Haley Stevens, who previously challenged Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the U.S. Senate primary, caught party leaders off guard Sunday by backing Republican Mike Rogers in the general election. Her endorsement followed a decision to remove her from a joint event with El-Sayed, who was campaigning for the Michigan seat, as tensions within the Democratic Party intensified. The race could play a role in determining control of Congress.
President Donald Trump is spending the closing stretch of a turbulent midterm campaign at rallies in Iowa and Kansas, states he has won comfortably in previous elections. His schedule reflects the defensive strategy Republicans are adopting as voters prepare to judge his second term at the ballot box.
A federal judge on Sunday rejected a Justice Department lawsuit that sought to prevent certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate election if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is defeated. The case followed a New York Times report that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign appeared to have helped recruit Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher with the same name as the incumbent, to enter the race.
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Justice Department to appeal ruling rejecting challenge to Alaska Senate race
The Justice Department has notified the court that it will appeal the decision dismissing its effort to challenge certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate election if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses.
“Alaskan voters deserve a fair election, not to be misled in an attempt to rig outcomes,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason said the administration’s requested remedy was “infeasible,” noting that many Alaskans had already submitted their ballots.
Sullivan, a Trump ally, is competing against former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate contests. The ranked-choice election Tuesday also features a retired teacher who has the same name as the incumbent.
Republicans say the race carries significant stakes and fear some voters could be confused and mistakenly select the wrong candidate named Sullivan.
The ballot lists “Dan S. Sullivan” as a “registered Republican” and the “incumbent.” “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.” appears without a party designation.
Wisconsin Republican governor candidate intensifies final appeal to voters
Tom Tiffany, who has served in Congress for the past six years, told supporters after a Sunday rally in heavily Democratic Madison that he sensed the race was moving in his direction.
“This is a turnout election,” Tiffany told the crowd. “That is how we are going to win.”
Tiffany is facing Democrat David Crowley with Election Day just ahead.
“I can feel it out there,” Tiffany said. “People are going to show up Tuesday. Be part of this movement.”
The two candidates are spending the final two days before the election campaigning throughout Wisconsin alongside high-profile supporters.
At Tiffany’s Madison event, he was joined by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.
Crowley is scheduled to campaign Sunday with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, followed by an appearance Monday with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Kansas attorney general directs Democratic PAC to end $5 gift-card offer to voters
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach says in a cease-and-desist letter to the Bluestem Fund that offering anything of value in exchange for voting violates both federal and state law.
He directed the group to preserve all records and communications related to its canvassing activities. Kobach on Saturday said a voter in Wichita alerted his office to the “brazen” offer of a gift card.
The PAC’s chair, Topeka attorney L.J. Leatherman, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.
Kobach is an ally of President Donald Trump and served as vice chair of Trump’s short lived commission on election fraud in 2017.
In September, Kobach sent a similar letter to a League of Women Voters chapter in northeast Kansas after it offered $5 gift cards to students who registered to vote. The league chapter said it was cooperating with Kobach’s inquiry and is committed to complying with all laws.
Abdul El-Sayed’s Democratic rival, Haley Stevens, endorses GOP’s Mike Rogers in Michigan Senate race
Democrat Haley Stevens says she’s voting for Mike Rogers for Senate in Michigan over her former primary opponent Abdul El-Sayed.
Stevens, standing alongside Rogers, said she’d be voting for other Democrats but would not cast her ballot for El-Sayed, who defeated her in an August primary.
“It is more a statement about standing together against hate and the future of this state and this country, than it is anything else,” she said.
Rogers said he was honored to have Stevens’ vote.
Senate Democratic leader calls fellow Democrat Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers ‘betrayal’
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has denounced Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race.
“This is a despicable betrayal from Rep. Stevens,” Schumer wrote in a social media post of the step taken by his fellow Democrat, Stevens.
Schumer, who had backed Stevens in the primary, reiterated the party’s support for Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated her in August.
Stevens announced her endorsement of Rogers earlier Sunday in the general election contest against El_Sayed. El-Sayed dismissed it, saying he’s worried about voters’ concerns, not intraparty drama.
Abdul El-Sayed dismisses Stevens’ endorsement of GOP’s Mike Rogers in Michigan Senate race
Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed batted away news that his former primary opponent Haley Stevens said she’s backing Rogers in the Michigan contest.
“At the end of the day I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” he said, standing alongside Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.
He added: “Rather than focus on a distraction about who said what to whom, where they went, I’ve been consistent. I want to get money out of politics. I want to put money back in pockets. I want Medicare for all.”
