https://www.washingtonsun.com/senate Senate en-US Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:02:28 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/legal/trump-administration-challenge-alaska-senate-results-dan-sullivan-midterms-2026-election Manuela Silva A lawsuit filed this week claims that a candidate who shares the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan is only running “for the purpose of confusing or misleading voters.” Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:02:28 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/legal/trump-administration-challenge-alaska-senate-results-dan-sullivan-midterms-2026-election The federal government sued Alaska elections officials this week as part of an attempt to preemptively line up a challenge to the results should Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan lose his reelection race.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, centers on the claim that a second candidate also named Dan Sullivan is only running “for the purpose of confusing or misleading voters and compromising the fairness of the ballot,” according to the filing.

When asked by a reporter about the lawsuit on Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump said he was “the one that said ‘do it.’” 

The race is one of the most competitive in the country and has the potential to swing the balance of power in Congress’ upper chamber.

The case, filed less than two weeks before Election Day, is before Judge Sharon L. Gleason, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

The second Dan Sullivan — who will appear as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. on the ballot — filed to run three days before the filing deadline. The Trump administration’s lawsuit makes the case that if the incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, an investigation should be carried out determining whether voters were confused about which Sullivan they were voting for before certifying any election results.

“It is vital that Defendants not certify any election result that may be impacted by voter confusion,” lawyers for the Justice Department wrote in the filing. “An election may be impacted by voter confusion if: (1) Senator Sullivan does not win the election; and (2) had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for Senator Sulivan and Alaska’s ranked-choice process played out accordingly, Senator Sullivan would have won the election.”

Previous efforts by the Alaska Division of Elections and the state Republican Party to prevent the new Sullivan from running against the incumbent senator failed earlier this year when the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that both Sullivans could remain on the ballot.

The concern is less that the new Sullivan, who is running as a Republican, might win, but that he might siphon enough votes away from Sen. Sullivan that Democratic nominee Mary Peltola wins instead.

A DOJ spokesperson told The Washington Sun that the department is “taking the necessary steps to ensure that this frivolous candidacy does not undermine the integrity of Alaska's election or the will of its voters.” They also pointed The Sun to a letter from Alaska’s Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher decertifying the new Sullivan’s candidacy after deeming it misleading.

In a statement to The Sun, Nate Adams, a campaign spokesman for Sen. Sullivan’s reelection campaign, said the campaign would “let the DOJ complaint run its course.”

“Alaskans can tell the difference between a Democrat sideshow and Senator Sullivan’s strong record,” Adams wrote.

Harry Child, a spokesperson for the Peltola campaign, called the lawsuit “a despicable political threat to overturn an election, designed by Senator Dan Sullivan’s allies.”

On Thursday, Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to rule out the possibility that his department would intervene in states’ independent processes for certifying their midterm elections, saying extreme scenarios could prompt federal intervention.

In a Truth Social post this week, Trump said his administration was looking at “powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the ballot.”

“I am very concerned about the Dan S. Sullivan Race for the U.S. Senate in Alaska in that it is totally confusing,” Trump wrote in the post.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/democrats-red-state-momentum-jeffrey-epstein-ad-blitz Avani Kalra Operatives hope what had been a swing-district gambit to exploit voters’ anger at the dead sex trafficker can tip GOP races that had seemed safe. Fri, 23 Oct 2026 09:11:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/democrats-red-state-momentum-jeffrey-epstein-ad-blitz As the limits of where Democrats hope to win in 2026 creep further into reliably red territory, party operatives have been turning more often to a wedge issue that helped Donald Trump win in 2024 — disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

In Kansas, a state that Trump won by more than more than 16 points that is now considered a genuine pick-up opportunity for Democrats, one advertisement slams Republican Sen. Roger Marshall for his September 2025 vote to block the Epstein files release.

“I expected our leaders to hear our stories and actually hold our abusers accountable. They’ve only let us down,” Marina Lacerda, an Epstein victim, tells the camera while a video of Marshall saying Epstein is “not of much interest” to him plays on the screen.

The issue is not new, but Democratic campaign groups are shifting the focus to places like Kansas, flooding the airwaves and social media feeds with spots about Republicans who stood in the way of quickly releasing FBI files about the dead sex trafficker, hoping the issue can tilt such reach contests into the blue column.

More than 150 ads centered on Epstein have aired nationwide during the 2026 election cycle, according to a review by The Washington Sun. They began playing primarily in “toss up” districts and states across the country but increasingly are being deployed in states and districts that Trump won two years ago, often by wide margins.

And Democrats are expected to ramp up their messaging around Epstein in the final stretch before Nov. 3. The Democratic National Committee is planning a flood of Epstein-related ads in red states over the coming days, Axios first reported, targeting Trump’s base on platforms like Fox News and right-wing YouTube channels.

Epstein is a particularly salient issue for Republicans, said Dane Strother, a Democratic strategist, who described Democrats’ messaging around Epstein as “a layup.”

Throughout his 2024 election campaign, Trump campaigned on declassifying the Epstein files, and 82% of self-identified MAGA Republicans supported releasing all files related to the notorious financier, a 2025 Washington Post poll found.

“People feel deceived,” Strother said. “They fully expected these files to be released, and even the hardcore [Republicans] recognize they haven’t all been released. … We’re not talking about taxes, we’re not talking about privatizing schools, we’re talking about protecting children.”

