The federal judge handling the Justice Department's bid to block certification of Alaska's Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan narrowly loses signaled considerable skepticism of DOJ's legal strategy on Monday.

- In her first order acknowledging the case, District Judge Sharon Gleason highlighted the last-minute nature of the government's actions, especially as Alaskans have already begun casting their ballots.

- "After Alaskans had already begun casting their ballots for the November 2026 election -- and nearly four months after the Alaska Supreme Court directed the Division of Elections to include Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot for the upcoming United States Senate election -- the United States initiated this action on October 22, 2026," Gleason said.

- "The United States seeks a court order to prevent Defendants from certifying the result of the November 2026 United States Senate election if '(1) [Dan S.] Sullivan does not win the election; and (2) had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for [Dan S.] Sullivan and Alaska's rank-choice process played out accordingly, [Dan S.] Sullivan would have won the election.'"

- On Friday, President Donald Trump said that he had directed the Justice Department to preemptively file a lawsuit to try to block the certification of the crucial Alaska Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, citing name confusion among the candidates.

- Republicans have alleged that candidate Dan J. Sullivan is running a sham campaign to purposefully confuse voters and draw votes away from incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan based on their names being similar.

- The district judge's order came in response to a rapid series of briefings from parties seeking to join the case and dismiss the lawsuit.

- Gleason said in her order on Monday that she intends to issue a ruling on a request for outside parties to join by Wednesday at 5 p.m. local time. She has yet to indicate whether she will hold a hearing.

The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute James Comey for what it calls a decade-old leak of classified information, an effort the former FBI director’s lawyers immediately dismissed as legally invalid and outside the legal time limit for when the Justice Department can file a criminal indictment.

- The allegations from the Justice Department were revealed Monday in newly unsealed court documents that shed light on a closed-door fight that represents an unmistakable escalation in the administration’s targeting of Comey, a longtime critic and foe of President Donald Trump who has faced two other criminal cases since the Republican returned to the White House last year.

- The effort to prosecute Comey is also part of a series of politically charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to next week’s midterm elections.

- “Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said in a video statement Monday. “It would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice — one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me; I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”

- The Justice Department said it had filed what’s known as a “criminal information” to extend the statute of limitations for charges in the case.

- “Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals. This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we will not comment further,” a department spokesperson said.

- Asked about the Comey case, Trump told reporters upon arriving back to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland late Monday following his rally in Mississippi that “I don’t know much about it. I just heard about it.”

- He added, “He’s a dirty cop, James Comey. But I know nothing about it.”

- An information can be filed without the approval of a judge or a grand jury’s finding of probable cause to a court. Comey’s lawyers made clear that they intend to fight the charges as invalid because the Justice Department did not file an indictment, which must be voted on by a grand jury, inside the 10-year statute of limitations required under the law.

- “For the third time in little more than one year, the Department of Justice has attempted to charge Mr. Comey with a federal crime. Mr. Comey steadfastly maintains his innocence,” his attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement.

- The allegation was previously investigated

- The latest allegation concerns an October 2016 New York Times story related to a secret court order that required Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The story cited two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the order from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Yahoo was barred from publicly disclosing.

- Federal authorities, including prosecutor John Durham, began investigating the disclosure in early 2017. Durham, who later investigated the FBI’s conduct as it scrutinized potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal charges against anyone in connection with the disclosure, Comey’s attorneys said in a recent court filing.

- In January 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia opened a second investigation of the same matter under the code name “Tropical Vortex.” But that investigation was closed without any charges filed in February 2020.

- “Both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone. Now, ten years after the article was published, the Government filed an “Information” against Mr. Comey that was not approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. It purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit,” Fitzgerald said.

- Prosecutors in a newly unsealed filing said investigators found evidence that Comey “sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by way of Reuters the day before” that New York Times story was published, directed his staff to speak to a journalist at the newspaper related to accuracy concerns “and thereby illegally transferred classified information.”

- The criminal information was filed under seal on Oct. 5, 10 years after the 2016 story was published. “But,” Comey’s lawyers said, “the applicable statute of limitations explicitly demands an indictment within 10 years of the offense; an information does not suffice.”

- They have asked a judge to dismiss the information, a request that is still pending.

- Trump and Comey have a long and uneasy history

- The first criminal case against Comey, filed in federal court in Virginia, accused him of having lied to Congress in 2020 but was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47,” a case Comey has sought to dismiss.

- The prosecutions are part of a Trump retribution campaign that has even extended to Comey’s daughter, Maurene, who was fired from her job as a Justice Department prosecutor in New York last year in a termination that a federal judge on Monday ruled was illegal.

- Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.

- But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president -- an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

- Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, found that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

- The two men have been bitterly at odds ever since Comey’s firing.
Comey in 2018 published a memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” that painted Trump in deeply unflattering ways, likening him to a mafia don and characterizing him as “untethered to truth.” Trump, for his part, has repeatedly claimed that Comey should face charges for “treason” — an accusation Comey dismissed as “dumb lies” — and called him an “untruthful slime ball.”

- The Justice Department has made a series of splashy moves in recent weeks , including a criminal complaint last Friday charging two former FBI officials with lying to Congress about their participation in investigations concerning Hunter Biden, and the search by federal agents of the Washington home of Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

President Donald Trump intensified his anti-Muslim rhetoric against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday, portraying him as a threat to national security and questioning his loyalty to the United States in remarks that drew a sharp rebuke from a former top Arab American ally.

- Trump called El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official, a "jihadist" who was "on the side of the terrorists" and would "have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate." He also repeatedly invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, drawing a comparison between stopping El-Sayed from entering the Senate chamber and the passengers who fought back against the hijackers aboard United Flight 93.

- El-Sayed, who would become the nation's first Muslim senator if elected, has called attacks on his loyalty to the country "shameful" and repeatedly denied any ties to extremist groups. The Republican president's remarks were condemned by Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump, the group that helped lead the president's outreach to Arab American voters in 2024.

- "The president's statements are out of line," he said in a phone interview. "They are crossing a red line. They are racist."

- With Republicans on the defensive over inflation, soaring fuel prices and the Iran war, the president has been trying to generate turnout by claiming that El-Sayed and other Democrats are existential threats to America, instead of electoral rivals. Michigan's Senate race between El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers is among a handful of contests that could determine control of the chamber.

- Trump made his remarks in Port Huron, a Canadian border city about an hour north of Detroit and near communities where he made significant gains among Arab American voters in 2024. He became the first Republican presidential candidate since 2000 to win Dearborn, a city with one of the nation's largest concentrations of Arab Americans.

- Trump, who imposed a travel ban targeting several predominantly Muslim countries during his first term, has increasingly leaned into anti-Muslim rhetoric as Election Day approaches. He also attacked Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota at Sunday's rally, where he declared that he had come to Michigan "to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator."

- Responding to Trump, who also regularly mocks his name, El-Sayed told supporters at a rally in Grand Rapids later Sunday that he doesn't care how Trump pronounces or misrepresents it.

- "I don't even care that he remembers my whole name because he can just go on and call me 'senator' after November," El-Sayed said, drawing cheers. "I will be Senator Muhammad to you, bro."

- El-Sayed's faith, associations and past statements become campaign flashpoints

- Central to Republicans' strategy against El-Sayed in the final weeks of the campaign has been an effort to link him to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic movement with branches that the U.S. government has designated as terrorist organizations.

- There is no evidence that El-Sayed has any affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, wrote on social media in 2012 that "my family has long been MB" and described a conversation with her mother about her involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1970s.

