The Latest: Trump makes final midterm pitch as administration appeals to Supreme Court over ballots
President Donald Trump's administration appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday in its push to sideline thousands of disputed California mail ballots the day before the pivotal midterm elections. The emergency appeal came after an appeals court rejected the request to set aside some 20,000 ballots from people the federal government suspects may not be U.S. citizens.
Trumpclosed out the final weekend before Election Day with rallies in two states he had handily won in the past.
At the same time, Democrats began to fracture in Michigan, risking their effort to retake the Senate. Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s former opponent in the U.S. Senate primary, Haley Stevens, stunned party officials Sunday by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers as Democratic tensions boiled over days before the election.
Trump made his closing pitch of the midterms Monday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, pushing his slow, expensive and problem-plagued efforts to repair it back into the spotlight on the eve of Election Day.
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It’s been an ingredient of Talarico’s success as a Democrat running in the Republican bastion of Texas: a largely nonpartisan campaign that doesn’t malign the GOP.
Christina Edgar, a 52-year-old public health worker who attended Talarico’s final rally, says that’s why “he’s the first politician running that has given me hope.”
“With all the division coming out of the White House,” she continued, “I think it’s really important to have an open door.”
Edgar typically votes for Democrats, but Talarico will need Republican and independent voters to walk through that “open door” if he’s to find victory.
U.S. Sen. Darline Graham’s voice has run out of steam as she wraps up her campaign in South Carolina.
The Republican spoke for barely more than a minute at the end of her four-month sprint after her brother, Lindsey Graham, died suddenly in July.
Polls have shown a tight race between Graham and Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews. Andrews was at a get-out-the-vote rally in Charleston on Monday.
Darline Graham was appointed to her brother’s seat, then won a snap Republican primary. She’s struggled at times with the sudden public spotlight after years working in state government instead of politics.
In a raspy voice, Graham apologized twice and quickly introduced fellow Republican Alan Wilson, the attorney general running for governor.
“This is the final stop, and I have enjoyed every minute of it, and I promise you I will work so hard for this state every single day,” she said.
The outdoor amphitheater is packed with supporters and bars for libations, the trees above glow from blue lights, and the stage pumps dance music.
“This ain’t Texas, ain’t no hold ’em,” Beyoncé’s voice blares from the speakers.
With instruments waiting for a band onstage, it’s part concert, part final hurrah to end the long road to Election Day.
It’s a road that the crowd here hopes will end with James Talarico becoming the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide in Texas.
His public schedule released by the White House shows the president participating in a series of private meetings, including a closed-door one with John Joseph Arrigo, the U.S. ambassador to Portugal.
Trump’s schedule also lists “signing time,” which is when he typically signs documents like executive orders, proclamations and bills sent to him by Congress. That’s listed as closed to the news media, but he often calls reporters into the Oval Office to talk about what he signed.
Lastly, the president is hosting an election night reception in the White House East Room, also listed as closed to news coverage. That, too, could change — depending on how Republicans fare as the results come in.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a push for California to set aside thousands of mail ballots from people President Trump’s administration claims are noncitizens, a decision that comes on the eve of the pivotal midterm elections.
The high court refused to intervene in a case involving 20,000 people the Republican administration flagged as likely noncitizens on the largely Democratic state’s voter rolls.
It was the latest in a flurry of election-related litigation the day before the midterm elections, which will decide control of Congress for the last two years of Trump’s second term.
In California, the Trump administration had asked the high court to set aside the challenged ballots until the voters’ citizenship status could be verified. But officials there said the list appeared to be filled with errors and that setting the ballots aside could effectively disenfranchise legal voters.
President Trump stood silently Monday while triumphant music played as he held up a poster showing an image of the algae-clogged pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
It was the final moment of his last big speech before Election Day, far away from the campaign trail where Republicans were trying to make their case to voters to hang onto control of Congress.
The president’s decision to spend the day before the pivotal midterms showing off his renovations in the nation’s capital instead of barnstorming around the country was a puzzling way to pitch America on keeping his party in power.
“It starts just with the setting being bizarre and being very self-focused,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist. “And then you had the pictures and the posters on the easels and all of that — none of which help a single undecided voter in the last day of the elections move to the Republican Party.”
Robert C. Rowland, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Kansas, said he was puzzled by Trump’s decision to deliver his remarks in front of the Reflecting Pool when the renovations, plagued with issues, were “widely viewed as a boondoggle, as a failure.”
“I’m surprised he wasn’t in working-class districts with Republicans who are in difficult races,” said Rowland, who read news coverage of the address but did not watch it. Rowland said Trump’s message to voters was about “what I, the president, have accomplished in a place where most of you don’t live.”
Election officials in Arizona’s largest county say they’ve talked to the Justice Department after learning that one of its election monitors sent to observe Arizona’s primaries pleaded guilty to hacking Florida election websites in 2016.
“We’ve asked that the DOJ not send felons or anyone who have committed elections-related crimes, and they’ve told us that that’s not something that will happen in the future,” said Zach Schira, Maricopa County’s assistant county manager who oversees elections, during a news conference.
