President Donald Trump is in Mississippi, as he continues a closing midterm campaign blitz that highlights the challenges Republicans face ahead of an election that could drastically shift power across the country.
The Democratic Senate candidate Trump wants to help defeat, Scott Colom, said he’s going to the president’s rally site, too — creating the rare spectacle of Trump’s staunchest supporters interacting directly with one of the very figures the president surely will denigrate onstage later.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
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, Bishara Bahbah, a founder of Arab Americans for Trump.
Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Trump administration’slawsuit to block certification of Alaska’s Senate results if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses the race and argued that the legal challenge was a necessary step to avoid confusing voters in the closely watched midterm race.
Here's the latest:
The court declined to rule on whether California elections officials can count roughly 20,000 ballots that the Justice Department alleges belongs to noncitizens voters.
The decision sets the federal government and state officials up for another legal showdown on the matter on Tuesday in front of a federal district judge, giving the federal government a very short window to compel California to sequester votes before the Nov. 3 elections.
The Republican administration sued election officials in the heavily Democratic state in mid-October, accusing them of failing to meet a 48-hour deadline to review a list of 20,000 people it alleged were likely noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.
The president has begun addressing his rally in Corinth, Mississippi.
“We’ve been doing the rounds. We’ve been doing the rounds,” Trump said of his crisscrossing the country on behalf of Republicans.
Trump acknowledged that the president’s party often doesn’t do well in midterm elections, but added, “Nobody’s ever campaigned like I have for midterms.”
He was championing Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith while her Democratic challenger, Scott Colom, was spotted at his rally site, too.
The former vice president stopped at a Democratic Party office in Milwaukee and attended a rally at a downtown hotel with gubernatorial candidate David Crowley. He is locked in a tight race with Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is endorsed by Trump.
“This is a tight race because the stakes are so high,” Harris said at the event billed as a “women for Crowley” rally.
She praised Crowley, saying “unlike others who are constantly looking in the mirror, David is looking at the people.”
Harris urged Crowley supporters to tap the anger, sadness and depression they’ve been feeling into action to elect Crowley.
Tiffany said in a statement that Harris was bringing her “California playbook to Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin rejected Kamala Harris once, and now it’s time to reject David Crowley,” Tiffany said.
Trump defeated Harris in swing state Wisconsin by less than a percentage point in 2024.
Democrats in the U.S. House have recruited a record number of observers to fan out across the country and monitor the polls in November’s midterms, New York Rep. Joe Morelle, ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, told reporters Monday.
Morelle said the 275 congressional staffers will carry on a longtime tradition in the chamber of volunteers observing the election process to “protect free and fair elections.”
Republicans also participate in the congressional observer program.
Spokespeople for Rep. Bryan Steil, the Wisconsin Republican and chair of the committee, didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about how many volunteers they’d gathered.
The news comes as Democrats, Republicans, watchdog groups and the DOJ are also preparing to send thousands of monitors to the polls on Election Day.
Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, said recent anti-Muslim ads about the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan were the result of “unbelievable and disgusting racism that we’re seeing from Trump and the Republican Party.”
“Billionaires are flooding the airwaves with racist, Islamophobic ads because they have nothing to say about the important issues facing working people,” Sanders said during a rally with El-Sayed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, billed as a Students Versus Billionaires town hall.
El-Sayed’s race against Republican Mike Rogers will help determine control of the Senate. Arab American groups have condemned anti-Muslim rhetoric during the campaign, including Trump’s calling El-Sayed a “jihadist.”
The Michigan Senate candidate is distancing himself from an ad that blames high grocery prices on U.S. support for Israel.
“This ad is not affiliated in any way with the Abdul for Senate campaign. Abdul is focused on pushing back against Trump’s agenda that is raising prices for Michiganders. No one speaks for Abdul but himself and his campaign,” a spokesperson for El-Sayed, Roxie Richner, said in a statement.
The ad shows a couple discussing U.S. support for Israel as they shop for groceries. “Apparently it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,” the woman says.
It was created by a political action committee called Rebellion PAC and shared on social media by Cenk Uygur, host of the popular progressive show The Young Turks. It was condemned by Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.
“This type of fearmongering about Israel is wrong,” Stevens wrote on X.
Marshall called “radical Islam” the biggest threat facing the U.S. while speaking during a rally in Topeka that was headlined by Vice President JD Vance.
