Many of Donald Trump’s recent campaign rallies have been interrupted by protesters, but as MS NOW reported, the president’s Wednesday night rally in South Carolina, intended to rescue appointed Republican Sen. Darline Graham, featured an unusually high number of disruptions. From the article:
The effort was an uphill battle from the start, and it didn’t get easier. … Roughly five minutes into Trump’s speech, security escorted at least four protesters out of the event, with that number rising to at least 11 by the end of the 93-minute remarks. About 20 minutes into the speech, an attendee appeared to punch a protester on the floor directly right in front of Trump. As those involved were escorted out, Trump remarked on the altercation.
“Wow, thank you, that was great, man,” Trump said. “I love — I watched that. Man. You know I watched that, I saw that. That was incredible. Wow.”
The president added, in apparent admiration, “Who was the guy that threw that punch? Who threw that punch?” After identifying the pugilist who hit a protester, Trump said, “You know, you reminded me of Evander ‘The Real Deal’ Holyfield,” referring to a retired professional boxer.
The Republican went on to celebrate the fact that the protester “got whacked.”
Trump effusively praises his supporters for punching a protester:Who's the guy that threw that punch? You reminded me of Evander "The Real Deal" Holyfield. That guy stood up and he just got whacked. Man! Evander, he wants your autograph! Don't fight him, Evander, don't fight him!
If this sounded a bit familiar, it’s not your imagination. In June 2017, after then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that the president had never “promoted or encouraged violence,” The Washington Post published an analysis that characterized the claim as “laughable,” adding, “Even if you don’t believe Trump has technically incited violence (which he has been sued for), he clearly nodded toward violence at his campaign rallies. Sometimes it was veiled; other times it was unmistakable. Sometimes he was talking about self-defense, but it was clear he was advocating for a ‘form of violence.’”
In February 2016, for example, Trump offered some advice to supporters in Iowa. “[I]f you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously, OK, just knock the hell,” he said. “I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees; I promise, I promise.”
A month later, in response to a protester at a rally, the then-candidate said, “Get him out. Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court, don’t worry about it.”
Around the same time, after one protester was punched by one of the future president’s supporters, Trump declared, “Maybe he deserved to get roughed up.”
To be sure, many Americans are probably familiar with Trump downplaying Jan. 6 violence, but this is qualitatively different: A decade ago, the Republican offered tacit support for his followers assaulting protesters, and Wednesday night in South Carolina, he did it again, reinforcing concerns that he sees political violence as a legitimate response to detractors.
President Donald Trump heads to Iowa on Thursday, looking to energize his base as he touts a financial-support plan to reassure farmers, a key constituency that has been hit hard by rising prices.
It’s another campaign trip to a reliably red state that has become surprisingly competitive. Trump won Iowa three times — carrying it by 13 points in 2024 — but this year several Republicans are in tight races.
Returning to Iowa for the first time in nearly 10 months, Trump will campaign, in part, for Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate hopeful who is running to fill retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat. Hinson and her Democratic rival, state Rep. Josh Turek, are almost neck and neck in polling averages from MS NOW/FiftyPlusOne.
“There are a number of Senate seats in play that we did not expect to be in play,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “[Trump’s] record and his approach are likely to appeal much more to members of his base than they are to independent or swing voters.”
Thursday’s rally at Sioux Gateway Airport is the first of at least two planned visits to Iowa by the president in the final stretch of the midterms. The president’s campaign blitz in typically Republican strongholds reflects shifts in the political landscape in a midterm that initially favored the GOP.
“The problem right now is that people perceive that the economy is not better, and inflation has not only not come down, but it’s higher,” Ayres said.
A GOP strategist familiar with Republicans’ thinking in the midterms, granted anonymity to speak freely about internal strategies, told MS NOW the president’s visits to some of the reddest districts in states like Iowa in the final days of the campaign are part of a deliberate strategy to maximize turnout by loyal Trump voters in key races.
“Specifically, the 4th District, where we’re deploying him, is the heart of the base, the heart of Republican support,” the strategist said. “If we can churn out our base voters in that area, Democrats’ path to winning the state just shrinks dramatically.”
Seeking to address the financial hardships hitting major agricultural states like Iowa, the Trump administration has announced an $8 billion relief package for farmers and construction plans for a $15 billion steel plant in the state. The president himself has also touted new foreign trade deals to export American farm products and other efforts to boost farmers and ranchers.
But some farmers MS NOW spoke to say Trump’s trade deals have made little impact on their businesses as their operating costs have increased from rising diesel and fertilizer prices. And the president’s announcement that he would lower tariffs on ground beef from Argentina earlier this year came as a blow to the state’s cattle industry, with both Hinson and Turek calling the policy a bad idea.
Craig Moss, a fifth-generation cattle and hog farmer from Hull, about 50 miles north of Sioux City, told MS NOW the volatile cattle market had been “rough” in the past year, in part because of the president’s lifting of tariffs on Argentine ground beef.
“Trump makes a trade deal with Argentina, and then when he’s questioned about it by reporters, he says, ‘You don’t know anything about what’s going on over there,’” Moss said. “Well, sir, you don’t know anything about the cattle market.”
Moss said the current diesel price “kind of stinks,” adding that the ongoing Iran war was to blame. Still, Moss, who voted for Trump in the past, said he agreed with the president on most issues and did not regret voting for him before.
Julius Schaaf, a corn-and-soybean farmer of more than 40 years based in Fremont County, voted against Trump in past elections and said the current volatility in the farming industry was because of Trump’s trade policies. Schaaf criticized the administration as a “rude and difficult” trading partner.
“A lot of the people that supported him were farmers that have a lot of equity in their property, and they can weather a storm for a while,” Schaaf said. “But you talk to the young guys that are just getting started and trying to buy inputs and inputs have gone through the roof — they’re the ones that are really struggling.”
Vice President JD Vance addressed some of those concerns last month at a rally in the state, telling supporters that the Trump administration’s trade and tax policies have directly benefited farmers and blue-collar workers. He has also sought to show understanding of economic realities, acknowledging the high cost of gas and telling voters “we’re working on it.” Trump, for his part, has at times downplayed those concerns, calling the focus on affordability a “hoax” and insisting that prices would plummet once the Iran war ends.
Many Iowans across the political spectrum whom MS NOW spoke with agreed that their No. 1 concern was the cost of living. And while Trump’s performance got mixed reviews, they still had not decided how they would vote in the Senate and House races.
Tiffany, an Iowa voter who backed Trump in 2024, plans to vote in the midterm races but said she is currently undecided. Her top issue: the cost of living, she said, because “prices keep going up.”
“If you can’t afford to put gas in your car, how can you go to work to make money to put a roof over your head to put food on your table?” said Tiffany, who asked to go by her first name only. “You can only stretch your penny and your dollars so far until you can’t stretch it anymore.”
Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has made Amy Acton’s estranged mother — whom Acton has accused of childhood neglect — the face of its latest attack on the Democrat in the Ohio governor’s race. Even some of Ramaswamy’s fellow Republicans are condemning it.
A top official in Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration said that “exploiting someone’s childhood trauma is wrong.” Ohio’s Republican secretary of state distanced himself from the ad, saying his office is reviewing complaints about it. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called Ramaswamy a “bad guy.” But Vice President JD Vance, campaigning in Ohio on Wednesday, defended it.
In the video, which has circulated online but not yet aired on TV, Donna Arthur calls Acton “a liar” about her past and urges voters not to support her. Acton has said that her stepfather raped her as a child and that Arthur stood by him even after he was criminally charged and remained at large for more than two decades until his death. The two have not spoken since 1978, according to Acton, who has said her mother is “clearly not well.” Arthur has disputed the allegations.
“The media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance said. “Whatever you think about any of the TV advertisements, focus on the substance and focus on the facts.”
