UPDATE: There have been some enjoyable posts I got here throughout about GOP and Dem infighting and threatened Home MAGA personalities, so I threw them in on the finish.
The weekend earlier than the US midterm elections featured an enormous AIPAC-inspired Democratic betrayal in Michigan, plus Trump discuss defending Elon Musk and his employees from vengeful Dems and a few protection of potential election interference from the administration.
I wasn’t going to put in writing in regards to the elections at present, since I’ll be again tomorrow for an election-night dwell thread, however Yves lined the AI junk bond state of affairs, and a few election-related developments caught my consideration.
First up, betrayal most foul within the Michigan US Senate race.
Stevens Switches Endorsement to Rogers
I’ve lined the Michigan Senate race a number of occasions this cycle largely as a result of it featured a hotly contested main that noticed Abdul El-Sayed overcome two pro-Zionist candidates and a large spending differential.
Properly, Israel has continued to be the central dynamic of the race with Democratic US Rep. Haley Stevens, the second-place main finisher, selecting to change her endorsement to Republican Mike Rogers over El-Sayed’s refusal to sentence an advert by Rebel PAC, promoted by Cenk Uygur of The Younger Turks.
The response from the Zionist institution of the Democratic Social gathering was intense and noteworthy on condition that they’d backed Stevens up till she dropped the masks of celebration unity and endorsed Rogers.
Right here’s Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer:
This can be a despicable betrayal from Rep. Stevens.
Senate Democrats are united in our help for Abdul El-Sayed, as a result of we all know he’ll combat for the financial pursuits of working households in Michigan, not like Mike Rogers, who’s a software of Donald Trump and billionaire donors.
— Chuck Schumer (@chuckschumer) November 1, 2026
And former US Speaker of the Home Nancy Pelosi:
Haley Stevens has chosen to dangerously betray Michigan households’ healthcare, freedoms and future along with her horrific endorsement of Mike Rogers.
@AbdulElSayed should win — as a result of Michigan and our nation deserve higher. -NP
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) November 1, 2026
The media protection of the occasion has been fairly fascinating as effectively, with the New York Occasions describing “the dispute” as “deeply private” “between two mercurial millennial politicians of sizable egos fast to take offense.”
The Occasions did handle to incorporate this paragraph:
…the breach additionally represents a significant fissure coursing by means of the Democratic Social gathering about what its relationship with Israel and Jewish donors ought to be. Dr. El-Sayed, if he wins on Tuesday and enters the Senate in January, could be essentially the most anti-Israel U.S. senator for the reason that formation of the Jewish state 78 years in the past.
After which acquired into a few of the monetary, political, and private drama surrounding the break:
On the root of the disagreement between Ms. Stevens and Dr. El-Sayed was U.S. coverage on Israel. Dr. El-Sayed has emerged as one of many Democratic Social gathering’s main critics of Israel. Ms. Stevens, who shouldn’t be Jewish, as soon as mentioned “I see Israel in my goals” at a Hanukkah service. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supported her within the main, spent at the very least $30 million attacking Dr. El-Sayed in the course of the main and started spending extra beginning in October.
Ms. Stevens’s fiancé is Jewish and is an AIPAC donor. She mentioned in an interview on Friday that she is contemplating changing to Judaism.
Michigan reporter Zach Gorchow acquired appreciable consideration with his report citing former Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard, who gave the story a “blame the boyfriend” twist:
The previous governor, a longtime good friend and supporter of the congresswoman, mentioned Stevens was completely happy and searching ahead to going to a church in Detroit on Sunday to marketing campaign alongside her onetime Democratic main rival for U.S. Senate, Abdul El-Sayed.
Then issues acquired tense. Blanchard, in an interview Sunday with Gongwer Information Service following the beautiful information of Stevens revoking her endorsement of El-Sayed and as a substitute endorsing Republican Mike Rogers, mentioned Turkish, a longtime Democrat who’s Jewish and endorsed Rogers final week over El-Sayed’s views on Israel, started chiding his fiancée, Stevens.
“He was working her over. The best way he was saying it was, ‘Everyone seems to be upset in you, they did every thing they might that will help you after which instantly after you lose the first, you endorsed him,’” mentioned Blanchard, who was governor from 1983-91 and stays an lively voice within the Democratic Social gathering.
Blanchard mentioned he pushed again at Turkish on Stevens’ behalf.
“I mentioned, ‘Yeah, as a result of she’s a workforce participant. You must be gracious. Come on,’” he mentioned.