His comments came shortly after his primary opponent and fellow Democrat, Haley Stevens, said she was voting for Rogers.
Stevens’ split from the party comes two days before Election Day, which will determine which party controls Congress.
Judge dismisses lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska Senate race if GOP incumbent loses
A federal judge on Sunday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses.
The lawsuit, filed less than two weeks before the election and with early voting underway, called for an investigation into whether votes for retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan were intended for the senator. The state said the case lacked merit and argued there would be no way to determine that without violating voter privacy.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason wrote in the order that the relief the United States seeks is “infeasible” because many voters have already cast their ballots. She said the cast ballots have been mixed together to the point where they cannot be matched to specific voters.
“More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy,” she wrote.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy hospitalized after a stroke
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has been hospitalized after having a stroke, his office said Sunday.
Murphy, 53, was at his son’s hockey game Saturday when he began to feel numbness in his arm. He was taken to a hospital, where doctors discovered he had had a stroke.
He was transferred to Johns Hopkins.
“The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery,” according to a statement from his office.
Murphy is in his third term in the Senate. He previously served in the House for three terms.
Georgia governor candidates attend separate church services on final Sunday of campaign
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms went to her home congregation in Atlanta before voter turnout rallies later Sunday in middle Georgia as she tries to achieve something that’s never happened: a Black woman being elected governor in the U.S.
Bottoms told her fellow members at Ben Hill United Methodist Church that her mother, a member of the church, had been “aggressive” about making sure she was back in the church before Tuesday.
Bottoms says it’s the place where she was married and had her children baptized, telling the congregation from the pulpit that the church is “always home.”
Meanwhile, Republican Rick Jackson dropped in at the north Georgia evangelical megachurch led by one of Trump’s spiritual advisers, Pastor Jentezen Franklin. Jackson did not speak at Free Chapel church in Gainesville but stood and waved as Franklin gave him an effusive welcome.
Georgia’s early vote totals please Democrats, leave Republicans nervous
Some 2.8 million early ballots were cast in Georgia, and that’s a midterm election record.
Democrats are encouraged because almost a third of the early ballots were cast by Black voters, several percentage points more than in previous elections. Latino turnout, a small slice of Georgia’s electorate, also is higher. The early electorate is also several points less white than in 2024, when Trump carried the state, and 2022, when Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was reelected.
Georgia’s metro areas, which lean Democratic, also have posted higher early turnout compared to the 2022 midterms, while most rural counties, which skew Republican, are down.
And analyses show the early vote uptick is not strictly from usual Election Day voters shifting to early ballots.
It’s enough that Kemp has cut social media videos urging Republicans to vote Tuesday and reminding them that he first won in 2018 by less than 55,000 votes, or 1.4 percentage points.
Trump supporters at Iowa rally await the president’s arrival
Dubuque, Iowa, resident Jon Lutz watches videos of President Donald Trump all the time. But Sunday afternoon’s rally will be the first time Lutz sees the man in person.
The 60-year-old civil engineer plans to cast his ballot Tuesday and said he’s a straight-ticket Republican voter.
Lutz said Trump has already accomplished so much in the first two years of his second term, and he wants to see Republicans keep control of both the House and Senate to allow his agenda to continue.
“He’s done what he’s said he’s going to do,” Lutz said. “I want him to keep going.”
Veterinarian Wendy Kuenzler, a 44-year-old from Burlington, Iowa, voted on Saturday. On Sunday she was in the concessions line at a packed arena in Dubuque, Iowa, waiting for the start of Sunday’s rally and her first time seeing Trump in person.
Kuenzler said she felt like Iowa was at a crossroads in this competitive midterm election. In the race for U.S. Senate, Kuenzler said there was no question she was supporting Republican Ashley Hinson.
Kuenzler said Trump isn’t the reason gas and grocery prices are still high, adding: “He’s on the path to correcting it.”
Barack Obama endorses Charles Booker in race for Kentucky Senate seat
Former President Barack Obama has endorsed Charles Booker for the Kentucky U.S. Senate seat opened up by Republican Mitch McConnell’s retirement.
The two-term Democratic president said Sunday that Booker would stand up for working families.
“I’m proud to support Charles Booker for the U.S. Senate,” Obama said in a statement. “Charles cares deeply about the people of Kentucky.”
Booker, a former state legislator, is running against Republican Rep. Andy Barr.
McConnell, the former Republican leader in the Senate, is retiring after seven terms in the Senate.
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