Democrats have already moved that messaging into even deeper red territory. In Mississippi, a Republican stronghold where the Senate race shifted slightly in Democrats’ favor earlier this week, Democrats are targeting Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith for the same vote as Marshall.

“Senator Hyde-Smith, you voted to protect the sex trafficker who abused me,” Jena-Lisa Jones, another Epstein survivor, says in one spot running there. “If you vote to protect pedophiles, it’s time for Mississippi to pick a new senator.”

Most GOP senators cast the same vote to block the release of the files in September 2025, though both chambers of Congress later passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in a near-unanimous vote, following mounting public pressure.

In Colorado’s 5th District, a “lean Republican” seat, the family of the late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre criticize Rep. Jeff Crank in an ad for “refusing to meet” with them following Giuffre’s death last year.

“Our own Congressman Jeff Crank refused to meet with us,” Giuffre’s sister-in-law Amanda Roberts, who lives in the district, says in the ad. “Then, when he had the chance to expose the truth and release the Epstein files, he repeatedly voted to cover them up.”

Recent polling has shown widespread dissatisfaction within the Republican base over the Trump administration’s handling of the files. Only 21% of Republicans said that the administration helped deliver justice in Epstein-related cases, a June Reuters poll found, a number that is at 10% across all Americans polled.

Strother added that in this year’s political cycle, Democrats may only need to flip a small portion of Republican voters to turn the tide in either chamber of Congress. That makes any issue unpopular with the Republican base important to exploit, he said.

“We need the 8% of [MAGA] voters to perhaps vote, in this case, Democratic, and this is an issue that penetrates red,” Strother added.

Republicans are pushing back. They have slammed Democrats for taking money from donors linked to Epstein. Filings released Wednesday revealed tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, who has been repeatedly connected to Epstein, was the top donor to House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ flagship House super PAC, in the last quarter.

One GOP ad that aired Wednesday in Pennsylvania in Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s “toss up” district against Democrat Paige Cognetti highlights the connection.

“Her lying ads are funded by anti-gun radicals and Epstein Associates. Paige Cognetti is basically Kamala Harris without the charisma,” one ad reads, with a picture of Epstein and dollar bills flashing across the screen.

The Democratic campaign group spent about $2.33 million on ads related to Epstein in nine districts, according to data from ad tracking service AdImpact.

"The soulless shills at House Majority PAC want voters outraged over Epstein ties while cashing checks from Reid Hoffman, who actually visited Epstein’s island,” Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for House Republicans campaign arm, said in a statement. “If these shameless Democrat candidates believed the ads HMP is running for them, they would reject its support and condemn Hoffman.”

Still, Strother said that such attacks have only benefited Democrats. His party has consistently led the narrative on the Epstein issue and spotlighting the financier’s unpopularity can only be beneficial, he added.

“Republicans are answering the attack,” Strother said. “When they have to stop and answer an attack, that means they’re not attacking, and Democrats are winning that debate. That’s exactly the debate that Democrats want to have.”]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/george-w-bush-brother-neil-bush-backs-james-talarico-bashes-ken-paxton Michelle Del Rey Neil Bush is the second member of his family to come out in support of the Democratic Senate candidate in the past week. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:01:40 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/george-w-bush-brother-neil-bush-backs-james-talarico-bashes-ken-paxton Neil Bush, the brother of former President George W. Bush, said this week that he voted for James Talarico, breaking with his family’s Republican political dynasty.

Bush, the fourth of former President George H. W. Bush and first lady Barbara Bush’s six children, announced that he voted for the Democrat in a Facebook post on Tuesday, acknowledging the difficulty of the decision.

“I have never posted a political message on Facebook, not wanting to offend friends whose views may be very different than mine,” he wrote.

Bush said he voted for the candidate because he is deeply concerned about Ken Paxton’s record, and he has “genuine admiration for the character and principles I see in James Talarico,” including integrity, civility, humility and a willingness to listen to those with whom he disagrees.

Paxton, Talarico’s opponent, has served as Texas attorney general since 2015. In 2020, he challenged the results of the presidential election in an attempt to help President Donald Trump remain in power.

“I believe that effort was an affront to our democratic institutions and the peaceful transfer of power,” Bush wrote in his social media post.

Paxton was also impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas House in 2023 for allegedly misusing his office to help a friend and donor who was under federal investigation. He was later acquitted by the Texas Senate.

Bush said he’s worried about a political culture that pledges loyalty to an individual and doesn’t hold people in power accountable for their actions.

“I believe Donald Trump and those who have enabled him have done enormous damage to the Republican Party,” Bush continued.

Bush did not state whether he’s permanently breaking with the Republican Party but said he voted “against a style of politics that I believe has damaged our country.”

He continued: “More importantly, I voted for the kind of character and leadership I hope will help heal it.”

Bush added that he continues to believe in many traditional Republican principles.

Bush is the second member of his family to support Talarico. Barbara Bush, the daughter of former president George W. Bush, donated $2,500 to a political action committee supporting Talarico, Texas Public Radio reported.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/dick-durbin-retirement-exit-interview-dream-act Paul Kane The longest-serving Democratic Whip put the Dream Act on the map but leaves without its passage. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 09:10:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/dick-durbin-retirement-exit-interview-dream-act Sen. Richard J. Durbin spent more than two decades advising Democratic leaders what to do. But his most important recommendation might have come 20 years ago at Chicago’s Union League when he pulled aside his junior colleague for some advice.

“I'm in a hurry, Dick,” then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) told Durbin, who said it would only take a minute.

