America Votes: Live updates on the results that matter to Canadians

Former Michigan governor and U.S. ambassador to Canada James Blanchard says he’s predicting a “huge landslide” for the Democrats in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Adding the major victory would be “good for Canada-U.S. relations,” Blanchard said in an interview on CTV News Channel on Tuesday that as a Michigander, he’s hopeful a Democrat-majority Congress will rescind U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Pressed by host Marcia MacMillan on the bold prediction when polls have been wrong in the past by underestimating the Republican vote, Blanchard said he’s “lived landslides.”

“I've lived through a few of them, and I've benefited from two of them,” he said.

“It's a referendum on Donald Trump,” he also said. “It's not some ratification of the Democratic platform. We don't have an overall platform.”

“It is a repudiation of Donald J. Trump and everything he stands for, and everything he's been doing, both in United States, in the White House, and overseas,” he added.

Blanchard said he believes the result needs to be a landslide so the president cannot claim the election was rigged at the margins.

1) Turnout
For an off-year election, early voting has exceeded totals of previous midterm elections. So far, nearly 60 million people have voted in early person voting. States like Michigan and Ohio have already set records. These early numbers bode well for Democrats but now the pressure is on for Republicans to match or exceed those records with in-person turnout. If the GOP cannot match Democrats in turnout, they could see their control of congress fall to the opposition;

2) Response
The United States has an opportunity to send a clear and unmistakable message to the rest of the world that American democracy is healthy and vibrant with smooth, scandal-free election. However, should the turnout not favour Republicans, all eyes will be on the White House and U.S. President Donald Trump’s response if voters overwhelmingly reject his party. It is unclear if the administration will accept the results or fall into conspiracy theories à la Canadian interference or other outlandish claims ultimately undermining a key pillar of a working and stable democracy;

3) Trade
Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Trump both announced that negotiations between the two sides are back on again. Businesses, market watchers, and consumers will be eyeing talks intently post-election to see if a deal is on the horizon.  

It’s election day in America and millions of voters across the country are voting to determine not just who will lead their cities, counties and states but also who will control Congress. Today’s races (hopefully) will answer many questions about the direction of the nation as well as the kind of country this once “shining city on the hill” wants to be going forward. If early voting is any indication of where the mood and collective mindset of the U.S. stands, the people are motivated as they exercise their democratic freedoms to shape and mould their government from top to bottom. 

Both Abdul El-Sayed (Democrat) and Mike Rogers (Republican) have toed the line on their support for tariffs. On one hand, they’ve stressed American manufacturing. On the other hand, they’ve argued, tariffs can protect domestic industries.

The two were asked about their stance on Trump’s tariff policies during an Oct. 21 televised debate on WXYZ-TV Detroit.

Rogers said it’s a “mixed bag.” He argued Trump is reshoring American manufacturing, but added, “Maybe these Canadian tariffs were not well thought through.”

He cited Michigan’s auto industry, which is closely integrated with Canadian factories and supply chains.

El-Sayed said tariffs have hurt American workers and called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a “terrible cancer” on the U.S. economy.

NAFTA, the free-trade deal that preceded the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, has been blamed for allowing large corporations to move manufacturing out of the U.S. in favour of lower-wage labour in Mexico.

“Maybe there’s a kind of tariff you could use as chemotherapy, but you don’t give all the chemo all at once,” said El-Sayed, a trained physician.

He also said he wants Michigan to develop a 300 mile-range US$25,000 EV as the groundwork for a domestic EV manufacturing industry, protected by tariffs.

Rogers wants to ban any prospect of Chinese companies building cars in the U.S. and called it an “existential threat” during the Oct. 21 debate on WXYZ-TV Detroit.

“When they (China) talk about showing up, or they build them in Canada and try to talk to them about coming across the bridge, we need to stop that at the border,” he said.

In January, Canada agreed to allow China to export up to 49,000 EVs each year at a tariff rate of 6.1 per cent. If Chinese companies want to exceed that quota, they’ll need to meet Ottawa’s conditions and build a plant, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said in June. 

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose last-minute demands led to trade talks breaking down in August, has become the behind-the-scenes “driving force” pushing Canada and the U.S. to re-engage on a deal, multiple sources tell CTV News.