Wednesday’s stop was Vance’s second visit to the state in two weeks amid Republican worries about losing tight races for governor and U.S. Senate.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took issue with the vice president’s comments on Wednesday.
“Vance’s acceptance of this campaign ad only breathes life into the disease that we should be seeking to cure,” Christie told The Washington Post.
Closer to home, Lydia Mihalik, director of the Ohio Department of Development under DeWine, wrote on X that she didn’t have to agree with Acton’s politics to object to the ad.
“I haven’t changed my political beliefs. I’m simply unwilling to set aside my personal values to defend a political ad,” she wrote.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is running for state auditor, told a local ABC affiliate that his office is ensuring the video complies with the law. He also distanced himself from the ad.
“Candidates will answer for their own ads,” LaRose told WSYX. “I probably wouldn’t run an ad like that, but every candidate gets to make their own decision.”
“This is going to cost Mr. Ramaswamy the election right here,” said Don Kissick, Ohio’s long-shot Libertarian gubernatorial candidate in a video posted to Facebook. “He obviously has no respect for anyone’s humanity. If he did, this wouldn’t be a thing.”
Ramaswamy’s Trump-endorsed campaign is standing by the ad and has plans to spend $4 million airing it, Axios has reported. According to AdImpact, Ramawamy’s campaign has added $4.5 million in spending on ads and reservations on Wednesday, most of which would presumably be spent on this video.
A Ramawamy spokesperson did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
Backlash to the ad has fueled a late fundraising boost for Acton, with early voting already underway. On Wednesday, Illinois first lady MK Pritzker, the wife of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, said she would donate $500,000 to Acton’s campaign.
Acton holds a 5-point edge over the entrepreneur-turned-politician, according to a polling average from MS NOW’s partner FiftyPlusOne — a notable edge in a state that has become reliably Republican over the past decade-plus.
GOP pollster Frank Luntz plainly described the spot as a “Hail Mary” for Vivek’s campaign to drive up turnout, adding that “Vivek’s team is hoping voters don’t dig into” the details of Acton’s relationship with her mother.
Summit County Republican Party Chair Bryan Williams acknowledged that the video was bound to upset critics of negative campaigning, but he said none of his constituents have reached out to him about it.
“This commercial is a punctuation of the fact that Amy Acton is not mentally stable and as a result shouldn’t be governor,” Williams told MS NOW.
Acton’s campaign responded Tuesday evening with its own video, describing Ramaswamy as unfit to lead. The campaign has yet to buy airtime for it, according to AdImpact.
In the video, Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, says his sister was abused by her stepfather when she was as young as 11.
“To think that that’s somehow a talking point, shame on Vivek,” he said.
Most Americans probably understand that politics can be an ugly business. As long as there have been campaigns, there have been candidates and parties trying to appeal to voters’ worst instincts by aiming for the gutter.
But once in a while, a campaign ad comes along that manages to disgust a wide variety of decent people, regardless of party or ideology. MS NOW reported:
In a new, unaired attack ad against Amy Acton, the Democrat running for governor of Ohio, her estranged mother speaks directly to the camera to accuse her of lying about her past.
“Don’t vote for people who lie,” says Donna Arthur — who married a man whom Acton accused of sexually abusing her as a child — in the video.
The campaign team for Vivek Ramaswamy, Acton’s Republican rival, confirmed to The Associated Press that it produced the ad and plans to spend $4 million airing it, apparently indifferent to the condemnations.
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said in a statement.
“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” Stearns added. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”
Plenty of Republicans also slammed the vile attack, including former GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley, who said via social media that Ramaswamy is “a bad guy.”
One day later, however, JD Vance traveled to Ohio, in large part in the hopes of boosting Ramaswamy, who’s trailed Acton in several recent statewide polls, with time running out in the election cycle. Any chance the vice president might take the high road on the year’s most offensive attack ad?
Evidently not.
On Wednesday morning, Vance, himself an Ohio Republican, initially said the propriety of the ad (or lack thereof) was “not really my concern.” But he didn’t stop there.
Reporter: "Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign put out a controversial ad featuring his opponent's mother…was [that] appropriate?"Vance: "I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans…whining more about that ad than they are about what…Democrats want to do to the United States of America."
“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” the vice president said.
In other words, Vance isn’t disgusted by the ad, which features a woman who sided with her alleged rapist husband over her own daughter, whom she calls a “liar”; Vance is disgusted by Republicans who have a problem with that ad.
Soon after, the vice president headlined a rally and went even further, insisting that the commercial “calls it out like it is.” Vance went on to accuse Acton of somehow controlling independent news organizations, adding that Ramaswamy has never complained about any of the criticisms he’s faced — which might be credible if anyone had ever targeted the GOP nominee with an ad this abhorrent.
We’ll see soon enough whether the commercial ends up backfiring on Ramaswamy, who almost certainly wouldn’t have pursued such an attack if he thought he was likely to win the gubernatorial race. But in the meantime, Vance just faced a test of his personal character, and he flunked.
A group of veterans has made very serious claims about contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, a U.S. Marine Corps training facility in North Carolina. The fact that Donald Trump brought this up at his latest campaign rally in the state was unexpected, but more important still is what the president promised to do.
Trump on Camp Lejeune water contamination claims: "If we win the House and Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible … if we don't win, there's no money."
“[I]f we win the House and the Senate,” he said, referring to Republicans, “I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible and get it off the books and get it finished.”
Trump added moments later, however, “If we don’t win, there’s no money. If we do win, you’re getting it.”
For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that, in the recent past, it would’ve been considered a real controversy for an incumbent to talk about “directing” his Justice Department to do much of anything.
Instead, what we’re left with is another extraordinary example of Trump’s radical approach to transactional politics: He’ll deliver worthwhile results, the president keeps saying, but only if voters make him happy by delivering the election results he wants to see.
Consider the recent pattern:
Sept. 16: Trump told a North Carolina audience he wouldn’t approve federal disaster relief funds for the state unless they elected former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley to the Senate. (He seemed to be kidding about this, though it wasn’t funny, and with him, it’s sometimes tough to tell.)
Oct. 3: Trump told an Ohio audience that his administration would “very strongly” consider the state for the Space Force Academy, but only if Republicans win in the midterms.
Oct. 3: At the same campaign rally, the president said he might look unfavorably at the state’s future emergency aid requests if they don’t elect a Republican governor.
Oct. 19: Trump told a Kansas audience he was prepared to approve a yearlong waiver for selling fuel blended with 15% ethanol (the E15 policy), but if Kansans elect a Democratic senator, “I’m not doing it.”
Almost daily: At effectively every 2026 campaign rally, Trump vows to send $5,000 checks to every American adult — but only if the election results make him happy. (On Tuesday night in North Carolina, the president explicitly said, “If we lose, you get nothing. You’re going to get nothing. If we lose, you get nothing.”)
The Camp Lejeune comments were outrageous, but they were clearly part of an unsubtle pattern.
In case this isn’t obvious, there’s nothing about a Democratic-led Congress that would prevent Trump from delivering any of these benefits to any of these states. The president made the policy commitments conditional anyway, not because he had to, but because he chose to.
In any normal American election, candidates tell voters about the kinds of priorities they’ll advance if elected. That’s not controversial in the slightest. What Trump is saying is qualitatively different — and vastly worse. The incumbent Republican is effectively telling voters, in state after state, that he could deliver for them, but if he’s not satisfied with the election results, he simply won’t bother.
So they better make sure he’s satisfied with the election results.
Trump has goodies he wants to hand out, and the public will benefit from his benevolence — unless voters dare to hurt his feelings. This isn’t how elections are supposed to work in a healthy democracy. Evidently, the president doesn’t care.
As recently as July, few political observers were willing to give South Carolina’s U.S. Senate race a second look. Sen. Lindsey Graham had prevailed in a Republican primary, and the longtime incumbent was on a glide path to another term.