Turkish was unmoved, Blanchard mentioned.
“He mentioned, ‘I do know, however they’re actually upset in her,’” the previous governor recalled.
Blanchard mentioned he then identified to Turkish that U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, who’s Jewish, is supporting El-Sayed and that Stevens shouldn’t be Jewish. He questioned how he might maintain Stevens to the next normal than Slotkin.
“He was all distraught,” he mentioned. “He was all strung out about Abdul. I let her know, he’s not an excellent affect.”
Stevens’ response? “She mentioned, ‘I’m high-quality,’” Blanchard mentioned.
The Lever’s David Sirota gave the progressive perspective, beginning by citing a Substack submit he made in August, two days earlier than the first:
I’m going to put in writing one thing right here that everyone knows is true however few are keen to only say out loud: There’s a non-zero probability that the nationwide Democratic Social gathering, its donors & its media will resolve to desert/sabotage populist anti-establishment Democratic nominees within the upcoming common election.
Many on this company faction would somewhat such nominees lose – even when meaning Democrats dropping the Senate & governorships – than see these candidates win.
Why? As a result of if these candidates win, they threaten to alter the Democratic Social gathering and make the company faction irrelevant.
Then persevering with:
Stevens’ endorsement comes days after Trump campaigned in Michigan for Rogers, and Trump is now lauding her. Her gambit is the fruits of a postprimary guerrilla marketing campaign on social media by company Democrats like Neera Tanden. They’ve aimed to undermine El-Sayed with guilt-by-association techniques scandalizing a few of his supporters. They’re doing this as a result of El-Sayed is operating on an agenda that they detest: anti-corruption, anti-oligarch, anti-war, anti-genocide, pro-Medicare-For-All, and demanding of U.S. help for Israel’s far-right regime.
Company Democrats’ marketing campaign to undermine El-Sayed had already been profitable at one stage: As Zohreen Shah reported for The Lever this weekend, even earlier than Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers, lots of Stevens’ donors have already flipped to help him.
As I instructed a couple of months in the past, this faction fears El-Sayed not simply because his win might assist move the insurance policies they and their donors abhor, but additionally as a result of he’ll destroy their relevance. Particularly, his victory would incinerate their arguments about electability that get them platformed in company media as alleged political “specialists.”
Certainly, if he’s victorious, he’ll show that the anti-oligarch politics company Democrats detest can win in one among America’s most politically vital swing states. And he isn’t alone: Company Democrats are equally shaken by populists rejecting their neoliberal system and as a substitute utilizing anti-oligarchy to compete to attempt to win again purple states like Texas, Nebraska, and Florida that company Democrats way back misplaced to Republicans.
Natasha Lennard at The Intercept provides a historical past lesson:
We would recall former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who left the Democratic Social gathering whereas nonetheless in workplace and notoriously delivered a dramatic thumbs down and curtsy when voting towards a raised minimum-wage provision in the course of the top of the Covid pandemic. Sinema and fellow then-Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia additionally joined with Republicans to successfully tank main voting rights laws in 2022.
And, after all, there may be the total Senate profession of conservative pro-Israel fanatic, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who nonetheless stays a nominal Democrat. Fetterman provides a constant grasp class in harmful extremism and ought to be seen as a profound political legal responsibility by his personal celebration.
It’s, in any case, so-called moderates like Stevens who’re the radicals. As author Eoin Higgins famous, an array of Democrats have revealed themselves extra keen to see Republicans win than enable the celebration’s left-wing flank — or, extra to the purpose, criticism of Israel’s genocide — to realize additional floor.
And whereas there may be little political settlement between the suitable and left wings of the Democratic Social gathering on a complete array of points, defeating Republicans, significantly Donald Trump’s Republican Social gathering, was at the very least the said aim of even essentially the most conservative of Democrats.
To so brazenly fail on even these fundamental electoral phrases ought to be the very definition of a political legal responsibility for a celebration.
Alright, sufficient about that, let’s hear from the POTUS.
Trump in Bargaining Mode
The New York Submit’s Pod Drive One podcast has the within scoop on Trump’s excited about defending Elon Musk:
“They’re simply very evil individuals they usually wish to arrest Elon Musk. They wish to seize his factories, nationalize SpaceX. It’s speak. However whether it is speak, we’ll have to guard them.”
…
“If Elon, if anyone mentioned that, I’d agree. If we misplaced the Home, the Senate, and the presidency, our nation is completed as a result of these are lunatics.”
