The Latest: Trump looks to boost Republicans in Arizona and Montana during campaign rallies
President Donald Trump’s midterm roadshow to rally the GOP visits swing-state Arizona and a Republican-leaning U.S. House district in Montana on Wednesday. In Bullhead City, Arizona, Trump aimed to rally support for Rep. Andy Biggs, who seeks the governorship. Trump is set to travel to Western Montana’s 1st District to try to boost Aaron Flint.
The trip comes as Republicans are retreating from a handful of battleground U.S. House races, while Democrats are racing to raise money to boost candidates who seemed like long shots earlier this year. The strategy in the final three weeks of midterm campaigns points to an increasingly defensive posture by Republicans and new aggression from Democrats.
House Democrats are preparing an ambitious 100-day agenda if the party seizes majority control in next month’s elections. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says they’ll be united in trying to make life more affordable and conducting vast oversight of the Trump administration.
The Latest:
The president is at Majestic Valley Arena in Kalispell, Montana, for his second campaign rally of the day and the third on his western swing.
Trump took the stage at about 7:30 p.m. local time. He campaigned in Arizona earlier Wednesday and held a rally in Alaska one day prior.
Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate, defended his stance to a voter at the town hall in Texas.
“I believe that parental rights are sacred,” Talarico said, “but if there is something that is going to endanger a child or a minor, certainly something that could cause permanent damage, then I’m always going to err on the side of protecting those kids.”
Talarico and the voter ended agreeing that the focus on the transgender community was outsized, and that, Talarico said, “powerful people are using small minorities in our community to distract from their corruption.”
The voter, sitting directly across from Talarico on the town hall stage, cited the statement in her broader question about theology. The phrase has been broadcast in television ads across Texas by Talarico’s Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, who uses it as an example of the Democrat being too far left for the Lone Star State.
“When I said that, I was being provocative” and “maybe in an annoying way,” he said with a chuckle.
“I think what I was saying is actually not controversial,” he continued. “The idea that we can’t define God using human categories.”
CNN was hosting the town hall with Jubilee, a media company that brings people of opposing views together to debate on YouTube. That’s what happened in the second part of the town hall. Talarico and a voter sat onstage, separated by just a small table and two microphones, as the host said, “and go!”
The voter, a Catholic, said that “what makes it difficult for us to vote Democrat” is that the party favors abortion-rights.
“I can respect anyone like you who is consistently pro-life,” said Talarico, arguing the Bible was silent on abortion. “What I think we can do is actually come together on actually reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies and the number of abortions.”
The voter quibbled with Talarico’s claim that the Bible wasn’t explicit on abortion, but it was otherwise a genial interaction.
One of the three Republicans in Alaska’s gubernatorial race said Trump is “further dividing” the GOP base by endorsing one of the candidates and urging the other two to drop out.
Dave Bronson said Trump “fractured the party vote” in endorsing Bernadette Wilson and asking him and Treg Taylor to suspend their campaigns.
The three are running against Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. Alaska last elected a Democrat governor in 1998.
Trump endorsed Wilson on Tuesday, when he also railed against the state’s ranked choice voting system for general elections. State GOP leaders, including outgoing Gov. Mike Dunleavy, have encouraged their voters to rank the Republicans on the ballot. Many Republicans — while skeptical of ranked voting — see ranking as a critical strategy in efforts to win the seat.
Bronson, in a lengthy social media post, said he’s staying in the race to make sure that voters “who don’t feel represented by the other candidates have a place to land.”
Immigration was a winning issue for Republicans two years ago. Now, with Trump successfully tamping down on border crossings, it’s not as top of mind for voters. But one at the CNN town hall asked what Talarico would do about border security once Trump is out of office.
Talarico struck a centrist line, saying “I’m a border security Democrat.” While he’s not in favor of abolishing ICE, he said, “we don’t want masked men in unmarked cars” in communities. And though “we should know who is coming into our country,” he continued, there should be a pathway for citizenship.
Democrat Cait Conley, who is running against one of Republican’s most vulnerable incumbents in the House, denounced New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s statement on Oct. 7.