Roughly three months later, in the aftermath of the senator’s unexpected death, the political world’s approach to the race is now spectacularly different. Indeed, Donald Trump is headed back to South Carolina for another campaign rally with appointed Sen. Darline Graham — the president will appear in Pickens County, which he carried by 53 points two years ago — as part of an apparent rescue mission. The Post and Courier in Charleston reported:
President Donald Trump will campaign for Darline Graham tonight at a mid-week, midterm rally many see as a last-minute effort to push her over the top in her unexpectedly close race against Democrat Annie Andrews.
A year ago, the idea of a Republican president campaigning for a Republican incumbent in one of the state’s most conservative regions would have been unthinkable. Trump won South Carolina by nearly 18 points just two years ago. … But a lot has changed in a year.
The problem for Republicans isn’t just that Trump’s visit would have been “unthinkable”; it’s also that it’s apparently necessary. The party is having to invest several million dollars in the South Carolina race, and a new GOP attack ad against Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee, is so hysterical that it reinforces impressions of Republican panic.
This coincides with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifting the race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” the race’s second rating change toward Democrats in as many weeks.
Meanwhile, the same Cook Political Report also moved Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican,” as local prosecutor Scott Colom’s Democratic candidacy starts to make headway against incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
The Washington Post reported a few weeks ago that Colom was proving to be such a capable candidate that “top Democratic officials and donors [are] increasingly hopeful that he could pull off the inconceivable.” This week, the party actually opened its wallet. Politico reported:
Senate Majority PAC is putting an initial $1.2 million on television statewide through Election Day to boost Scott Colom, the group announced Tuesday — another plunge into deep-red territory for Democrats as they take advantage of a dismal environment for Republicans. […]
Until now, Democrats said their resources were stretched too thin across a widening map to allow them to play in the Magnolia State. SMP is launching its first ad Wednesday, attacking Hyde-Smith as a “do-nothing” senator, and is planning a digital program as well.
“This really could be the year for a Mississippi miracle,” E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote in his latest New York Times column.
With 13 days remaining in the midterms cycle and the wind apparently at Democrats’ back, the scope of what constitutes a “long shot” is changing in ways that must be making Republican leaders awfully nervous. Watch this space.
In a new, unaired attack ad against Amy Acton, the Democrat running for governor of Ohio, her estranged mother speaks directly to the camera to accuse her of lying about her past. It was not clear who is responsible for the ad, which has drawn widespread condemnation, including from Acton’s brother.
“Don’t vote for people who lie,” says Donna Arthur — who married a man whom Acton accused of sexually abusing her as a child — in the video. “Don’t let her become your governor.”
The video began circulating online after a version without a “paid for” disclosure was posted Monday by Ohio political blog The Rooster.
On Tuesday, Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, condemned the video in a statement released by her campaign, accusing Acton’s Republican rival, Vivek Ramaswamy, of a “desperate, disgusting attack.”
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said.
“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” he added. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”
When asked if the Ramaswamy campaign had a hand in creating the video, spokesperson Connie Luck did not explicitly deny the campaign’s involvement.
“We don’t know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020, but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor,” Luck said, in part, in a statement to MS NOW.
Acton’s campaign spokesperson, Addie Bullock, also attributed the ad to her Republican rival.
“The choice to use, and then stand by, Dr. Acton’s estranged and abusive mother who stayed married to her rapist stepfather until the day he died shows Ohioans exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is,” Bullock said.
The video does not have any reservations, according to AdImpact, which means no money has been put into airing it.
Acton has talked openly about her and her brother’s difficult upbringing. The siblings were homeless for a time growing up, and Acton said they lived in a tent during one winter. She also accused her stepfather of sexual abuse and testified about it to a grand jury, according to Politico.
“In the courthouse after they were charged, I went to give her a kiss, and she just turned her cheek away. That was the last time I ever saw her,” Acton said.
Arthur disputed Acton’s allegations against her husband in a 2020 interview with a conservative website, saying she went to court that day to support her husband. She also disputed her daughter’s account of their last interaction.
While Donna Arthur was married to Cledith Arthur in 1978 when Acton was 12 years old, Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with her, documents show. Evidence against him included a sworn statement from Acton’s biological father, and Acton herself was called to testify as a witness. Following his indictment by a grand jury, Cledith Arthur skipped town.
The Review did not report whether the case went to trial or its outcome.
Acton and Ramaswamy are locked in a tight race for governor that has resulted in extremely personal attack ads on both sides. Polls have shown Acton with a narrow lead.
Stearns, too, has talked about his and his sister’s childhood and has credited Acton with saving his life.
“We had all sorts of forms of abuse, neglect, hunger,” he said in a video for her campaign released last week. “I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it. She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that.”
The E15 policy is probably unfamiliar to many Americans, but in parts of the Midwest, especially Kansas, it’s a very big deal. Its importance is what made Donald Trump’s latest rhetoric so extraordinary.
To oversimplify matters a bit, the E15 policy refers to a biofuel blend made with 15% ethanol, which is sold to consumers as part of an effort to reduce prices at the pump. Under existing federal laws, E15 sales are limited to the summer driving season, though Kansans, especially in rural areas, would much prefer year-round E15 sales.
With this in mind, ahead of the president’s campaign rally in Kansas on Monday night, the White House boasted in a press statement, “President Trump approved year-round E15 sales, expanding markets for Kansas corn growers and giving drivers more affordable options at the pump.”
Hours later, Trump delivered remarks at his campaign event, which touched on the E15 policy — in an unexpected way.
Trump: "With Roger Marshall in the Senate, we will make year-round E15 permanent. But if Adam Hamilton is in, I'm not going it. That's it. I'm only doing it for him. That's a big deal for Kansas."
“I also gave Kansas a waiver to sell E15 all year round, and with [incumbent Republican Sen.] Roger Marshall in the Senate, we will make year-round E15 permanent,” the president said. “But if [the Rep. Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee] is in, I’m not doing it. That’s it. I’m only doing it for him. That’s a big deal for Kansas, actually.”
Earlier this month, Trump similarly told an Ohio audience that he might look unfavorably at the state’s future emergency aid requests if they don’t elect a Republican governor.
But his E15 comments in Kansas are arguably the most outrageous to date. There’s nothing about a Democratic-led Congress that would prevent Trump from extending his earlier waiver, but the president made the policy commitment conditional anyway, not because he had to, but because he chose to.
Trump effectively told Kansans he’s prepared to hurt their state on purpose if they vote in a way that displeases him. If there’s a defense or a precedent for such a presidential message, I can’t think of it.
Top Republicans have stopped spending in a politically daunting North Carolina Senate race, but President Donald Trump is standing by his handpicked nominee, Michael Whatley, with a Tuesday visit he is hoping can turn out GOP voters.
The North Carolina trip, part of a seven-day, seven-state midterm blitz by the president comes as current MS NOW/FiftyPlusOne polling has the state’s former governor Roy Cooper leading Whatley by 10 points. Despite Whatley’s uphill battle, the president is standing by him, hoping to ignite Republicans with early voting now underway.
That support from the president, however, comes as the top Senate Republican super PAC paused future spending in North Carolina earlier this month and slashed ad spending, indicating a lack of confidence in the race.
The Senate Leadership Fund cut $13.2 million in ad spending on the North Carolina Senate race on Oct. 2, according to AdImpact, and “other smaller cuts have trickled in since,” totaling $14.6 million in cuts. That same day, Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn that he hoped Whatley wins, but was “worried” about him. The North Carolina cut was accompanied by a seven-figure Republican ad buy in historically red Kansas.
Trump’s decision to stand by Whatley and campaign with him in the final midterm stretch despite the current state of the race and his party’s pullback is putting the president’s own political strength on the line.