On pardoning staffers:
Miranda Devine: “Are you able to preemptively pardon them?”
Donald Trump: “That’s what Biden did. He gave all people a pardon… It was a corrupt committee. They had been all corrupt. He gave all people a pardon.”
Devine: “Will you do this?”
Trump: “I’d if I wanted to. Positive.”
Devine: “All people who labored for you?”
Trump: “I’d not even take into consideration [it]. I’d do it. I did it for J6.”
On a possible third time period:
“Properly, I’ll go. Yeah… Look, I’d like to run once more if I had the possibility, however the language could be very exacting. I’d like to run. That they had a ballot the opposite day the place I’d beat all people by a lot. I’d like to run, however however it’s high-quality. You realize, we’ve greater than two years left. That’s a very long time. You are able to do loads in that time frame.”
The entire thing is value a watch if you happen to can deal with seeing the person along with his finger on the nuclear button free-associate for a half-hour.
Let’s wrap with some do-gooder hand-wringing about election interference.
The Republicans Gained’t Do That, Will They?
ProPublica is doing their due diligence on election interference. Right here’s an fascinating profile on Trump’s election denial advisor Cleta Mitchell, who started her political profession within the Seventies as a pro-ERA Democratic state consultant in Oklahoma who was as soon as featured in TIME as a possible presidential aspirant who turned to the suitable after her oilman second husband went bust within the Eighties:
Mitchell, who holds no formal place within the Trump administration, had been pivotal to Trump’s bid to problem his loss in 2020, spearheading efforts to show his claims of fraud and reverse his defeat in courtroom.
After Joe Biden took workplace, when others deserted the combat or scoffed as Trump clung to conspiracy theories, Mitchell doubled down, founding a grassroots group dedicated to rewriting election legal guidelines and guidelines to be extra restrictive. Members of her group, the Election Integrity Community, had been named to important election-related positions in swing states and, later, within the second Trump administration.
…
Associates and enemies alike credit score her with offering a lot of the administration’s election street map. The White Home has turned to these near her to enact the plan, appointing her associates to assist lead the hunt for noncitizens on voter rolls and to reinvestigate 2020 voting irregularities.
…
Her signature laws — the SAVE Act and its successor, the SAVE America Act — have been blocked by average Republicans within the Senate. Election adjustments she’d hoped the president might push by means of earlier than the midterms, similar to compelling states to show over confidential voter data to the Justice Division, have been blocked by the courts. And Trump’s mid-July tackle on elections drew shrugs even from some conservative media.Critics, together with some contained in the election-integrity motion, instructed ProPublica they’re fearful that Mitchell’s rising frustration is prompting her to press Trump and his allies towards ever extra excessive actions. Her lifelong sample, ProPublica’s reporting reveals, has been to escalate conflicts into winner-take-all battles — a sample enjoying out now as she tries to form the midterms.
Most significantly, they monitor the cash backing Mitchell and what she’s doing with it:
“My sole focus has been for the final 12 months and a half, how we as conservatives might construct an infrastructure to do hand-to-hand fight with the Left, beginning on the native stage,” she mentioned on a September 2022 EIN organizing name.
The community served because the centerpiece, offering the boots on the bottom, however Mitchell additionally created an ecosystem to help it, spreading cash to allied researchers, regulation corporations and coverage retailers.
A ProPublica evaluation of knowledge from the Marketing campaign Authorized Heart, a authorities watchdog nonprofit, reveals that between 2021 and 2025, Mitchell helped put greater than $70 million into this work. In keeping with tax filings, at the very least $11 million of that whole got here from nonprofits she oversaw. Tens of thousands and thousands extra got here from the Bradley Basis, the place she served on the board, and the Conservative Partnership Institute, a Trump-aligned suppose tank the place she was a senior authorized fellow.
Roughly 30 conservative election-integrity nonprofits had been began after 2020. Properly over half have obtained cash from Mitchell or have shut ties along with her, the information reveals.
And what has she carried out along with her massive concepts and lavish funding? Right here’s my try and summarize ProPublica’s accounting of her election integrity initiatives:
What Cleta Mitchell and her Election Integrity Community have pushed for
- The SAVE Act (2024): documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, plus Division of Homeland Safety database checks to purge noncitizens.
- The SAVE America Act (2026): photograph ID nationwide and states compelled at hand their voter rolls to DHS for noncitizen screening.
