2026 Midterm Elections

A federal three-judge panel has once again blocked Alabama from using its 2023 congressional map, ordering the state to use a race-blind court-drawn plan for its 2026 elections — and pulling no punches about why.

In a 102-page ruling filed Tuesday, Judges Stanley Marcus, Anna Manasco, and Terry Moorer found that the Alabama Legislature "doubled down on racially discriminatory vote dilution" when it passed its 2023 redistricting plan — and did so deliberately.

A number of Democratic lawmakers believe they’ve uncovered a “secret” effort by Republicans to “meddle” in Democratic primary elections, one involving “next-level obfuscation” to conceal the identities of those behind the effort, Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday.

“We don’t know who’s speaking, we don’t know what their real motivations are, and the things that they do talk about may be completely different from why they’re involved,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), speaking with Punchbowl News. “It really degrades public discourse and just creates paranoia and uncertainty.”

With the midterm elections fast approaching in November, outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) issued a bleak prediction for his party’s chances at the ballot box, and laid most of the blame on the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers he argued were overly loyal to the president.

Appearing on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Massie was asked by Kristen Welker whether his defiance to President Donald Trump on pushing for the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related files, deficit-increasing tax cuts and the U.S. war against Iran was “worth it” given his recent election loss.

As part of an interview with Kentucky Democrat Charles Booker, who is running for the seat now held by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R), MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart was left, as he put it, “bereft of words,” after watching a flagrantly racist ad being run by GOP nominee Andy Barr.

Capehart told his guest, “Well, Mr. Booker, in order to win, you're going to have to beat Republican Congressman Andy Barr. He's got — he's getting a lot of backlash for a campaign ad where he tells Kentuckians, quote, ‘it's not a sin to be white.’”

When asked about the Trump administration’s new $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded settlement for those alleging unfair targeting by Biden's Justice Department – including violent Jan. 6 Capitol rioters – a GOP strategist told CNN Saturday that not only was it a “political miscalculation,” but that the fund could be politically toxic in the midterm elections.

Named by the Trump administration as the “anti-weaponization fund,” the settlement agreement was reached after President Donald Trump agreed to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over his tax returns leaking in 2019. Among those eligible for payouts from the taxpayer-funded settlement are those who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and Trump’s donors, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was forced to admit this week.

In a deep dive on Donald Trump’s “bad week” that prompted a massive Republican Party revolt against the president who is used to having his way, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the outburst against the president’s proposed “slush fund” was a direct result of their existing discontent with his GOP primary meddling.

According to the Journal, the verbal abuse that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was greeted with, in what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called “One of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate,” was an outgrowth of previous frustration with Trump.

Donald Trump was interrupted three times by protesters on Friday during a campaign-style rally in Rockland County, New York, held to boost one of the GOP's most vulnerable House incumbents heading into the 2026 midterms.

The first protester was swiftly removed by police as Trump introduced Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) — caught on video but without audio — before Trump had barely gotten started.