During a debate Wednesday, Rep. Mike Lawler called on Conley to denounce what he cast as “the most vile antisemitic statement on Oct. 7 blaming Jews for their butchering on Oct. 7.”
“Yes, I do denounce Mamdani’s statement,” she said, calling the Oct. 7 attack “the greatest loss of life to our Jewish community since the Holocaust.”
Mamdani’s statement had drawn outrage from both supporters and critics of Israel.
During the debate, Lawler again cast himself as a bipartisan workhorse willing to stand up to Trump.
“The fact is I’ve delivered time and again for this district. When I agree with the president, I say it. When I disagree with him, I say it,” he said.
Conley often referenced her military service and repeatedly invoked the president and Elon Musk.
“You deserve a patriot, not a puppet,” she said.
At least two state election offices, in Louisiana and Oklahoma, have been evacuated this week after they received envelopes containing white powder.
The mailings come just three weeks before Election Day and are reminiscent of a similar threat in 2023, when several election offices received envelopes containing the powerful opioid fentanyl.
In the latest incidents, authorities said no harmful substances were immediately identified in either package. The Ohio Secretary of State’s office said the Postal Service had intercepted a package containing a white powder intended for its office and noted that similar mailings had been sent to election officials in multiple states.
The National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors issued a joint statement condemning what they said were threats against election staff.
“Those who administer our elections should never fear for their safety while carrying out their essential duties,” they said.
The associations said security measures are in place for future threats.
The new White House press secretary is facing mounting questions about her background and resume as she transitions into her role as the public face of the Trump administration.
Katie Zacharia has long described herself as a lawyer as she has worked to establish herself as a commentator for conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax. But so far, she and the White House have offered no evidence that she passed the bar exam in any state or in China, where she worked for a large law firm years ago.
The questions add to the confusion surrounding Trump’s decision to hire Zacharia, who had worked for his social media company for only a few months when he announced her appointment and whose debut at the podium on Tuesday has been widely panned.
The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas joined CNN and Jubilee, a media company that brings people from different worldviews together to debate, for a town hall.
Before it kicked off, Talarico responded to a swirl of conspiracies over his recent nine-day absence, calling them “crazy” and repeating he just had the flu.
The unfounded theories included that Talarico had been getting mental health treatment at an Ohio facility, a claim circulated on social media that fell apart at closer inspection.
The treatment center itself said Talarico had never been a patient, the timelines didn’t match up, and images reviewed by The Associated Press showed Talarico at home over several days last week.
Wednesday would have been the Turning Point USA founder’s 33rd birthday.
When Trump mentioned the killed activist’s name, the crowd began chanting “Charlie! Charlie!” Trump called Kirk, who was assassinated in September 2025, a “great man and a great friend of mine” who helped him win key elections.
“He’d be out there fighting like nobody else,” Trump said. “So let’s have a big victory in honor of Charlie Kirk.”
The former president’s first campaign stop of the 2026 election will take him to Hollywood, Florida, on Tuesday to stump for David Jolly, the state’s Democratic candidate for governor.
The two will appear at an interfaith event, according to Jolly’s campaign.
A Democrat hasn’t won the Florida governor’s race since Lawton Chiles in 1994. But the party is hopeful that Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Tampa, could ride this year’s anti-Trump sentiment and make the race more competitive.
The president, amid the rally crowd’s “Four more years!” chants, acknowledged that the Constitution constrains him from running for a third term.
“I’d love to,” Trump said as his supporters continued to yell. But, he added, “We have a clause that is sort of hard to break.”
He noted that the Republican Party has a “great bench” and that his supporters will be happy.
And he previewed much more to come in his final two years.
“Before I leave, we’ll be doing things nobody’s seen before,” he said.
Trump began talking about people who leak information about the government, including timing about strikes over Iran, and said, “In my opinion, leakers should be shot.”
He said, “In the old days, we used to shoot leakers, you know?”
He went on to call people who leak “the scum of the earth” and said they should be “dealt with very, very strongly.”
The president was talking about the Iran war and started polling the crowd, asking facetiously if any of them would like to be the new leader of Iran.
Joint U.S.-Israeli strikes early in the war took out Iran’s supreme leader and much of its top echelons of leadership.