- El-Sayed was born in the United States to Egyptian immigrant parents who divorced when he was young. He was raised by his father, not his biological mother.

- Trump on Sunday also targeted El-Sayed's ties to popular streamer Hasan Piker, who appeared alongside the Democrat multiple times during the primary campaign, including at his election night event.

- Piker in the past has said that "Hamas is a thousand times better" than Israel, describing some Orthodox Jews as "inbred" and that "America deserved 9/11."

- El-Sayed has faced criticism for his own rhetoric. He has repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether Iran or Israel poses a bigger threat to the country. Earlier this year, he said "hurt people hurt people" after an attack on a synagogue in the Detroit area. The attacker had lost four relatives in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon the week earlier. El-Sayed later apologized, saying he was not trying to justify what happened.

- "To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I'm really sorry," he said. "That was not my intention."

- Founder of Arab Americans for Trump calls the president 'racist'

- Bahbah, whose organization has since changed its name to Arab Americans for Peace, said Trump's remarks were unacceptable to Arab and Muslim communities, including Christian Arabs.

- "The remarks are out of line and crazy. I mean, no sane individual would say these things," Bahbah said.
Dearborn helped Trump win Michigan in 2024 after many voters in the city were outraged by the Biden administration's handling of the war in Gaza.

- "The president of the United States saying that about a person because of his religion, that is just not acceptable," said Bahbah. "And people are going to remember that on Nov. 3."

- Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking at the Grand Rapids rally, said Trump and his allies were using Islamophobia because they have "nothing to say" about the issues most important to working people, such as health care, housing and income inequality.

- "All they can do is foment hatred and divisiveness," Sanders said.

- The campaign has been one of the most contentious this year

- Rogers and El-Sayed have been locked in a bitter race to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.
During their second and final general election campaign debate, Rogers questioned El-Sayed's loyalty to the United States.

- "Are you for America, or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?" Rogers asked.

- El-Sayed said that questioning was "shameful."

- "I'm proud of our Constitution that guarantees all of us the right to pray as we choose to pray," he said.

- Speaking before Trump's appearance Sunday, Rogers repeated his allegations linking El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood.

- "The Muslim Brotherhood celebrated exactly one victory in the United States in the primary this year," Rogers said on stage. "Abdul El-Sayed's."

- Rally doesn't deliver a new economic handout, but gets boost from Minaj

- Trump has routinely announced new investments in factories at his campaign rallies, but he did not do so as part of his speech in Michigan, a state defined by the auto industry.

- The president instead repeated investments already being made by domestic automakers. Those automakers could see their finances slump if the president expands his trade war with Canada, which has been an essential partner for the U.S. automotive sector.

- While it lacked a fresh promise for Michigan's economy, Trump's rally did deliver a bit of star power.

- Rapper Nicki Minaj appeared on stage and urged people to get out and vote for the state's Republican ticket. Her appearance followed an awkward moment from Trump, who has increasingly been fixated on commenting about other people's body parts.

- After praising the body of Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican in a close election contest, Trump turned his eye toward Minaj and commented on her posterior.

- The president then signaled for Minaj to stand for the crowd and she did, after which Trump said, "I hope Nicki wasn't insulted, but we love Nicki. She's been with us for a long time."

They’re giving everyone a heads up. This is M4L AWARE agenda-scraping system from harvesting school board policies and documents.

The federal government has stopped sharing evidence with Minnesota authorities who are investigating the killings of Renee Good and Alex Prettiby federal officers, state officials said in recent court filings.

- Minnesota officials sued President Donald Trump’s administration in March for access to materials they said they needed to independently investigate the shootings during Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis earlier this year. The Trump administration has suggested that state prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, while Minnesota officials have said they don’t trust the federal government to investigate itself.

- The state is still seeking the cell phones of the officers involved in both shootings and recordings of key interviews.

- State prosecutors announced in July that the federal government had begun turning over evidence in the cases, including police body camera video and hard drives containing statements.

- Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said at the time that the state expected to receive “all the evidence.”

- But Minnesota investigators said in October court filings that the transfer of evidence stopped soon after the July announcement. Moriarty said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota told her on Sept. 10 that evidence sharing would be on pause indefinitely “in light of challenges with D.C.,” according to the documents.

- State prosecutors have again asked a judge to order federal agencies to hand over the evidence, arguing they “have identified no legal authority or rational basis justifying their obstruction of state criminal investigations.”

- In a reply filed Tuesday, attorneys for the Justice Department argued it’s within their discretion to decline to share information with state authorities.

- They cited the department’s rules for responding to record requests, known as the Touhy regulations, which apply only when formal legal proceedings are underway. The attorneys said there was no active court case when Minnesota made its requests.

- Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said in a legal declaration that federal authorities still have Good’s clothing, the cell phone of the officer who killed her and interview recordings that state authorities have never been able to view.

- An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, while she was leaving a Minneapolis protest on Jan. 7. Bystander video shows Good in the driver’s seat of an SUV, repeatedly honking the horn, when masked immigration officers order her to step out of the vehicle. She starts to pull forward, and an officer standing in front of the car fires at her windshield.

- The officer, now standing about an arm’s length from the open window on the driver’s side, fires twice more, according to an analysis of the videos by The Associated Press and others.

- Federal officials at the time said the officer acted in self-defense.

- Good’s death and that of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was killed weeks later by a federal officer in Minneapolis, ignited nationwide protests against the Republican president’s immigration enforcement efforts.

- No criminal charges have been filed in connection with the fatal shootings.

- Evans said the federal government also has not shared a recorded statement from an officer who shot Pretti, the firearms used by the officers, their phones, projectiles and casings, and a gun taken from Pretti before he was shot.

If, by some miracle, Democrats take control of the Senate, do you think they should invoke Mitch McConnell's reasoning from when Obama was in his last term, that (paraphrasing) the American people have thus spoken in rebuke of the sitting president, so any judicial nominees will be be ignored until a new president is elected?

My source: https://www.republicanleader.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/mcconnell-on-scotus-vacancy/

For Senate candidate Hallie Shoffner, the most important political label she wears isn't that she's a Democrat. Or that she's not a Republican. Instead, it's that she is an Arkansan.

- As a lunchtime crowd ate at Tailgater's Burger Company Friday, Shoffner decried what she called a historically unproductive Congress driven by extreme voices in each party and pitched herself to receptive — if skeptical — voters as a candidate who would better serve their needs.

- Arkansas is one of the most conservative states in the country, with nearly two out of three voters supporting President Trump in 2024 and Republican Sen. Tom Cotton in 2020.

- But in the final days of the 2026 midterm election, Shoffner and other Arkansas Democrats are crisscrossing the state with a message that seeks to capitalize on the Trump administration's unpopularity, stubbornly high prices and anti-incumbency vibes.

- "We're the sleeper race," Shoffner told NPR. "I mean, we're the race that no one's noticed and that no one is going to see coming."

- Republicans have taken some notice, pre-emptively pouring millions of dollars into the Senate race, the Little Rock-based 2nd Congressional District and robust get-out-the vote efforts to try and stem the rising tide of dissatisfaction with the party.

- But even in a midterm cycle where Senate races in states like Kansas, Iowa, Ohio and Texas are viewed as tossups, and where the landscape of potentially competitive House races stretches deep into conservative territory, Arkansas seems a bridge too far for election forecasters.

