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

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is facing his most competitive reelection battle yet, with a tough political environment for Republicans as his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa, creeps up in the polls.

Abbott, who is seeking a fourth term, faces possible headwinds as President Donald Trump grapples with low approval ratings amid rising gas prices and the war in Iran. The president’s party has historically faced challenges in midterm elections.

“I’ll tell you in football terms: It’s like playing an away game, as opposed to a home game,” Abbott told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “It doesn’t mean you can’t win. You just got to play harder, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

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President Donald Trump used an outsized portion of his Monday rally in Corinth, Mississippi, to push back on criticism former President Barack Obama made of the ongoing White House renovations.

On Saturday, Obama rallied for Democratic Senate nominee Sherrod Brown in Cleveland, where he claimed that Trump’s ballroom passion project, and subsequent additions to the White House grounds, looked as if Saddam Hussein designed a Cheesecake Factory.

Trump, himself campaigning for Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) on Monday, claimed Obama’s criticisms were an illustration of why he was, in Trump’s mind, a failed president.

“I always build beautiful and inexpensive, which is a good combination if you can do, but I can do it naturally. It’s a natural thing. It actually relaxes me,” he suggested.

“He said, ‘This isn’t a Cheesecake Factory. Can you believe it? Which is a very successful company,” Trump added. “He doesn’t like successful companies. But you know, he was very critical about me because I spend time. And if you would have seen the White House, I took over the White House, and it was in horrible condition. I don’t want to use a terrible word. It was in horrible condition.”

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President Donald Trump made it nearly an hour before being interrupted by a protester at his 2026 midterm campaign rally in Corinth, Mississippi.

Following a lengthy, off-script moment where Trump pushed back on recent comments made by former President Barack Obama, the protester began shouting about Trump’s White House ballroom renovation.

“Go home! Go home!” the president shouted back as the crowd chanted “USA.”

“Isn’t that terrible? And I was just — I was just at the punch line too,” Trump riffed to his supporters. “They always do it. No, I was just at the punch line, talking about how our country must have a beautiful, pristine — it’s a symbol, the White House.”

“These people are sick. For $250, he broke up my punch line, and it was a beautiful. We have to have a beautiful, beautiful, well-kept White House, the symbol of our country,” he added before continuing his remarks.

A federal appeals court Monday evening dismissed the Trump administration’s emergency appeal seeking to require California to set aside mail ballots associated with more than 20,000 people the government suspects are noncitizens or illegal immigrants ineligible to vote.

In a 2-1 order, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found it lacked jurisdiction because the Department of Justice had not given the district court adequate time to consider its request. The panel denied the department’s emergency motion as moot.

“The United States’s claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one,” the majority wrote.

U.S. Circuit Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez concluded that U.S. District Judge David Carter’s failure to rule within the administration’s suddenly accelerated deadline did not amount to an appealable denial. Bennett was appointed by President Donald Trump, and Sanchez was appointed by former President Joe Biden.

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President Donald Trump took his 2026 campaign tour to Corinth, Mississippi, on Monday, where he immediately began tossing out black, white, and red MAGA hats to the crowd.

The trip, ostensibly in support of Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s (R-MS) reelection effort, marked Trump‘s first to the state since 2018, when he rallied for Hyde-Smith ahead of the Senate special election.

Hyde-Smith has comfortably led district attorney Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee, in every poll this cycle, and the president noted to the crowd that he hoped his appearance would also boost Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the Republican gubernatorial nominee in neighboring Tennessee.

“In eight days from now, the people of Mississippi are going to reelect my great friend. She’s unbelievable, frankly, Cindy Hyde-Smith to the U.S. Senate,” he declared. “Across the state line in Tennessee, we’re going to elect Marsha Blackburn as the governor. And we’re going to defeat the radical-left Democrats and elect a Republican House and a Republican Senate, and we’re going to continue the work that we’ve been doing.”

“So in this election, if you want, I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot, and the reason is that when I’m on the ballot, exactly 49% more people show up,” Trump added. “We’ve won every one of those times that I’m on the ballot big. And the problem is when I’m not, they don’t show up as much.”

Former baseball star Mark Teixeira, who is running for Congress in Texas, endorsed the Republican candidate challenging New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday.