The president, and his political team, do not believe North Carolina is entirely out of reach, but the trip is also designed to mitigate the scale of a loss, according to one current and one former White House official who are familiar with Trump’s midterm strategy.
“At the very least, you don’t want to handpick a guy in a swing state and then not work to help him,” said the current White House official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal midterm election strategy, as were others for this story. The official continued that for “reputation sake” it was advantageous for Trump to campaign for Whatley.
“The issue is turnout. [Trump’s team] feels like he can draw low-propensity voters out, which makes Whatley more competitive,” the former official said.
“No one can dispute the fact that President Trump has created one of the most robust coalitions in political history with the MAGA movement, and the president understands how to communicate with them,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said. “President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress,” Ingle added.
Even as Republicans face a tough political landscape this fall with elevated inflation and the ongoing war with Iran, the president insists that his October rallies are turning the tide by energizing the party. But his ability to turn out the vote is being tested.
According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, 33% of American adults approve of the president, while 66% disapprove. According to the poll, Trump’s approval on the economy is at 28%.
“President Trump is barnstorming the country to tout Republicans’ historic wins and rally with voters who want Michael Whatley and [House candidate] Laurie Buckhout cutting taxes, slashing violent crime and putting North Carolina first,” said Republican National Committee spokesperson Emma Hall. “Unfortunately for the Democrats, they are stuck defending soft-on-crime hack Roy Cooper and do-nothing [Rep.] Don Davis,” she said.
Cooper, a well-known two-term governor of the state, has homed in on affordability messaging and made a central campaign promise to “make stuff cost less.”
Whatley has tried to catch up. His initial campaign messaging focused heavily on reducing crime and increasing public safety but has shifted in recent days with his own sharpened focus on affordability.
North Carolina is also home to one of Republicans’ more perilous redistricting gambits this cycle. The state’s GOP-led legislature last year targeted moderate Democrat Don Davis by reshaping his seat to make it more winnable, and friendly, to conservatives. To do that, Republicans made the nearby 3rd District, held by GOP congressman Greg Murphy, better for Democrats while still being decidedly Trump-friendly.
Despite the redraw meant to help Republicans keep control of the House and oust Davis, the incumbent is in a competitive position to potentially win re-election. And Murphy’s seat, where Trump’s Greenville rally is expected to be held, now has signs of vulnerability for the GOP.
PHOENIX — Of the litany of campaign promises President Donald Trump made on the trail, few caught on with his supporters the way his promises about immigration did. But when it comes to the president’s targeting of undocumented immigrants, the Latino voters who helped catapult the president to victory in 2024 have noticed that the Department of Homeland Security is not only targeting “the worst of the worst.”
Jesús Cardiel, 73, from Surprise, Arizona, said he typically votes Republican because the party most aligns with his beliefs on abortion. Cardiel believes Trump’s immigration crackdown will cost him with Latino voters in these midterm elections.
“Instead of the promise he made to deport only those who were a threat to the people, he’s even deporting people who are completely innocent, and that’s going to affect us at the polls,” he added.
Many Latinos aren’t inclined to vote for him now that the elections are coming up.”
—Jesús Cardiel
Cardiel’s instinct that the president’s immigration crackdown is far from focused on the “worst of the worst,” as the administration likes to describe those it’s rounding up, is borne out by the numbers.
The Deportation Data Project, a joint research venture from UCLA and UC Berkeley, found that as of July 2026, 73.5% of those arrested and booked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no criminal convictions. Of the others, 24.8% had been convicted of a nonviolent crime, while only 1.6% of those arrests involved undocumented immigrants convicted of a violent crime, according to the analysis.
But talk to Trump’s MAGA base — like those who waited hours for him to speak at a rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, last Wednesday — and many of them remain smitten with the way ICE raids have been going.
Trump rally in Arizona.MS NOW
“They’re doing what they need to do,” said Deanne McCarter, 64, a three-time Trump voter from Lake Havasu City, who attended Trump’s rally in Arizona last week. Asked whether she believes ICE has been too aggressive after shooting undocumented immigrants in Austin, Texas, and New York City in recent months, McCarter was convinced they weren’t.
FAFO”
—Deanne McCarter
“FAFO,” said the Trump superfan, using an abbreviation with an expletive that means “[mess] around, find out.” “I mean, I’m sorry, but that’s the way that it is.”
Peggy Miller, a retired nurse and three-time Trump voter from Bullhead City, also expressed no qualms about ICE shooting people in the streets.
It is unfortunate that people are in the wrong place where they should not be.”
—Peggy Miller
“It is unfortunate that people are in the wrong place where they should not be,” said Miller, 67.
“They should not have been doing what they were doing,” she added.
Miller and McCarter’s approval of Trump’s approach to immigration reflects broader trends.
But that enthusiasm has disappeared when it comes to the president’s support among the Latino community, which went for the president in historic numbers in 2024.
According to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll from earlier this month, Trump has a 27% approval rate among Latino voters. And 69% of those surveyed disapprove of his handling of immigration.
Unai Cutino is a 45-year-old HVAC employee who voted for Trump in each of the last three presidential elections. Now, he’s got buyer’s remorse.
“I regret it. I had so much hope that he promised so many things, and there’s nothing to show for it,” said Cutino, who is from Phoenix. He said the immigration crackdown, which has swept through Arizona’s capital in recent months, has been “very aggressive.”
This presidency always benefits the powerful, and the poor are left behind.”
—Unai Cutino
“This presidency always benefits the powerful, and the poor are left behind,” Cutino said.
“Many Latinos aren’t inclined to vote for him now that the elections are coming up,” Cardiel warned.
And yet, when asking Trump’s MAGA whether the president is making good on his promise to deport the “worst of the worst,” the MAGA faithful are convinced.
“We see that they’re criminals. I don’t see any other innocent people getting [deported] contrary to what the media, the mainstream media, is trying to make it look like,” McCarter said.
“The left are screaming and kicking, so he must be doing something right,” she added.
It was about a month ago when MS NOW reported on a Russian disinformation campaign targeting the U.S. midterm elections, featuring doctored selfie videos of Hollywood celebrities. The project — one of the first documented Kremlin-backed operations of this year’s election cycle — was specifically designed to undermine support for Democrats and to boost Republicans.
With only about two weeks remaining before Election Day, the efforts are apparently intensifying. Bloomberg News reported:
Russian disinformation operators are deploying an army of bots to inflate view counts of fictitious posts about celebrities and Democratic candidates ahead of the US midterm elections.
AI-fabricated video clips of well-known actors and musicians — including Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts and Cher — attacking Democrats began appearing on X in early September, some urging people to join a campaign dubbed #AllDemocratsAreCriminals. Scores of other clips have made false allegations of corruption and improprieties by Democratic candidates.
A related report in The New York Times noted that “an online influence operation backed by the Russian government has been stepping up its attempts to sow division in the United States.” The report added that the project has targeted Democrats “with negative content,” becoming “the latest effort by Russia to harm the party and support President Trump.”
It’s an important detail, not just because Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime appears desperate to help Republicans, but also because of the familiarity of the circumstances.
In 2020, Russia targeted U.S. elections. In fact, intelligence officials told Congress about evidence that showed Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign for the express purpose of trying to secure a second term for Trump.
In 2022, Russia targeted U.S. elections. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported a few years ago, “The Russian government and its proxies attempted to denigrate the Democratic Party and undermine voter confidence ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.”
In 2024, Russia again targeted U.S. elections, specifically in the hopes of electing Republicans who would oppose American military aid to Ukraine.
And in 2026, it’s happening once again.
In each instance, Moscow wasn’t simply trying to sow chaos. As this unsubtle pattern unfolded, Russian operations specifically tried to help one party (Republicans) and hurt the other (Democrats).