- Arkansas' 2nd Congressional District is considered "Likely Republican," according to the Cook Political Report, and its Senate race is "Solid Republican."

- Arkansas First

- At an outdoor coffee shop in Arkadelphia, Vanilla Hannah said she was there to support Shoffner and talk about her own reelection bid to be a local justice of the peace. She said it's possible that Arkansas could elect Democrats this year because the crop of candidates seems willing to work with people to meet their needs — and there are a lot of them.

- "When it comes down to basic needs or whatever, the 'D' or the 'R' after your name don't mean a thing, because we're all suffering and all having the same issues and everybody's ready for a change," she said. "And running for an election is not just running specifically on the Democratic policies or the Republican or the libertarians or whatever. It's just what you believe in, and it seems like more and more people are having a common belief now."

- Later, Shoffner visited a small family farm in nearby Bierne where several members of the Hatley family cooked sorghum to make syrup and talked about why they were supporting her campaign.

- Shoffner is a multigenerational farmer who decided to shut down her family's operation in 2025, citing financial headwinds from rising input costs and Trump administration tariff and trade policies. That in turn inspired her Senate run and influenced much of her campaign's focus.

- Sliding behind the wheel of a side-by-side utility vehicle, Shoffner takes off across the property and recounts her life story that led her away from the farm, into nonprofit work and back home when her dad got sick.
She doesn't buy the argument that her chances are low to win.

- "This race isn't about Democrats or Republicans or independents or any of that," she said. "This isn't some kind of weird political alignment, this is a values alignment. This is reorienting representation in Arkansas based on common sense, based on compassion and based on showing up."

- She said national Republicans — and Democrats — have made the mistake of ignoring the needs of Arkansas residents, especially with agriculture and trade policies.

- "I come from a place, a community, that died in my lifetime," she said. "I was the last one left and I felt left behind. I felt like no one was really talking to me or talking about me. I felt like folks were making decisions about me, but without me, and ultimately they were rewriting the rules."

- Now, with record diesel prices, the war in Iran and tariffs, Shoffner said she believes that Arkansas voters of all stripes want something different. She's also glad that the race hasn't seen an influx of outside air support from national Democratic groups.

- "I don't need them, I really don't," she said. "This is an Arkansas First campaign, and I'm an Arkansan, and I want to talk directly to Arkansans, and I want them to know that when I go to D.C., the only letters that will mean anything next to my name are the "A" and the "R."

- 'Folks are hurting'

- On the flip side, Chris Jones has the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as one of dozens of "Red to Blue" flip targets.

- At an outdoor jazz night held at a brewery in Little Rock, Jones worked the crowd between visits to polling sites and a high school football homecoming game on a campaign that has seen millions of dollars in outside spending by Republicans.

- "They understand that people are in pain," he said. "Folks are hurting. They can't afford gas. They can't afford groceries. And our campaign has always been about affordability and accountability for all. So prices are way too high."

- Jones also ran for governor against Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2022 and lost, so he started off with higher name recognition as a serious challenger to Rep. French Hill.
He knows it's a tall task, even in a national environment more favorable to Democrats. Hill is a longtime incumbent whose district only became more conservative after the last Census-led redistricting in 2021.

- But he also knows that Democrats, Republicans and independent voters alike are open to looking for something other than the current leadership.

- "Here's what's so fascinating: a lot of folks here voted for the president and this administration because they wanted lower prices, they wanted to end foreign wars, and they wanted to end corruption, particularly with the Epstein files," he said. "None of that has happened, so they're super frustrated."

- Like many states that have seen the potential for close races next week, Arkansas has a longer history of single-party control that has led to anger and frustration at the status quo and incumbency in a way that extends beyond typical partisan labels or voting history.

- "One of the things that we forget, because there's so much that comes out of this administration: It wasn't but 15 years ago that the entire federal delegation of Arkansas was Democrat," he said. "So it's not that long ago. The reason they got in office was because of the conditions that existed, the economic anxiety and pain that people feel — and folks feeling like what they wanted to happen out of Washington was not happening. We're in that same place now."

- In addition to the DCCC support, Jones has had campaign visits from former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have both endorsed his run. And he's heard from people who don't normally support Democrats saying they'll back his campaign.

- "Folks are literally hurting, and it's to the point where they're saying, 'my life is so bad that I don't care about party anymore'," he said.

- Black voter turnout surges

- Another factor working in Democrats' favor this election cycle is a surge in Black turnout following a Supreme Court decision that weakened part of the Voting Rights Act.

- Multiple states across the South rushed to redraw House maps to gain a partisan advantage, with many of the new districts crafted in a way that minimized Black voting power.

- Arkansas lawmakers did not redraw their maps — the state has an entirely Republican congressional delegation — but after the 2020 Census did split Little Rock up in a manner that made Hill's district more Republican.

- In primaries following the ruling, and early voting this month ahead of the midterms, there has been sustained higher Black turnout in states like South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana in ways that could affect the outcome in key races across the region.

- "I think part of it is that folks realized that there was an imminent threat to their right to vote," Jones said. "And people realized across the country that if we don't show up now, and Black folks realize if we don't speak up now, then our ability to do it later might not be there."

- Marcus Hatley, one of the people who met with Shoffner at his family farm, said the increased turnout seemed like a "course correction."

- "People are dissatisfied with the way that that happened, and some are crossing sides and voting in a different direction," he said. "And a lot of it has to do with removing, in some of those states, the ability for people of color to have equal representation in their districts. So it looks like to me there's going to be a course correction. I could be wrong, but I believe there's going to be a change."

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to stop Alaska officials from certifying the results of the U.S. Senate race if Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses his reelection bid, and calling for an investigation into whether votes cast for a namesake challenger were intended for the incumbent.

- Attorneys and lawmakers have decried the move, labeling it legally unfounded and a political maneuver.

- With early voting already underway in the Nov. 3 general election, the lawsuit could create a legal hurdle if Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola defeats the Republican senator in the closely watched race.

- The race for Alaska’s Senate seat is seen as one of a few battleground contests that could determine whether Democrats flip control of the chamber.

- The lawsuit alleges that the presence of retired Petersburg educator Dan J. Sullivan, a Republican who shares the same first and last name as the incumbent, on the ballot “threatens to mislead Alaskan citizens who want to vote for Senator Sullivan.”

- Peltola finished eight points ahead of the incumbent Sullivan in the primary, garnering 49.5% of the vote compared to Sullivan’s 41.4%. Polling ahead of the general election indicates the contest between the two front-runners may be a toss-up. The Petersburg Sullivan received 2.5% of the vote in the primary.

- Republican President Donald Trump told reporters Friday morning that he directed the Department of Justice to file the case. While Peltola’s campaign accused Sullivan of designing the suit as a last-ditch effort to sway the results in his favor, Sullivan’s campaign said they had “no prior knowledge of this lawsuit and no role in it.”

- Attorneys from Alaska and Outside have questioned the lawsuit’s legal basis, arguing that an investigation into voters’ intent after an election would be impractical and that the complaint’s reliance on the preamble of the National Voter Registration Act is weak.

- Scott Kendall, an Anchorage attorney who has supported Alaska’s ranked choice voting system among other election-related issues, said on social media: “If a 1st year law student handed this to me, I’d give it a D-.”

- The lawsuit asserts that if Sen. Sullivan were to lose the general election, and “had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for Senator Sullivan and Alaska’s rank-choice process played out accordingly, Senator Sullivan would have won the election,” that the Alaska Division of Elections must not certify the election results “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan.”