In a video statement, the congressional candidate took a break from his own campaign to lend his support to Saritha Komatireddy.

“Some of you might know that I’m running for Congress down in my home state of Texas,” Teixeira said. “I’m doing that because I love this country and I want to see it safer and stronger, and that’s exactly why I’m supporting Saritha Komatireddy to be the next AG of the state of New York.”

“You need an attorney general that’s going to fight for you, that’s going to put public safety over politics, and is going to make sure New York stays one of the most prosperous, best places to live in the country,” he said.

Teixeira played for the New York Yankees before retiring from baseball in 2016 and later entering politics. The former athlete is now running for Texas’s 21st Congressional District, with the support of President Donald Trump.

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President Donald Trump said Monday that the administration will pay out $1 million to tipsters who report cases of voter fraud that result in convictions, just one week before the polls close in the 2026 midterm elections.

“Anybody reporting Voter Fraud in the past Elections, or the upcoming 2026 Midterm Election, will be paid $1,000,000 upon the arrest and conviction of those that created the Fraud!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

The statement was published as the president heads to Mississippi for a campaign rally to boost Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), who, polls show, runs in a close contest. It also comes as Trump is flexing the full extent of his political weight to boost Republicans heading into Election Day. The president has spent the better part of the past month crisscrossing the country, rallying for downballot candidates, where he consistently claims that Democrats have “rigged” past elections.

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Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul el Sayed distanced himself from an ad by the “Rebellion PAC” that takes aim at U.S. aid being sent to Israel.

“This ad is not affiliated in any way with the Abdul for Senate campaign,” the el Sayed campaign said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Abdul is focused on pushing back against Trump’s agenda that is raising prices for Michiganders. No one speaks for Abdul but himself and his campaign.”

The “Rebellion PAC” ad, posted by host of The Young Turks talk show Cenk Uygur, shows a couple walking through the grocery store while budgeting their purchases and blaming their monetary restrictions on U.S. funding of Israel. The couple in the ad says things like “we give Israel $4 billion a year,” “it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,” and “we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”

“Why does Mike Rogers care so much about what Israelis want and so little about what you want?” the narrator says in the video. “Mike Rogers is for they/them. Abdul el Sayed is for you.”

The ad has received significant blowback online. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who challenged el Sayed in the primary, ripped the ad as a message of “fearmongering” ahead of the midterm elections.

“This type of fearmongering about Israel is wrong,” Stevens said on X. “It is not a winning strategy for any state. It does nothing to help Michigan Democrats win up and down the ballot in eight days.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent needled former President Barack Obama’s line about President Donald Trump decorating the White House like a Cheesecake Factory by dining at the chain restaurant on Monday.

“What’s with the gold?” Obama said about Trump’s renovation style during a campaign stop this weekend. “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

Bessent trolled Obama on Monday by lunching at the Cheesecake Factory on Monday, ordering the French Dip cheeseburger.

“This is the man who built the museum that looks like Darth Vader’s tomb,” Bessent said of the Obama Presidential Center Museum. “And I would just tell the — I had a great meal, always have a great meal — and I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned against underestimating former President Barack Obama’s message on the campaign trail in the 2026 midterm elections, saying it could stand as a preview of what Democrats’ messaging will be in 2028.

In an episode of his podcast Verdict, Cruz was discussing Obama’s recent quote in which he compared President Donald Trump’s White House renovations to a Cheesecake Factory restaurant renovated by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. When asked if this is an effective closing message for Democrats, Cruz said, “Yes and no.”

“I would not dismiss what Obama is doing there. I think it’s important to remember Obama may be the most effective Democrat politician of our lifetime,” he continued. “It’s either Obama or [former President] Bill Clinton. And the two of them literally stand head and shoulders above every other Democrat.”

Cruz called Obama’s communication skills “really powerful” and “really dangerous,” adding, “If we didn’t have the 22nd Amendment, it wouldn’t surprise me if Obama spent the rest of his life in the White House.” Cruz added that he believes Obama’s messaging over the weekend was a preview of the anti-corruption messaging Democrats will play in 2028.