“So I probably went a little too far. I’m sorry, because I don’t know who the hell we’re dealing with anymore, but, that’s going to end very soon,” Trump said.
Trump is repeating falsehoods about voting issues that affected some vote centers in the Phoenix area in 2022.
Republicans, led by candidate for governor Kari Lake, blamed the issue for their sweeping losses that year. Trump brought it up again Wednesday at a rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, saying falsely that “only the Republican machines were broken.”
In fact, about a third of the voting centers across Maricopa County reported printing issues that stopped some ballots from being counted onsite, including in Democrat-leaning areas. Those ballots were counted instead on more sophisticated scanners at the county’s central elections warehouse, though the confusion caused long lines in some areas.
An investigation by a former state Supreme Court justice later traced the problem to changes to the ballot paper, not malicious actions.
Democrat Mary Peltola says she’s “not liberal or radical,” and that efforts to paint her that way in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race are a “diversion” from issues like gas prices and the war in Iran.
Peltola is the main challenger to Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan in next month’s ranked vote general election.
Sullivan has said that if Peltola is elected, she would empower national Democrats that oppose expanded oil and gas development. He says that would set Alaska back.
Peltola told The Associated Press on Wednesday she wants to work for all Alaskans, regardless of party.
The comments came a day after President Donald Trump visited Alaska to support Sullivan. Peltola is a former congresswoman, and Sullivan has argued she was ineffective in that role.
Peltola called that characterization “revisionist history.”
She said she worked well with Sullivan as part of the state’s congressional delegation on issues such as getting approval for the major Willow oil project.
Air Force One flew over the crowd that was waiting in the sun in Bullhead City before landing nearby and rolling up close to the area where Trump was set to take the stage.
Trump’s favorite rally songs featuring hits from the Y.M.C.A. and Donna Summer played as a set of stairs were wheeled to the side of the plane’s open door.
Trump emerged from the plane only after he was announced to the crowd. He descended the stairs wearing a red hat as “God Bless the U.S.A.” blared and the crowd clapped.
Buttigieg, a former transportation secretary and potential 2028 presidential candidate, appealed to independents and Republicans in southwest Michigan alongside Democratic Congressional candidate Sean McCann.
“You don’t have to be a bleeding-heart liberal or a card-carrying Democrat to believe certain things like the basic idea that one job ought to be enough,” Buttigieg said.
McCann, a state senator, is attempting to unseat eight-term incumbent Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga. McCann told reporters the seat is more competitive after a 2022 redistricting and thinks people’s frustration about the Iran war and cost of living will boost his campaign.
“This is people who are looking for a new direction, some change to bring some real relief to their lives because it hasn’t come so far,” McCann said.
Five county sheriffs are calling on their peers to sign a petition saying they promise to uphold fair elections and not interfere in the midterms.
The petition is a response to the “constitutional sheriffs” movement that has adherents throughout the country who believe county sheriffs hold the highest legal authority in the U.S., surpassing even the president.
Earlier this year in California, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized over 650,000 ballots from a statewide election held in November 2025. The state’s supreme court has since ruled Bianco’s actions were illegal.
Sheriff Paul Heroux from Bristol County, Massachusetts, says sheriff’s deputies should stay away from voting sites and investigate potential fraud only when asked by the local election authority.
“It’s very clear where the power rests during elections,” Heroux said. “I’m happy to call out the ridiculousness of the constitutional sheriffs movement.”
He was circulating the petition along with sheriffs from Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virginia and Ohio.
Democrats say they are sending more than 100 trained staffers to nine states to act as observers in the election next month, part of a new program they announced earlier this year.
The program is based on similar efforts by House Republicans and follows the passage of a 2024 law that allows congressional leadership in both parties to send election observers around the country. The workers will observe polling locations and document any attempted voter interference, threats or attempts to meddle in elections, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday.
Schumer and California Sen. Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, said they have stepped up as President Donald Trump has continued to insist that the 2020 presidential election he lost was stolen and tried to change voting procedures to favor Republicans.’
“Our elections are free and secure, but we cannot take that for granted,” Schumer said.