- Ending the Senate filibuster to move it, with Community members despatched to strain holdout senators.
- A nationwide emergency declaration letting Donald Trump impose the invoice’s necessities himself underneath a critical-infrastructure regulation.
- States turning confidential voter knowledge over to the Justice Division, and DHS looking the rolls for noncitizens.
- Quick motion by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on alleged voting-machine vulnerabilities.
- Provisions in Trump’s March twenty fifth, 2025, election government order.
- Reopening 2020 in Fulton County, Georgia, together with the FBI data seizure and Dan Bishop as prosecutor.
- SAVE-style mannequin payments permitted by means of the American Legislative Alternate Council in July 2024.
- A Georgia State Election Board rule letting native officers delay certifying outcomes.
- Conservatives signing up as ballot staff and election-board members throughout seven swing states, beginning in Michigan in 2022.
- Funding: greater than $70 million into election-related work from 2021 to 2025, together with at the very least $11 million from nonprofits she oversaw, and greater than $6 million for SAVE Act advocacy.
What they’ve gained
- Republican states pulled out of a multistate voter-roll cross-check program in 2023.
- Quite a few states banned personal election grants like Mark Zuckerberg’s 2020 cash.
- 12 states handed legal guidelines carefully resembling the SAVE Act, and 23 modified procedures to mirror elements of it.
- The SAVE Act handed the Home in July 2024.
- Trump’s March 2025 government order.
- Not less than 25 administration appointees with shut ties to Mitchell, together with former Community chief Heather Honey at DHS.
- Community chapters grew from 7 in 2022 to at the very least 26.
The place they’ve failed
- Average Republican senators have blocked the SAVE America Act and the filibuster change.
- Courts blocked giant elements of Trump’s government orders, the calls for for confidential voter knowledge, Georgia’s certification rule and Dan Bishop’s Fulton County subpoena.
- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the stricter voter ID invoice Mitchell pushed.
Now let’s flip our consideration to some seemingly much less diligent Trump officers.
Hacking the Elections From the Inside?
ProPublica has additionally lined much less competent, however much more ill-intentioned Trump administration election interference efforts:
Just a few months into President Donald Trump’s second time period, political appointees on the Division of Homeland Safety made an uncommon request of its company centered on cybersecurity: Secretly purchase a voting machine and hack it.
The appointees wished the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company to obtain the machine, study it and report again the findings in order that they may very well be given to the White Home, in line with two former administration officers with data of the request.
…
The identical piece profiles Nick Andersen, performing director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company, from the angle of presidency workers who’re clearly not impressed along with his work:
…a former cybersecurity adviser to Trump’s White Home who had joined CISA a 12 months earlier. Andersen can also be a district consultant for the Republican Social gathering in Virginia, in line with the celebration’s web site. In March, he gave a speech to the Fairfax GOP chapter titled “Combating Democrat Redistricting.”
Talking over video in August, the boyish-faced former Marine Corps engineer introduced that DHS was making ready to launch a plan on how it might work along with state officers to safe the election, in line with 5 individuals who had been current on the video assembly, a few of whom shared notes with ProPublica.
Many on the decision had been surprised at what they perceived as a lack of knowledge of election planning. Early voting for the overall election was simply across the nook. That they had spent over a 12 months making ready for the midterms, and there was no extra time for formidable work.
Some peppered Andersen with questions: The place had CISA been when there was nonetheless time to make enhancements?
Andersen blamed any lapses or perceived breaches in belief on the federal authorities shutdown in fall 2025, twirling his pen uncomfortably and sipping from a Monster vitality drink.
The Bulwark, house of “by no means Trump” neoconservatives, lined the ACLU’s two-and-a-half-day session in a Philadelphia lodge in April with about 250 individuals and 25 eventualities. These eventualities included Trump disputing outcomes, DOJ interference, ICE or Nationwide Guard at polls, and Republican congressional leaders refusing to seat Democratic winners. The Supreme Court docket’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling gutting Part 2 of the Voting Rights Act got here down in the course of the session. The article consists of this helpful graphic:
I’ll wrap up with my try and spherical up precise efforts to impression the elections from the GOP nationally and by GOP state officers right here in my house state.
However What Are They Truly Doing?
Fairly a bit, truly. Test it out. First, the federal stuff:
And the Texas Republicans have been busy too:
- Voters sued Tarrant County after its Republican commissioners voted 3-2 to chop 92 Election Day polling websites, leaving 224. The swimsuit says the cuts fall hardest on Black and Hispanic communities, and that 46 of the closed websites had greater than 500 Election Day voters in 2022.
