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(83)Key developments
• Michigan party strife: Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign has asked his former primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, to skip all campaign events in the race’s closing days, a source said. Their planned unity event Sunday may now likely exclude Stevens.
• Rallies back on: President Donald Trump claimed he restored his weekend events in Kansas and Iowa because of requests from Republicans in those states. He rallied in Florida tonight for the second time in a week and warned the state’s Republicans not to get too confident.
• Pressure campaign: A federal judge imposed an emergency order halting the Trump administration’s pressure tactics on election officials.
• Alaska Senate race: Amid a federal investigation into ballot-stacking allegations in Alaska, Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola called the accusations “offensive.”
Peltola calls election conspiracy allegations "offensive" amid federal investigation
Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola said she would be “happy to fire” her former campaign manager again after the ex-staffer alleged Peltola was aware of efforts to recruit a candidate with the same name as her Republican opponent to create confusion among voters.
Peltola’s comments come after the New York Times on Wednesday published findings alleging that her team orchestrated a campaign to stack the ballot against her opponent, Sen. Dan Sullivan.
“This is offensive to me on a number of different levels. First of all, this is Alaska; we’re not in the business of tricking each other up here,” Peltola told the outlet.
“I think this is a real reflection on how deeply scared they are,” she added.
Peltola said she was still learning the details of the federal investigation, which comes days before Election Day.
Catch up: Judge orders halt on Trump's pressure tactics, Democrat unity wavers in Michigan
A federal judge has imposed a sweeping emergency order halting aggressive tactics employed by the Trump administration to pressure election officials.
While the order is in place, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security cannot demand that election officials in any state segregate ballots, purge voters from voter rolls, or halt ballot processing, said US District Judge Trina Thompson.
Her opinion rebuked claims the administration has made that it can and will prosecute election officials for not doing enough to prevent illegal voting.
More headlines from Friday evening:
- Trump rallies in Florida: In his second rally in a week in the red state, President Donald Trump warned Republicans not to get too confident ahead of Tuesday’s elections. He also said he thought that Friday’s rally would be the last one of his midterm blitz and claimed he restored his canceled weekend events in Iowa and Kansas because of requests from Republicans in those states.
- Alaska Senate race: At his Florida rally, Trump said Attorney General Todd Blanche would make his own decision about a criminal probe into alleged ballot-stacking in Alaska. Trump previously made clear he was behind the DOJ preemptively filing a lawsuit seeking to block certification of the state’s Senate election if the Republican incumbent loses. Meanwhile, Alaskan voters weighed in on the controversy, with one telling CNN: “My obligation is to vote.”
- Michigan Democrat tensions: Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign has asked his former primary rival Rep. Haley Stevens to stay away from campaign events in the final days of the midterms race, according to a source. The two had traded barbs on Friday, with El-Sayed saying Stevens “seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago” after she called on him to denounce an outside group’s controversial advertisement. Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow urged Stevens to get behind El-Sayed, while Republican rival Mike Rogers accused him of antisemitism.
CNN’s Eric Bradner, Tierney Sneed, Kit Maher, Aleena Fayaz, Tori B. Powell and Elise Hammond contributed reporting.
Source: El-Sayed campaign asks Stevens to stay away from events in Senate race's final days
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign has asked his former primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, to skip all campaign events in the race’s closing days, a person familiar with the matter said.
That means a planned Sunday show of unity — with El-Sayed and Stevens appearing at a Detroit church with South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, one of the party’s most influential Black leaders — is now likely to exclude Stevens.
It would have been her first time appearing alongside El-Sayed since their heated August primary. Politico first reported that the El-Sayed campaign had asked the congresswoman to stay away from events. Stevens did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her plans.
The news comes after the two traded barbs Friday. In the morning, Stevens issued a statement aimed at pressuring El-Sayed into denouncing an outside group’s controversial advertisement that blames the United States’ foreign aid for Israel for Americans’ struggles with high costs. El-Sayed responded in a statement Friday night that Stevens “seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.”
The war of words comes amid questions about how Jewish Democrats in Michigan will vote. El-Sayed is a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and of the United States’ financial backing of Israel’s military. The American Israel Political Affairs Committee spent tens of millions of dollars attempting to defeat him during the August primary, but El-Sayed topped Stevens by less than a percentage point.
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who also ran in the Senate primary but dropped out four weeks before the election, was sharply critical of Stevens on CNN Friday night, casting her actions as disruptive to Democrats’ chances of defeating Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers and retaining a Senate seat that is crucial to the battle for majority control of the chamber next Tuesday.