The DOJ’s letter to Secretary of State Shirley Weber says the department has provided officials in Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive with a list of names the federal government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots to participate in the Nov. 3 election. California mails ballots to all registered voters.
The letter gives the state 48 hours to determine whether any citizens are included on the list.
It’s part of the Trump administration’s hunt for noncitizen voters this year, even though the problem is exceptionally rare. Over the summer, the administration claimed that Nevada had 1,500 noncitizens on its voter rolls. But after the federal government identified them to the state, the number of actual registered noncitizens turned out to be zero.
A federal judge on Wednesday said her temporary order blocking Trump’s controversial taxpayer-funded television ads from airing will now extend through Nov. 8, several days past the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon in New York said that would give the plaintiffs time to seek discovery from the government and request a longer-term preliminary injunction, which she’ll consider on Nov. 4.
The plaintiffs, including the government watchdog Common Cause, want to know why some of the pro-Trump political ads paid for by a $20 million Department of Homeland Security contract kept running on Monday, despite Rochon’s order Sunday siding with the plaintiffs, who challenged the ads as an illegal misuse of funds.
Government attorney Jeffrey Oestericher said Wednesday that he had theater tickets Sunday and didn’t take all the steps he could have to ensure compliance.
Much of the House Democrats’ agenda, if they regain power, would depend on the size of the majority. Details also depend on the Senate, and whether it flips to Democrats.
“We cannot simply go back to the status quo,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, an outside group that supports the far-left progressives.
But Trump has veto power at the stroke of his pen.
“We’re going to do a lot and we’re going to be very busy,” said Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter, who hopes to become chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “We will not be able to fix everything overnight.”
Jeffries launched five working groups to tackle the affordability agenda, focused on healthcare, housing, groceries and goods, gas and utilities, and care-giving.
Each group is co-led by a progressive and a centrist — healthcare, for example, is run by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Terri Sewell of Alabama — with the goal of striking common ground on draft policies all House Democrats can support.
At the same time, Jeffries has tasked ranking Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees with preparing investigations focused on Trump, his family and his administration as part of a sweeping anti-corruption agenda. Impeachment, Jeffries has said, is neither on nor off the table.
“We need to lower the cost of groceries and gas. Two, we need to make healthcare affordable for every single American. Three, we’re going to hold the crooks accountable who’ve visited unprecedented corruption on the American people,” Jeffries said.
Republicans are portraying Democrats as beholden to a far-left socialist agenda as they try to hold onto their congressional majorities.
Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said he’s often asked if Democrats will be confronting their own version of the Freedom Caucus, referring to the far-right Republicans who often grind the House agenda to a halt.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Casar told The Associated Press in an interview. “The Freedom Caucus breaks things. But if you’re a progressive, you want to pass things.”
House Democrats are preparing an ambitious 100-days agenda focused on delivering their campaign promises — making life more affordable and conducting vast oversight of the Trump administration — if the party seizes majority control in next month’s elections.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, in line to become House speaker if the party wins power, said Democrats will be united “right out of the gate” on reinstating Affordable Care Act tax breaks, reversing Republican Medicaid cuts, holding votes against the Iran war and undoing President Donald Trump’s tariff regime.
“That’s our commitment to the American people, because the cost of living is way too high and far too many people who are working hard, playing by the rules, can’t thrive and can barely survive — and are drowning — in the Trump economy,” Jeffries said recently at the party campaign headquarters in Washington.
Water polluted by industrial agriculture runoff and high cancer rates have been the focus of debate questions, roundtable events and campaign advertisements for both Republicans and Democrats, up and down the ballot in Iowa.
The issue has historically been politically taboo in Iowa, where chemical fertilizers and animal waste from huge corn, soybean and hog operations get washed into drinking water sources. The political calculus has shifted amid restrictions on water use in the Des Moines area and a burgeoning “Make America Healthy Again” movement in rural communities.
“The real issue is the water and the nitrates,” Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek told cancer patients.
The Republican congresswoman running against Turek, Ashley Hinson, said Iowans can feel safe because tap water meets federal regulations.
“I don’t think water quality is a partisan issue,” Hinson said as she gathered farmers, researchers and local officials to discuss the water problems.
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