At least 1,000 people gathered for the rally, which is part of the GOP’s efforts to rescue Marshall. The senator’s race against Democrat Adam Hamilton is considered a tossup even though Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in Kansas since 1932.
Marshall said unrest in France shows what happens under “weak moderate” leadership and predicted that if Democrats control the Senate, they will let radical Muslims into the U.S.
“Radical Islam is trying to erase Western civilization from the history books,” Marshall said. “I refuse to let America burn because we refused to face down radical Islam.”
The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute Comey for what it calls disclosing classified information, employing the unusual maneuver of bypassing a grand jury — a move Comey’s lawyers say makes the case legally invalid.
The allegations from the Justice Department came in documents unsealed Monday in federal court in Washington.
It would be the third criminal case that the Justice Department has brought against the longtime critic and foe of Trump since the Republican president’s return to the White House last year.
Dan J. Sullivan says he mistakenly marked himself as an independent when he voted in the August primary.
The retired teacher earlier this year filed to run as a Republican against the GOP incumbent, also named Dan Sullivan.
He cited “brain fog” from months of the campaign in listing himself as independent on his absentee ballot envelope. He said he’s “pretty sure” he marked himself as a Republican when he voted early for next week’s general election.
The ballot lists him as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation. The senator is listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice sued to block certification of the race if the incumbent loses, citing potential confusion with the other Sullivan.
The race is headlined by the incumbent and Democrat Mary Peltola, a former U.S. representative.
He lost the Republican special Senate primary to Darline Graham, but the U.S. House member says it’s time for his party to rally around her as their general election nominee.
Fry told reporters ahead of his 3rd Annual Freedom Fry on Monday in Myrtle Beach that South Carolina has “never had a more strange, radical leftist nominee” for the Senate than Democrat Annie Andrews, expressing confidence that Graham would win despite the race appearing to tighten.
Some conservatives have criticized the selection of Graham as their nominee, mounting a write-in campaign for Rep. Ralph Norman, who lost the special Senate primary runoff.
Trump urged Graham to run in the special GOP primary after the death of her brother Lindsey Graham earlier this year, and later this week will make his third trip to stump for her in the state since August.
Hundreds of people gathered for the rally inside the warehouse of a steel-fabricating company in Topeka.
It was the vice president’s second visit to Kansas to help boost GOP candidates, particularly U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, who’s in a tossup race with Democrat Adam Hamilton.
A small group of labor union members stood along a street leading toward the entrance of the steel fabricating plant holding signs that promoted Hamilton’s support for unions.
A few of the attendees had “Stop Schumer” signs, a reference to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who stands to become majority leader if Democrats take control of the chamber.
The hotly contested race in Kansas, where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 1932, has buoyed the party’s hopes.
The president suggested on Monday, without providing evidence, that the reelection of his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was “rigged.”
“Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,” Trump told reporters before flying to Mississippi for a rally.
He added, “I thought it had a very bad look, the way it was tabulated.”
In a runoff election on Sunday, Lula beat Flávio Bolsonaro, a Trump ally who had emphasized his alliance with the U.S. president in making his appeals to voters.
Bolsonaro has rejected the results. Trump didn’t go that far, but said they “looked like another rigged election, frankly.”
The president’s offer was made in a post on social media and isn’t even confined to the current election. He said he’d award the bounty for evidence of prior fraud, too, and highlighted the offer while talking to reporters.
Voter fraud happens but is far too rare to swing national elections. Trump has long insisted there must be an enormous amount of fraud to explain his electoral setbacks. His party is facing another tough election this time.
Trump’s marshaled the vast resources of the federal government behind his quest to prove massive fraud, but come up empty. The new bounty is reminiscent of ones offered by Trump supporters after the 2020 election. They could never find enough fraud to explain Trump’s loss in that one.
Campaigning in the Midwest over the weekend, Obama criticized Trump’s heavy use of gold accents in his White House renovations.
“He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said, referring to Iraq’s former leader.
Fox Business caught up with Bessent as he left a Cheesecake Factory near the Treasury Department and asked for comment.
“This is the man who built the museum that looks like Darth Vader’s tomb,” Bessent said, referring to Obama’s recently opened presidential center in Chicago.
Bessent added that, “I had a great meal, always have a great meal” and “I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try,” referring to Obama’s summer vacations on the tony Massachusetts island.
