The Latest: Trump pushing to keep red-state Senate seats in GOP hands
President Donald Trump told Texans they'd better accept data centers in their communities and floated making Venezuela the 51st state as he stumped for Republican Ken Paxton on Wednesday, while Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico said a “corruption crisis” plagues U.S. politics.
Social media videos believed to be produced with artificial intelligence and linked to Russia are misusing real people’s names and photographs to spread disinformation about two Democratic Senate candidates in the final stretch of midterm voting.
And Republicans have spent an estimated $183 million on television ads focused on transgender-related attacks against Democrats as Americans go to vote, betting that struggling GOP candidates can leverage the divisive cultural issue to overcome concerns about Trump’s leadership and the state of the economy.
Here's the Latest:
DelBene does not dispute that her party’s prospects have been boosted because “people are hurting from the broken promises from Republicans” and the Trump administration.
But while campaigning for Democrats in Ohio, DelBene said she’s met voters who have bought into the party’s own ideas about countering Republicans.
“Absolutely, people are also voting to have representatives who are going to fight for them and fight for the future of our communities,” she said.
Would-be Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and many Democratic nominees have pledged legislation to restore Affordable Care Act tax breaks, reverse Republican Medicaid cuts, hold votes against the Iran war and undo Trump’s tariff regime.
DelBene said Democrats will “focus on lowering costs, making sure that folks in our country have health care, making sure that we have a House of Representatives that’s standing up to corruption and actually doing its job as an independent branch.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene, D-Washington, is in Ohio campaigning for Democratic nominees, incumbents included, as her party tries to flip the House.
“We are gonna take back the majority, and we’re gonna have a strong governing majority,” DelBene told AP, while stopping short of a specific number.
Democrats’ battleground includes 92 districts nationwide: 26 they hold now and 66 Republican-held or newly drawn by GOP legislatures. Republicans held a 220-215 advantage before state-level redistricting that Republicans hope yields several more seats.
Democrats’ battleground list includes many districts Trump won by double digits, even 20 points.
“We’re gonna win in some of those,” DelBene said, saying Democrats have recruited nominees “who are deeply connected to their communities, who are who are authentic and independent-minded and have crossover appeal.”
DelBene also will campaign with Democrats in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Rep. U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, who is running for reelection, said during a news conference in Little Rock, Arkansas on Wednesday that he is confident the GOP is going to take the Senate and House majority.
“It’s nip and tuck all around the country, but we’ve got great candidates running,” Cotton told The Associated Press during a news conference about a bill he introduced to jam cellphone signals in prisons.
Cotton joined Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr in Little Rock to announce an upcoming vote on the Cellphone Jamming Reform act to help stop contraband phone usage in correctional facilities.
“For the last two years, we’ve been able to take important public safety initiatives like this one here today to protect our communities from contraband cellphones,” said Cotton who was optimistic about a “successful” midterm election in November.
The figure from U.S. Central Command, provided to Congress and obtained by The Associated Press, offers the most up-to-date cost for the conflict since it was launched by the United States and Israel eight months ago.
The latest price tag shows a $3.5 billion bump in spending since early September, when the figure stood at about $43.6 billion.
The growing cost of the unpopular war and its economic ripple effects on energy prices could hurt Republicans in next week’s midterm elections.
Trump has said new strikes on Iran are an option after the midterms and is sending more military resources to the Middle East, despite initially promising Americans a military campaign that would last only a matter of weeks.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is on the campaign trail to try to shore up his razor-thin Republican majority.
His campaign said he’s visiting 21 districts across 13 states, starting Tuesday through Election Day, stumping for both challengers and incumbents in narrowly divided districts, including many he’s visited before.
On Tuesday, he campaigned with New York Rep. Mike Lawler. On Wednesday, he was to campaign with Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry and Derrick Merrin in his challenge to Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio.
On Thursday he’ll be in Wisconsin with Rep. Derrick Van Orden and Arizona with Rep. Juan Ciscomani. Friday he’ll be in Pennsylvania with freshman Rep. Ryan Mackenzie.
He’s also campaigning for Reps. Zach Nunn of Iowa and Jen Kiggans of Virginia, and challengers Michael Bouchard in Michigan, Greg Cunningham in New Mexico, Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina, Eric Conroy in Ohio and Michael LiPetri Jr. and Jeanine Driscoll in New York.
A plan to give Americans easier access to unproven peptide drugs favored by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was opposed by most Food and Drug Administration scientific staff members, according to six people familiar with the policy’s development.
