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

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is deploying 134 election-law attorneys and nearly 1,000 trained volunteers to five key congressional districts ahead of the midterm elections to guard against potential interference by the Trump administration.

“We just made it a FELONY to illegally seize ballots,” Newsom said in a statement, warning that “a federal badge is not a license to intimidate voters or interfere with an election.”

The announcement, teased on Wednesday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! show and formally made on Thursday, comes as California has enacted new laws targeting the unauthorized seizure of ballots and election records before results are certified.

The outgoing governor, who is widely expected to launch a 2028 presidential bid, has emerged as one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent Democratic adversaries. He has also joined the fight against Trump’s efforts to reshape congressional districts, framing the deployment of attorneys as part of a broader effort to protect California’s elections from federal interference.

The legal teams will cover California’s 6th, 13th, 22nd, 45th, and 48th congressional districts.

More than 800 poll observers and 54 hotline operators will also be on hand to flag and report suspicious activity in real time.

“Donald Trump doesn’t get to decide which votes count, which ballots get counted, or who wins an election,” California Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks said. “California voters do.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who chaired the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, said the state was preparing for potential efforts to overturn election results.

“I know exactly how far Donald Trump will go to overturn an election he doesn’t like,” Lofgren said. “California will not be caught flat-footed.”

Last month, Newsom signed legislation making it a felony to seize ballots, election records, or voting technology illegally while votes are being counted. The laws also strengthen protections against unauthorized federal interference and criminalize direct interference with mail-ballot delivery.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) on Thursday named Ohio, Alaska, Maine, and Iowa as races where he believes Republican Senate candidates face the toughest path to victory on Tuesday.

“I think there’s a firewall of states … but, I mean, there’s probably no more example of ground zero in this campaign than Ohio,” Thune said during a Fox News interview, referencing Sen. Jon Husted’s (R-OH) battle for reelection against Democrat Sherrod Brown.

Thune did not mention the Texas Senate race, where polls appear to indicate Republican Ken Paxton is in an unexpectedly tight race against Democrat James Talarico.

Ohio and Maine, where Husted and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) are running for reelection, are traditionally known as battleground states that favor a mix of Democrats and Republicans. Iowa and Alaska’s close elections this cycle have been a bit more surprising.

In Alaska, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) has accused his rival, Democrat Mary Peltola, of seeking to confuse voters and siphon support in the tight race by recruiting another man named Dan Sullivan to run as a Republican.

The Senate race in Iowa, the fourth place Thune named as a firewall state, features Republican congresswoman Ashley Hinson against Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, as the pair vies to succeed Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA).

Former Democratic congressional candidate Jordan Wood on Thursday launched a website he said is designed to expose Republicans running as “fake independents” in races across Maine.

Maine is known as a deeply purple state, making voters more likely to embrace more independent-minded candidates and messaging. Wood this week said that over a dozen people running in the state’s midterm elections frame themselves as independents but are actually Republican-leaning. He did not list independents campaigning who could be leaning Democratic.

Wood was floated as a possible replacement for former Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner earlier this year, before Democrat Troy Jackson secured the spot. Wood previously ran in the Democratic primary in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District this year, but lost in the second round of voting.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will stump for Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Wednesday, his second trip to the Palmetto State in as many weeks.

Trump’s trip comes as Graham’s race against Democratic Senate nominee Annie Andrews is now considered to lean Republican by the Cook Political Report after the senator’s late brother, Lindsey Graham, won reelection in 2020 by 10 percentage points.

With less than a week before Election Day, the incumbent, who was appointed in July after her brother’s death from arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, is in a margin-of-error race with Andrews, averaging a 2-point polling lead, according to RealClearPolitics.

The Washington Examiner will be on Air Force One with Trump. Follow along!

Trump revealed Wednesday evening he will spend the last hours before Election Day campaigning for the Louisiana Republican running to succeed outgoing Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

GOP candidate Julia Letlow is facing Democrat Jamie Davis in the general election. She holds a lead in polling and is expected to win, but appears to be in a closer-than-expected race against Davis ahead of Nov. 3.

Trump praised Letlow in a post on Truth Social, announcing he and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will hold a tele-rally for her Monday night.

“I know Julia well, have seen her tested at the highest and most difficult levels, and she is a TOTAL WINNER!” the president said. “As your next Senator, Julia will work tirelessly to Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Support our Amazing Farmers and Fishermen, Champion Louisiana Oil & Gas, Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Ensure LAW AND ORDER, Strengthen our Military/Veterans, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) on Wednesday called for the Justice Department to investigate Alaska Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola, after her former campaign manager said the candidate’s team plotted to confuse the voters about her rival in one of the closest congressional races nationwide.

Scott, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee responsible for backing Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-AK) bid for reelection against Peltola, said during a NewsNation interview that there’s “no doubt” Peltola’s campaign colluded with Democratic operatives in a “coordinated effort to deceive the voters.”

The NRSC’s chairman demand for a inquiry into the accusations comes after Peltola’s ex-campaign manager told the New York Times that she and other staffers on her former boss’s team coordinated with Democratic operatives to find another man named Dan Sullivan in Alaska, successfully recruiting him to run as a Republican in the race to confuse voters, siphon on precious support in the tight race, and defeat the senator’s bid for reelection.

A source familiar previously told the Washington Examiner that the DOJ has been investigating the accusations since at least August. The Justice Department had filed a lawsuit last week seeking to block the results of the Alaska Senate election come November if it was found to be tainted by “voter confusion.”