Trump making final midterm sprint in red states where Republicans are in danger of losing seats

President Donald Trump on Sunday said Michigan needs to “watch it” as he seemed to suggest, without evidence, that vote counters there could attempt to alter the results of the state’s midterm elections.

“We got to be careful with the cheating vote counters, though. That’s one thing I got to tell you. Please, will you please watch it, fellas? Especially with Benson, you got to watch it,” said Trump, referring to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is running for governor.

Benson, a Democrat, fought Trump’s election denial in 2020, when he lost the state to Joe Biden.

Trump also falsely claimed he won Michigan three times.

President Trump traveled to Michigan to rally for local Republican candidates ahead of next week's midterm elections.

President Donald Trump brought his attacks on Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s Muslim faith to his home state of Michigan, opening a midterm rally in Port Huron by falsely calling him a “jihadist” and referring to him as “Mohammed.”

“I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator, and that’s the fact. Not going to let that happen,” Trump said in Port Huron.

The Muslim Brotherhood has become a flashpoint in Michigan’s Senate race, with Republicans trying to cast El-Sayed as sympathetic to interests connected to Islamic terror and El-Sayed arguing that he is being unfairly accused of the same “dual loyalties” that former Presidents John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama once were.

El-Sayed last weekend denounced the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political movement founded in Egypt in 1928 — first in a heated exchange with a voter, and later when speaking with reporters — after Republicans have sought to highlight his family’s ties to the group and his past comments about it.

Trump continued to push that rhetoric on Sunday, claiming El-Sayed wants the US “to go to Sharia law” and that anyone with his record “would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane.”

El-Sayed has often argued that the focus on his religion is an attempt to distract from rising public anger at GOP leadership of the country.

Election workers sort ballots during early voting in San Francisco, on Wednesday, October 21.

A hearing is now underway in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals related to the voter roll fight between California and the Trump administration, as the administration continues to double down on claims of voter fraud.

Today’s oral arguments come after the Justice Department sued California and Los Angeles County earlier this month, seeking to prevent officials from counting more than 20,000 mail-in ballots associated with people the government believes are likely noncitizens.

Why it matters: This marks the first time an appeals court hears arguments on a Trump administration intervention into the 2026 midterms, and it comes just nine days before Election Day.

Election officials have said in court that giving the Justice Department what it wants in the case would be “catastrophic” for administering the election. Even if there were further appeals, potentially to the Supreme Court, there would be several days of uncertainty and chaos in California, and a green light for the Trump administration to make similar moves in other states while the parties await a final resolution.

How we got here: In the latest escalation of the dispute, the Justice Department on Friday ordered election officials in the state to identify suspected noncitizens on voter rolls and set aside their mail-in ballots, warning that officials who knowingly count ballots cast by noncitizens could face criminal liability.

A federal judge scheduled a hearing on the case for this coming week, but the Justice Department on Friday asked the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene before then.

How the hearing will work: Today’s oral arguments are being presented before the following panel: Judge Mark Bennett and Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, both of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump, and Judge Gabriel Sanchez, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden.

Each side will have 30 minutes to present their argument in court.

CNN’s Karina Tsui, Maria Aguilar Prieto and Isa Mudannayake contributed to this reporting.

The largest newspaper in Ohio changed its policy and is endorsing Amy Acton for governor while condemning her opponent Vivek Ramaswamy’s “weaponizing of Acton’s childhood sexual abuse for political points.”

“We cannot remain silent,” the editorial board of The Plain Dealer, based in Cleveland, said in an editorial on Sunday, asserting that institutions have a duty to speak out against indecency right now.

“A candidate who uses childhood sexual abuse as a weapon against the person who endured it has crossed a line that Ohioans should defend, whatever their party,” the editorial stated. Ramaswamy’s campaign began airing an ad last week featuring Acton’s estranged mother calling her daughter a liar, drawing bipartisan backlash.

Newspaper editorials normally don’t have a big impact on statewide races. But this endorsement is notable because The Plain Dealer announced a policy of not endorsing candidates for governor a few months ago. Spurred by reader feedback, the editors said they would prioritize down-ballot races instead.

But now, “a wave of readers is asking us to recognize another obligation,” the editors said Sunday. “They want their chief news source to take a stand on what this community and its institutions will accept from those who seek to lead us.”

“They are right,” the editors went on. “We made our endorsement policy to serve our readers. We cannot let it become a reason to remain silent when we believe Ohio faces a choice this consequential.”

The editors emphasized that they’re not just speaking out against Ramaswamy, they also believe Acton has proved herself “ready to lead” the state, citing her work as Ohio’s health director and her past service with nonprofit organizations.

Democratic US Senate candidate, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, speaks as she campaigns with Sen. Bernie Sanders during a Fighting Oligarchy Tour campaign stop at The Cuban Club Courtyard on October 17 in Tampa, Florida.

Democrat Angie Nixon, who is running for Senate in Florida, is looking to win over Latino voters as polls show Republicans are losing the bloc that swung heavily for President Donald Trump in 2024.

Nixon announced today that she will host an event geared toward Puerto Rican voters on Tuesday. She will joined by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maxwell Frost and Nydia Velázquez, who are all of Puerto Rican descent.

The event is set in Central Florida, suggesting Democrats see potential in a part of the state where Puerto Ricans swung in huge numbers toward Trump in the last presidential election.