“You've got to run for president,” Durbin told the future 44th president. “You're young enough that if you lose, you get another chance. But you've got something, buddy, that I've never seen in anybody.”

Obama had other people in his ear encouraging him to launch a presidential campaign after not quite two years as a senator, but Durbin was the only senator making that call publicly and privately. Two years later they were back in Chicago and Obama made history with his sweeping 2008 victory.

Durbin recalled that moment with Obama during a taping of The Washington Sun Cast video podcast that covered a 44-year career spanning a productive 14 years in the House followed by three decades in the Senate.

Advising people at the top became his forte. Durbin, 81, who is retiring in early January, ends his career as the longest serving party whip in Senate history, 22 straight years as the No. 2 leader behind Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York).

He has served on the Senate Judiciary Committee for three decades, including confirmation hearings for eight of the nine Supreme Court justices. The past six years he has served as chair or ranking Democrat on the panel.

And he learned how to navigate around ambitious personalities from his first days in Congress, when a group of nearly 80 incoming House freshmen for the class of 1982 met during orientation.

Those newcomers included a young Reid, future Republican presidential nominee John McCain (R-Arizona), future governors such as Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), John Kasich (R-Ohio) and Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico).

Durbin got elected as the head of the Democratic class, along with his longtime friend and future senator, Barbara Boxer (D-California), while McCain headed up the Republican class.

Now considered a liberal stalwart, Durbin linked arms with moderates in those days to work on issues like balancing the budget. “Tip O'Neill at the time viewed most of us as traitors and kind of kept an eye on us,” he said of the House speaker.

It was a different era when power was consolidated with committee and subcommittee chairs, not in the leadership suites where it resides in today’s Congress. So Durbin’s most passionate cause at the time — fighting smoking after his father died from lung cancer at 53 — ran up against several different power brokers who represented tobacco states or were chain smokers themselves.

His first step was to ban cigarette smoking on flights, against the wishes of Democratic and Republican leaders. “Nobody had beaten big tobacco. But the folks on the other side didn't count on the fact that the House of Representatives was the largest frequent flyer club in America and they were sick and tired of secondhand smoke,” Durbin recalled.

His final move required getting past the legendary House Rules Committee chair, Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Florida), who shocked the young Durbin by ruling his amendment into a package that went to the House floor.

Pepper privately explained afterward that his greatest accomplishment was creating the National Cancer Institute and he would join Durbin in his battle. The tobacco industry has been on the run ever since.

“When I took this issue on, 29% of high school students in America smoked tobacco cigarettes — 29%! Today it's 2%. This has changed the world,” Durbin said.

After Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential campaign and plucked Leon Panetta (D-California) out of the House to become budget director, Rep. George Miller (D-California) needed a new roommate to fill out his townhouse that had become a hub for rising star Democrats. Durbin got tapped, joining Schumer for about two decades of roommate status and periodic jockeying over who would win which leadership post.

In 1996 Durbin’s mentor, Paul Simon (D-Illinois), retired from the Senate. Durbin jumped into a crowded primary and blew away the field, eventually winning the general election by almost 16 points.

He won the next four reelection battles by double-digit margins, helping cement Illinois’ reputation as a Democratic stronghold.

His greatest honor, yet his greatest disappointment, came on the DREAM Act, legislation he crafted 25 years ago to grant permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants brought here as young children who then grew up in the United States.

A few Democrats and almost all Republicans voted to block consideration of the legislation in December 2010, when dozens of Dreamers had filled the public gallery hoping for the act’s passage. He told them later that day that he would not give up, and Obama did sign an executive order implementing parts of his law. Durbin will pass that torch to several younger Democrats when he leaves in January.
Dick Durbin, Dream Act (4896x3264, AR: 1.50)Far from the House moderate of the 1980s, in the Senate, Durbin gained a quick reputation as a liberal who could be a sharp partisan when he felt the need, particularly on the Judiciary Committee. The confirmation battles over judges in the late Clinton years and the early years of George W. Bush’s presidency set the stage for rules changes that would be implemented by Reid and future Republican majority leaders, using the “nuclear option” to ease filibuster constraints.



Not long before the former majority leader died five years ago, Durbin said he and Reid spoke about their decision to take the first party-line step to break filibuster constraints in 2013.



“He was warned ahead of time there would be retribution. It all occurred and we're still suffering from that. Harry, before he passed away, he and I talked about it. He said the Senate will never be the same,” Durbin said, adding that Reid felt “he had no choice” but to do it.



He’s careful not to tell his current colleagues what they should do in the future. But he’s not very supportive of trying to further blow up the institutional guardrails in order to do things now demanded by the party’s most liberal faithful, such as expanding the Supreme Court.



If he were chairing the Judiciary Committee next year and President Donald Trump had the chance to nominate a new justice, Durbin seems inclined to not block the nominee the way Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) blocked the 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland.



At least hold a hearing, he thinks, and vote the nominee down.



Durbin’s biggest complaint, one that would take an uprising from rank-and-file on both sides of the aisle to fix, is that too much power has been concentrated in the “four corners, whatever you want to call it.”



That’s the House speaker, House minority leader, Senate majority leader and Senate minority leader, who often at the end of a legislative session make calls about what legislation gets tacked on to some must-pass bill.



Part of the problem comes from rank-and-file lawmakers in both chambers afraid of their political shadows asking party leaders to save them from having to take tough votes on amendments, leading to a bottled-up process.