Two year ago, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” and said that there’s “plenty of reason to be concerned” about Russia trying to interfere in another American election.
Sullivan added, “[T]his is not about politics. This is about national security. It is about a foreign country — a foreign adversary — seeking to manipulate the politics and democracy of the United States of America.”
Two years later, the current White House national security adviser, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has invested far less time and effort into denouncing the Kremlin’s operations, and congressional Republicans tend to have effectively nothing to say about Russian intervention.
For its latest report, the Times spoke to a senior researcher at Graphika, a threat analysis company, who said the Russian tactics “give us a glimpse of what their objectives are,” adding, “They’re not targeting Republican candidates in the same way.”
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* With just two weeks remaining in the election cycle and early voting underway in much of the country, the latest Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos survey offered Donald Trump another round of bad news: The president’s approval rating has reached a record low of 33% in this poll. But for Republicans, that’s not necessarily the worst part.
The same results included a generic congressional ballot and found Democrats with an eight-point advantage over the GOP, 52% to 44%. As recently as July, the same outlet showed Democrats with a three-point edge.
This dovetailed with the latest NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, which showed Democrats with a 10-point lead over Republicans on the generic ballot, 55% to 45%.
* Artificial intelligence-generated campaign advertising has become an intensifying problem in this year’s election cycle, but it’s not altogether a bipartisan problem: A New York Times analysis found that more than 80% of the ads created by AI “were produced by Republican campaigns or Republican-aligned political action committees.”
* In Ohio’s closely watched statewide races, the latest Bowling Green State University poll found former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown leading incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted, 48% to 42%. A month ago, the same pollster showed Brown ahead by three points.
As for the state’s gubernatorial race, the same survey data found Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee, leading Vivek Ramaswamy by the same six-point margin, 50% to 44%.
* In Nevada, retiring Republican Rep. Mark Amodei continues to tear into his own party’s would-be successor. The outgoing congressman reiterated over the weekend that he would “absolutely not” vote for David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, adding that, as far as Amodei is concerned, his seat is “at risk” for flipping from red to blue.
* In Massachusetts, Shawn Oliver, the Republicans’ lieutenant governor nominee, suspended his candidacy over the weekend. One day earlier, he was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence and striking five parked cars. According to local police, Oliver also allegedly flipped his own car during the incident.
* House Speaker Mike Johnson said during an interview over the weekend that independent news organizations are secretly conspiring with independent polling firms to release deceptive survey data as part of a plot to “discourage” GOP voters. The Louisiana Republican did not appear to be kidding.
* The president held a campaign rally in Georgia late last week, where he insisted that Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff was “never elected” despite his 2020 victory. Trump added that the results were fraudulent, an absurd claim for which he offered no evidence.
* Though the U.S. Senate race in Mississippi continues to look like a real reach for Democrats, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is doing his best to rally support for local prosecutor Scott Colom in his race against incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
* And in Maryland, where Republican Rep. Andy Harris threatened to have a student journalist arrested last week for recording him at a public Q&A, the far-right congressman was offered an opportunity late last week to apologize for his bizarre antics. Harris refused.
The question isn’t whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is failing, since the evidence of his incompetence is overwhelming. Rather, the question is whether the Pentagon chief’s failures have affected his standing.
The answer is readily available. A CNN poll released less than a month ago found Hegseth with a 34% approval rating, suggesting that the former Fox News host was as unpopular as Donald Trump — the president who chose him for the Cabinet. The same survey found Hegseth’s support among Republicans is lower than other prominent administration officials.
These results came on the heels of a related poll from Quinnipiac University, which found only 32% of Americans approved of how the defense secretary was handling his job, while 57% disapproved. To put that in context, a month before the war with Iran got underway, Hegseth’s net approval was 9 points underwater, but by mid-September, he was 25 points underwater.
With this in mind, and as Hegseth becomes something of a national joke, some Democrats appear to be taking advantage of the secretary’s faltering public support. The New York Times reported:
In the final weeks of a midterm congressional battle in which voters’ opposition to the war with Iran has become a major issue, Democrats are increasingly making Mr. Hegseth a main character in their campaign messaging.
It is an effort to turn one of President Trump’s most recognizable cabinet officials — and one who has been an unapologetic and visible cheerleader for a war that polls show is deeply unpopular — into a liability for Republicans’ fighting to keep their seats.
This is not to say every Democrat is incorporating Hegseth into their midterm messaging, but it’s happening enough to get noticed. Indeed, just last week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared at a campaign rally, “One of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town.”
The Times’ report added that Hegseth has been of particular interest to Democratic candidates who served in the military, running in districts with deep ties to the armed forces. From the article:
Leela Gray, a retired Army brigadier general challenging Representative Anna Paulina Luna in Florida, has called Mr. Hegseth an “unqualified frat boy.” Cait Conley, an Army combat veteran challenging Representative Mike Lawler in a competitive New York district, has called him a “disgrace.” And JoAnna Mendoza, a retired Marine running against Representative Juan Ciscomani in Arizona, has criticized his treatment of women in the military.
In South Carolina, Nancy Lacore, a retired three-star Navy admiral whom Mr. Hegseth removed as chief of the Navy Reserve last year without publicly explaining why, has made his leadership of the Pentagon an issue in her congressional campaign.
We’ll learn soon enough whether these campaign tactics are effective, but I’m struck by the historical oddity of the circumstances. Indeed, looking back at Hegseth’s recent predecessors — Lloyd Austin, Mark Esper, James Mattis, Ash Carter et al. — these secretaries, during their tenures, were not widely known to the American mainstream. There wouldn’t have been any point to including them in attack ads.
But in 2026, Hegseth’s public profile is much higher — and not in a good way.
CLEVELAND — Every morning, Dwight Bullard pulls into the station selling the cheapest gas he can find and puts exactly $100 worth into the rented box truck he uses to haul tires around Northeast Ohio.
On the August morning MS NOW was riding with him, regular was $3.92 a gallon.
“There goes my $100,” he said, watching the pump click off. It didn’t even fill the tank. Six months earlier, the same day’s driving had cost him $60 or $70.
He did the math in the truck: Add in the $600 for the rental truck, and the weekly cost of doing what he describes as the best job he’s had is $1,100. Do that every week for a year, and it’s way more than what he is trying to save to buy a truck of his own.
Ask him who he blames for the high price of gas, and he doesn’t hesitate.
“Trump! I blame Trump, man,” he said. Then, a beat later: “Well, that’s what I hear. I ain’t really into politics, but I know it’s got something to do with the shit he’s doing over there.”
Dwight Bullard (right) delivering tires in Northeast Ohio in August 2026.
MS NOW walked him through the data: the war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, a fifth of the world’s oil, a global market that sets the price at a gas pump in Cleveland, his hometown.
Dwight is 34, with two daughters under 10. He drives the tire route until about 4 p.m., goes home to shower and on some days works a second job running food at a Mexican restaurant until 11 or midnight. And then he’s up at 5:30 in the morning to do it again.
One thing he has not done is connect his situation to the folks in elected office in his state or Washington, D.C. He’s also pretty sure he has only voted once in his life: in 2012, for Barack Obama. He did not vote in 2024.
“Most of the people I know, we ain’t really voting,” he said. “My homeboys, we just making shit happen. Living day to day.”
Does he regret sitting out the last presidential election? “Considering where we are now, hell yeah.”
MS NOW went to Cleveland to get some time with a group of voters whom both parties talk about constantly, but who almost nobody is spending a lot of time or money talking to: young Black men who have stopped voting, or never started.
One of the races that could decide control of the Senate is happening in Ohio, where Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown is trying to win back his old seat from Republican Jon Husted. The polling has shown the race consistently within a few points, and the math on who could decide it is not that complicated.