The election monitor, David Levin, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in 2016 for hacking a county elections website and the Department of State Division of Elections website in Florida, court documents show.
Federal election monitors are expected to observe the voting process in all 50 states on Tuesday. The Justice Department has said they won’t interfere with voting.
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, rallying voters in a red-leaning Virginia congressional district with an unusually competitive contest this year, said Monday that polls suggesting Democrats have an edge in key congressional races aren’t registering Republican enthusiasm on the ground.
“I’m telling you: Dismiss the polls; dismiss the pundits,” Johnson told an energetic crowd gathered Monday at a restaurant in suburban Richmond to support incumbent GOP Rep. Rob Wittman.
Wittman faces Democrat Shannon Taylor, an elected prosecutor, in what’s widely seen as the toughest reelection campaign of his long career. Wittman has served nearly 20 years in Congress representing Virginia’s 1st District. Johnson touted that deep experience Monday and called Wittman a good man, a “steady hand at the wheel” and a hard worker, and he predicted Wittman would win reelection Tuesday.
Trump for weeks has said he has no plans to carry out new strikes on Iran before Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States.
The vice president said the Republican administration’s foremost concern is Iran agreeing to take substantive action on its nuclear program.
“We want to make sure they don’t rebuild it or try to rebuild it. That’s what matters most to the United States,” Vance said. “I think, you know, the thing I picked up is they care a lot, obviously, about their sovereignty. They care a lot about economically rebuilding. We do think that there is a pathway there, but it really does require a firm commitment and a verifiable commitment that they don’t rebuild that nuclear program.”
Vice President JD Vance offered measured optimism that a deal can be struck to avert the U.S. military making good on Trump’s threat to carry out new strikes on Iran.
“We’ve had a number of good conversations with the Iranians,” Vance told reporters Monday after returning to Washington following campaign stops in New York and Ohio. “I actually just spoke with the president of the United States about an hour ago about this. Look, the president and I both feel pretty good about the prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement. We’re going to keep on working at it.”
Vance sent a letter to Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, last week, but the White House has offered scant details about the contents of that correspondence. Trump told reporters that letter was focused on assisting Iran with “medical supplies and various things.”
A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to stop demanding that California election officials set aside ballots from 20,000 people the Department of Justice says might be noncitizens.
The ruling by Chief Judge James Boasberg is the latest against the administration’s push to force California to separate ballots from people on a list of possible noncitizens. California officials say the demand comes too close to the election, with millions of ballots already cast, and that the list is riddled with errors.
Boasberg ruled that the administration’s demands violate the U.S. Constitution.
“The Executive Branch has likely violated the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which commits authority over election rules to the states and Congress alone,” wrote Boasberg, who’s based in Washington.
The president, during remarks at the Reflecting Pool, expressed hope that the American electorate would weigh Monday’s “plunge” in oil prices as they cast their ballots.
Oil prices dropped sharply on Monday amid renewed diplomatic efforts to end the war between the U.S. and Iran, now in its ninth month, that appeared to show signs of headway. Rising prices at the pump, a byproduct of the war, have loomed large over the midterm elections.
“I hope people realize that when they go into the voting booth, because we had to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said, remarking on the oil prices. “If we allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon, this country could never function the same way.”
Brent crude was down about 7.5% on Monday, with a barrel trading around $104.98. That’s still far above the $70 mark it was trading at in the days before the war.
Trump spent several minutes of his nearly hourlong closing pitch to voters highlighting his achievements cleaning up the nation’s capital, even though its residents have no voting representation in Congress.
Voters in the District of Columbia on Tuesday will elect a nonvoting delegate in the House, who can propose legislation and vote in committees but can’t vote on final legislation.
They’ll also elect two “shadow” senators and one “shadow” representative to lobby for statehood for the district.
Home to nearly 700,000, the city has more residents than Wyoming and Vermont.
Trump returned to the White House after the speech.
The president talked about his plans for building a triumphal arch and renovations for a public golf course, but also floated the idea of a “promenade” that would let people walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the Potomac River.
“It’s a great architectural concept, simple and beautiful and white stone,” Trump said. He added that it hearkened back to the idea that the river would be the original entrance to the memorial, but the area had gotten “cluttered” with roadways and other projects.
Trump said he is also looking at lists of names for statues of historic figures that would be in a garden of heroes.
“We have a lot of great things planned for Washington,” Trump said, adding that he didn’t have the time to discuss all his plans for the country.
After 20 minutes devoted to his D.C. construction projects, Trump said Tuesday’s elections could be the most important midterms “in our lifetime.”
The president tried to portray his political rivals as extremists, claiming that Democrats had “nominated the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history.”
The Democrats have seen their chances of winning control of the House and Senate improve because of public frustration over Trump’s inability to bring down inflation and his decision to launch the Iran war.
But Trump cautioned that sitting presidents usually struggle in the midterm elections as he said the U.S. has its most secure borders and largest income tax cuts in the nation’s history.
“For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” Trump said. “But we gave this a very strong shot.”
About 1,100 customers lost power earlier Monday after the city’s fire department said it was responding to reports of smoke coming from maintenance holes in the downtown Washington area.
