2026 midterm elections live updates: Latest news, results, and analysis

Republican Senate candidate Darline Graham on Thursday called her Democratic rival in the South Carolina race “bats*** crazy,” attacking Dr. Annie Andrews’ record on guns, biological men playing in women’s sports, and more, during a Rock Hill rally featuring President Donald Trump.

“South Carolinians face a crystal clear choice between two very different candidates,” Graham told supporters. “I am a proud conservative Christian who will fight every single day for your family, or Democrat Annie Andrews, the most radical liberal candidate ever to run for office in the history of South Carolina. Like they say out in the country, she’s just plain old bats*** crazy.

“Staying home or voting for anyone other than the candidates on the Republican ticket is a vote for the radical Democrats looking to turn our conservative state liberal,” Graham added.

Graham called herself a “volleyball mom” as she attacked Andrews over her record on transgender people in sports, guns, and other issues, in a speech warning “good people of South Carolina … [to] not be fooled.”

“She claims to be moderate. But let’s do a quick diagnosis of her actual record,” Graham said. “Last year, her primary job, where she made most of her money, was not as a doctor, and it certainly was not seeing patients. No, her primary job was serving as a paid gun control activist, trying to gut our Second Amendment rights and take your guns. What I say is, why doesn’t she put that in her ads?”

“She says she wants to protect women’s sports and does not favor puberty blockers for transition kids,” Graham continued. “That’s a damn lie.”

Pope Leo XIV has requested a mail-in ballot to vote in Illinois’ midterm election from the Vatican, the Will County clerk’s office confirmed.

The Chicago-born pontiff, whose given name is Robert Francis Prevost, is registered at a New Lenox address and requested a mail ballot Oct. 3, said Kim Fladhammer, the clerk’s chief of staff.

Illinois no longer requires an excuse to vote by mail, a State Board of Elections spokesman said. Records show the pope voted in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014 and 2016 and in Democratic primaries in 2008 and 2010. He did not vote in the state’s March primary.

His ballot includes the U.S. Senate race to succeed Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Gov. JB Pritzker’s (D-IL) reelection bid, and Will County contests.

The pontiff has clashed publicly with President Donald Trump over the war in Iran, immigration enforcement, and Venezuela. He has criticized mass deportations and family separation.

Leo, 71, returned to the Vatican on Oct. 18, four days after surgery to remove part of his right lung. The procedure confirmed lung adenocarcinoma. He has since resumed public duties.

CAMP SPRING, Maryland — President Donald Trump told the Washington Examiner that he is no longer traveling to Kansas this weekend because Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) is performing well against Democrat Adam Hamilton.

“I think he’s doing well,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Thursday. “We’re going to do a tele-rally for him instead.”

Trump, who has traveled most days in the lead-up to next week’s midterm elections, then snapped at another reporter who asked if the schedule change was over concerns regarding his health.

“Look at this guy. He’s way out of shape. Look at how badly he comes to me,” he said. “I’m not going to Kansas because he’s doing very well. I’m going to do a tele-rally. Tomorrow I’m doing Florida.”

Trump also did not provide more details to the Washington Examiner when asked about his claims that a White House aide was struck by a ball at East Potomac Golf Links.

“It’s very dangerous,” he said before adding about his development plans. “We’re going to have something great for the country.”

Opposition to the proposed new wealth tax in California has increased among voters by 9 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s elections, according to a new poll.

In five days, Californians will cast ballots deciding the future of Proposition 40, an initiative aimed at placing a one-time 5% tax on those with assets totaling $1 billion or more. The measure looks to raise roughly $100 billion over five years, and is intended to subsidize health insurance and food stamps, among other state-funded programs.

As of Thursday, 50% of voters oppose the measure, compared to 42% who back it, according to a poll conducted by the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. That’s a drop in support for the wealth tax from August, when polling by the same group indicated 41% of voters opposed Prop 40 and 48% backed it.

The development follows significant bipartisan pushback to the proposition from the state’s top political leaders. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), along with both gubernatorial candidates seeking to succeed him, Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton, oppose the billionaire tax.

California has the most billionaires of any state in the country, with Silicon Valley home to major corporations. The wealth tax would have significant repercussions for California, with industry leaders, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, already threatening to leave the state.

Gallup published on Thursday its polling on the most important issues for the electorate ahead of Nov. 3, finding that the economy, healthcare, and the Iran war were the top three areas of concern for voters.

Around 50% of those surveyed rated those issues as their top priorities, according to the consulting company. The results came after the Pew Research Center said earlier this month that the economy, the future of democracy, and healthcare were the top three issues for voters.