A voter-file analysis by HIT Strategies, a public opinion research firm, found more than 100,000 registered Black voters in Ohio who sat out the last three federal elections. The firm also found, through focus groups, that these voters were more open to being mobilized this year, pushed by the cost of living and souring views of President Donald Trump.
In June, the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation released a study with a finding that should stop Democrats cold: In the 2022 midterms, 603,000 eligible Black voters in Ohio didn’t cast a ballot. That is more than twice the margin by which JD Vance won his Senate seat that year.
Shayla L. Davis, who runs the foundation, said she was “heartbroken” when she got the findings back.
Shayla L. Davis, President and CEO of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation.MS NOW
Sitting in the UnBar Cafe, a Black-owned coffee shop, she noted that in 2023, the Republican-controlled state passed one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the country. Essentially, it’s a “use it or lose it” rule that strips people from the voter rolls for not voting. That, combined with the apathy she is seeing especially with young Black men, helps explain to Davis why what was once a swing state has so far failed to regain that status.
“My own son, he’s 28 years old. He stopped voting,” said Davis, formerly a state representative and city councilwoman in the Cleveland suburb of Garfield Heights. “He’s cynical. He doesn’t believe that anyone is standing up for what he believes. He believes that all the rhetoric is performative and that everyone is all the same. And that breaks my heart, but I can understand exactly where he’s coming from.”
Her son grew up in a house where his mother’s name was constantly on the ballot. She remembers the election night party she threw in 2008 and him running out of his bedroom, a kid full of joy that Obama had won. That’s the moment she keeps trying to get him to remember.
There’s been a lot of ink spilled about the gender divide in the Black community. Black women are more consistent voters, and more consistently punching their cards for Democrats. Those numbers aren’t actually that stark though: 92% of Black women voted for Harris in 2024 compared with 78% of Black men.
It’s the generational divide that is more worrying for people like Davis. Younger Black voters are just hitting the ballot box less compared with the generations before them.
Her concern is that there is just a lack of connective tissue to the days when Black people didn’t have the right to vote. Pair that with the lack of movement on issues young Black voters care about, and it’s a recipe for apathy.
“Older Black voters are going to show up and vote,” Davis said. “It’s a generational gap of what they actually experienced. My son never experienced any of [the Civil Rights Movement]. He only hears the stories and he’s hearing the stories third-party. He’s hearing it from me, who didn’t experience that either.”
There are groups trying to change that, like Cleveland VOTES, a nonpartisan civic organization that three years ago started a seasonal, part-time canvassing team it calls The Squad. There are just five of them, but last year they logged more than 114,000 contacts.
MS NOW walked with them on a Wednesday afternoon on the East Side, in a stretch of the city where co-founder Erika Anthony says turnout is lowest. They weren’t asking people who they were voting for. They were handing out flyers for “Carnivote,” an event with free food, backpacks for kids and a round of “Democracy Jeopardy.”
Erika Anthony, co-founder of Cleveland VOTES.MS NOW
Jerry Pena, who manages the group and is its only man, explained the strategy.
“You go to people’s doors, you quickly approach them with voting, the conversation shuts down,” he said. “It’s over because they’ve seen what their vote does, right? It’s disappointed them over and over again.
“The conversation needs to change more to ‘What do you want to see in the future in this neighborhood? How can we get there?’ But if you start with voting, done deal.”
Jerry Pena, a member of Cleveland VOTES, in August 2026.MS NOW
At 2 p.m. on a weekday, when door-knockers might expect to find retirees — older Black voters who may not need a ton of convincing — they kept running into young Black men.
Outside a convenience store, a 29-year-old who gave only his first name, Robert, said he hasn’t voted for anyone in years. “I just didn’t feel like nobody deserved it,” he said.
He added that nobody, not a Democrat or a Republican, knocked on his door in 2024. Then, unprompted, he started talking about policy. He’d recently been in jail, where “they treat you like animals,” and he couldn’t understand why people were still locked up on weed charges in a state where recreational possession was legal.
He had strong, specific views about the carceral system. He knew exactly what would make it better. Robert had just never connected those ideas to the people who decide what the laws actually look like.
When MS NOW described Robert to Anthony afterward, she said that is exactly why Cleveland VOTES started: She and her co-founder were working with people coming home from prison and kept hearing the same disconnect.
“We would say things like ‘Do you want to have the ability to influence who sits on the [judicial] bench?’” she said. “When we started painting the picture for folks, they’re like, ‘Oh, I have the ability to do that.’”
The biggest takeaway isn’t that these voters are tapped out — it’s that almost no one has even tried to tap them in. Every single Black man MS NOW met that day said some version of “No one has tried to convince me to vote.” Nobody is paying these men any attention.
“We as a country have gotten way too hyperfocused on the electoral cycle versus thinking about the holistic nature of community building,” Anthony said. “There are policy decisions being made every day, locally, countywide, statewide and at the federal level. And if we’re only talking to folks two weeks, three weeks before an election and just expecting them to magically open their eyes and see why this is valuable to them. [By] then, we’ve already missed the boat.”
Which raises the question of who exactly is asking. Davis said that since her foundation’s report came out on Juneteenth, one federal official’s office has reached out. Neither Senate campaign had called.
“They don’t have to call me,” Davis said. ”Just pick the report up and do something about it.”
Brown’s campaign says it is doing that. According to a campaign aide, Brown started his outreach earlier than any of his other campaigns ever had. He has met with Black faith leaders in Ohio cities since last fall, held roundtables with Black men, hosted “pledge to vote” events with Divine Nine organizations and spent $250,000 on ads airing on radio stations with predominantly Black audiences.
Husted’s campaign initially agreed to meet with MS NOW for this story, then canceled due to a scheduling conflict and did not immediately respond to emailed questions about what efforts his team has made to reach out to Black voters.
MS NOW sat down with Dwight, the tire and restaurant hustler, and his mother, Kari Jones, who is the kind of voter campaigns dream about. She passed out flyers for a city council candidate at 10 years old. Her neighbors call her for political advice. Her mother and daughter call her from the voting booth to ask who they should pick.
She has made sure that Dwight has stayed registered for years. She has not been able to persuade him to do anything with that registration since 2012.
Kari Jones and Dwight Bullard in August 2026.MS NOW
What changed for Dwight between 2012, when he said casting a ballot for Obama “felt like I did something,” and now?
“I guess I never really saw a change,” he said. “I never really seen what it did firsthand to people, so I just never really cared to vote. Like, it is what it is. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”
Thinking on it, he realized he and his friends do actually talk about politics. All the time. “We sit [in the barbershop] and talk about the rent, the streets, that big-ass pothole on Dunham. We talk about that but we don’t talk about the source of the problem.”
Something had clearly shifted. After that morning truck run, Dwight went back to the shop and a co-worker asked what the MS NOW cameras were there for. He explained, then asked whether his friend voted. Not really, the co-worker said, but he did vote in local elections.
“I’m like, ‘Damn, he’s my age,’” Dwight said, adding: “When it comes to anything else, talking Marvel movies, music, we can relate. So when I heard him say that, I’m like — makes sense.”
Jones had been waiting for this. For her son to make these connections.
There’s a tree in her yard that Dwight spent a year telling her to get the city to cut down, afraid it would fall on her house, or her car or one of his kids. The city finally came to do it that morning.
“Who did you think was going to do it?” she asked.
“The city.”
“And who’s the city?”
The light bulb went off. Dwight was realizing that who is in office can actually make differences big or small to his and his family’s life. Not voting, he said, was “like a video game where you [are] not using the power-ups.”
She asked him if this had really changed his mind and if he would vote in November. “Yes, with you. And I’ll get the sticker,” he said.
I asked Jones what she would say to a politician who sat across from her and claimed they couldn’t figure out why young Black men in her state didn’t vote.
“Find out what’s important to them. Find out what’s affecting them. Find out what their knowledge is about politics. Because that’s the problem. They really just don’t know,” she said.
