land he owned in Kansas in the 1990s, as well as low-income hunting and fishing licenses for him and his wife in Alaska.As a conservative candidate, he's criticized certain entitlement programs. Sitting Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who's running for re-election as a write-in candidate against him, called Miller a hypocrite.

More bright spots for Republicans Senate candidates as they head toward midterm elections.

A Republican majority would threaten policies to stabilize the economy, the president says during a radio interview, part of an effort to rally key Democratic constituencies. A Republican majority in Congress would mean "hand-to-hand combat" on Capitol Hill for the next two years, threatening policies Democrats have enacted to stabilize the economy, President Obama warned Thursday.

It's been a rough year for Democrats, but there has been one recent ray of sunshine for the party: Barbara Boxer's polling numbers. Boxer spent most of the cycle around 45 percent in the RCP Average, and by mid-August had dropped to 43.8 percent. Her numbers recovered in September but so did her opponent's -- at one point Fiorina was within .3 points of Boxer in the RCP Average. This is very, very dangerous territory for any incumbent.

The hourlong confrontation may be the Senate candidates' last before the Nov. 2 election. As they head into what could be their final debate, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and her Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, are appealing to voters on parallel tracks, each chipping away at the other's character on the airwaves and each trying to persuade voters that she has a superior approach to turning the economy around.

Republican Senator John McCain is donating $1 million left over from his 2008 presidential campaign to help Senate Republican candidates ahead of the November 2 elections, aides said on Wednesday.

The Senate on Tuesday blocked tax legislation that would have punished U.S. firms that export jobs. But the political symbolism of trying to save American jobs, not passing a bill, was the Democrats' closing argument on the economy in the waning weeks of the congressional elections.

The Senate will not vote on renewing Bush-era tax cuts before the November 2 elections, a spokesman for the Majority leader said on Thursday, as Democrats face internal divisions and potential Republican obstacles.