“He gives you a preview of what to expect, both what to expect January of 2027, but also what to expect in the ’28 campaign,” Cruz said. “If the Democrats take one or both houses of Congress, you can expect hearing after hearing after hearing with a central focus on corruption, corruption being the major theme that the Democrats are going to push.”

Two former South Carolina governors, Democrat Jim Hodges and Republican David Beasley, issued a joint endorsement for Democrat Annie Andrews to be the next senator from South Carolina on Monday.

Hodges, who led South Carolina from 1999 to 2003, and Beasley, who led the state from 1995 to 1999, issued the double endorsement for Andrews in a video message, with Beasley saying that despite their political differences, “One thing we do agree on right now is this country is too divided, and the political rhetoric has gotten way, way out of hand.”

“Annie understands that leadership isn’t about making people angrier. Well, it’s about making things better,” Beasley said.

“She’s willing to put people ahead of politics,” Hodges chimed in.

Andrews is challenging incumbent Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), whom Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) tapped to take the place of her brother, former Sen. Lindsey Graham, after he died this summer.

“We may have served as your governor from different political parties. But we agree South Carolina deserves better than more of the same political fighting,” Beasley said.

The Cook Political Report shifted the race in typically deep-red South Carolina from a “likely Republican” race to a “lean Republican” race toward Andrews’s favor in October. The outlet cited incumbent Graham’s poor performance in debates and said she “could face backlash for being elevated to the job purely because of her family name” when shifting the race.

Nordone leads Graham by single digits in RealClearPolitics’s average of the race’s polls, though she maintains a significant lead in the Polymarket odds.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) greeted cars at a drive-thru window at a McDonald’s in his district on Monday, taking a page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook just eight days before Election Day.

Lawler suited up in a McDonald’s uniform on Monday in Haverstraw, New York, according to videos from reporter Timmy Facciola. Trump did the same thing in 2024, standing behind a McDonald’s drive-thru window in Pennsylvania as he campaigned for president.

Lawler is facing a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley, who has seen a large influx of support from national Democrats, in a toss-up race in the lower Hudson Valley district. Conley currently leads in the Polymarket odds and led Lawler by 2 percentage points in a late September Emerson College poll.

Lawler won his 2024 election against Democrat Mondaire Jones by 6.3 points.

The Democratic Governors Association made an additional $5 million investment in Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms’s campaign to be Georgia’s governor.

DGA Chairman Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) traveled to the Peach State on Monday to campaign for Bottoms and announce the additional funding headed to her team. The group previously donated $11.5 million to her campaign.

Bottoms is facing off against Republican Rick Jackson, who is spending millions of his personal dollars, in the state’s toss-up governor race. Jackson leads by single digits in polling, according to RealClearPolling’s average on the race.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is heading to Iowa to campaign for incumbent Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) as he faces a tight challenge from Democratic state Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott.

Johnson will be in Urbandale, Iowa, outside of Des Moines on Wednesday, according to Politico. It is a return trip to Iowa for Johnson, who campaigned in the state earlier in October in support of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA).

Both Nunn and Miller-Meeks, GOP incumbents, are in races rated Leans Democrat by the Cook Political Report. Despite the limited polling on the Nunn-Garriott race, RealClearPolitics shows Polymarket’s odds in favor of Garriott.

Nunn won his 2024 race against Democrat Lanon Baccam by 3.9 percentage points.

Alaska’s Division of Elections released its current sample ballot for the Last Frontier’s statewide, ranked choice elections, providing a look into how voters will be able to decipher the difference between the two Dan Sullivans on the Senate ballot.

Incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) is listed on the ballot as “Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent.” The second Sullivan, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who is not the Republican incumbent but rather a former Forest Service employee, is listed on the ballot as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.”

Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. had registered as a Republican in the state’s Senate race and was initially removed from the ballot by the state’s Division of Elections. After the Alaska Supreme Court restored his spot on the ballot, his party affiliation was changed to nonpartisan, as recommended by the division. The general election ballot, however, does not list any party for Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., while several other nonpartisan candidates in other races are listed as “nonpartisan” on their ballot spots.

President Donald Trump voiced concern on Sunday that Alaska voters may not know what “incumbent” means on the ranked choice ballot when viewing their choices.

The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit challenging the results of the state’s Senate race if it is impacted by “voter confusion.”