It’s just one potential voter, but it took less than a day. Nobody in politics had to do anything expensive to move Dwight Bullard.
It took a guy at work who likes the same movies, a tree in his mother’s yard and a reporter explaining how a strait on the other side of the world affected the price of gas in Ohio.
In a state where 603,000 Black voters stayed home last midterm, hardly anyone has been knocking on the door.
CORRECTION (Oct. 17, 2026, 10:30 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article listed the wrong city in which Shayla Davis served as a councilwoman. It was Garfield Heights, not Cleveland.
As part of a tough re-election campaign in Maine, incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins has emphasized on countless occasions that she’s willing to defy President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders. But while there’s some truth to that, the senator’s critics have long emphasized the asterisk that comes with that record.
The New York Times took a closer look at her voting record, which shows that Collins has broken with her party more than any other Republican senator. That said, the same record “reveals that her defections … have rarely thwarted the president during his second term.”
In other words, the longtime GOP senator has demonstrated a willingness to break ranks, except when her vote might actually affect the outcome. Or, as the Times’ report put it, “one of the most dominant and long-running lines of attack against her” is that Collins “only defies the president when it doesn’t matter.”
On Thursday night, in her fourth and final debate against Democratic nominee Troy Jackson, the Maine Republican was presented with a clear opportunity to prove her critics wrong. It did not go well.
A moderator asked Collins, “Can you name a time when you voted against your party and President Trump where it actually changed the outcome significantly?”
The senator began by saying there were “several examples,” though she specifically pointed to one: Early last year, Collins said, she helped organize an effort to defeat Pete Hegseth’s defense secretary nomination, though her effort ultimately didn’t work and the unqualified former Fox News host was confirmed.
“So that didn’t change the outcome,” the moderator replied.
Remember, Collins has faced one specific criticism throughout her re-election bid, and it was highlighted by The New York Times in a front-page article published this week. The senator and her team had plenty of time to come up with examples (any example!) to prove her critics wrong.
But she couldn’t. Then, presented with the opportunity and platform, Collins flubbed it, effectively proving the underlying point.
Whether Jackson and his party turn the debate exchange into a new campaign ad remains to be seen.
During a town hall event on CNN this week, Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico voiced a sentiment that was well received by attendees: “We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.”
The message has become increasingly common as the midterm election cycle has unfolded. Indeed, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, in particular, has built much of his 2026 candidacy on the proposition that corruption isn’t only a major national issue, it’s also the principal cause for the problems plaguing regular Americans in their everyday lives. “You aren’t the problem. Neither are your fellow Americans,” Ossoff routinely tells Georgians. “Corruption is why things don’t work for ordinary people.”
There’s fresh evidence that the argument is resonating with the public.
A Gallup poll released last month found that 89% of American adults believe that government corruption in the United States is widespread — up 10 points from a year ago, and 30 points from a Gallup survey conducted in 2006. Earlier this week, The Associated Press released the results of its latest national poll, which similarly found that most Americans believe that Donald Trump “is profiting off the presidency in unethical or illegal ways and is focused more on his wealth than helping people like them.”
President Donald Trump’s ouster of Kimberly Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece this week reflected a belated recognition by the White House political team that corruption is a galvanizing issue in the midterms.
A Fox News poll released Wednesday indicates that corruption has become voters’ top concern, edging out inflation and gas prices. Six in 10 respondents said they’re “extremely concerned” about corruption. … The Fox News finding isn’t an outlier. An Economist-YouGov poll last month showed that most registered voters think Trump is corrupt. A Reuters poll in August revealed that almost 7 in 10 Americans — including about half of Republicans — believe Trump’s private business interests influence his presidential decisions.
These public attitudes are based on a lot more than just cynical assumptions. On a nearly daily basis, Americans are confronted with a fresh round of allegations surrounding the president and his team. “The cesspit of corruption that is Donald Trump’s presidency is finally getting the attention it deserves,” economist Paul Krugman recently observed. “It’s about time. … The level of corruption that Trump has engaged in and enabled in others is completely unprecedented — self-dealing that, as Trump would say, is like nothing anybody has ever seen before.”
This week, MS NOW host Catherine Rampell wrote a column for The Bulwark in which she added, “Donald Trump is robbing Americans blind.” The headline on her piece read, “Just. So. Much. Corruption.”
Voters’ attitudes on this should send a signal to policymakers about their post-election priorities. We’ll learn in a few weeks whether Democrats can win a majority in either (or both) of Congress’ chambers; but if they do, some will no doubt make the case that the party should focus almost entirely on kitchen-table issues.
And while such a strategy would make sense, the midterms are making clear that there’s a direct link between corruption and affordability — and there’s a real public appetite for accountability and reform.
In the months leading up to Texas’ Republican U.S. Senate primary, the party was divided into a couple of camps. On one side was incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of most GOP leaders and their aligned super PAC, and who was generally seen as a safe choice who would fare well in a general election.
On the other side was the senator’s intraparty challenger, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who enjoyed support from the party’s MAGA base, despite being the most scandal-plagued candidate of his generation, and who was generally seen as an enormous risk.
There were reports that Donald Trump was tempted to play it safe, before he ultimately endorsed Paxton, who cruised to an easy primary victory. The results haven’t exactly gone the way the president likely hoped.
Over the past several weeks, a variety of high-quality polls have been conducted in the Lone Star State, and not one of them has shown Paxton leading Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. This has generated a fair amount of panic in GOP circles, where the idea of losing a Senate seat in Texas had been largely unthinkable as the year got underway.
With this in mind, Trump is now taking a predictable step: He’s trying to avoid blame for a possible electoral disaster. Indeed, the president published a lengthy tirade to his social media platform on Thursday afternoon in which he tried to pre-blame Republicans he doesn’t like for a defeat that hasn’t happened yet. From the online rant:
Sadly, and very stupidly, John Cornyn, and his Liddle’ Buddy, Super RINO, Karl Rove, are doing everything possible to make it hard for Ken Paxton, the Greatest Attorney General in the History of Texas, and one of the Best in the United States, to win the upcoming Midterm Election. … They are hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!
If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.
As a factual matter, it’s true that Cornyn has done effectively nothing to help Paxton since their primary, but the suggestion that the senator is actively undermining his party’s nominee is difficult to take seriously (leaving aside the obvious contradiction of blaming a Paxton loss on “ineffective” opponents). The state attorney general’s troubles are his own fault, not Cornyn’s.
But these details are less striking than the implication that if Trump genuinely believed Paxton was well positioned to win, the president wouldn’t be looking to shift the blame for this race away from himself.
This is not to say that Talarico definitely will win — we should find out in 19 days — and with far-right megadonors throwing an enormous amount of money at Texas, it’s still possible that Elon Musk and company will successfully buy the seat for Paxton.
But Trump’s angry missive does not speak well of Paxton’s chances.
Dalton, Ga. — President Donald Trump is hitting the campaign trail in Georgia, which has long been the focus of his election fraud claims, both over his 2020 election loss and now as the state’s GOP-led election board questions its voting systems.
With early voting underway, Trump is hoping his Dalton rally, in the state’s northwest corner, will energize voters to flip a seat to the Republicans as the party fights to maintain control of the Senate.
Democrat Jon Ossoff holds a firm lead over Republican challenger Rep. Mike Collins, according to polling averages from MS NOW/FiftyPlusOne. In the governor’s race to replace outgoing GOP Gov. Brian Kemp polling indicates a tight race, with Rick Jackson maintaining just a two-percentage-point edge over former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat.
Early voting in the state started Tuesday, and Georgians cast more than 190,000 ballots on the first day, an increase of more than 53,000 votes from the 2022 midterm elections, breaking the state’s early voting record for an off-year election.