“The notion that the next vote's gonna cost you the next election is an exaggeration,” Durbin said. “I've cast 17,000 votes in the House and the Senate. I decided a long time ago I got plenty of votes for anybody to hang me with if they wish.”



But it’s also a function of power-hungry party leaders. “It's no longer up to the body on the floor, it's up to a handful of leaders in rooms that I don't have access to,” he said.



How does the second-in-command not have access to those decisions?



“It’s a great piece of real estate,” he said of an office that for 22 years sat directly above Reid and Schumer’s in the northwest wing of the Capitol.



Durbin said that his decision to retire came from his “degree in geriatrics,” watching several colleagues over the years stick around too long.



He’s ready to retire without any real regrets.



“There reaches a point when you're just not as on the ball as you once were. I did not want to reach that point and be in the middle of a Senate term,” he said. “I wanted to walk out the front door of this great institution rather than be carried out the back.”]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/senator-slotkin-comments-viral-trump-administration Jenna Monnin The Michigan Democrat’s remarks about investigating people doing Trump’s “bidding” racked up millions of views online. Mon, 19 Oct 2026 20:33:27 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/senator-slotkin-comments-viral-trump-administration Sen. Elissa Slotkin doubled down Monday after a weekend of conservative uproar, defending her comments calling for legal accountability for people serving in President Donald Trump’s administration who are engaging in unlawful conduct.

“This shouldn’t be controversial: if you aid in stealing taxpayer money or directing it to enrich President Trump or his family, then you should be held accountable for that crime,” Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, wrote Monday on X. “That’s what I said, and I stand by it.”

Slotkin’s comments at a University of Chicago event on Oct. 13 racked up millions of views on X after The Chicago Thinker, a student-run conservative-libertarian publication, posted a clip on Saturday of her appearance.

The Michigan Democrat called for “accountability” for those in Trump’s circle engaging in illegal activity and “doing his bidding” because they do not share the privilege of immunity that shields the president from most prosecutions for official duties.

Slotkin pushed back on the criticism Sunday and Monday. In the second of the two statements she made online, the Michigan Democrat responded to a series of comments made by Mike Davis — a prominent American conservative lawyer and staunch Trump ally — referencing gun rights.

“If @ElissaSlotkin deploys these fascist tactics, like illegal arrests and political persecutions to intimidate young Americans with opposing political views, she will learn why we have the Second Amendment,” Davis wrote in one post to X on Sunday.

Slotkin called out Davis for “suggesting I be shot” in his posts and said the lawyer “was in the mix to be President Trump's next Attorney General after he fired Pam Bondi for not prosecuting more of his political opponents.”

Later in the post, Slotkin called for anyone who uses the justice system to intimidate political opponents to be “held accountable for that via your bar status.”

When asked about the Democratic senator’s remarks Monday, Trump called Slotkin “a low-life who is ruining her state.”

“Slotkin said that there should be prosecutions in order to scare people from going into politics. That's a Democrat and that's what they do,” Trump told reporters. “That's all they're good at — and you know what? That's why they're getting their asses kicked."

Conservatives and elected Republicans on social media took particular issue with Slotkin saying at the university event that she would like “that deterrence message sent” in reference to those looking to pursue a job in the president’s administration.

“I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? That sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.’ I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that,’” Slotkin said.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called Slotkin’s remarks “absolutely disgraceful” and denounced what he saw as his colleague threatening “young Americans for participating in politics and serving their country.”

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Michigan) said Slotkin was “openly admitting she wants to use the threat of prosecution as a weapon to scare young Americans out of public service and politics if they dare work for the wrong side.”

“Spare me the pearl-clutching — especially from Republican Members of Congress and online MAGA grifters who have cheered President Trump's weaponization of the government against those he doesn’t like, as recently as last week,” Slotkin hit back Sunday in a post on X responding to Lee.

The Michigan senator faced what she called her own politically motivated prosecution last year after she and five fellow Democratic lawmakers appeared in a 90-second video telling U.S. military personnel that they are within their rights to refuse illegal orders. The FBI opened an investigation into Slotkin and her colleagues, but a federal grand jury in February declined to indict them.

“If not for an anonymous group of grand jury members standing up for America's laws, I’d be criminally indicted for sedition,” Slotkin wrote in response to Lee. “President Trump has turned the government against people, with raucous support from you and virtually all D.C. Republicans. So spare us the manufactured outrage.”

This story has been updated with comments from President Trump.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/nebraska-medicaid-cuts-work-requirements-pete-ricketts-midterms Avani Kalra Work requirements that are theoretical in other states have barred more than 1,000 Nebraskans from health insurance, and Democrats are taking advantage. Fri, 16 Oct 2026 09:17:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/nebraska-medicaid-cuts-work-requirements-pete-ricketts-midterms When Republicans passed their mega tax-cut bill more than a year ago, they timed most of its more than $1 trillion in health care cuts to kick in after the midterm elections, perhaps staving off possible electoral impacts.

Nebraska, however, decided to launch early, rolling out new Medicaid work requirements in May and beginning enforcement in July, well before their mandated Jan. 1, 2027 start.

The decision turned the prospect of people losing access to health care from speculative to actual for more than 1,000 Nebraskans so far. And health care leaders, Republican observers and others now think it’s a contributor to a political climate that suddenly has GOP leaders on the defensive in a state that is reliably red.

Bob Ward, a pollster with the Republican firm Fabrizio Ward, said he has found Medicaid cuts resonate with rural voters.