- Alaska’s other Senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, condemned the move in a statement Friday afternoon.

- “Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot. The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit,” Murkowski said.

- Whether the Petersburg Sullivan should be allowed to appear on the ballot has already been affirmed in state courts. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled that Dan J. Sullivan is eligible to appear on the ballot, rejecting an appeal by the director of the state Division of Elections, who previously declared that the namesake challenger filed for candidacy “with a purpose to confuse or mislead.”

- The Petersburg Sullivan has maintained that he is running for the seat because he believes the incumbent has not done a good job of serving Alaskans or representing their interests.

- The Division of Elections determined how the candidates would appear on the ballot. The incumbent is listed as “Sullivan, Dan S.” with the label “(Registered Republican) Incumbent.

- “ His namesake challenger is listed as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.,” with no labeled party affiliation.

- The lawsuit is set to be assigned to a federal judge in Alaska who will decide how to proceed with the case.

- The lawsuit names Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher, in her official capacity, as a defendant as well as the state election and ballot-counting review boards. The lawsuit sets up the state of Alaska, which previously argued that the Petersburg Sullivan’s candidacy was not in good faith,** **to choose whether to defend the federal government’s calls not to certify election results if Sen. Dan S. Sullivan does not prevail.

- State Department of Law spokesman Sam Curtis said in a statement Friday that “the Division of Elections and the Department of Law are focused on running the ongoing election and giving voter’s confidence that their votes will count. This also includes assisting voters and avoiding voter confusion — whether through the information in the Official Election Pamphlet, asking questions of a poll worker, or bringing others to assist you with voting as permitted by law. “

- The complaint is being reviewed, and we do not have any comment on the litigation,” Curtis said in the statement.

- The Petersburg Sullivan said in a text message Friday that he had “no comment for now.”

- ‘One of the most frivolous lawsuits’

- Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C., said the filing was among “the most frivolous lawsuits” he had ever seen.

- “The Department of Justice — which is supposed to represent all Americans, all of us — filing a lawsuit less than two weeks before Election Day, trying to block election results that haven’t even happened yet is so crazy, and is reflective of this administration’s overall approach to the midterm elections, and consistent with a pattern of behavior that that they’ve undertaken over the last year and a half, that shows a total disregard for the Constitution, the law, American democracy and voters,” Diaz said.

- The lawsuit’s call for an investigation into voters’ intent is particularly unusual, Diaz said.“

- The expression of a voter’s intent is the ballot itself. You cannot then go back and look at a ballot and decide if the voter intended something else. That’s just not how voting works,” Diaz said.

- During his campaign visit to Alaska to stump for Sen. Sullivanlast week, President Donald Trump called Dan J. Sullivan a sham candidate propped up by Democrats to confuse voters.

- Trump has repeatedly criticized the challenger on social media. Earlier this week, he wrote that his administration was “looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot.”

- He told reporters on Friday that the lawsuit was filed at his directive.

- “I’m the one that said do it,” Trump said.

- Campaigns respond

- A spokesperson for Sullivan, Nate Adams, said that the campaign played no role in the lawsuit, and that Peltola’s assertions that Sullivan was involved were “categorically false.”“We’ll let the DOJ complaint run its course. Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan’s strong record of delivering for Alaska, a record he’ll keep building on for the next six years,” Adams said.

- Peltola took the opportunity to criticize her opponent and his support of Trump on Friday evening.

- “I feel very much that it’s interference and very corrupt,” Peltola told reporters at the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention.

- “This is the exact kind of corruption Alaskans are tired of, and you know, I think this is a perfect example, 11 days from the election of corruption and desperation, honestly, and a complete lack of respect for Alaskans, and their vote, and the desire for Alaskans to talk about affordability, and how crushed we are getting by these prices on account of the 14 times that Dan Sullivan has voted in favor of this war in Iran.”

- Eric Croft, chair of the Alaska Democratic Party, echoed the response from the Peltola campaign.

- “Dan Sullivan is scared he’ll lose and that’s why he’s looking to any corrupt, desperate method to win. But let’s be clear: Alaska voters decide Alaska elections. Not politicians, and not anyone from the Lower 48. Every vote will be counted, and Alaskans will make their voices heard at the ballot box in a free and fair election,” Croft said.

- On Friday evening, Alaska GOP Chair Carmela Warfield released a statement commending the Trump administration for filing the lawsuit.

- “Ranked choice voting has already made Alaska’s elections unnecessarily complicated,” Warfield said. “A candidacy that trades on voter confusion only makes the problem worse and highlights the failures of this voting scheme.”

- ‘The entire world is watching’ Alaska’s Senate race

- The Division of Elections plans to release initial tabulated results on Nov. 18. In the weeks between Election Day and the first set of tabulated results, officials will drop preliminary results showing first-place votes, before the ranked choice voting tabulation is completed.

- State Rep. Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat who serves as chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he is concerned that if control of the Senate hinges on Alaska’s race, the wait for results could invite further legal challenges and more federal scrutiny.

- “The entire world is watching, and it’s just two weeks for the president to spiral more out of control,” said Gray.

- Gray said he believes the lawsuit falls outside federal jurisdiction.

- “Our elections are state controlled; they are not federally controlled, and really, President Donald Trump’s opinions of what should or shouldn’t happen in our elections should not matter,” Gray said. “And I hope that the folks in charge understand that and stand up to him because that’s what it’s going to require.”

- Asked in hindsight whether Dan J. Sullivan should have entered the race, given the legal challenges his candidacy has prompted, Gray said he supports the challenger’s right to run.

- “The controversy and chaos has been manufactured. It is not something that was caused by Dan J. Sullivan. He had a right to run. He had a right to file. He has a right to be on the ballot,” Gray said.

Calley Means, the health entrepreneur who became the Trump administration's most vocal advocate of the MAHA agenda, resigned from his senior adviser post on Thursday.

- Why it matters: Means' departure two weeks before the midterm elections underscores the MAHA base's discontent with the pace of change on food policy and the administration's stances on issues like pesticide use.

- Driving the news: Means expressed "tremendous respect" for President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a statement on X, praising their efforts to take on "entrenched, dark forces in DC" and advance the MAHA agenda.

- He cited the administration's work to overhaul dietary guidelines, advance psychedelic therapies, ban the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for sugary drinks, and get food companies to voluntarily remove artificial dyes and other additives from products.

- The Department of Health and Human Services didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

- Between the lines: Tensions between the MAHA faithful and the administration peaked in February, after Trump issued an executive order to increase domestic production of glyphosate, a common weed killer.

- Kennedy and others close to the movement had argued pesticides are making Americans sick. But agriculture interests said restricting their use would raise food prices and cost farmers billions.

- Trump had tapped Means' sister, Casey, a nutrition influencer, for surgeon general last year but withdrew the nomination in April after her confirmation process stalled in the Senate.

Gen Z Americans were a key part of President Trump's winning coalition in 2024. Nearly two years later — and with early voting underway in multiple states for the midterms — some of that youth support has faded.

- That sentiment was on display in a focus group, conducted last week, of eight Generation Z Trump voters, who reported varying degrees of unhappiness and disappointment over the state of politics, with some going as far as to say they regret supporting Trump in 2024.

- The conversation was conducted virtually by Navigator Research, a left-leaning polling group. Participants ranged in age from 20 to 29 and spanned five states: Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas and South Carolina — places Trump won by double digits in the last election. Two of those states, Texas and Ohio, are home to competitive races that could be key to control of the Senate.