While economic frustrations allowed Trump to make significant gains with Latino voters, a traditionally Democratic bloc, in 2024, polling indicates the issue is now pushing many of those voters away from Republicans, who control the federal government.

An NBC News/Telemundo poll released this month found that Latino voters say by a 24-point margin, 59% to 35%, that they’d prefer to see the Democrats win control of Congress over the Republicans in November.

Nixon, however, still faces a steep uphill battle in her race against incumbent GOP Sen. Ashley Moody. The Cook Political Report has described the race as “solid” Republican.

Read more about the GOP’s struggle with Latino voters here.

US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on October 25. President Trump is traveling to Michigan to speak at a midterm election rally.

We continue to follow the latest developments on the trail as candidates enter the final full week of midterms campaigning.

Coming up:

Catch up on on more midterm headlines:

CNN’s Logan Schiciano, Kathryn Squyres, Katherine Koretski, Arlette Saenz, Christian Sierra, Catherine Nicholls and Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.

Michigan Republican Senate candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers, waits to speak at a campaign event on October 24 in Gibraltar, Michigan.

As Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers continues his efforts to tie his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Republican on Sunday addressed a past comment where he suggested he was open to working with moderate members of the group.

Rogers was quoted in a 2012 Reuters report warning that members of the Muslim Brotherhood have “graduated to al Qaeda.” But he also said, “Do I think there are moderate Muslim Brotherhood individuals we are going to have to reach out to and talk to? Yes. But we are going to have to watch it carefully.”

The comments came shortly after Mohamed Morsi was elected president of Egypt with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. Rogers was chair of the House Intelligence Committee at the time.

The Republican initially seemed caught off guard when NBC’s Kristen Welker pressed him on the comments, accusing her of “trying to twist this thing.”

“What happened was we had relationships where Israel and Egypt had relationships in their intelligence services that the Muslim Brotherhood was trying to undo, and what that would have meant is more violence in the region,” Rogers said. “So, as chairman of the intelligence committee, I said, ‘We’re going to have to find a way to try to not sever that relationship,’ which they did, by the way.”

El-Sayed has denounced the Islamist political movement on the campaign trail, though he did sign an open letter supporting Morsi in 2012.

Campaign signs in support of US Senate Candidate Republican John Sununu and New Hampshire State Senate Candidate Republican Louis Gargiulo an apple picking event at Lou and Mary Gargiulo's home on October 3, 2026 in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.

The campaign signs across New Hampshire read “Sununu” in block letters.

They’re for Republican Senate nominee John E. Sununu, who held the seat from 2003 to 2009 and is running to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. But they also invoke the legacy of New Hampshire’s preeminent GOP family, including his younger brother, former four-term Gov. Chris Sununu; their father, former Gov. John H. Sununu; and their mother, Nancy Sununu, a former state party chair.

Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic Senate nominee, recently said that he believes his opponent is not putting his first name on some of his campaign signage as a way to confuse voters.

That’s something both John and Chris Sununu deny — and the younger Sununu, in an interview with CNN, went a step further.

“Look, if people thought they were voting for me, my brother would be up by 30 points. Come on,” Chris Sununu said.

Asked if his older brother had asked him to campaign with him, Chris Sununu said no.

Granite State political observers have noted the brothers aren’t campaigning together in public. Polls show Pappas leading by several points in a race Republicans hope they can win as they try to prevent Democrats from netting the four seats they need to win the Senate.

Read more about the New Hampshire Senate race here.

Democratic US Senate Candidate Josh Turek speaks to supporters during a campaign stop at the Dubuque Farmers Market in Dubuque, Iowa, on October 17.

Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek said he’s glad the president is visiting Iowa as he and GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson vie for the state’s open Senate seat.

Tariffs and the war in Iran have “hurt Iowa more than any other state,” he added.

In a state that has typically voted red in recent years, Turek knows he needs to win over some Republicans to earn the seat. To do that, he’s cast himself as independently minded, saying he doesn’t think too much about what the Democratic Party is doing as a whole.

“I think that the term moderate has become a pejorative in modern politics, and I’m a proud moderate,” he said. “I define myself as a commonsense prairie populist, and I think common sense might be the thing that is missing the most.”

He pointed to issues he agreed with President Donald Trump on, like driving private equity out of housing and healthcare, and having no tax on tips, overtime and Social Security.

“He’s done a better job on the border than Biden, for sure,” the lawmaker added.

But while Trump “accurately identified the problem,” his administration has only consolidated wealth in the elite further, Turek said.

As President Donald Trump heads to Michigan to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, the former congressman has walked a fine line between embracing the president and pushing back on some of his policies.

Rogers has distanced himself from Trump on a few key issues ahead of the election, including calling for an end to the Iran war and the US trade dispute with Canada. But in an interview this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he argued he could work with Trump to resolve those points of disagreement more effectively than his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed.

“If you’re going to have the president of the United States of one party for the next two years, why not send somebody back that can work with the state, excuse me, work with the president to get some of these things fixed,” Rogers said.

He continued, “The things that we disagree on with some of the Canadian tariffs, on wrapping up the Iran war — better to have somebody that can work to that conclusion than just go back to poke him in the eye and increase our costs all across the state.”

Rogers refused to provide a direct answer when asked multiple times if he considers himself a “MAGA Republican,” instead calling the question “a little bit disgusting to me” and pivoting to talk more about his campaign.

Trump has maintained his support for Rogers.

As the president boarded Air Force One for Michigan, he said, “Mike Rogers is apple pie. He’s a perfect guy for our country.”