“One out of two Republicans either are, have been or have a family member that is or has been on Medicaid,” Ward said, adding that the number comes from polling he conducted while Republicans were negotiating the tax bill. “I mean, it touches a lot of people or has touched a lot of people. So it's not like a theoretical thing.”

All five Nebraska Republicans in Congress backed the tax-cutting “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” now generally referred to as HR 1, which will reduce projected Medicaid spending by about $1.2 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cuts are offset only by a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund.

Ward’s polling observation about the Medicaid cuts is shared by people who deliver care in Nebraska, and it feeds into growing concerns about health care in the state generally, said Jeremy Nordquist, president of the Nebraska Hospital Association and a former Democratic state legislator. 

“The broader public understands the cuts that were implemented in HR 1 to Medicaid and the impact that can have,” Nordquist said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s in Omaha or it’s in western Nebraska … they know what’s coming in terms of cuts to Medicaid and what that means for our rural health care system in this state.”

Nordquist said funding for rural hospitals is particularly salient in Nebraska, where many of the institutions typically receive between 60% to 80% of their funding from government payers — namely Medicare and Medicaid.

A study by his association found that 55% of Nebraska hospitals described their financial conditions as “challenging” in January.

“It used to be this program that was kind of seen as an afterthought to Medicare, but now it's much more fundamental to the financial and health care well-being of Nebraskans,” Nordquist said. “They're much more attuned to it, and they may end up voting with Medicaid more in mind than they have before.”

Such sentiments help explain why important Republican leaders have been visiting the state, where Sen. Pete Ricketts leads his challenger, independent Dan Osborn, by just a few points. The governor’s race is also closer than many Republicans expected, with recent polls showing Gov. Jim Pillen’s lead shrinking.

Both President Donald Trump and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services director, visited Nebraska in recent weeks, fueling speculation that Republicans are concerned about a race where Osborn often attacks Ricketts over his vote for the tax bill.

“I wouldn't have allowed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to strip a trillion dollars away from Medicaid, and people's health care is going to be hurting,” Osborn said in a September debate with Ricketts, blaming the legislation for the closure of a dialysis clinic in Chadron, Nebraska.

Denise Powell, the Democrat favored to flip retiring Republican Rep. Don Bacon’s Omaha district, has also spotlighted rural health care issues, calling on Congress to reverse last year’s Medicaid cuts.

“Cutting Medicaid, raising health insurance premiums, the tariffs, the war in Iran — Brinker Harding supports Trump on all of it,” Powell says in one TV ad attacking the Omaha City Council member running on the GOP ticket

And Democratic gubernatorial nominee Lynne Walz has similarly targeted Pillen for health care spending cuts in the state, telling the Nebraska Examiner in July that “it’s going to bring about really bad outcomes in the future.”

A Ricketts loss would be the most consequential as a possible a deciding factor in which party will control of the Senate. His campaign told The Washington Sun that the senator has worked to protect the health care system from fraud and pointed to the funding in the Rural Health Transformation Fund as a counter to the much larger cuts. 

"He delivered $50 billion for rural healthcare,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Dan Osborn says he would have voted against the Working Families Tax Cut. Osborn wants higher taxes on your Social Security to pay for medicaid for illegal immigrants." 

Republicans in the state have largely agreed that Democrats have successfully framed the Medicaid cuts in Nebraska, particularly as the cost of living continues to rise.

Perre Neilan, a Republican strategist, said his party has not done enough to explain the changes that were made as part of last year’s tax bill, even after Oz visited the state to discuss the rural hospital fund.

“I think Republicans have done a poor job of talking about how able-bodied men should be working,” Neilan said, referring to the new work requirements for Medicaid. “It's gotten cast as you're kicking people off health insurance and kicking people off government help.”

And Republican Ken Schilz, another former state legislator, said that although he expects health care cuts will continue to be a problem for whichever party is in power in Washington, Republicans need to find an answer on Medicaid cuts, especially while Democrats “smell blood in the water.”

“We’re seeing a lot more stress on those smaller hospitals, critical access hospitals and things like that,” Schilz said. “Rural health care was trending in this direction anyway, so something needs to change no matter what. Waiting until there’s nothing left but a crater and dust doesn’t do anything.”

This story has been updated to clarify the polling referenced by Bob Ward on Medicaid.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/influence/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-money-surplus Nicole Belcastro The outgoing senator has nearly $7.4 million to part with before leaving office in January. So far, he’s sitting on it. Fri, 16 Oct 2026 02:54:12 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/influence/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-money-surplus Sen. Mitch McConnell is hoarding his committee’s wealth during a crucial midterms cycle for the Republican Party, according to a new federal filing.

When the Kentucky senator returned to Capitol Hill in September after a three-month, health-related absence, his campaign committee had nearly $7.4 million waiting for him.

But McConnell, who no longer has use for the money since he opted not to run for an eighth term, opted not to spread his wealth to any Republican Party committee or candidate campaign. That includes the Senate Leadership Fund and Texas PAC, political committees associated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who succeeded McConnell as the Republicans’ Senate leader.

Before McConnell leaves the Senate in January, his campaign committee has a few options for its surplus money.

Most urgently, McConnell’s committee can still donate up to $2,000 a piece to other Republican candidate committees. It may also transfer unlimited amounts to national party committees, such as the Republican National Committee or National Republican Senatorial Committee.

McConnell’s committee could also donate its millions to charities or nonprofit universities.