- For participants who now regret their vote for Trump, much of their frustration centers on what they see as a string of failed promises. When asked to give the president's job performance a letter grade, a majority of participants, 6 out of 8, assigned him a grade of either D or F, while two selected C.

- "I just feel like nothing went correctly. I just feel like everything got worse," said John, a 29-year-old Black man from Florida. (Participants agreed to be part of the focus group on the condition that they be identified by only their first names.)

- John, who identifies as a Republican and has voted for Trump since 2016, gave the president an F and said he now plans to support Democratic candidates this fall, in large part because of the strain he has felt from rising costs.

- "I'm willing to give the other side a chance," he added. "I don't think they're going to make a total change. But things are just horrible right now for me. So I feel like even if they make one or two small changes, it will probably benefit me."

- Though the focus group is not a nationally representative survey, the frustrations shared by participants echoed polling conducted by Navigator this month, which found that more than a third of Gen Zers — those under age 30 — who voted for Trump now regret having done so, higher than older generations.

- Trump's rising unpopularity among young voters isn't in a vacuum. He has also lost ground with other key groups that shifted right in 2024, notably independents and Latino voters— and in a year when the Republican Party is facing political headwinds, it's unclear whether that expanded coalition from two years ago can show up at the same strength now.

- Shifting toward Democrats, or not

- While some voters, like John in Florida, do feel compelled to vote blue this cycle in response to Trump, 4 of the 8 who took part in the focus group said they still planned to back Republicans this year. Three said they'd vote for Democrats; one participant said she was still deciding.

- Matthew, a 25-year-old Black man living in Texas, said he doesn't regret his support for the president and gave him a C grade.

- "I feel like he's done a really good job closing the border," he said. "I also do appreciate his efforts in trying to end some of the conflicts that began under the last administration, besides the fact that the Iran conflict hasn't really worked the best, from my perspective."

- He plans to vote in the midterm elections and argued that Trump will be able to carry out more of his agenda if Republicans can secure a larger majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, although national polls indicate that the GOP is more likely to lose seats.

- But enthusiasm is a different question.

- Courtney, a 20-year-old white woman based in South Carolina, said she doesn't regret her vote for Trump in 2024 and overall aligns with Republicans, but she did admit she has grown more distrustful of both major political parties, particularly on foreign policy.

- "I just really do feel like we would be in this situation either way. …

- Education, the economy, everything else would be so much better if we weren't pumping money out into other countries that aren't ours," she said, referring to U.S. aid for Israel and the decision to go to war with Iran.

- "I don't think it matters what side you vote on — that's why I voted red, because I agree with those policies more — but at the end of the day, what we do in the Middle East is going to be not at all up to [the] party [in power]," she said during the focus group.

- That sense of political disaffection may underscore a growing challenge for both Republicans and Democrats moving forward as both try to repair ties with this generation.

- "As we see people regret their vote for Trump, sour on the Republican Party and Republican policies, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're swinging right over to Democrats," said Melissa Toufanian, the managing director at Navigator.

- Toufanian points to Navigator's own polling, which has found that even as the GOP has lost trust on economic issues, "it's not a one-for-one with Democrats gaining that trust."

- "A lot of people are moving to this middle, this category that 'I don't trust either party,'" she said. "We are seeing people who are becoming increasingly pessimistic about our political parties and our political system, and they're not feeling strongly that either party can really deliver for them."

The Department of Justice is demanding California take the unprecedented step of segregating ballots associated with 20,000 people the department says are "likely" noncitizens. But an initial review by local officials suggests the list is "unreliable" and that some people on it had indicated in records they were born in the U.S. and therefore may be citizens.

- The new details come from court filings submitted Tuesday by the state of California and local officials, in response to a lawsuit filed by the federal government attempting to compel the state to investigate the thousands of people before their votes are counted. The state says doing what the DOJ requests would be unfeasible this close to the election and would likely break federal and state election laws.

- "At best, this litigation is a reckless political stunt," the state wrote in Tuesday's filing. "At worst, it threatens to disenfranchise thousands of Californians this election."

- The saga began in earnest last week when the Justice Department delivered a thumb drive to Los Angeles County that contained the list of roughly 20,000 people who investigators at the Department of Homeland Security say are "likely noncitizens" and registered to vote somewhere in California.

- Initially, county officials declined to open the list, citing the security threat of inserting a thumb drive of unknown origin into a government computer. The next day, the DOJ emailed a spreadsheet with the same list.

- Out of the 20,000 names on the list, only 7,035 had addresses in Los Angeles County and some were duplicates, according to a separate Tuesday court filing by Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan.

- In declarations to the court, Los Angeles County officials wrote that they took a sample of 200 people to get a sense of how reliable the federal government's data might be.

- "The review is preliminary and quality control is continuing, but it indicates that the October List is unreliable," wrote Monica Flores, Los Angeles County Assistant Registrar-Recorder.

- Of the voters where birthplace was "meaningfully reported," Flores wrote, "38.9% indicate that they were born in the United States, which is strong evidence of citizenship."

- It's unclear how many people that is in total or the specifics of which records listed place of birth. NPR has reached out to the LA county clerk's office for clarity on the numbers listed in the court filings but by Tuesday evening had not yet received a response.

- The California Secretary of State's website asks for "place of birth" when people register to vote online, although the field is not mandatory.

- Except for extremely narrow exceptions, anyone born in the U.S. automatically receives citizenship.

- Of the 200 records the county staff reviewed, 112 were associated with people whose registrations are canceled or inactive. The filing also said around 70% of the people sampled had no voting history.

- The Trump administration has generally defended its methodology for finding noncitizen voters, without fully ever publicly explaining it. Other numbers federal officials, including President Trump, have recently released on the issue of noncitizen voting have been shown to be inaccurate in other cases.

- Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter acknowledged there could be some errors in the federal government's list of 20,000 names in a Monday press conference. "There may be some names on there who it turns out ultimately are citizens, we're not perfect," McCotter said. "And that's why we've asked California to cooperate with us."

- In response to questions about LA County's initial analysis, DOJ deputy press secretary Kiersten Pels said in a statement, "California cannot facilitate the violation of federal law." The statement continued, "We notified California that noncitizens are likely registered to vote, and we asked the state to independently verify the citizenship of any ballots cast by people on a list that we provided. It refused to do so. Federal law doesn't permit this willful blindness."

- On Monday, the DOJ also announced criminal charges against 28 people on the list provided to the state. But even in those cases, it seems some of those charged may have registered without understanding it was illegal.

- Kamlesh Shah, 68, told Sacramento TV station KCRA 3 he thought he was able to vote because he had a Real ID.

- "I'm feeling very depressed, very full of anxiety. I'm disabled. I've got so much problems in my heart, my condition, so it's going to give me more stress," Shah told KCRA 3. "I'm very upset. I'm trying to get an attorney, hopefully I can have the charges dismissed."

- All 28 of the people charged Monday were legal permanent residents, also known as green-card holders. Research has shown that in the rare cases when noncitizens vote, it is often green-card holders who misunderstand the rules as opposed to intentional fraud.

A man who heckled the Democratic candidate for Senate Abdul El-Sayed and demanded he disavow the Muslim Brotherhood at a Michigan town hall is a former aide to the Republican senator Josh Hawley, according to congressional staff records.

- At the event on Saturday, an attender who gave his name only as “Tommy” shouted from the crowd, asking whether El-Sayed would disavow the movement. El-Sayed answered: “Sure, yeah, absolutely,” then turned the question around, asking whether the man assumed he wouldn’t.