“I have no idea what the hell Haley Stevens is doing. This is a moment where we have to recognize the stakes,” McMorrow said.
Judge imposes emergency order halting Trump's pressure campaign on election officials
A federal judge imposed a sweeping emergency order halting various aggressive tactics employed by the Trump administration in recent days to pressure election officials across the country.
She said, while her order is in place, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security cannot demand that election officials in any state segregate ballots, purge voters from voter rolls, or halt ballot processing.
Thompson, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, is also blocking threats of criminal prosecutions against election officials from those agencies and said that the administration cannot take other actions that “threaten, intimidate or coerce” election officials to demand changes in ballot processing procedures on claims the voters are ineligible.
Thompson’s opinion rebuked claims the administration has made for months that it can and will prosecute election officials for not doing enough to prevent illegal voting.
Trump says he'd thought Florida rally would be "last one" of midterm blitz
President Donald Trump thought Friday’s rally would be the last of his midterm blitz, he told attendees in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Further explaining why weekend rallies in Iowa and Kansas were canceled on Thursday and then restored to his schedule, Trump said he had questioned whether his presence would even matter.
“So on Sunday, while you’re all watching football, I’ll be traveling in a very beautiful airplane to Iowa, to Kansas,” Trump said.
Tonight was Trump’s 26th rally in October.
Trump says Blanche will make own decision about Alaska, while making his desires clear
President Donald Trump said Friday that Attorney General Todd Blanche would make his own decision about whether Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola should be prosecuted — while making his own wishes very clear.
“She should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted. But he’s going to make his own decision. I’m not telling you. Todd, please make your own, right,” Trump said during a rally in Daytona Beach, Florida, while alluding to the criminal probe into whether Alaska Democrats sought to confuse voters by recruiting a candidate intended to siphon votes from Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Trump then told the crowd — which included Blanche — that that other candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan, should also be prosecuted.
Trump claimed Daniel J. Sullivan tried to change his middle initial from “J” to “S,” before telling the audience “there’s much worse than that.”
“Wait till you see,” he added.
Last week, Trump made clear he was behind the Justice Department preemptively filing a lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate election if the Republican incumbent loses.
“Well, I’m the one that said ‘do it,’” Trump told reporters last Friday.
Blanche tried to walk back that assertion by saying in an interview days later that the Justice Department was conducting its own research, but declined to discuss his conversations with Trump, who had publicly raised the issue for months.
"Bad things happen when you get too confident," Trump tells Florida Republicans
President Donald Trump urged Florida Republicans to play from behind, warning them not to get too confident ahead of Tuesday’s elections.
“It sounds a little negative, because they’re doing actually very well, but you have to go and vote,” he said, referring to GOP Sen. Ashley Moody and GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, who’s running for governor.
“The ‘Free state of Florida’ is not going to send a communist to the Senate. You must elect Ashley Moody, who’s fantastic. I think you’re gonna be fine, but you got to go and vote,” Trump added.
Trump has played two videos so far during tonight’s rally aimed at energizing his base — one seizing on controversial comments from some Democratic candidates and another mashing up news clips about illegal immigration.
The rally was also interrupted by more than a few protesters within the first 30 minutes. At one point, Trump told one of them to “shut up,” adding, “What a loser! Get him out of here!”
The crowd then chanted, “We love Trump!”
"My obligation is to vote": Alaska voters weigh in on Dan Sullivan controversy
Alaskan voters are reacting to Democrats’ alleged attempt to confuse them with a second Senate candidate named Dan Sullivan.
The New York Times published an investigation Wednesday that found that staffers and lawyers for Alaska Democratic nominee Mary Peltola and other operatives aligned with the campaign spent months recruiting candidates they hoped could take votes away from the GOP Sullivan.
And last week the Trump administration preemptively filed a lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s US Senate election if Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, loses in the critical contest.
“My obligation is to vote,” Brent Bristow, who described himself as nonpartisan, told CNN. “We’ll see how it goes.”
CNN’s Aaron Blake, Ethan Cohen and Tierney Sneed contributed reporting.
Michigan GOP Senate nominee Rogers accuses rival El-Sayed of antisemitism
Mike Rogers, the Republican former congressman running for Michigan’s Senate seat, said Friday night on X that his Democratic rival Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign “has been based on vile racism and antisemitism.” He told those who backed El-Sayed’s former Democratic primary rival Rep. Haley Stevens that they have “a home with us.”