Last month, the Georgia State Election Board wrote a letter to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security urging intervention in the state’s voting machinery. The board, comprising a majority of Trump-aligned allies, has repeatedly called into question the veracity of Georgia’s past elections.
In a statement, the state’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger highlighted those record-breaking early voting totals as evidence voters “have confidence in the integrity of our elections.”
“It’s a testament to our strong election system overseen by 159 of the best county election officials in the country,” Raffensperger said.
It is not the first time Georgia’s elections have been called into question without merit.
Earlier this year, the FBI seized 2020 election ballots from the state’s most populous county as part of an inquiry into alleged fraud. After that seizure, the president claimed, without offering evidence, that the ballots were “crooked.” He continued, “Let’s see what happens, and the Democrats are fighting like hell. They don’t want anyone to see those ballots. Did you see that? Let’s see what happens. It’s a disgrace but what are you going to do? We’re cleaning it up.”
The DOJ has not filed any indictments related to its investigation of voter fraud in Fulton County.
The federal and state scrutiny of Georgia’s midterm proceedings comes with two staunch Trump allies leading the GOP’s tickets in the state — Rep. Collins, its Senate nominee who has suggested he supports compensation for defendants found guilty in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and gubernatorial candidate Jackson, who compared Raffensperger to Judas for his actions defending Georgia’s 2020 results.
Amid all the attention and allegations on the state’s election systems, the president is headed to Georgia with Republicans facing significant headwinds with elevated inflation and voters’ concerns about the cost of living. Trump has told supporters his rallies are helping to turn the tide for Republicans, despite polling and national sentiment that suggest Democrats may be poised for electoral gains.
One of the key voting blocs the president is trying to retain for Republicans are Latinos who make up a large proportion of the population in Dalton, the site of his rally. With a population of 35,322, nearly 55% in the city identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to 2025 census data. It is in a county that is part of the deep-red stronghold in the state, where Trump won by a 44% margin in 2024.
While Trump won record support from Latino voters in 2024, he has seen an erosion in some of that support, according to recent polls. That marks a shift Democrats are hoping to seize on this year.
Ordinarily, when Donald Trump talks about high gas prices, the president tells the public that the struggling war with Iran is worth the higher consumer costs, which he expects to fall once the conflict eventually comes to an end.
But every once in a while, the Republican tries a different tack. Instead of arguing that higher prices are an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of his avoidable war in the Middle East, Trump occasionally tries to convince Americans that higher gas prices are a good thing.
Just two weeks after launching the war, the president used his social media platform to argue, “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”
That line proved wildly unpersuasive and was quickly dropped from the White House’s talking points — which made it all the more surprising to see Trump recycle it seven months later during a Wednesday afternoon rally in Arizona.
Trump: "Our country is making more money than it has ever made because of the fact that oil is so high"
“Our country is making more money than it’s ever made because of the fact that oil is so high,” he said. “Because of the price of oil, Texas and Oklahoma and North Dakota and all these places, we’re making a fortune.”
In other words, with 20 days remaining before the midterm elections, and with the early-voting window opening in states across the country, the Republican wants Americans consumers to be glad they’re paying more at the pump.
As a substantive matter, the problem with Trump’s claim that “we’re making a fortune” is that the word “we” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It’s true that the United States is producing a lot of oil, and it’s also true that higher prices help generate oil industry profits. But since the number of Americans who benefit from oil industry profits is very small, few will likely celebrate the ongoing hit to their wallets.
But as a political matter, what strategic genius came up with this idea? How many voters can reasonably expect to see it as a positive that the average price of gas is $4.33 a gallon, up from $3.06 a year ago at this time?
The series continues as we report on developments following April’s historic election and on the steps taken since then by the Tisza government. This week, we cover the following topics:
Another blow for Hungary’s richest man;
New chief prosecutor nominee, plus a former chief prosecutor ready to testify on political pressure;
Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law;
A state secretary has unexpectedly left the government;
Orbán to keep quiet on one of Hungary’s most important national holidays;
Ukraine adopts the minority education law;
More EU funds and money from the Norway Grants have become available.
Another blow for Lőrinc Mészáros
Last Friday (9 October), prime minister Péter Magyar and Dávid Vitézy, minister for transport and investments, announced that the state was suspending implementation of one of Hungary’s largest rail projects – the Budapest southern circular railway, and will launch a new public procurement procedure.
The works had been carried out by V-Híd, the most profitable company of Lőrinc Mészáros, who became Hungary’s richest man during Viktor Orbán’s premiership.
However, the European Court of Auditors uncovered serious public-procurement irregularities: V-Híd may have colluded with the company that drafted the project plans and thus already possessed information at the time of the tender that its competitors did not have. Because of this, the European Court of Auditors would withdraw EU funding from the project.
The Hungarian government does not want to forfeit the EU money and make Hungarian taxpayers foot the bill for the costs of the project, which is why it is terminating the contract with Mészáros’s company and launching a new tender.
The Hungarian state had already taken away from Mészáros the right to operate a motorway section, and later also terminated the 35-year motorway concession.
Previously, one of his food-industry companies had EU funding already granted to it withdrawn, while his energy company was excluded from a call for proposals financed from the repatriated RRF funds.
New chief prosecutor nominee, plus former chief prosecutor ready to testify
On Monday (12 October), president András Baka nominated a former chief prosecutor, Péter Fejes, for the post of chief prosecutor. His first nominee, Zoltán Szathmáry, was not voted through by the Tisza group in parliament after it emerged that his brother was implicated in the so-called gold convoy case, in which a Ukrainian cash shipment was stopped and confiscated by the Hungarian authorities.
Fejes was dismissed in 2012 from his position as chief prosecutor of Vas county by Péter Polt, the chief prosecutor serving the Orbán system, citing loss of confidence. Since then he has continued to work within the prosecution service and as a university lecturer, and he has no party affiliation. For the time being neither prime minister Magyar nor the Tisza group has stated whether they support Fejes’s nomination.
Since the change of government, another former chief prosecutor, Pál Fürcht, has frequently spoken to the media. Among other things, he has claimed that the gold convoy case was created for political purposes, and that the authorities raided the Ukrainian cash couriers on Orbán’s orders.
On Sunday (11 October), Magyar sharply criticised Fürcht in a Facebook post, reproaching him for having been a servant of the system himself. According to Magyar, Fürcht constructed a criminal case, on political orders, out of the notorious nightclub altercation for which the prime minister is currently under investigation on charges of theft.
It was likewise Fürcht who left former propaganda minister Antal Rogán out of the corruption case known as the Völner–Schadl affair.
In response to Magyar’s criticism, Fürcht said he was ready to make an official statement before any authority. In parliament on Monday, the prime minister was already referring to the former chief prosecutor as a future witness.
Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law
Child protection was one of the most important topics of the campaign and played a major role in Orbán’s downfall. Magyar kept the issue on the agenda even after his government took office; most recently, last Thursday, the prime minister and the state secretary responsible for the field, Szilvia Gyurkó, presented the report on the children’s home in Bicske.
This home had been run by a director who was decorated by Orbán and later convicted of paedophile crimes, together with his deputy, who helped cover up the abuses. The presidential pardon granted to the deputy shook the Orbán government and helped lead to its collapse.
On Tuesday (13 October), parliament adopted an amendment to the child-protection law, which takes a tougher stance against media content accessible to minors that propagates sexual violence, manipulation and exploitation, and would speed up the placement of babies abandoned in hospital.
The amendment removed those homophobic passages that the Orbán government forced into law in 2021, and which the Court of Justice of the European Union also ruled to be contrary to EU law.
Fidesz, the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) and the far-right Mi Hazánk did not vote for the amendment; Magyar called this a disgrace.
A state secretary unexpectedly leaves the government
On Tuesday, András Tótth, state secretary for energy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and minister István Kapitány’s most important aide, unexpectedly resigned.
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