Today’s notice: The latest on the battleground map. How you voted in 2016 may determine if you get a promotion at the State Department. Lowering expectations for the lame-duck session. White House ramps up attacks on the press. Questioning the self-deportation numbers. And: We traveled to Michigan to see if Democrats can speak MAHA.
THE MAP
We’re in the thick of the midterms now. What to know, and where:
Michigan: Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers had one more debate last night to make their cases in this razor-thin race. Rogers again drew associations between El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood, a move El-Sayed called “shameful.”
Trending
El-Sayed again called Rogers “a sock puppet” for Donald Trump. “I’ll be for good, and won’t be for what’s bad for Michigan,” Rogers said.
Kansas: Republican Sen. Roger Marshall debated Adam Hamilton, whose campaign is threatening to be the first successful Democratic Senate bid in the state in nearly a century. Exchange of the night: “The real problem with the cost of diesel in particular is, No. 1, the Ukraine war, and because the diesel production has gone down,” Marshall said.
“Nobody believes that,” Hamilton shot back.
South Carolina: Sen. Darline Graham has been one of the most uniformly pro-Trump Republicans in these high-profile races and appeared with the president at a rally at Clemson last night. Trump called Democrat Annie Andrews a transphobic slur and told the crowd, “I predict Darline is going to be more important than all of you.”
Andrews counterprogrammed the president at a town hall in the Charleston area. Andrews sees Graham’s Trump hug as a liability: “I think his visit shows that Darline needs help,” Andrews told The Washington Sun’s Gavin J. Quinton at the event.
Texas: There are fresh signs Republicans are struggling to maintain their gains with the state’s large Hispanic electorate, The Sun’s Daniella Diaz reports. On the trail with Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz in the all-important Rio Grande Valley, Daniella writes that De La Cruz did not say Trump’s name once at official events she held in her district. “What I’ve decided to do is to focus on my race and what I’m able to bring to the table,” she told Daniella.
Mississippi: Axios reported yesterday that Republicans are now saying what some Democrats have been saying for a while now: the Senate race here could be real. Trump’s coming Monday. “I just think it signals that something is amiss in this country if Donald Trump has to come to a state like Mississippi to campaign for a Republican running for office,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, the lone Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, told The Sun’s Kadia Goba.
Minnesota: A reprieve from bad Senate news for Republicans is here, where polls remain tight and some race-raters say Republican nominee Michele Tafoya has a real shot against Democrat Peggy Flanagan, despite the overall blueness of the state. Flanagan spent yesterday batting down a Wall Street Journal story about her college career. The WSJ said she did not graduate Phi Beta Kappa, while the honors society said she, in fact, did.
Maine: Former Sen. Joe Manchin campaigned with Republican Sen. Susan Collins yesterday. “You have a gem. You have a national treasure,” the Democrat-turned-independent from West Virginia told Mainers.
Ohio: The state remains roiled by the ad of the cycle — Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy’s spot featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. As a reminder, she’s estranged because of a harrowing story of child abuse and a mother who stayed with the alleged abuser. Team Ramaswamy is all in on this, while other Republicans in the state are cringing. “I would not have run that ad,” Sen. Jon Husted, in a tough race with former Sen. Sherrod Brown, told the AP.
Ohio man JD Vance is not taking that route. He mocked the outrage at a stop in the state yesterday. He said he was “disgusted” by Republicans who are trying to get distance from the Ramaswamy tactic (presumably, like Husted).
More: AIPAC Will Stop Endorsing Candidates, Focus on Super PAC Spending •
Where Senate Democrats and Republicans’ Outside Allies Are Dramatically Shifting Money • Mallory McMorrow Wants Democrats to ‘Stop Looking at Polling’
FROM FOGGY BOTTOM
Scoop: How State’s political purge works. The State Department has asked some foreign service officials up for promotion who they voted for in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, The Sun’s Eric Katz reports. Note: Federal law directly prohibits federal officials from making personnel decisions on the basis of political affiliation.
A department spokesperson declined to comment on the voting history questions, but touted a requirement for fidelity. “Fidelity means upholding the Constitution and the law and executing policy with loyalty to the American people and their interests,” they said.
FROM THE HILL
An incredibly lame duck? Republicans in Congress are already fretting about the looming issue of fitting 10 pounds into a 5-pound sack in the session after the midterms, The Sun’s Al Weaver and Kadia Goba report. “It’ll certainly depend to some extent what the chamber breakdowns are gonna be after Jan. 3rd to see what kind of leverage each party has in these negotiations and maybe what’s punted to the next Congress,” a senior Senate GOP aide told The Sun.
FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
War on the press, again: The White House has warned Politico that it retract or correct recent stories or face unspecified consequences, Axios reported, mainly over the outlet’s coverage of chief of staff Susie Wiles.
Part II: The White House removed The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg from today’s pool, days after Trump called him a “sick person” in the Oval Office and its official rapid-response X account attacked him. WHCA President Jacqui Heinrich posted to X last night that cutting off a reporter because the president didn’t like the questions “is retaliation.”
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
More signs MAHA voters could be up for grabs: The powerful political movement was championed by a Democrat who joined Trump’s Cabinet, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and there are signs that some of its adherents are ready to jump out of the GOP. Natalie Fertig examines the phenomenon in Michigan, where health nut Abdul El-Sayed has tried to make MAHA inroads during his Senate run. But: He’s adamant about his support for vaccines. “If you’re going to say, ‘Hey, I support the MAHA movement,’ you’ve got to really support it wholeheartedly,” Tasha Schurgin, a longtime organizer with Michigan for Vaccine Choice, told Natalie.
PODCAST
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) believes “there has to be some fundamental rules changes” to the Senate in the coming years.Listen to his conversation with our Paul Kane on this week’s episode of The Washington Sun Cast.
LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
PERSPECTIVES
Dana Milbank: “For the vice president, nothing is beyond the pale.”
NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN
The self-deportation figures are juiced? “It’s highly unlikely that 3 million total foreign-born [people] departed the United States in the first 18 months of the Trump administration, and even more unlikely that 3 million unauthorized immigrants departed during that time period,” Marc Rosenblum, the former executive director of the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, told The Sun’s Jackie Llanos. (Rosenblum resigned in July in blistering fashion, calling out the Trump administration’s “brazen corruption” in a public post.)
DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
More: Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in Big Bend Border Wall Case • DOJ Wants Judges Kicked Off of Immigration-Related Cases Over Crackdown Comments • FCC Chair Warns Broadcasters Not to Use ‘Fake Polls’
NOT US
- U.S. and Israel Draw Up Plans for Renewed Strikes on Iran After Elections, by Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt, Farnaz Fassihi, Natan Odenheimer and Ronen Bergman for The New York Times
- Pentagon looks to build a deep-cover spy program to confront China, by Zach Dorfman and Warren P. Strobel for The Washington Post
- The Data-Center Rebellion Is Just Beginning, by Paris Marx for The Atlantic
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton.
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