Rogers’ comment comes after El-Sayed brushed off pressure from Stevens to denounce an outside group’s controversial advertisement criticizing the United States’ foreign aid for Israel.
Rogers has been attempting to siphon Jewish Democratic votes away from El-Sayed, a progressive critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and US spending bolstering Israel’s military. He has sought to link El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood.
“I say today: if you are a Haley Stevens voter who rejects this bigoted and hateful candidate, you have a home with us. If you believe we can all work together to make housing affordable, improve education and, lower gas prices, you have a home with us,” he wrote.
Trump arrives for second Florida rally in a week
President Donald Trump has arrived in Florida, where he’ll be rallying supporters in Daytona Beach — the latest stop on his red-state blitz with just days before the midterms.
It’s also his second rally in Florida in a week, after appearing in Fort Myers last Friday.
The Republican National Committee believes this stop, and others, highlight that the GOP isn’t taking anything for granted this year, an official said.
“The Sunshine State is Trump Country, and Floridians are fired up to rally with the President because they want more America First results,” the official said.
Florida has trended very Republican in the Trump era. A New York Times/Siena poll released earlier this week showed that the Senate race here is not nearly as competitive as in some red states with margin-of-error races. GOP Sen. Ashley Moody led Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon by 6 points, 50-44%.
The governor’s race was slightly closer, with GOP Rep. Byron Donalds at 48% and Democratic former Rep. David Jolly at 44%.
El-Sayed brushes off former primary rival Stevens’ call to denounce controversial ad
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is brushing off a call from his former primary rival, Rep. Haley Stevens, to denounce a controversial advertisement criticizing the United States’ foreign aid for Israel.
El-Sayed said in a statement Friday night that Stevens “seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.”
His comment comes two days before they are scheduled to appear together at a Detroit church for a unity event — their first joint appearance since the August primary. El-Sayed is working to consolidate support among two groups that largely backed Stevens during the primary: Jewish and Black Democrats.
El-Sayed also pointed out in his statement that in his narrow primary victory, he’d overcome tens of millions of dollars in spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee aimed at boosting Stevens.
Hours earlier on Friday, Stevens released a statement of her own, lambasting El-Sayed for failing to sufficiently denounce an advertisement by the outside group Rebellion PAC, founded by leftist commentator Cenk Uygur. The ad features a couple at a grocery store, discussing how they can’t afford items like eggs “because we have to put that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”
El-Sayed’s statement Friday night said that his campaign “has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing: Skyrocketing gas prices, unaffordable groceries, and the inability to see a doctor.”
“Now the stakes are even higher — defeating Trump’s hand-picked candidate, taking back the Senate, and defending our democracy,” El-Sayed said. “That should be the priority for all of us right now.”
Multiple active lawsuits could have big implications for the midterms. Here's what to know
As we enter the final weekend before Election Day, a flurry of legal activity concerning vote casting and counting integrity is adding another layer of unpredictability to a midterm cycle already full of surprises.
Just today, we’ve gotten a decision in California concerning voter rolls and new developments in the Alaska Senate race saga concerning the multiple Dan Sullivans on the ballot.
Here’s a rundown of what’s been happening in the courts today:
- California-DOJ case: A federal appeals court rejected the Justice Department’s demand that election officials in California set aside some 20,000 ballots. The Trump administration claims the people who cast them could be noncitizens, but their evidence relies on a controversial data matching program.
- What the judges said: In a 2-1 ruling, the majority pointed to the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which says states are in charge of running elections while giving Congress the option to pass regulations. The dissenting judge called the request “a modest remedy—stopping California from mixing the ballots of citizens and suspected noncitizens.”
- What’s next? The appeals court’s rejection of the DOJ lawsuit Friday sets up the possibility that President Donald Trump will now go to the US Supreme Court with the case.
- Separate hearing on voter rolls: A federal judge in Washington, DC, will hold an emergency hearing tomorrow about the lists the DOJ is citing in states like California. The lawsuit there says the federal government’s compilation of lists of possible noncitizens on state voting rolls is unreliable, and creates an “illegal policy trying to dictate who gets to vote.”
- Alaska Senate controversy: Meanwhile in Alaska, a judge could rule as soon as Saturday evening on the Justice Department’s lawsuit over whether the state must block certification of its Senate race if the Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses. The DOJ requested today that all Alaska ballots that rank Daniel J. Sullivan be immediately segregated.