Pepco, the electricity provider in Washington, is still investigating what caused the outage, according to spokesperson Jessica Babb.
Power has been restored to all customers, she added.
In a speech to mark the reopening of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after repairs, Trump joked that he would rename it after himself.
The president is speaking about the troubled repairs to the pool, which he said was damaged by vandals despite an admission in court that shoddy renovations commissioned by Trump caused its shuttering.
The president has chosen this site to address voters on the final day before the Tuesday midterm elections, which will determine control of the House and Senate.
Shannon Taylor, the prosecutor seeking to oust longtime Republican Rep. Rob Wittman in Virginia’s 1st Congressional District and help Democrats flip control of the U.S. House, says voters are fired up and demanding change in this year’s midterm election.
Taylor held a news conference Monday in suburban Richmond, where she said voter enthusiasm and early voting trends leave her confident she’s headed to victory Tuesday.
“People are mad, and people want to see change,” said Taylor, who has run on an anti-corruption platform and focused on the cost of living.
Wittman, who has been in Congress for nearly two decades and touted his experience during this race, was scheduled to campaign later Monday with House Speaker Mike Johnson. Taylor said Johnson’s visit to a district that’s long leaned red highlights the struggles Republicans face this year.
Flooding in the Southwest has forced a Colorado tourist town to alter its Election Day voting plans.
In Pagosa Springs, town residents impacted by the floods who haven’t voted yet can “visit any voter center across the state to request and receive a replacement ballot,” the Secretary of State’s office said in a news release.
People who cast in-person ballots outside their home county can vote only for statewide races, the office said. But if they have access to their mail ballot, they can return it to any drop box or voter center in the state by 7 p.m. on Election Day, and it will be sent to their county clerk for signature verification and tabulation, the office said.
Voting centers will still be open in La Plata County, but some county offices, including the clerk’s office, will have special hours on Tuesday.
Vice President JD Vance campaigned in rural upstate New York, disparaging Democrats as “lunatics” and warning that failing to elect Republicans could lead to a leftward swing for the country.
Speaking in an airport hangar in the town of Rome, Vance also touted Trump’s achievements, pointing to legislation he signed to end taxes on tips and overtime, even as the president’s approval ratings on the economy slipped to 25% last month.
He stumped for two Republicans running for Congress but did not talk about Bruce Blakeman, the Republican competing to unseat Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Vance said voters could send a message to Democrats “that here in the New York 21st Congressional District, we are fighting for people who love the United States of America, not those who hate it.”
“If we’re nervous about where we’re going to go from here, go vote,” Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said Monday at a campaign event in Ypsilanti.
El-Sayed spent the final day before the election campaigning alongside fellow Michigan Democrat Debbie Dingell and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Much of his speech focused on getting corporate money out of politics and establishing universal Medicare.
Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated in the August Democratic primary, endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Sunday, exacerbating tensions among Democrats on the eve of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in its push to sideline thousands of disputed California mail ballots the day before the pivotal midterm elections.
The emergency appeal came after an appeals court rejected the request to set aside some 20,000 ballots from people the federal government suspects may not be citizens. The Republican Trump administration has prioritized identifying noncitizen voters this year, despite them being rare.
The federal government says those ballots should not be counted until the voters’ status can be verified. California officials say the list is highly unreliable and likely includes many people who are U.S. citizens.
A district court judge forcefully denied the Justice Department’s request and warned that the demand could disenfranchise citizens in the Nov. 3 midterm elections to determine control of Congress.
The stakes in Tuesday’s midterm elections are so high that Shane Dunn voted for the first time in his life, at age 65.
After a career as a cook up and down the East Coast, Dunn moved to the Philadelphia suburbs and voted last week in Levittown. “I was always a busy man,” he said outside his polling place. But now, “I’m learning what’s going on within our country, and this is actually what brought me out.”
Voters across the United States are getting their word in, too, as they determine which party controls the Senate and the House and takes charge of governors’ offices, legislatures and state leadership posts in the final two years of Trump’s presidency.
In dozens of Associated Press interviews with people who cast ballots at advance polling places or drop boxes across the country, the angst was palpable, most sharply from those who oppose Trump but also from many who support him.
For Trump, this week’s elections are about him. For his fellow Republicans, the risk is voters will agree.
Midterms almost always serve as a referendum on the president’s party, and losses typically ensue. But Trump’s decisions to impose tariffs, start a war and oversee extravagant Washington renovations — largely without congressional consultation — have made it harder for Republicans to navigate those historical headwinds.
There is a direct connection between his actions and higher gas prices, costlier groceries and persistently high inflation.
Republicans cannot blame the fallout from those decisions on past administrations when Trump has owned them so fulsomely. They also cannot easily distance themselves from an unpopular president who demands loyalty and routinely tells voters the economy is just fine.
At virtually every juncture before Election Day on Tuesday, Trump has complicated the task of protecting Republican majorities in Congress.
The Iran war is “making it exponentially harder for Republicans to keep the House and Senate,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, one of the most vulnerable House Republicans, said in a debate while noting his support for the effort.
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