Bessent said he had the French dip cheeseburger for lunch.
U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Monday encouraged a few dozen Republicans to talk to their friends and family about voting. The two Republicans made a stop in Coralville, Iowa, which neighbors Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa. The area is one of the state’s liberal bastions.
Hinson, the Republican running to be Iowa’s next senator, called this midterm election “the most critical of our lifetime.”
Miller-Meeks, who is seeking reelection in her southeast Iowa district, acknowledged that gas prices are “a little higher than I’d like them to be,” but she said there is no doubt the country is better off now than it was two years ago.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said U.S. officials told Venezuela’s interim authorities “weeks and weeks ago” that opposition leader María Corina Machado should be allowed to return to the country as it moves ahead with preparing for elections next year.
Rubio said Monday that the government led by interim President Delcy Rodriguez replied that Machado was free to enter the country. Rubio told reporters that the U.S. had not discouraged Machado from returning to Venezuela with the exception of immediately after the devastating earthquakes that hit the country in August. He said that was because the U.S. believed the priority should be in getting humanitarian and emergency relief into the country.
The vice president campaigned in Belgrade, where a western Montana congressional race also drew Trump to campaign recently.
Vance promoted Republican Aaron Flint, who is facing Democrat Sam Forstag, in the race for the state’s 1st Congressional District.
He also promoted Republican Kurt Alme in the Senate race, where he is facing two major candidates, Democrat Alani Bankhead and Independent Seth Bodnar, who is backed by top Democrats.
“You have not one but two Democrats on the ballot,” Vance said to the crowd, joking: “Aren’t you blessed with abundance?”
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler manned a McDonald’s drive-thru in New York’s Hudson Valley on Monday, hoping to grease the wheels on some last-minute voters before Election Day.
The move was similar to a political stunt President Donald Trump pulled two years ago, coming as Lawler tries to put some daylight between himself and the president in his battleground district.
It was hard to tell if patrons were lovin’ it, but some appeared to engage in some friendly chatting with the congressman as he handed out lunchtime orders while wearing an apron and visor.
Lawler is locked in a tight race with Democrat Cait Conley over his House district in New York City’s northern suburbs.
Thousands of costumed children, accompanied by their parents, are expected to participate.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump will hand out candy to trick-or-treaters during a portion of the Thursday afternoon event on the South Lawn. Ticketholders will include military families, law enforcement families, foster and adoptive families, and the children of administration officials, the White House said.
The Republican president is scheduled earlier Thursday to headline a campaign rally in South Carolina for Sen. Darline Graham.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is heading to an annual meeting with his Southeast Asian counterparts as they face tensions with China.
At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers’ gathering in the Philippines this week, Hegseth will “hold bilateral and multilateral meetings to strengthen deterrence, advance key alliances and partnerships, and expand burden-sharing across the region,” the Pentagon announced Monday.
There are tensions in the region over Chinese claims on the waters of the South China Sea. The key trade route also has claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Hegseth will gather with his regional counterparts as the U.S. has tried for years to focus on the Asia-Pacific as a way to counter China’s growing influence. That effort has been stymied by the conflict in the Middle East and the Trump administration’s stated goal to focus much of its military efforts on the Western Hemisphere.
Incumbent GOP Sen. Roger Marshall and Republican groups had spent about $39 million on television and other advertising as of Monday to help Marshall win a second term, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
However, Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton and Democratic groups topped $52 million.
Vice President JD Vance was traveling to Topeka on Monday for a rally to help Marshall.
It’s by far the most expensive campaign in Kansas history, and it’s considered a tossup even though Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Kansas since 1932.
A big part of the gap in spending is tied to Marshall’s lackluster fundraising. Between the state’s August primary and Saturday, Marshall raised about $1.5 million, according to campaign finance reports available online. Hamilton raised $13.7 million.
Two former South Carolina governors, Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges, say that they’re putting aside political differences to back Andrews over GOP Sen. Darline Graham.
Hodges blocked Beasley from a second term in 1998.
Andrews’ campaign says more than 100 Republicans have joined her “Republicans for Annie” coalition. Last week, the son of GOP Rep. Ralph Norman said in an op-ed he was also supporting Andrews in the race that has appeared to tighten in its closing days.
Trump returns to South Carolina on Thursday to campaign with Graham for the second time in the general election.