- Tommy said he had simply not heard El-Sayed reject the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements. Under Trump the US has moved to designate certain chapters of the group as foreign terrorist organizations.

- Over nearly five minutes at the town hall, El-Sayed pointed to how the question shouted by Tommy carried an implication of “dual loyalty”, comparing it with the doubts once raised about John F Kennedy’s Catholicism, and told the room he was running for the Senate and “happen[s] to be Muslim”.

- He then asked Tommy whether he would disavow any attempt to read religious doctrine into American law. Tommy said he would not. El-Sayed answered that it was Tommy who needed to understand the constitution, drawing cheers, and the man left the room.

- The questioner has since been identified as Thomas Teepell, whose staff records show he joined Hawley’s office as an intern in 2023 and rose to operations director before leaving in February. He then became political director for Philip Sarnecki’s Kansas gubernatorial campaign. Sarnecki lost the Republican primary on 4 August.
Teepell is the son of the Republican strategist Timmy Teepell, a longtime adviser to Hawley and the former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. The Handbasket first reported the identification.

- The question echoes a line of attack that Republicans have tried to push against El-Sayed for weeks, including when Rogers raised alleged Brotherhood ties during one of their debates.

- After El-Sayed told NBC’s Meet the Press that neither he nor his family had any such ties, the conservative Washington Free Beacon resurfaced social media posts by his half-sister, the University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi, describing their mother’s activism in the group in the 1970s. There is no evidence El-Sayed was personally involved; he was born in the 1980s and was not raised by his birth mother. He has called the suggestion that anyone in his family took part “an insane thing to assume”.

- On Meet the Press, he said Rogers had raised the issue because he “really wanted to repeat the word Muslim”. In a separate NBC interview, he dismissed the questions as “not serious”.

- Trump has gone further, similarly without evidence, saying at a White House lunch that El-Sayed was “100%” Muslim Brotherhood and calling him a “fraud”, and describing him on another occasion as a “member” of the group. Ahead of the weekend, Trump dog-whistled on his Islamophobia, saying El-Sayed’s name is “Adulbabababababa Mohammed El-Sayed.” He added: “So I was right. He’s a jihadist.”

- The attacks come in a close race. El-Sayed holds a narrow lead in the RealClearPolitics average, 48.1% to 45.5% for Rogers. The most recent survey, from InsiderAdvantage taken on 9-10 October, had him ahead 48% to 46%. Most leads sit within or near the margin of error.

- El-Sayed will campaign with Barack Obama in Detroit on Saturday 24 October, the first day of in-person early voting, at a rally that will also feature the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Jocelyn Benson. Election day is 3 November.

If ever there were a place to symbolize both opportunities and obstacles that Democrats and Republicans face politically this midterm election, it would be Kansas.

- Two years after President Trump earned 57% of the vote, Kansas Republicans are grappling with the possibility that a Democrat could win a U.S. Senate race for the first time in nearly a century.

- Adam Hamilton, a self-billed "independent-minded Democrat," has led in several polls against Republican Sen. Roger Marshall.

- Both parties have redirected tens of millions of dollars in recent weeks to try and shape the surprising toss-up race. The president announced Tuesday he would campaign in Wichita next week for Marshall and other Republicans on the ticket.

- But after eight years of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who is term-limited, Republicans are also hoping to retake control of the state's top office as one of the few pickup opportunities in an otherwise daunting midterm environment.

- State Senate President Ty Masterson, the Republican candidate, leads in polls against Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher in a race that is less nationalized than other competitive gubernatorial races around the country.

- The last-minute shift in national attention to the Sunflower State is reflective of how unpopular Trump's second term agenda has become with voters, especially in typically Republican states in the Midwest that have been disproportionately affected by rising fuel prices and tariffs.

- As early voting gets underway in Kansas, neither side is taking the voters for granted.

- At a get-out-the-vote event in Lawrence Monday, Hamilton told the crowd that his priorities if elected are tackling affordability and healthcare, but also restoring "human decency" to politics.

- "Now listen, I had somebody say to me, 'Look, I don't want somebody who's going to build bridges, I want somebody who's going to crush the Republicans,'" he said. "But here's the thing: if you want that in a state with only 25% of the population who are Democrats, you'll never get them elected.

- "And if you did, they become part of the problem instead of part of the solution."

- Hamilton is the founding pastor of Church of the Resurrection, the country's largest United Methodist Church congregation across its multiple campuses, and positions himself as a moderate voice seeking to tame rabid partisanship that has dominated modern politics.

- "We've got to find solutions that will be a compromise between what the Republicans want and the Democrats want, but are going to end up getting something done as opposed to right now, where that doesn't happen very often," he said.

- At a time when the Democratic Party brand is unpopular with voters, too, Hamilton is quick to point out that he's not a Democrat you might find in a blue state.

- "We've been trying to make clear in our commercials that a Kansas Democrat is a bit different than a New York Democrat or a Los Angeles Democrat, and not just a little — a lot different," Hamilton told NPR.

- That's also reflected in the slew of endorsements from conservatives, including former Republican Kansas Govs. Mike Hayden and Bill Graves.
Hamilton also told NPR of a recent event where Republican Party leaders said they were crossing over to vote for him.

- "There were Republicans who were saying, 'We've got to do better,'" he said. "You represent our values. You represent the character we're looking for in somebody in leadership. And we know you're going to fight for both Republicans and Democrats. And they're exactly right."

- Most of his stump speeches wrap with a callback to "The Wizard of Oz," with Hamilton saying Washington needs more senators "who have a brain and use it, who have a heart and feel empathy with it, and who have courage and speak up because of it."

- Hamilton's campaign is also bolstered by backlash to many elements of President Trump's second term, including tariff policies and rising fuel prices, that have proven unpopular, causing the Republican Party's favorability ratings to plummet.

- Even as Republicans sweat the closer-than-expected Senate race, the party is optimistic about winning back control of the governor's office after eight years of Democrat Laura Kelly's leadership.

- The Kansas Republican Party is on a weeklong bus tour across the state, bringing a message of contrast that is more state-focused than dealing with the challenging national environment for the party.

- Masterson, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, said in Dodge City that tackling issues like affordability and lower energy prices would come from putting a Republican back in the state's top office.

- "There's never been a clearer choice than we've had in this election," he said. "If you want working families to be able to afford to live, if you want to stop taxing people out of their homes and out of their businesses and off their farms, if you want safe communities, lower energy prices, i.e. then lower grocery prices… It's not really a choice. You need to vote Republican."

- On the trail, the nominees pointed to Kelly's frequent vetoes of measures from the Republican supermajority in the legislature — and overrides of those vetoes — as a motivating factor to get voters to the polls.

- State Rep. Pat Proctor, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, said aside from the state's history of alternating support for governors from both parties, there is strong precedent for still supporting Republicans.
"We are closer to where Kansans are on all the individual issues," he said. "And when they hear us talk and they look at what we actually do, we're just closer to where they want Kansas to be."

- While Republicans in other states may have to deal more with Trump's shadow over their own campaigns, campaign speeches rarely mentioned the president or his unpopular policies. Instead, it was all about painting the Democratic nominees as extreme and out of touch.

- For his part, Marshall has painted Hamilton as too liberal, saying he would destroy Kansas' cattle, agriculture, oil and gas industries if elected.

- "Kansans need to know that my opponent, Adam Hamilton, is the most radical liberal person that ever got through a primary in the state of Kansas," he said to cheers.