One organization McConnell is already connected to is the nonpartisan McConnell Center at the University of Louisville. The center was established in 1991 to encourage Kentucky’s top students to pursue higher education in their home state, and McConnell raised the initial funds for scholarships.

Other legal options include refunding donors or disgorging money to the U.S. Treasury’s general fund.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/roger-marshall-campaign-staff Hunter Riggall The Republican, who is in a heated race in Kansas, is facing questions about whether his Senate office is fueling his reelection campaign. Fri, 16 Oct 2026 02:17:05 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/roger-marshall-campaign-staff Sen. Roger Marshall’s latest campaign finance filing is largely missing spending entries typical of nearly all campaign reports: Those described as wages, salaries or payroll.

The Kansas Republican, who is up for reelection in a competitive race as Democrats try to expand their Senate map, is facing scrutiny about whether he’s used taxpayer dollars to fund his reelection bid, including by using his official Senate staff as an extension of his campaign.

Marshall’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission, covering campaign spending from mid-July through the end of September, does not appear to include any payments to full-time campaign staff.

A joint investigation published last week by MS NOW and Kansas Reflector reported that the Marshall campaign hadn’t cut a paycheck to campaign staff in the last five years, an arrangement that experts quoted in the piece called “extremely uncommon” for a Senate campaign. The article also listed a number of instances in which Marshall may have violated ethics rules by using his office’s funds for campaign purposes.

Marshall’s office and the Marshall campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Marshall’s chief of staff told MS NOW and Kansas Reflector that the campaign now has campaign staff, without providing evidence.

Congressional staffers are allowed to work for campaigns, but only under strict guidelines. The work must be done on staffers’ own time, outside of congressional offices and without congressional resources.

The FEC filing says Marshall’s campaign spent $5.3 million in the third quarter, raising about $801,000 and finishing with $922,000 cash on hand.

The FEC records also indicate the campaign spent a little more than $10,000 on outside consultants from July through September.

Marshall, who polling has found to be deadlocked with Democrat Adam Hamilton, is in need of additional support for his campaign operation. According to Axios, Chris Grant, a top Trump political adviser who has previously worked for Marshall, is part of the cavalry that’s been sent in to help Marshall’s campaign in the final stretch.

The Washington Sun previously reported that Republican PACs have moved millions of dollars of ads into Kansas to rescue Marshall’s reelection bid as some GOP operatives say the senator lacks a good ground game.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/sen-john-kennedy-republican-surrogate-midterms-viral Igor Bobic, Al Weaver The Louisiana Republican’s popular quips and TikTok videos have helped him garner a following — and GOP candidates hope it translates into votes. Thu, 15 Oct 2026 09:10:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/sen-john-kennedy-republican-surrogate-midterms-viral HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Addressing a group of a dozen or so reporters at his campaign event here last week, Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan, joked he might not be the main attraction.

John Kennedy, the Louisiana senator popular on the right for one-liners delivered in a Southern drawl, had just entered the room at a countryside winery and farm north of Detroit. And Rogers quickly gave him the floor.

"It's like following the baton twirler in the talent show,” Rogers said. “You know you're never going to win that thing, so I'm going to turn it over to the baton twirler."

The two-term senator has become one of the most public faces in the upper chamber due in large part to his folksy aphorisms that have been blasted far and wide. He’s become a staple of cable news and social media, where clips of his questioning of individuals before committees frequently go viral.

Only helping matters is his best-selling book “How to Test Negative for Stupid,” which reached No. 1 on The New York Times bestsellers list and remained on it for nearly half a year.
Mike Rogers and Sen. John Kennedy (3000x2000, AR: 1.50)It’s also turned him into a go-to surrogate for battleground Republican Senate candidates in a tough political environment where an appearance by President Donald Trump might not necessarily help. In recent weeks, Kennedy has stumped for candidates in Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, Ohio and Alaska.

“John is a celebrity senator beloved by Republicans,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) told The Washington Sun. “He draws praise from people who like his politics and those who like him. He’s easy to like. We need more people to like more Republicans. I’m glad he’s on our side.”

Kennedy is also prodigious on another front: fundraising.

One senior Senate Republican aide told The Sun that Kennedy, alongside Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is at the top of the conference in raking in online contributions.

“He's been raising a shitload of money online for years,” the aide said. “He's building a bigger presence.”

At his event stumping for Rogers in Michigan last week, Kennedy was greeted with a celebrity-like reception by hundreds of supporters clad in flannel and cowboy hats. Cell phones lit up all over a huge barn as people filmed his speech, which was heavy on Southern expressions and familiar punchlines about liberals.

“You can do what you want, but to me, kale tastes like I'd rather be fat,” he said, eliciting a huge wave of laughter.

Another Kennedy barn burner? “When you pass a ditch here in Michigan, you go, ‘OK, that’s a ditch.’ When we pass a ditch in Louisiana, we see dinner.”

The crowd ate it up, giving him a standing ovation.

But Kennedy also sprinkled in pointed critiques about Washington, where Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress. Those digs at his own colleagues have led to speculation about a potential 2028 presidential run, which he said recently he is considering. He conceded that he’s leaning toward running for reelection, but that could change if the party’s crop of candidates are “a bunch of goobers.”
Senator John N Kennedy (3000x2000, AR: 1.50)El-SayedandRogers_RMorton-54 copy.jpg (3000x2000, AR: 1.50)“Nobody's coming to save us but ourselves, folks,” Kennedy said in Michigan. “The water in Washington, D.C., is not going to clear up until you get the pigs out of the creek. And you gotta keep the pigs out of the creek.”