The development comes as Republicans have struggled to counter messaging from Democrats that President Donald Trump’s Iran war has hurt the U.S. economically, due to rising gas prices caused by the conflict’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz.

ROCK HILL, South Carolina — President Donald Trump evoked the perceived danger of Democratic extremism, including on transgender policy, as he campaigned for Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) in South Carolina.

“If T***** Annie does not have the judgment to know that sex changes for children should not be allowed, she’s too crazy, too dangerous, and too radical to serve in the United States senator,” Trump told a crowd in Rock Hill on Thursday about Democratic Senate nominee Annie Andrews, using an anti-trans slur. “And certainly, certainly not from this state.”

The president added, “A vote for Darline is a vote to cast communists into political oblivion.”

Trump also repeatedly spoke of Graham’s late brother, Lindsey Graham, whom she replaced in the Senate after his unexpected death in July.

“Lindsey’s looking down. He said, ‘I’d love to be here, but just didn’t work out,’” Trump said. “Let’s make Lindsey really happy and proud.”

Fox News changed its South Carolina Senate race rating from “lean Republican” to a “toss-up” contest on Thursday ahead of Trump’s rally.

Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Thursday vowed to investigate localities in the state where property taxes have doubled since 2020 if he wins the election against Democrat Amy Acton.

Ramaswamy has long raised concerns that residents have seen average increases to their property taxes of about 45% since 2020. If elected to succeed Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH), Ramaswamy has vowed to reset the property tax baseline to where it was before the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, which the Republican candidate says will be the most significant property tax cut in Ohio history. He also wants to abolish the state’s income tax of 2.75% over the next eight to 10 years and eliminate Ohio’s capital gains tax.

This week, Ramaswamy said that if he is victorious against Acton on Nov. 3, he will sign an executive order on his first day in office to investigate localities where property taxes have doubled since the pandemic, “to give the public transparency that they deserve.”

“I’m going to launch investigations on my first day in office of all localities where property taxes have more than doubled since the pandemic, to understand how taxpayers’ money is actually being spent,” Ramaswamy said in a post to X. “Property taxes are stealing the property of homeowners & this can’t go on.”

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday did not embrace Trump’s support for criminally prosecuting Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign in Alaska, after her former campaign manager accused the candidate’s team of plotting to confuse the voters in one of the tightest races nationwide.

Peltola is challenging Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-AK) bid for reelection in the state. Peltola’s ex-campaign manager, Elisa Rios, said earlier this week that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and other Democratic operatives coordinated with Rios and Peltola’s then-chief of staff, Anton McParland, to siphon votes from the senator by recruiting a second Dan Sullivan to run as a Republican in the race, confusing voters.

In the wake of the revelations, Trump said Wednesday that Peltola should be “criminally prosecuted” over the accusations. Vance demurred to say whether he backed such calls the following day, saying, “I think we should certainly look into whether she committed election fraud.”

“Whether it’s criminal or not, she certainly has committed, I think, a great moral failing, and hopefully the voters of Alaska punish her,” he told the Hill. “I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters on the ballot.”

Trump pulled out of a rally planned in Kansas for Saturday, due to changes in his schedule, according to the airport that was set to host the event.

The Salina Airport Authority told ABC affiliate KAKE that Trump’s rally at the hangar in Salina was canceled “because of the president’s schedule.”

The Kansas rally over the weekend was supposed to be Trump’s second visit to the state this month to boost Sen. Roger Marshall’s (R-KS) reelection campaign. Polling appears to indicate Marshall is in a tighter-than-expected race against Democrat Adam Hamilton.

“I think he’s tied or up by a little bit, according to polls. Look, the polls are fake, but according to polls, so I want to make sure Roger Marshall gets in,” Trump told reporters outside the White House earlier this month.

ROCK HILL, South Carolina — South Carolina resident Caroline Rhodes, 62, told the Washington Examiner she is confident Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) will win her election next week, citing her endorsement from President Donald Trump.

But Rhodes, who works for a door company, said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) should have been invited to Trump’s rally on Wednesday in her hometown as an opportunity to expand Graham’s appeal six days before Election Day.

Norman, who represents Rock Hill in Congress, ran against Graham in the special election to replace the senator’s late brother, Lindsey Graham, in the upper chamber after his unexpected death in July.

Despite her confidence in Darline Graham, Rhodes was less confident that Republicans would keep control of Congress.

“I hope we keep it,” she added.

An attendee at President Donald Trump’s South Carolina rally for incumbent Sen. Darline Graham made a startling comparison, likening the event to the Jonestown massacre in 1978.