- Still, Marshall has been dogged by negative headlines over the last month, starting with a debate at the Kansas State Fair where the senator was shouted down by the crowd repeatedly.

- Marshall's campaign also faced pushback after releasing an attack ad that claimed Hamilton "protected a pedophile" used images of two unrelated businesses, and paid an outstanding invoice from a cookie shop after a viral social media post claimed the campaign failed to pay for six years.

- Kansas is one of only a few states that currently have a senator from one party and a governor from the other party, and is one of nearly ten states where voters could also split their choices for those key positions next month.

In an interview with Texas Monthly, former Texas GOP House Speaker Dade Phelan says Republicans are in serious jeopardy of losing their grip on the Lone Star State. “People are freaking out,” he said. “You see it in their faces.”

- Republicans across the country are experiencing similar angst. This week, Politico spoke to five senior Republican lawmakers who all agree that the GOP is all but certain to lose the House.

- To counteract the impending blue wave, Republicans are returning to a tired and desperate playbook: demonizing trans people.

- Phelan, who’s still in the Texas House but not running for reelection, says the attacks are falling flat. The intense GOP focus on trans athletes far outweighs the issue’s impact on people’s lives.

- “We’re still running transgender ads. It’s just not resonating,” he said. “Let’s be honest. The 8 to 10% of voters in the middle who are going to decide this election, when they hear stuff about boys in girls’ sports, they don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

- He continued, “This never happened in their communities, and they’ve been hearing about it for so many years, and so many other people have been accused of it. What Republicans are talking about is just not what the swing voter is really interested in.”

At the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on Saturday, a large inflatable donkey bounced around next to a paper-mache replica of Donald Trump's head. Next to both of them: a sign reading "VOTE EARLY."

- The donkey, the floating head and the voting sign were all part of the "No Kings: Vote Early" day of action. Thousands of gatherings across the country drew protestors, voters and grassroots organizers to the streets and to voting centers.

- Organizers said the events were a nonpartisan effort to promote early voting in the midterm elections. The nationwide push to vote marks a pivot for the No Kings coalition, which comprises hundreds of partner organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Black Voters Matter.

- "The first three No Kings were designed to send a message," said Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible — one of the major organizations within the No Kings network. "We're done sending a message."

- Now, he said, they want people to vote.

- The events looked different across the country. Some were larger marches or rallies, but many were smaller community gatherings such as block parties and cookouts. While some protests, like the one on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, were reminiscent of the first three No Kings rallies — with signs blasting Trump and his administration's actions — other events focused on spreading information to community members on how to vote.

- From Lady Liberty to a donkey

- Saturday's events all shared similar restrictions, Levin said, including a rule against political endorsements and inviting current candidates to speak.
In Golden, Colo., a "Paws to the Polls" event invited people to bring their dogs on a march. Organizers in Everett, Wash., planned a "concert for democracy," featuring an environmental troubadour.

- Superhero capes and masks were the staple of Cammy Dunford's event in Frisco, Texas. Dunford, a co-leader of Indivisible Frisco, planned a "voting is your superpower" gathering.

- "I don't care if you're an independent, first-time voter, Democrat, Republican," Dunford said. "If you are eligible to vote, you need to get out there and vote. Because without everybody voting, we don't have a democracy."

- Early voting in Texas does not start until Oct. 19, but Dunford and a group of her neighbors put together 500 goody bags to hand out — filled with QR codes linking to voting information and voting resources.

- In Washington D.C., under the shadow of the Capitol, about two dozen people huddled around an official ballot drop box, where voters can send off their mail-in ballots.

- Members of the grassroots community group Free DC, which advocates for statehood in the nation's capital, organized Saturday's gathering, flanked by fluffy dogs and giggling young kids. The group cheered as each person slid their ballot into the early voting box.

- Chris Salm, a union organizer and informal leader of the group, led a chant: "What are we here to do? Vote! When we vote together? We win!"

- "Let's get it done!" Salm shouted as he banged on a makeshift drum: An old metal umbrella stand fastened around his shoulder by a worn-out belt.

- Across the city at the Lincoln Memorial, protestors young and old held signs echoing that early voting message: "YOUR VOTE IS YOUR VOICE" and "VOTERS OVER VANITY!"
Celia Zanni attended the rally with her sister and mom. The 16-year-old held a sign that read "I studied checks and balances in school for this." She said Trump "needs to have his power checked."

- "I'm here because I want to make my voice heard and do something about this because I'm too young to vote," Zanni said. Still, she pre-registered to vote two years early out of excitement.
Nearby, wearing the inflatable donkey costume, Athena Haresign, a horse trainer from Maryland, said she was voting in the midterm elections for the first time.

- The front of her costume read: "Donkeys against Tyranny."

- Before the protestors marched over to the memorial, organizers set up tables with voting information and ways to protect the election. Another focus for No Kings groups was getting volunteers trained as poll watchers.

- "We want people not to just vote. I mean, that's the baseline," said Lisa Finn, one of the organizers of Saturday's D.C. rally with the advocacy group Third Act Virginia. "We want people to do more than that. We want people to be ready for anything in case something bad happens."

- Levin, the Indivisible leader, said it's a response to actions by the Trump administration that he views as threats to election integrity. Levin pointed to the failed SAVE America Act that would have required voters to show a document proving their U.S. citizenship, such as a passport or a birth certificate, when registering to vote. He also raised concerns that federal immigration officers will be sent to the polls, as well as President Trump's attempts to restrict voting by mail.

- At a rally in Fort Myers, Fla., Diane Scire dressed as the Statue of Liberty holding a sparkling flame. The 59-year-old construction company owner, who's a Democrat, said she urged everyone to vote.

- "I'm hoping to see a lot of these corrupt politicians come to justice," Scire said.

- Both Cheryl Singleton and Sandy Hill at a No Kings rally in Ogden, Utah voiced concerns about corruption, data centers and public lands.

- "I have a lot of grievances, and I was raised Republican," Hill said. "This is not a Republican administration. I am obviously now a Democrat, but I would vote for anyone who oppose these present policies"

- In Kansas City, Mo., Margie Singleton drew a comparison to the huge crowds that sports teams in the city are able to attract.

- "I think about the rallies we've had for the Chiefs and the Royals — I look at all those people. If all those people had registered to vote, we could have a real democracy here," Singleton said.

The Trump administration has requested the removal of the federal judge overseeing a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s plans to overhaul a Washington, DC public golf course, accusing her of having “bias.”

- In a motion filed Friday, the administration’s lawyer said US District Judge Ana Reyes’ “behavior in this case is nothing short of egregious,” pointing to a tense hearing earlier this week.

- CNN previously reported that during Monday’s hearing, Reyes — who was appointed to the bench by former President Joe Biden — said she was “furious” with the Trump administration for cutting down 169 trees from the East Potomac Golf Course without first notifying the court, adding that “the government can’t be trusted.”

- In Friday’s filing, the Justice Department lawyer said, “Judge Reyes’s conduct rises to the level of deep-seated and unequivocal antipathy toward the Trump Administration,” raising comments she made when overseeing other cases involving the administration.

- “The Trump Administration is entitled to a neutral forum and an adjudicator who is capable of maintaining the appearance of impartiality,” the lawyer continued. “Judge Reyes has demonstrated she cannot do that.”

- Friday’s filing is part of a legal challenge from a preservationist group and two local golfers against Trump’s plans to transform the East Potomac Golf Course into a championship caliber course. The proposed renovation is among several construction projects that the president has launched since returning to the White House as part of his efforts to reshape Washington, DC’s physical landscape.