- Investigations into race: The DOJ is leaning into the New York Times’ reporting this week that Rep. Mary Peltola’s campaign and Democratic operatives sought to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan to possibly confuse voters, a charge Peltola denies. Michael Heyman, the US Attorney in Alaska, said both criminal and civil investigations are underway.
- Lawsuit on voting access: Alaska Democrats have filed a lawsuit of their own. The state’s Democratic Party and several state representatives alleged the Division of Elections failed to open numerous absentee early in-person voting locations and are asking for an emergency court order.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed, Katelyn Polantz, Isa Mudannayake, Kyung Lah and Hannah Rabinowitz contributed reporting.
Michigan state senator criticizes Stevens for ad ultimatum on El-Sayed
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow urged Rep. Haley Stevens to get behind her former primary opponent, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, just days before a critical midterm election for the party.
Michigan is key to Democrats’ hope to win back the Senate majority.
Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in the contentious primary, is scheduled to appear for the first time with the Democratic nominee on the campaign trail Sunday, she announced in a statement today. But she said the appearance was contingent in part on El-Sayed condemning an ad from an outside group linking US aid to Israel with cost-of-living problems.
“People are not talking about ads. They’re not talking about Haley Stevens. They are talking about the price of gas and groceries and the fact that Donald Trump lied to them,” McMorrow said.
“Let’s stop getting caught up in the nonsense about ads,” she added.
El-Sayed is still trying to motivate core Democratic constituencies despite running in a state that hasn’t elected a GOP senator in 30 years. His opponent, Republican Mike Rogers, is making direct appeals to “Haley Stevens Democrats,” notably Black and Jewish voters who favored her.
El-Sayed has long criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and US foreign aid for Israel.
The nominee’s campaign has said it has nothing to do with the provocative ad by Rebellion PAC.
CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere contributed reporting to this post.
Some Dearborn voters say they regret their Trump 2024 vote
In Dearborn, Michigan — a city with one of the largest Arab American communities in the US — some voters who cast their ballots for President Donald Trump in the past are rethinking their decisions.
In Dearborn, Michigan — the US city with the largest Arab American community — some voters who cast their ballots for President Donald Trump in the past are rethinking their decisions.
Ahmed A., a 24-year-old Arab American student who voted for Trump in 2024, told CNN he plans to vote for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed this time around. He cited disagreement with the president’s rhetoric and language about the Middle East.
The voter said he supports El-Sayed regardless of his ethnicity or religion, because of his platform and promises to “keep our tax dollars for us.”
Walid Fidama, a resident of Dearborn for over 30 years and longtime Democrat, met with the president during a 2024 visit to the city and voted for him. He now regrets his vote.
Fidama told CNN that Trump has “made America worse” and blamed him for the rising cost of healthcare and gas.
“He’s not doing anything from what he promised,” Fidama said, arguing that Trump had promised peace but instead gave the US war.
He’s already cast his vote for El-Sayed in this election, and thinks that the Democratic candidate’s draw in this community is not because of his religion, but because of his political platform.
“He know’s what he’s talking about and he knows what I need,” Fidama said, listing priorities including Medicaid and Medicare, social security, roads and schools.
Correction: A previous version of this post misstated the first name of a voter interviewed by CNN. The correct name is Ahmed.
DOJ asks judge to immediately segregate Alaska ballots ranking Daniel J. Sullivan
In new filings Friday afternoon, the Trump administration requested that ballots immediately be segregated as part of its lawsuit targeting Alaska’s Senate election and the Justice Department asked the judge to fast-track its requests that Democrats turn over information about their efforts to recruit a spoiler candidate in the race.
If there’s a vote for Daniel J. Sullivan, the Justice Department wants it to be set aside.
The administration made the requests as the judge has set a quick timeline that could resolve the case by Monday.
Judge Sharon Gleason is considering requests from Alaska election officials, Democrats and outside groups that she toss the DOJ’s lawsuit, which seeks to delay certification of the election if the incumbent GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses in order to investigate whether voter confusion caused his defeat.
In response to Alaska’s arguments that the administration is not putting forward evidence that voters are being confused by the presence of the candidate Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot, the DOJ said that it was “common sense that a sham candidate on the ballot with the same name as the incumbent might confuse voters.”
Alaska election officials had also noted that the administration had not spelled out how exactly it would be determined, if Sen. Sullivan lost, that voter confusion led to his defeat.
