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

A federal judge on Wednesday denied the Department of Justice’s bid to force California to set aside mail ballots associated with more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens, rejecting an emergency intervention less than a week before the midterm elections.

U.S. District Judge David Carter, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, rejected the department’s request to require election officials to hold the flagged voters’ ballots until their citizenship could be verified. His decision leaves California’s existing ballot-processing procedures in place ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

“California and its people are sovereign, too,” Carter wrote, warning that the administration’s proposed intervention threatened state authority over elections.

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Influential figures in the Make America Healthy Again movement turned out for Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn on Wednesday evening in an effort to propel him to victory in the midterm election next week.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other key players in the MAHA movement appeared at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, organized by the MAHA Action PAC to build support for Lahn.

Kennedy, the headlining speaker for the event other than Lahn himself, praised the gubernatorial hopeful as a champion for MAHA values in the state.

“Every child in the state has a right to drink water without the fear that they’re going to get cancer, to breathe air without getting asthma, and Zach embodies this,” Kennedy said.

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Pulling COVID-19 vaccines off the market, decreasing medications for children, cleaning up water, and putting fresh food in schools are all “pro-life issues,” according to Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn.

Lahn listed a variety of topics aligned with the Make America Healthy Again movement as anti-abortion issues during a MAHA Action rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday evening.

He said he was “very proud” of the six-week gestational age limit the Republican-led state legislature passed in Iowa, but “the fight for life doesn’t end at birth.”

Lahn said MAHA is “a fight to make sure people can live long, healthy lives.”

“The fight to protect the unborn is all about protecting human potential,” Lahn said. “An unborn child could be anything, do anything, solve anything, love anyone. But on the other end of this, when we’re protecting the lives and make sure people can live long, healthy lives, we’re protecting human wisdom. That’s what we’re protecting.”

Republican House candidate Joe Mitchell said at the MAHA Action rally in Des Moines, Iowa, that he intends to seek committee placement to investigate former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci for his role in pushing COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

Mitchell, who is running in northeastern Iowa to replace current Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), said his 93-year-old grandmother, who was otherwise healthy, died in a nursing home after being required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in 2022.

“She went from a perfectly healthy 93-year-old to dead within two weeks,” Mitchell said. “So this is where this story of MAHA is personal to me.”

Mitchell said he is “not a big fan” of Fauci and recounted a conversation he had with House leadership about which committees he would like to be on should he win on Nov. 3.

“I want to be on oversight because I want to investigate the hell out of Anthony Fauci and what he did to this country,” Mitchell said.

The crowd subsequently broke out into chants of “lock him up,” referring to Fauci.

Multiple protesters interrupted President Donald Trump‘s rally for Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) almost as soon as the president took the stage, accusing the president of appearing in the Epstein list.

Trump opened Wednesday night by recounting how he first came to notice the physique of Husted, a former college football star.

But as Trump took a short pause, a protester wearing a MAGA hat shouted, “Trump was on the Jeffrey Epstein list,” drawing loud boos from the rest of the crowd.

The president proceeded to downplay the incident before getting interrupted two additional times by protesters spaced through the crowd.

“It’s a crazy thing. A crazy thing,” he continued. “So I was about to tell you a story, and they always hit me right in the middle of the punch line.”

President Donald Trump rallied in Chillicothe, Ohio, on Wednesday night for Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-OH) special election, a critical race for determining control of the Senate.

Trump rallied for Husted earlier this month, claiming that his appearance — and frequent comments on Husted’s physique — have given the Republican candidate a 12-point lead. Still, Husted trailed former Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee, by 3.3 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average on Wednesday.

Upon his entrance onstage at the Shoemaker Center, the president began tossing out red, white, and black MAGA hats to the crowd.

“I’m thrilled to be back in this beautiful state, which I won all three times with the most votes ever got,” Trump told the crowd. “Jon Husted is going to beat me, and [Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee] Vivek [Ramaswamy] beats me too.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) gave Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed a new nickname on Wednesday, calling him a “jihadist leprechaun.”

“My nickname for the guy is the jihadist leprechaun,” Cruz said while stumping for el Sayed’s opponent, Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers.

The GOP has continually aligned el Sayed with radical Islamic groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, allegations which he denied.

Cruz’s new branding for el Sayed reflects that of President Donald Trump, who called el Sayed “Ramadan” during a rally Tuesday night. Trump also frequently calls the Democrat by his middle name, Mohamad.

President Donald Trump demanded last-minute changes to the ballot for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat after a bombshell report that Democrats recruited candidates with the same name as the Republican incumbent.

“It has just been determined that the Democrats in Alaska illegally searched for, and recruited, a man named Dan Sullivan to run against our distinguished Republican Senator, Dan Sullivan, in order to defraud, confuse, and obfuscate the Election, thereby taking votes away from the REAL Senator, Dan Sullivan,” Trump wrote on Wednesday. “The New York Times reports that, ‘Democrats have insisted they have nothing to do with the other Dan Sullivan on Alaska’s Senate ballot. But aides with the Mary Peltola campaign and DSCC were part of a monthslong secret plan to recruit him to run — as well as other candidates.'”

In a lengthy social media post, Trump contended that the Democrats’ “false statements were made under oath in Federal Court.”

“Therefore, they perjured themselves, and should be liable for very serious consequences,” he wrote. “Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, and Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot.”

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YouTuber Ms. Rachel, or Rachel Griffin Accurso, whose content is oriented toward children, posted a video on Wednesday voicing her support for Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson.

The content creator praised Jackson’s opposition to sending aid to Israel. Accurso has been highly critical of Israel’s role in the war in Gaza and has advocated Palestinian children.