The people spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential government deliberations.
The document covers certain injectable peptides popular within the wellness industry. It recently underwent regulatory review at the White House, typically the final step before publication.
FDA drug staffers warned it could undermine the agency’s longstanding mission of keeping unproven health products off the U.S. market, according to the people familiar with its development.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will accompany President Donald Trump to campaign event in Ohio later Wednesday, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because Rubio’s schedule has not yet been made public.
The trip will be Rubio’s second midterm campaign journey with Trump in two days, following his appearance with the president at two events in Texas on Tuesday. The official said Rubio would be traveling in his capacity as Trump’s national security adviser.
On Tuesday, Trump coaxed Rubio onto the stage in Corpus Christi and his top diplomat and national security adviser made very brief non-political comments about how he was honored to serve the country and work for Trump.
Secretaries of state have traditionally avoided domestic politics for protocol and legal reasons and Rubio appeared to tread a fine line at the Texas event, which was coupled with an announcement of a major delivery of crude oil from Venezuela, an issue on which he has been intimately involved.
The disqualification of Republican Bill Essayli by U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright is the latest roadblock to Trump administration efforts to bypass Senate confirmation and extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. It won’t take effect immediately pending an appeal.
“Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then,” said Essayli, who has sparred with California on COVID-19 healthcare protections, immigration enforcement, healthcare fraud allegations, and now claims of noncitizen voting.
Seabright wrote Tuesday that Essayli’s status “is identical” to that of Sigal Chattah in Nevada, whose leadership of federal prosecutions was ruled illegal by a federal appeals court. Other acting U.S. attorneys have been disqualified in New Jersey and New York.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter is overseeing the Justice Department lawsuit that seeks to prevent California from counting thousands of ballots allegedly cast by noncitizens. He said Tuesday that an independent special master could evaluate both sides’ claims before the state’s Dec. 11 deadline to certify the election results.
It is not clear how or if this process involving 20,000 ballots would affect the choices of the 23 million voters who began casting ballots in California weeks ago. Alleged voting by noncitizens has been a key focus of Trump’s administration, though available data indicates it’s exceedingly rare.
The Justice Department also asked Washington state to sequester hundreds of ballots cast by alleged noncitizens, and sued to delay certification of Alaska ’s vote if its Republican senator doesn’t win.
Bolsonaro arrived in Miami with his wife and two daughters on Wednesday after they drove across Brazil’s border with Argentina and then flew to Ecuador. The 45-year-old senator and his family were granted United States visas, and Trump said early Wednesday that he would approve of Bolsonaro coming to the U.S., calling him and his family “fine people.”
Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in two cases. The court had ordered Bolsonaro to hand over his regular and diplomatic passports by noon Tuesday — two days after he lost the vote to Lula.
Bolsonaro, his wife Fernanda Antunes Figueira Bolsonaro, and his daughters Carolina Figueira Bolsonaro and Luiza Figueira Bolsonaro were seen on video stepping out of a small plane that landed Wednesday morning at Miami’s Opa Locka airport.
The stunning move comes after 48 hours in which Bolsonaro refused to concede to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and then threatened to attempt to annul the election results.
Bolsonaro’s father, Jair Bolsonaro, also fled to Florida after losing the 2022 presidential election to Lula. The U.S. said it would grant visas to Bolsonaro and his family. Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, visited the White House in May.
With less than a week to go until Election Day, Trump will campaign today in Ohio, Vice President JD Vance in North Carolina and former President Barack Obama in Atlanta. All three are battleground states.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is scheduled to campaign Wednesday at the “Make Iowa Healthy Again Rally” in Des Moines, is facing blowback for anti-Arab comments he made.
“There’s 500 million Arabs in the world and yet they don’t produce science,” Kennedy said while stumping for Republican Senate Candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan. “They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”
An HHS representative did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment about Kennedy’s claim, which has been widely condemned as untrue and racially biased.
Arab prize-winners include four Nobel Peace Prize winners. Arabs also have won Nobels for Chemistry and Literature, a Wolf Prize in Chemistry and a Fields medal for outstanding achievement in math.
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President Donald Trump likes to play make-believe with his supporters: “Just close your eyes,” he tells them, “and pretend I’m on the ballot.”
It’s a typically self-involved appeal as Trump finishes the midterms with a cross-country blitz of campaign rallies that allow him to bask in applause.
Outside the venues, he’s profoundly unpopular. While Republicans still love Trump, his overall approval ratings are low enough to potentially sink his party.