Sources in both countries say Lutnick initiated the re-engagement just over 10 days ago, after months of stasis, and has centred talks around the Section 232 tariffs that apply to steel, aluminum, lumber and autos because that is his purview.

These are tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump imposed using a section that allows him to justify them in the name of national security. The duties in place are up to 50 per cent on steel, aluminum and copper, 25 per cent on vehicles, an additional 10 per cent on softwood lumber, and 25 per cent on certain furniture and cabinetry.

Should more formalized negotiations pick back up later this week, as two sources say is a possibility, those talks could bring back into the fold U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer and involve elements outside of the Section 232 tariffs. Sources say that will likely include Keystone XL, diesel and energy exports more largely.

Vassy Kapelos, CTV News chief political correspondent, and Stephanie Ha, Ottawa News Bureau manager

Texas was not expected to be an epicentre of midterm elections that could reshape the final chapters of Donald Trump's second presidency.

But Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico were making closing arguments Saturday in a tossup U.S. Senate race that has become a key measure of voters' frustration with Trump's leadership and his loyalists in the Republican Party.

Speaking to voters in Houston, Talarico hammered Paxton, the longtime state attorney general who has weathered indictment and impeachment and garnered Trump's endorsement, as an especially corrupt example of a rotten political system.

“This election is about whether you want a senator who puts money in your pocket or who puts money in his own,” Talarico said.

Paxton answered in Fort Worth by painting Talarico, a state lawmaker, seminarian and former teacher, as too liberal for Texas. Each painted the other as a front man for dangerous figures.

“The left in this country keeps getting more and more radical,” Paxton said, arguing Talarico would be a lackey for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, the New Yorker who would set the chamber's agenda if Democrats win a majority.

For Talarico, the shadow opponent is Elon Musk, the world's richest man, who has spent more than US$150 million of his own money to help Paxton keep pace with Talarico's fundraising.

“It’s David vs. Goliath,” said Talarico, invoking the biblical story of the shepherd who slays a giant. “The people of Texas are my slingshot.” 

A shipment of helicopter parts from Ontario was supposed to cost Steve Richards about US$9,000 for his aviation business in Alaska.

Instead, 10 days after the parts arrived, his jaw dropped when he received a second bill: US$9,100 in tariffs charged to his credit card.

The owner of Ridgeline Aviation is disputing the charge that was applied by the shipping company, and says the experience is just one example of the non-stop uncertainty facing businesses in Alaska that rely on foreign suppliers during the U.S. trade war.

“You can’t do business this way,” Richards said. “Frustration was sort of where it came to initially, but I mean, now it feels like a kind of a plot to tank the economy.”
Andrew Johnson, B.C. Bureau chief. Read the full story here.

With the number of international visitors on the decline, a hotel owner in Nevada urged Americans to vote carefully.

“There’s been a noticeable decline in international travel, especially from Canada, due to the actions of our current administration,” Elizabeth Woolsey told CTV’s Your Morning on Monday. “For a small business, even a small decline of five per cent tourism is a huge impact.”

Woolsey is the owner of Stargazer Inn and Bristlecone General Store in Baker, Nev., a small community near the Utah border that serves as the gateway to Great Basin National Park. She says higher prices from tariffs and national park budget cuts also continue to strain her small business.

“We have a town of 100 people, so we rely on tourism to keep our businesses and doors open, and a slight drop in tourism is monumental for a small business, especially one related to tourism,” Woolsey said. “We just hope that people go to the polls and vote appropriately. Let’s rebuild relations, let’s get some of the actions of our administration reversed and get the tourism and the doors open again.”

Michigan Democrat El-Sayed’s former opponent in the U.S. Senate primary, Haley Stevens, stunned party officials Sunday by endorsing Republican Rogers as Democratic tensions boiled over days before the election that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill.

Stevens endorsed Rogers after attending a Detroit church service with him. The remarkable show of support for the Trump-backed candidate comes after she was uninvited to a joint event the same day with El-Sayed, who defeated the congresswoman by a slim margin in the August primary.

“Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said in a video announcing the endorsement, which led her top aide to quit. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.”

El-Sayed dismissed the endorsement when asked about it by reporters later Sunday, saying he’s focused on issues voters care about, such as the high cost of living.