- Federal officials said in a recent court filing that nearly 730 trees will need to be cleared as part of the renovation plan, describing it as routine maintenance meant to eliminate potential hazards.

- The administration’s lawyer also took issue with Reyes requiring “high-level” officials to be at the Monday hearing, writing that she “demonstrates a cavalier disregard for these officials’ valuable time, as well as a blatant disregard for black-letter separation of powers principles she should be aware of as a federal judge.”

- The lawyer went on to point to comments that Reyes previously made when overseeing other cases involving the Trump administration to argue that there is a “pattern of animus.”

- According to the filing, Reyes said the administration is “literally erasing transgender people” with its ban on transgender service members. The judge ultimately blocked the ban.

The Trump administration is suing California and two election officials over claims that there are suspected ineligible voters who received mail-in ballots for this November's election.

- Why it matters: The lawsuit is asking the court to prevent about 20,000 voters from having their ballots counted until their citizenship status is confirmed.

- What they're saying: "State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America," Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press release statement.

- "If found responsible in a court of law, the State of California will have seriously undermined confidence in our electoral system and violated laws that protect our nation's representative system of government," Blanche said.

- Zoom in: The Justice Department alleges that California is knowingly allowing noncitizens to vote in the federal elections, according to the lawsuit.

- The lawsuit says U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and ICE's investigative arm compiled the list of potentially ineligible voters using agency data and records from the Social Security Administration and State Department.

- But administration-created lists of potential noncitizens on the voter rolls have been found less than accurate before in Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

- Zoom out: California's top election official and Los Angeles County's election chief received letters two days ago threatening "emergency action."

- The Justice Department gave Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan a password-protected thumb drive listing more than 20,000 voters and instructed him to verify their citizenship within 48 hours, according to the department's letter and statements.

- "Maintaining accurate voter registration records is a fundamental responsibility of our office. Our response will be grounded in compliance with federal and state voter registration laws and procedures," Logan said in a statement on social media after the initial letter.

- Friction point: Federal law restricts systematic voter roll maintenance within 90 days of a federal election — in part to prevent eligible voters from being removed shortly before voting.

- This litigation also follows legal attempts from the federal government to get California's voter rolls, beyond public lists, which have failed in court.

- The other side: "This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day," Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in a statement.

- "The courts have made clear that the federal government has no role in how a state carries out its election process, and now, in the middle of Californians voting, they have asked local officials — who do a damn good job defending democracy — to violate federal law."

President Trump has famously pushed the bounds of executive power since he returned to the White House.
 
- In arguments Friday before a federal appeals court in Washington, administration lawyers will make an especially bold claim: that papers created in the White House belong to Donald Trump, not to the American people. The move comes amid a series of actions under Trump's second term to test the limits put in place after the Watergate scandal, and could be another case that ends up at the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

- Six months ago, the Justice Department moved to invalidate the Presidential Records Act, a federal law in place since 1978. Conservative lawyer Michael Edney cast the move in a long line of other attempts to pare back statutes from that era.

- "This is a story about a post-Watergate, overbroad statutory incursion into the prerogatives of the executive branch," Edney said in a recent webinar sponsored by the Federalist Society.

- For some 200 years, presidents could decide for themselves what to do with the papers they created in office, until disputes with Richard Nixon prompted Congress to weigh in. Every president since then has complied with** **the records law, until this year.

- "The Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional and a clear violation of the separation of powers," said White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis.

- The White House's reinterpretation of the act comes after Trump was indicted on obstruction of justice charges for allegedly stockpiling classified documents in a bathroom, ballroom and office at his Mar-a-Lago resort. A federal judge threw out the case for technical reasons, related to the appointment of the prosecutor, and the Justice Department ultimately dropped the case after Trump won reelection.

- Question about the public's right to papers

- Nikhel Sus is chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that sued over the Trump move.

- "If the courts were to accept it, and we are hopeful that they will not, it would mean the people really have no right of access to the president's papers and that would be a major loss for archivists, historians and to the American people writ large," Sus said.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled against the Trump White House this year, in a decision that opened with a passage from George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past," the judge wrote.

- Three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will consider the issue on Friday.

- The Trump administration said in court papers that keeping all those records imposes a burden on the White House and that it could chill advisers from having honest conversations with the president.

- Continuity of government

- But former government officials say being able to consult these papers is essential.

- "Access to the records on national security issues of former presidents is really vital for the continuity of our government," said John Bellinger, who served as legal adviser to the National Security Council under George W. Bush.

- Bellinger said he and other members of Bush's staff sometimes requested the papers of President Bill Clinton, to understand conversations Clinton had with world leaders and members of Congress.

- "Often the only record of what a president has said to a foreign leader — or perhaps even more important, what a foreign leader, friend or foe, has said to the president of the United States — is in a written document," Bellinger said.

- To not be able to see those papers, he said, will leave future presidents at a "terrible disadvantage."

- Edney, who also worked for Bush's National Security Council and Justice Department, said he believed that Congress could probably pass a "thoughtful" records preservation statute. He said parts of the current Presidential Records Act that provide Congress with automatic access and presume the records will be publicly disclosed are "constitutionally problematic."

- Edney said he has some doubts about whether the watchdog groups suing to challenge Trump's move actually have legal standing to proceed.

- But the Trump administration appears to have breezed past those concerns, because they have a higher goal in mind.

- "They want this to go to the Supreme Court," Edney said. "I think they want this resolved at a time of their choosing, with arguments of their choosing, and a court of their choosing, and with the Solicitor General's office that's making their arguments, as opposed to a subsequent administration."

President Donald Trump said at a campaign rally Wednesday that there should be fatal consequences for any government worker who leaks sensitive information to the media.

- “Leakers should be, in my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Trump said. “You know, when they leak what time you’re going to attack a country.”

- Trump described what he said was a planned raid on Iran that he had to call off after someone “leaked the time we were leaving, the time we were arriving.” He appeared to be referring to the U.S. military strike on Iran nuclear facilities in June 2025, which still went ahead.

- “Somebody leaked, some sleazebag. They ought to go to jail or be shot. For the rest of their life, they should be in jail, but they leaked that we were leaving at 12:07 from Missouri, and it was in The New York Times, CNN.”

- “Now, the leakers should be dealt with very, very strongly. They’re real. To me, they’re the scum of the Earth,” he said.

- Trump, who has called the news media the “true Enemy of the People,” then pointed to the journalists covering his rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, and compared them to leakers.

- “Those same people up there, they’re almost as bad as a leaker, because they leak,” Trump said. “Oh, they leak false information. That makes them a leaker, right?”

- Since Trump returned to office, his administration has sought to crack down on information leaked to the media, including proposing to direct federal agencies to have “new and existing employees” sign nondisclosure agreements.

- Federal investigators subjected about 50 members of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff to polygraph tests, pressing them about whether they had shared classified information with journalists, the Times reported last month, citing officials briefed on the move.

- In January, Trump authorized a search of the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor who was accused of illegally retaining classified materials. A federal magistrate judge ruled a month later that the administration could not examine the data that FBI agents had seized there. The administration appealed the ruling, but it was upheld by a district court judge. There have been no further appeals.

- In June, the administration tried to compel testimony from four journalists, three from the Post and one from The Wall Street Journal, before a grand jury, an official familiar with the matter told NBC News at the time. The administration dropped the subpoenas after newspapers pushed back.

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