- Decide Pat Gallagher refused to revive the websites earlier than November third. County Decide Tim O’Hare and the opposite supporters cited a projected $1 million in financial savings.
- The cuts closed the polling web site on the College of Texas at Arlington and dropped early-voting websites from 50 to 47.
- Throughout early voting, Lawyer Common Ken Paxton’s workplace sued the Harris County clerk over get-out-the-vote advertisements it mentioned had been geared toward customers with “African, Asian and Latino-related pursuits.” The clerk agreed to drag the advertisements by means of Election Day. Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee, isn’t participating within the case.
With luck, we’ll learn the way these efforts pan out for Trump’s GOP sooner somewhat than later.
UPDATE: Three grimly amusing tales I couldn’t resist including late.
“Instantly, MAGA’s Greatest Gamers within the Home Are in Hazard of Defeat” The New Republic
Consultant Scott Perry in Pennsylvania’s tenth district is going through a really robust problem from native anchor Janelle Stelson. Perry is ultra-MAGA, having performed an enormous position in Trump’s revolt. Perry helped marshal pretend voter-fraud allegations to create a pretext for overturning the election, tried to put in a pliant lawyer common who’d help within the plot, and pushed fellow Republicans to not certify the end result.
Perry is in severe hazard of defeat regardless of representing a district that Trump carried by 5 factors. His seat is ranked “lean Democratic” by the Cook dinner Political Report, and public polls present him trailing by a small margin. Beating him would take down one of the crucial outstanding Trump insurrectionists in Congress.
Then there’s Consultant Anna Paulina Luna. A serious Trump-aligned tremendous PAC simply quietly shifted some $750,000 in TV advert spending into Florida’s thirteenth district. Tellingly, the cash was moved away from the district of a Florida Democrat—Consultant Kathy Castor—and into Luna’s, a shock defensive transfer illustrating the GOP’s worsening map. That comes even because the PAC has poured round $2 million extra into the race.
“‘Plenty of Republicans have held their tongues’: Anger at Trump is rising” Politico
“I believe Jon Husted’s ass and Nicki Minaj’s is a superb closing message,” T.W. Arrighi, a Republican strategist engaged on the South Carolina Senate race and others, mentioned sarcastically in an interview on The Dialog with Dasha Burns. “You’ve acquired to take the nice with the unhealthy with Trump, until you wish to drive your self loopy daily.”
“Individuals are gonna go after the president. The buck stops with him. His approval rankings aren’t nice,” he added.
Privately, some Republicans are even harsher. “Not less than when Barack Obama was president, he solely screwed his enemies, by no means his buddies,” mentioned a second Home Republican.
The White Home defended its involvement within the warfare with Iran, tariff regime and strategy to immigration enforcement. Davis Ingle, a White Home spokesperson, mentioned in a press release that Trump “is the unequivocal chief, finest messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Social gathering, and he’s dedicated to sustaining Republican majorities in Congress.”
“The Blue Canines Had been As soon as Majority Makers—This Cycle They Haven’t Barked” Drop Web site Information
This cycle, as a substitute of taking up Republican incumbents and dealing to maximise a possible Democratic majority, the Blue Canines have been spending their scarce sources towards different Democrats. A overview of monetary disclosures, coupled with interviews of marketing campaign operatives, reveal that the coalition’s largest expenditure for the reason that primaries has boosted Mike Thompson, treasurer of the Blue Canine PAC, towards one other Democrat.
This choice is all of the extra complicated contemplating that the Blue Canines backed a candidate in Florida in the course of the main who’s going through an uphill battle towards Republican Ryan Elijah. Blue Canine Motion spent $700,000 in the course of the main to get Bale Dalton excessive in Florida’s seventh district, beating out two Democrats to his left. Cook dinner Political Report shifted the race from Probably R to Lean R within the days earlier than the election.
As a substitute of placing more cash behind Dalton, the tremendous PAC has dumped $1.73 million right into a common election in California that pits Thompson towards one other Democrat, Eric Jones, a enterprise capitalist who has spent $15 million self-funding his anti-corporate, populist marketing campaign centered on getting company cash out of politics. In different phrases, somewhat than spend cash serving to Democrats retake the bulk, Blue Canine Motion is spending to take care of their dwindling place.
Associated Posts