Dayne Webb, a college student from Kalamazoo, Michigan, said the 74-year-old senator is popular with young conservatives like himself, including some who are turned off by Trump.

“He's funny and he seems to capture my generation's attention, especially on TikTok,” Webb told The Sun. He said the Louisiana senator’s presence on the platform is boosting his popularity. “When he started talking about maybe running for president, people on TikTok were like, ‘I hate Trump, but I love John Kennedy.’”

Kennedy has made waves during other campaign stops. During one in Nebraska to help Sen. Pete Ricketts’ reelection bid, Kennedy mused that he liked the state “better than sex.”

“Not really,” he said to howls in the crowd. “But I love Nebraska.”

One GOP operative who recently saw Kennedy on the stump in Alaska said that his appearance was a “hoot.”

“In an environment where people are so saturated with nonstop negative ads, it was refreshing to hear from somebody who cut through it all with a little humor and a lot of straight talk,” the operative said.

Strategists are also quick to note that there’s more to Kennedy than just endless aphorisms. He attended Oxford University and is considered one of the sharpest questioners on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he has tripped up both Democratic and Republican judicial nominees.

“He's an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful person. I think people don't fully grasp that until they pay attention to what he is doing and how he is doing it,” one Louisiana-based Republican operative said.
El-SayedandRogers_RMorton-41 copy.jpg (3000x2000, AR: 1.50)“Everyone knows the quips, but people take him seriously on the policy side, beyond the Fox News stuff,” added another Republican operative. In addition to his work on judicial nominations, Kennedy has been active on banking policy.

But Kennedy has also drawn sharp criticism from Democrats, who suspect his accent is an act. A photo of his involvement in the bungled “gotcha” attempt on former special counsel Jack Smith by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) at a Senate hearing last month went viral. And Rogers’ Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, lashed out at Kennedy last week after he implied El-Sayed is a terrorist who “sleeps in a bin Laden jersey.”

“That’s rich coming from someone who wears his bed sheets out at night,” El-Sayed wrote in a post on X.

El-Sayed also mocked Rogers for campaigning with Kennedy at a barn last week.

“So it'll be Kennedy telling jokes to animals and Mike Rogers sitting there? Should be a lot of fun,” he told reporters at an event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

But Republicans are glad Kennedy is on the campaign trail to help turn out voters who have soured on some of the Trump administration’s policies, including the Iran war, which has driven up the cost of gas and groceries.

“Kennedy has used a little bit more finesse than me when he disagrees with the president. He's the right sort of person to appeal … beyond the MAGA base,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) told The Sun, adding that while Trump supporters enjoy his style, Kennedy also played a key role in the ouster of Kristi Noem from her post as homeland security secretary.

“He's the right guy to show some independence and really shows some of these candidates that you got to show some independence in the final stretch here, or it's going to be a referendum on Trump,” Tillis said.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/el-sayed-obama-michigan-senate-skeptical-black-voters Igor Bobic The Michigan Senate race is an “all hands on deck” moment for Democratic surrogates. Wed, 14 Oct 2026 09:07:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/el-sayed-obama-michigan-senate-skeptical-black-voters GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A tense confrontation between a Black voter and Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate, over his commitment to a key voting bloc shows the nominee still has some work to do to unite the Democratic base ahead of the November election.

“What makes you different, and how do we know that we trust what you say? Because, historically, the Democrats shit on Black people,” JD Chapman, 46, the head of a youth-mentoring group, asked the progressive Senate candidate last week at a crowded dive bar in Western Michigan.

El-Sayed responded by recounting his family’s story immigrating from Egypt and his experience growing up in Michigan, something he said “doesn't happen without the advocacy and the organizing of Black folks in church communities across the country.” He shared how his education in civil rights history shaped his perspective on systemic oppression and informed his career in public health, crediting civil rights heroes like W.E.B Du Bois, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. for paving the way for his campaign to become the first Muslim member of the U.S. Senate.

“I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Black folks,” El-Sayed said.

But the professorial-sounding answer didn’t satisfy Chapman, who began walking toward the exit. That prompted Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, the first Black senator from Delaware, who was campaigning with El-Sayed, to step in. Democrats, she said, need to win as many seats as possible in the Senate to enact policies that can help Black Americans.

“We can't do it if we don't have the numbers,” she explained to Chapman. “If we don't do it, hold us accountable. Vote us out.”

El-Sayed Responds to Questions About His Commitment to Black Community 

The pointed exchange illustrates questions El-Sayed continues to face in one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds that could determine control of the Senate next year. Republicans are seeking to portray him as a radical Islamist, launching ugly attacks over his Muslim faith and name. There are doubts among some Jewish Democrats regarding his stance and past comments about Israel, some of which he’s apologized for. And there is lingering skepticism about his candidacy among Black voters, many of whom supported the moderate Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary in August.

“Politicians come and go; they always pandering for our votes at election time, and then they just forget about us once they get elected, especially in West Michigan. I'm sick of that shit,” Chapman, who said he voted for Stevens, told The Washington Sun after the exchange.

He said he may not vote in November, and whether he does will depend on how El-Sayed navigates the cultural differences between Arab and African American voters in Michigan.