The rally participant referenced the infamous massacre, in which the People’s Temple leader Jim Jones commanded his followers to take their own lives by drinking poison, leading to the death of over 900 people.

“In the late 70s, I was a little too young to go to South America for the Jonestown massacre,” the attendee told Fox News when asked why he was present at the Rock Hill rally. “But this is as close as I’ll ever get, so that’s why I’m here. There’s nothing like seeing a cult right up front.”

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said he was not extended an invitation to rally with Trump and Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) in his hometown of Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Norman told NewsNation that he was not asked to attend the rally, but even if he were invited, he would not have attended.

The longtime Trump ally has been highly critical of the president’s role in the Palmetto State’s Senate race. He previously framed himself as a stronger candidate than Graham, claiming the race would not have been as close if he were on the ballot.

Norman has said he will vote for Graham on Tuesday, but he has no plans to campaign for her.

CAMP SPRINGS, Maryland — President Donald Trump downplayed the idea that his tough talk regarding Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed was putting off Arab and Muslim voters in the Wolverine State.

“I do very well with the Arab vote,” Trump told the Washington Examiner at Joint Base Andrews before departing on Air Force One for South Carolina. “If you, in fact, if you look at, I won Michigan by a lot, and I won the Arab vote.”

Trump called el Sayed a “jihadist” last weekend during a campaign rally in Port Huron, Michigan.

Trump, in response to another question from the Washington Examiner, defended his standing among younger voters after performing well with them during the 2024 presidential election.

“I think I’m performing well,” he said.

The Washington Examiner also asked Trump whether Republicans should seat Democratic Alaska Senate nominee Mary Peltola if she wins next week amid investigations into her campaign seeking spoiler candidates with the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and whether he was concerned about congressional Democratic plans to impeach War Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Former Democratic Senate candidate Haley Stevens said she will not campaign with her former rival, Abdul el Sayed, in the final days of his campaign in Michigan against Republican Mike Rogers.

Stevens and el Sayed battled it out in the Michigan Senate primary earlier this year. Stevens, who is viewed as the more centrist alternative to el Sayed, a staunch progressive, offered her rival an endorsement after he won the race.

But Stevens has since shown tepid enthusiasm for el Sayed, continuing to question his stance on Jews and Israel. Though polls indicate Rogers has a chance to flip Michigan’s Senate seat red, Stevens told the New York Times on Wednesday she will not campaign for el Sayed in the final week before the November election.

The development comes after Stevens’ former campaign chairman, David Kramer, refused to back el Sayed after the brutal primary, citing concerns about his attitude toward Jews. Similar to Kramer, Stevens’s fiancé, Jason Turkish, also said this week he is supporting Rogers, saying he was upset that el Sayed refused to say earlier this month whether Iran or Israel poses a greater threat to the United States.

“I watched Haley graciously concede an election, and open her arms and her heart to Abdul on Aug. 5, the day after the primary, and I prayed that he would moderate, and he hasn’t,” Turkish said.

Republicans have sought to capitalize on accusations that el Sayed is hostile to Jews, pointing to his decision to repeatedly campaign with Hasan Piker, a socialist Twitch streamer and political activist. Piker is often criticized as antisemitic due to his long-standing support for Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza and supports the elimination of Israel.

Piker has described Hamas as a critical part of the “Palestinian resistance,” said he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” called Hamas “a thousand times better” than Israel, repeatedly denied or downplayed sexual violence against Jews in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel, and said that “even if there was multiple rapes that took place on Oct. 7, this does not change anything for me.”

The Justice Department on Wednesday said Immigration and Customs Enforcement and FBI agents will not be assigned as federal poll monitors in next week’s elections.

In a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Eric Neff, acting chief of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Voting Section, confirmed the agency would not use sworn agents with arrest powers as monitors in a law enforcement capacity.

The development comes as Democrats have repeatedly raised fears that ICE or the military will be deployed to polling sites on Tuesday, a move they say could intimidate voters and threaten the integrity of the election process. The White House, top military officials, and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, have repeatedly denounced such rumors as “disinformation.”

Monitoring elections is a normal part of the DOJ’s duties. The agency announced in August an ambitious operation to expand that effort, saying it planned to deploy 1,000 observers nationwide, up from around 400 in the last midterm elections in 2022.

“We will be in all 50 states … doing the routine election monitoring the department has done for decades,” a DOJ spokesman previously told the Washington Examiner. “All monitors must meet the same legal and ethical requirements, including that they not interfere with the voting process.”