A federal judge dismisses the Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking to separate and preserve certain ballots in Alaska’s upcoming Senate election.
As Trump rallied supporters in Dubuque, Iowa, voters in Des Moines said economic concerns and the war in Iran are weighing on their decisions in the closely watched Senate race between Republican Ashley Hinson and Democrat Josh Turek.
Jennie Larson, a West Des Moines mother who previously voted for Trump, said she plans to vote Democratic across the board for the first time. “I actually voted for him once, and I’m sorry that I did that,” she said, citing concerns about the direction of the country and rising gas and food prices.
Some voters said they were willing to cross party lines this election. Anna Reindel, a registered Republican from Clive, said she plans to support Turek. She cited the rising cost of living, saying she has been “struggling.”
“I’m technically a registered Republican, but Turek I feel like is for the people more so than Hinson or the others,” Reindel said.
Jack Elles, a registered independent from Waukee also backing Turek, said he votes based on candidates’ platforms rather than party affiliation. He criticized the war in Iran and its impact on prices, saying, “Gas has went up, groceries, just everything has gone up across the board.”
Still, some remain undecided, with only two days before polls close.
Chaney Yeast, a registered Democrat who frequently splits her ticket, said he is still weighing Hinson and Turek and may not decide until Election Day. “Both have proven track records, in my opinion,” she said, pointing to concerns about affordability and inflation.
Jack Kennedy in East Village, Des Moines, said he is still researching candidates, too, citing friends’ difficulty finding jobs and a high cost of living.
“I know that rent is extremely high, and grocery prices are doubling in past — like four years. So I just don’t really know if anybody has a plan to deal with it,” Kennedy said.
Several groups sued the Trump administration today over its requests to set aside some ballots in Washington state.
The groups, which include advocacy organizations and labor unions, alleged the administration’s request to set aside the ballots violated laws, including the Voting Rights Act.
Last week, the administration requested that election officials in Washington state set aside more than 400 ballots from voters it said “are or were noncitizens,” part of a broader effort to pursue what it says is noncitizen voting in several states.
“The Trump administration handed Washington a list of voters it admits may be naturalized citizens, then threatened to prosecute any election official who counts their ballots,” said attorney Abha Khanna, who is representing the groups in court.
Trump has finished his remarks in Dubque, Iowa.
Trump said former Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democratic Senate nominee in Alaska, should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted, alleging that she was involved in a ploy to enlist a second Dan Sullivan to run for office, drawing votes from GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
The Justice Department had filed a lawsuit requesting that the state segregate ballots that ranked former schoolteacher Dan J. Sullivan, which a federal judge dismissed today over concerns it would erode the secrecy of votes.
Peltola has faced scrutiny after The New York Times reported that her campaign and other Democrats recruited the second Sullivan. She has denied the accusation.
Trump praised Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., who stunned Democrats this morning by endorsing GOP Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers over Abdul El-Sayed in the key race.
“The level of respect from the people of Michigan, especially the African American and Jewish population, I think they’re very happy with what she did. She was very brave in doing it,” Trump said.
“I don’t know Haley. I’ve never met Haley, but Haley said what few people are willing to say,” he added. “I’d love her to join the Republican Party. Actually, I think that could happen maybe.”
Trump has taken the stage for his rally in Dubuque, Iowa.
Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., is attending church this morning with Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers after Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign asked her not to attend his campaign events.
A spokesperson for Rogers’ campaign, Abby Ronson, told NBC News that “Mike welcomes her.”
Stevens appeared alongside Rogers after she clashed with El-Sayed over Israel and antisemitism allegations in the final stretch of the battleground Senate race.
In a video a local reporter posted to X, Stevens appeared to be promoting Rogers’ campaign.
“That is a policy that Mike’s going to take on,” Stevens says in the clip before Rogers and Stevens enter a room together.
Stevens said in a statement ahead of today’s appearance that she was “glad to see our senate nominee say he does not agree with the content of the vile Rebellion PAC ad which claimed Israel and Jews were to blame for the high costs of groceries.”
Stevens said last week that she was supporting El-Sayed’s candidacy.
“Of course I’m voting for our Democratic nominee for Senate,” Stevens said at the time. “I’m voting for the Democratic ticket.”
Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, R-Alaska, joined CNN’s “State of the Union,” where he discussed his opponent Mary Peltola’s alleged effort to place a decoy Dan Sullivan on the Alaska ballot.
Sullivan said that “there’s nothing more rigged and corrupt” and that “there’s no way that this went on for a year that they [Peltola’s staffers] weren’t informing her.”
Sullivan said that “their scheme is working” and that he is “going to lose a lot of votes to that trickery.” He expressed disgust for what happened, saying, “The thing that is so shocking about this is how much she, Peltola, and her staff, and the Schumer staff and the DSCC senior leaders treat Alaskans with disdain.”
Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he is “going to accept the election results” no matter who wins. However, he demurred on the question of whether a crime was committed, saying he will “let the lawyers figure that out.”
He urged Alaskans to vote and told viewers, “Don’t let this election be stolen.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that Democrats should launch hearings into the Trump administration if Democrats win back control of Congress.
Asked whether he thinks Democrats’ moving to impeach Trump again could backfire, Pritzker called for hearings without directly invoking impeachment.
“There need to be hearings, because there’s so much corruption,” he said.
Pritzker did not close the door to pushing for impeachment in the future.
“The hearings will uncover things, and then some decisions will have to get made about that,” Pritzker told moderator Kristen Welker. “But the American public doesn’t know the extent of the corruption.”
Trump is the only president to have been twice impeached by the House. The Senate acquitted him both times.
Asked whether Democrats will accept the results of the midterm elections if Republican win majorities in the House and the Senate, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., pointed to Democrats’ accepting the results of the 2024 presidential election after Trump cast doubt on Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
“The perfect example is 2020 and 2024. Donald Trump tried to mount and incite a violent insurrection against the peaceful transfer of power in order to deny a presidential election” in 2020, Raskin said. “In 2024, we accepted it.”
“We accept the rule of law, and they are the ones who are constantly violating it,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for America. We’re in the fight of our lives to defend democracy and freedom, and people all across America understand that.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the alleged plot in Alaska to recruit another Dan Sullivan to run for Senate was “stupid.”
Asked whether he believed the tactic crossed an ethical line, Raskin condemned the move.
“I’m sure I would never do it,” Raskin said. “It’s stupid politics. Nobody would do that. Mary Peltola has said she had nothing to do with it.”
Raskin said people with the same name run in elections “all over the place.” He also pointed out that the ballot distinguishes the two Dan Sullivans, saying: “It could not be clearer.”
“Donald Trump says people don’t know the word ‘incumbent,'” he said. “He should speak for himself, because the vast majority of Americans obviously do.”
Asked whether he viewed the effort as an attempt to manipulate the race, Raskin again condemned the tactic.
“It’s ridiculous politics, and I’ve never met anybody who would do that before,” he said. “But it does happen. If you look at it, it’s happened even in this election cycle in other places, and we should stop it.”
“The problem is you can’t stop anybody from running for office in America, and you can’t stop people from recruiting other people to run for office,” he continued. “But Mary Peltola has said she had nothing to do with that. She is a public official filled with integrity and purpose.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., dodged questions on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” about whether he would accept the results of Alaska’s Senate race if Democrat Mary Peltola wins and the election is certified.
Asked whether he would accept the results if Peltola is certified to have won the battleground race, Scott said Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, “is going to win.”
“You know that, and that’s the only thing I’m going to tell you, because it’s the truth,” he said, going on to criticize Democrats for allegedly working to recruit a candidate with the same name as the Republican incumbent. “But what I can tell you about the truth is you can’t trust Mary Peltola’s campaign and the collusion between her campaign and the DSCC.”
Asked a second time whether he would accept the election results, Scott did not directly answer.
“No. 1, Dan Sullivan, the real Dan Sullivan, will win,” said Scott, who is also as the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “And No. 2, it actually is a federal offense to confuse voters.”
NBC News has reported that people who worked to recruit the challenger Dan Sullivan did not necessarily violate the law.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that former Rep. Mary Peltola’s campaign and her Democratic allies, including at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, were alleged to have sought to recruit a candidate with the same name as Sullivan.
Elisa Rios, Peltola’s former campaign manager who was fired in August, confirmed the details to the Times but later retracted “all statements made regarding the 2026 Alaska Senate race.”
Before the Times report was public, the Justice Department sued in Alaska seeking to block the certification of the results of the Senate election if the incumbent senator loses, citing potential voter confusion about the two Dan Sullivans on the ballot.
Thursday in South Carolina, Trump addressed Democrats’ alleged recruitment of the second Dan Sullivan, telling rallygoers, “I think it’s a criminal act that they did.”
Earlier Thursday, Alaska’s GOP governor, Mike Dunleavy, said he was ordering a state investigation into Peltola’s campaign.
A sweeping Trump administration effort to root out noncitizen voting has so far generated more than 200 voting-related federal prosecutions among the 174 million registered voters in the U.S., according to an NBC News review.
The review shows more than 75% of the cases were filed against lawful permanent U.S. residents, noncitizens who are legally authorized to live in the country, according to Justice Department news releases and court documents. Confusion played a role in many of those cases, the review shows, with lawful permanent residents mistakenly believing they were allowed to vote.
Of the remaining noncitizens whose statuses could be determined, the review found about 30 were unauthorized immigrants who did not have legal status to be in the U.S.
Read the full story here.
NBC News