“Defendants can take measures, including but not limited to the segregation of ballots, to ensure the integrity of Alaska’s elections results, and this Court can order them to do so,” DOJ said Friday afternoon.
The administration also said the judge should order the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and the campaign for Rep. Mary Peltola, the Sen. Sullivan’s Democratic challenger, to quickly comply with “tailored” discovery requests aimed at sussing out whether Sullivan’s candidacy was “frivolous or fraudulent.”
Alaska’s Republican-led elections office — which tried to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot but was stopped by the state supreme court several months ago — agued that Daniel J.’s motives for running were irrelevant to the legal debate over whether the federal government has the legal right to interfere in certification.
The DOJ said that the information it is seeking from the Democrats “strikes at the core of the United States’ claims.”
"You gotta vote red": Ohio voters on what matters this midterm election
An Ohio voter who said she attended the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, underscored her support for the Trump administration at a Friday campaign event for GOP candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Jon Husted in Defiance.
Other voters in Defiance expressed similar confidence in Trump to end the war in Iran, while emphasizing issues including affordability and fraud.
Tony Norton, a Defiance, Ohio, resident, said momentum around fraud investigation will likely stop if Republicans don’t win in the upcoming midterm elections.
John Rath, another Defiance resident, stood by the Republican Party, too.
Top GOP super PAC launches late ad buy attacking Peltola over Times report
A top Republican super PAC is launching a last-minute ad buy to attack Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Alaska, over a New York Times report that links her campaign to a spoiler candidate.
The commercial would run as part of a “high six-figure” ad campaign on TV and streaming platforms, an SLF spokesperson exclusively told CNN Friday.
The late buy comes as Republicans are scrambling to capitalize on Wednesday’s Times story, which found Democratic operatives aligned with Peltola recruited a candidate with the same name as the GOP incumbent, Dan Sullivan. The buy is being paid for by 59 PAC, an SLF affiliate group in Alaska, and Last Frontier PAC, a super PAC that supports the incumbent.
Peltola’s campaign has continued to deny involvement in the other Dan Sullivan’s candidacy.
Alaska’s GOP governor, Mike Dunleavy, has ordered an investigation into the efforts described in the Times piece, while President Donald Trump’s administration had already sued to delay certification of the election if the incumbent lost.
El-Sayed condemns Hasan Piker's comments about his team canvassing in Jewish neighborhood
Abdul El-Sayed condemned progressive streamer Hasan Piker’s comments comparing the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee’s canvassers door-knocking in the heavily Jewish West Bloomfield to “going to that like Klan KKK neighborhood to stump for like a Black candidate.”
West Bloomfield is home to Temple Israel, the synagogue that was attacked by a terrorist in March.
El-Sayed’s comments come as he attempts to win over Jewish Democrats — a group heavily courted by his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers — in the closing days of one of 2026’s marquee Senate races.
El-Sayed has long criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and US foreign aid for Israel. He appeared with Piker, a strident pro-Palestinian commentator, at multiple events before the August Senate primary.
His condemnation of Piker’s comments comes as he faces pressure from some Democrats, including his former primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, to condemn an outside group’s advertisement that blames Americans’ cost-of-living struggles on US foreign aid for Israel.
White House deputy chief of staff calls Alaska Democrats’ alleged actions "repugnant"
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller called Alaska Democrats’ alleged attempt to confuse voters with a second Senate candidate named Dan Sullivan “a profound criminal act.”
“It’s a criminal conspiracy to disenfranchise the voters and citizens of Alaska,” Miller told Fox News’ Will Cain.
Last week, the Trump administration preemptively filed a lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s US Senate election if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan loses.
Miller told Cain it’s important “to understand the gravity of the matters being alleged and how seriously this is being taken by the US Department of Justice.”
The lawsuit alleges a candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan could confuse voters and wants a court to potentially delay the certification of the election if the incumbent is defeated but would have won if “all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan” had “been cast instead for Senator Sullivan.”
Miller maintained that the alleged actions from the Democrats are “repugnant” and claimed they are against the law.
“To lie so casually, so repeatedly, so comfortably, it’s genuinely it’s sociopathic,” he said. “They lied again and again and again when everyone knows the truth.”
However, legal experts say the findings from The New York Times investigation aren’t illegal and don’t give the DOJ’s lawsuit any more credence.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Ethan Cohen contributed reporting.
