Biden and Obama said the GOP is now a threat to democracy — ramping the warning up to 11 ahead of knife-edge midterms

• Biden termed Republicans a threat to US democracy, further raising the stakes before the midterms.
• He said election-denying candidates would set the country on a "path to chaos" if they win.

President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama issued simultaneous, stark warnings on the threat posed to US democracy from election-denying Republicans in next week's midterm elections.

In the televised address, Biden said election denying candidates would set the country on the "path to chaos", and blamed former President Donald Trump and his supporters for pushing "lies of conspiracy and malice."

"In our bones," the president said, "we know democracy is at risk."

"We're often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy," he said later. "But this year we are."

At a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Wednesday, former president Barack Obama echoed those points.

He said that if a slate of GOP candidates who have pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election win in the November 8 vote, "democracy as we know it" there may die.

"If you've got election deniers serving as your governor, as your senator, as your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona," Obama said. "That's not an exaggeration. That is a fact."

The control of both houses of Congress, and a number of key state offices are at stake in next week's election.

Analysts, including the data site FiveThirtyEight, say Republicans are likely to win back control of the House of Representatives, while control of the Senate is in the balance.

Trump has backed hundreds of candidates at a national and state level who have supported his baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen through fraud.

Many will have roles in administering elections if they win next week.

The recent attack on October Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, by a man who espoused far-right conspiracy theories has heightened tensions ahead of the vote.

In his speech, Biden urged Americans to unite in rejecting political violence, and linked Trump's rhetoric to the Pelosi attack, to the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021, and to a wave of threats against election officials.

"It's a lie that fueled the dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years," said Biden.

Biden's remarks came after a federal judge banned far-right activists, some carrying guns, from monitoring ballot boxes in Arizona.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is poised to become House speaker if Republicans win back control of the chamber, accused Biden of fostering division with his remarks.

"President Biden is trying to divide and deflect at a time when America needs to unite - because he can't talk about his policies that have driven up the cost of living," he said.