And with voters concerned about the war with Iran, artificial intelligence, redistricting fights, high energy prices and the cost of living, Trump’s approach might be the election cycle’s biggest gamble.
“I don’t think there’s anybody that wants Donald Trump out there at these rallies more than Democratic candidates,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILY’s List, which focuses on electing Democratic women who support abortion rights. Every time there’s another Trump event, she said, “we look at that as a win.”
The former Transportation Secretary joined Democrat Scott Colom in Biloxi on Tuesday, where he said it’s time to end “the name calling” and “viciousness” of today’s politics.
“It is time for a politics that recognizes that the U.S. flag isn’t planted on one side or the other of a political aisle, because all of us are loyal to the Republic for which it stands,” said Buttigieg, a potential 2028 presidential candidate who has been campaigning with Democrats in Republican-leaning areas like Mississippi.
Colom is running against GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. On Monday, Trump visited the state to hold a rally for the Republican senator.
Buttigieg spoke about the high price of diesel and Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran, telling voters, “We can do better than that under new management.”
Trump’s social media posts on the renovation of a historic golf course in the nation’s capital are putting Justice Department lawyers in the uncomfortable position of explaining whether the president of the United States should be believed or not.
U.S. Judge Ana Reyes said Tuesday that the department should clarify “whether any plan exists to close East Potomac Golf Course on or around November 15, 2026.” She ordered Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. to appear in court Friday or Monday for a status hearing.
Tuesday’s order came in response to Trump’s social media post late Monday criticizing Reyes’ temporary injunction stopping work at East Potomac Park.
That injunction, issued Monday, was in large part due to previous Trump announcements — via social media — that plans had been completed for the golf course and construction would begin next month. Trump said the facility would be closed for 15 months. The following day, he set the timetable to “immediately.”
Republicans have spent an estimated $183 million on television ads focused on transgender-related attacks against Democrats in the final phase of this year’s midterm elections, betting that struggling GOP candidates can leverage the divisive cultural issue to overcome voters’ concerns about Trump’s leadership and the state of the economy.
The massive investment through Oct. 25 produced about 217,000 TV spots nationwide and exceeds the amount Republicans spent on similar ads in 2024, a presidential election year, at the same point before Election Day, according to tallies provided to The Associated Press by data firm AdImpact.
The spending campaign matched messaging from other Republicans on the campaign trail, led by Trump, who has played down surging gasoline prices and other rising costs, but highlighted what he described as an urgent threat to America’s children from Democratic policies.
The Republican emphasis on transgender issues offers a consequential test of whether a theme that had worked in past elections — and especially in deep red states — can still be potent when voters consistently say high prices are their chief concern.
Social media videos believed to be produced with artificial intelligence and linked to Russia are misusing real people’s names and photographs to spread disinformation about two Democratic Senate candidates in the final stretch of midterm voting.
One of the targets is Sherrod Brown, who is running against Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio. The video, which appears to include some AI manipulation, depicts a newscast and includes pictures of Haya Akbik, who interned for Brown several years ago, and other former staff members.
It was appalling to Akbik, who told The Associated Press that any claims attributed to her in the clip are “completely made up.”
“It’s my name, it’s my reputation, making this allegation, and it’s just completely false,” she said. “And it harms the senator, someone else, in the process. So, it’s just messed up.”
The videos demonstrate how foreign adversaries continue to use a familiar playbook to try to influence American voters who are deciding which party controls Congress next year. The threat could be magnified with AI, a powerful tool for fabricating damaging information that can sometimes appear very real.
Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico on Tuesday decried a “corruption crisis” he says is plaguing the U.S. political system, competing for the spotlight with President Donald Trump in deeply conservative West Texas ahead of next week’s midterm elections.
Trump was in Texas for the third time in a month in a last-minute push to back Republican Ken Paxton and block Democrats from notching their first statewide election victory in more than three decades.
Talarico took the stage in Lubbock an hour after Trump wrapped up his own speech across town. A seminarian and a former teacher, Talarico reached for metaphors from both the Bible and a famous Texas pastime — Friday night football — to cast himself as an underdog against powerful forces including Trump and Elon Musk, who is bankrolling attack ads against Talarico on Paxton’s behalf.
“We’re going to shock the nation and shock the world when we beat the billionaires and take back Texas,” Talarico said.
Moments earlier, Trump leaned into cultural issues to portray Talarico as too liberal for Texas.
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