“Troy doesn’t want us sending billions of dollars for weapons that kill and hurt children in Gaza,” she said. “He cares about using our tax dollars to help people in Maine thrive. Maine, I love you so much. I love Mainers; they’re so awesome. Let’s join together and elect Troy.”

Accurso, who is from Maine, also framed Jackson as a champion for children and families while dragging incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) for putting financial interests before Mainers.

“He got kids free lunch at school. He got paid family leave. He’s for affordable childcare,” Accurso said. “Susan Collins cares about billionaires. Troy cares about people.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) on Wednesday said he is weighing a presidential bid in 2028, but clarified that the final decision will not be made until after the midterm elections.

Kelly was asked about his potential presidential ambitions while stumping for Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson and said he would need to talk to his “boss,” meaning his wife, about launching a 2028 campaign.

“I’m considering it,” he said. “I’ll make a decision after this election sometime. You know, rather at the appropriate time, big decision.”

He went on to put into perspective how he views the weight of launching a nationwide campaign, emphasizing the United States’s leading role in global stability.

“This is 350 million people around the world, by the way,” Kelly said, referring to the U.S. population. “It’s important that the United States maintains its position of leadership in the world. It’s not only for the benefit of us. I think it’s for the benefit of everybody. Without us, there’s, you know, ultimately [the] possibility of chaos and instability.”

Kelly is one of many Democrats in the field weighing a potential 2028 presidential bid, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).

An advertisement aired by Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother has harmed his campaign, an internal Republican poll found.

According to a private GOP poll obtained by Axios, Acton was leading Ramaswamy by 8 points, a significant jump from her 1- to 2-point lead before the ad dropped. A memo sent with the polls concluded the video “is having a significant effect on the gubernatorial race,” the outlet reported.

Additionally, the poll found that those who had seen, read, or heard about the video were more likely to vote for Acton by a 2-to-1 ratio.

Ramaswamy released the ad earlier this month, and it featured Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur. Acton has said her mother remained married to her stepfather, who she says sexually abused her as a child, and fled the state with him to evade charges.

The video was immediately met with backlash, but Ramaswamy’s campaign followed through with releasing the ad, spending $4 million to air it across Ohio.

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa released an ad on Wednesday depicting a video game in which Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) puts up Flock cameras, followed by Hinojosa shooting them down.

“In Greg Abbott’s Texas, we’re all sitting ducks. Ten thousand cameras tracking your every move,” the narrator says in the ad. “This ain’t some quack talk conspiracy. It’s foul play by big government. And Abbott wants more.”

“Texas, let’s get our freedoms back,” the ad concludes.

Hinojosa has made opposition to Flock’s automated license plate readers a large part of her gubernatorial campaign. The cameras have faced significant backlash, as many communities view them as surveillance technology that infringes on their privacy.

Abbott, however, has taken action against Flock. In September, Abbott halted the issuance of permits for new ALPR cameras along state highways. Prior to the pause, the governor ordered state agencies to stop all funding for the cameras, though his office emphasized that nearly all Flock cameras in the state are purchased by cities through federal funding.

The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC is launching a $1.2 million ad buy in Mississippi days before the state’s Senate election, going all in on the messaging against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s (R-MS) quote suggesting Mississippians choose another protein.

Hyde-Smith’s Democratic challenger, Scott Colom, has hit the Republican hard on her quote from an interview in which she told constituents that there are many other proteins to choose from if people are worried about the high price of beef. Colom has picked up the slogan “pick another senator” in response to the quote.

On Wednesday, the super PAC stood firm on its main attack line against Hyde-Smith, with an ad that features a voice at a fast-food drive-thru telling a customer who wants a burger to choose again.

“It’s real expensive right now, but the senator’s got a suggestion: ‘You know you have so many proteins to choose from,'” the ad says.

Polling in the race puts Hyde-Smith ahead, with the Cook Political Report deeming it “likely Republican.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) predicted that if Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed wins next week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) will be the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee.

“I told you, the eyes of the country are on Michigan,” Cruz said while stumping for Republican Mike Rogers. “I believe if el Sayed wins, the Democrat nominee for president in 2028 will be AOC.”

Cruz explained that his prediction is based on the idea that el Sayed, a progressive Democrat, winning a statewide election would be viewed as a sign of success for the left-wing flank of the party.

“Look, in the primary, the No. 1 argument against AOC is she’s too extreme to win the general,” Cruz said. “If el Sayed wins, they’ll say, ‘Nope. You can nominate a complete moonbat, and a swing state like Michigan will vote for her.'”

The senator, who has also floated the possibility of running in 2028, also warned against viewing an Ocasio-Cortez candidacy as a win for the GOP.

“I just want to warn you: we’re a divided country,” he said. “How many people on Sept. 11, 2001, could possibly imagine that Zohran Mamdani would be the mayor of New York City? Look, if AOC is the nominee, she could win.”

Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) is aiming to boost his bipartisan appeal ahead of Election Day in Arizona, touting cross-party endorsements from Democrats and support from local leaders seven days before voters cast their ballots.

“Our campaign is supported by local leaders from across AZ06 — county supervisors, mayors and council members. Independents. Republicans. And Democrats,” Ciscomani wrote on X.

CANDIDATES IN PURPLE STATES TOUT CROSS-PARTY ENDORSEMENTS IN APPEAL TO MARGINAL VOTERS

The incumbent Republican is facing a challenge in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District from Democrat Marine veteran JoAnna Mendoza, who has received a large push in support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The Cook Political Report shifted the race in October to “leans Democrat.”

Ciscomani, who is also endorsed by national Republicans including President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), also rebuked a Trump rally in October, telling the Arizona Republic that he had prior plans.