“I'll specifically be paying attention to his engagement with the people on the ground in Detroit, where he's from,” Chapman said.
El-Sayed Senate Campaign (3000x2000, AR: 1.50)
Progressives view El-Sayed’s candidacy as a blueprint for other insurgent candidates across the country. If he can win in a presidential battleground state like Michigan with a populist message of taking on corporate elites, eliminating money in politics and passing a universal health care program like Medicare for All, others can too. But there are still those in the Democratic establishment who consider El-Sayed, a former public health official who has never held an elective office, a risky bet, one that could result in their party losing a winnable seat in what is expected to be a blue wave election.

Polls show a close race, with El-Sayed narrowly edging out his Republican opponent, former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who also ran for Senate in 2024.

Democratic Surrogates Flood the Zone to Help Unite Base 

Democrats have sought to present a united front despite their divisions. A parade of high-profile names have or are scheduled to campaign on behalf of El-Sayed in the early 2028 presidential nominating state. They include former Vice President Kamala Harris, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, former Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

And later this month, former President Barack Obama will rally with El-Sayed in Detroit, a city that boasts a large African American population. Democrats will need to maximize voter turnout there, as well as younger voters in the state’s college towns, to beat Rogers in November.

“It's all hands on deck,” Whitmer, who backed Stevens in the primary, said last week during her first joint appearance with El-Sayed at a restaurant in Grand Rapids. “We got to get Dr. El-Sayed elected to the U.S. Senate because Michiganders need someone who's got to fight to make our lives better. That's the North Star here.”

Democrats are bullish about the fact that El-Sayed has drawn notably large crowds during his campaign stops in red-leaning areas of Michigan's Upper Peninsula this week, where he’s focused on talking about health care access, the impact of President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada and tribal sovereignty. He’s also picked up the support of some former Rogers supporters who are seeking to put a check on Trump in Washington.

Chris Holman, 77, told The Sun he’s been friends with Rogers for more than 30 years, but he intended to vote for El-Sayed in November.

“I'm looking at it as a vote against Donald Trump,” Holman, an independent and an entrepreneur who owns a business news website in Michigan, said last week as he waited to hear from El-Sayed at a town hall in Lansing. “I feel mostly like the people that Trump allows to be around him are kind of bobbleheads, and that's a very dangerous thing.”
El-Sayed Senate Campaign (4046x3000, AR: 1.35)The only chance Rogers has in the race, Holman said, is to try and tie El-Sayed to “things he's absolutely not tied to, Muslim Brotherhood and all that, and Hamas and all that stuff, and that's just like ridiculous stuff. And I know he knows it, but you know, you got to remember it's about getting elected.”

Republicans have spent millions on ads that seek to tie El-Sayed to past comments made by Hasan Piker, a controversial Twitch streamer who is an El-Sayed supporter, in which he said that “America deserved 9/11.” Rogers also alleged last week in a contentious debate that El-Sayed and his family have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a charge that El-Sayed has denied.

Appearing alongside Rogers at an event in Highland Township, Michigan, on Friday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) went even further, alleging that El-Sayed “sleeps in a [Osama] Bin Laden jersey,” a comment that drew a chuckle from Rogers.

El-Sayed shot back with his own insinuation in a post on X: “That’s rich coming from someone who wears his bed sheets out at night.”

The anti-Muslim rhetoric is a particular concern for some Democrats who worry El-Sayed isn’t doing enough to reach out to Hindu voters in Michigan, who make up a small but potentially influential share of the state’s population in a tight race.

“If this ends up close, as close as the primary was, Abdul will regret not engaging Hindu community,” warned Bhavik Lathia, a political strategist from Michigan who served as a battleground mobilization director for Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign. “Because of India-Pakistan tension, the Hindu community is as susceptible or more to Islamophobic messaging coming from the Rogers campaign.”

Rogers Faces Backlash to Trump’s Policies

Rogers, meanwhile, has come under heavy fire from El-Sayed and other Democrats over his support for Trump’s unpopular economic and foreign policies. He has sought to distance himself from the Iran war and Trump’s trade war in Canada, despite his past comments advocating for both. But when asked by a reporter last week about Trump’s tariffs, he continued to defend them, saying they’ve been an “overall positive” for the auto industry in Michigan.
Rogers Senate Campaign (2889x1926, AR: 1.50)Rogers Senate Campaign (3000x2000, AR: 1.50)“If it's good for Michigan, I'll be fighting for it. If it's bad for Michigan, I'll be working with the president and my friends in the Senate to say we've got to change whatever that might be,” he said at a packed barn in Oakland County, where hundreds of supporters donned cowboy hats and rallied for the state’s Republican candidates.

Rogers, who served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also told The Sun he disagreed with Trump’s decision over the weekend to import millions of barrels of diesel fuel from Russia. The move was intended to bring down high prices at the gas pump, but one that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say will only aid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine.

“You just don't want to give that guy an inch,” Rogers said of Putin.

Still, Rogers can’t break with Trump entirely. He needs the president’s supporters to turn out and vote for him in November. And much of that strategy depends on trying to brand El-Sayed as an extremist and a radical.

But El-Sayed argued that Rogers is the one facing a “base problem” by failing to motivate Trump supporters ahead of November’s elections. Michiganders, he said, care more about bringing down the cost of gas and groceries than his name or his religion.

“My name did not raise your gas prices,” El-Sayed said, eliciting applause at a crowded town hall in Lansing. “My faith is not the reason you can't afford your groceries. My name and my faith are not the reason you can't see a doctor.”
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