The Senate candidate denounced opponent Ken Paxton, calling out corruption allegations and support from Musk

James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Texas, has taken aim at Elon Musk, warning that the tech mogul is trying to buy political influence and declaring: “Texas is not for sale.”

Talarico held a campaign rally on Friday at the University of Texas at Austin, packing an auditorium at his alma mater with hundreds of students and other supporters, who cheered, whooped and waved campaign signs.

Letters from federal prosecutors represent latest escalation as Trump continues to make claims of voter fraud

Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Department of Justice said may belong to noncitizens, according to the Los Angeles county registrar and a letter obtained by the Associated Press.

The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections.

With just 11 days until the US midterm elections, Democrats need a net gain of four seats to reclaim Congress

With just 11 days until the US midterm elections, early voting data is rolling in nationwide. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to reclaim the majority in each chamber of Congress. Here is where the numbers stand as of Friday:

Republican senator faces critical re-election battle in state where president’s trade war has outraged voters

Donald Trump dropped some of the US’s tariffs on Canada on Friday to “better serve the public interest” the White House said, handing a win to Susan Collins, the embattled Republican senator for Maine, as she faces a tight re-election campaign that will help determine whether Democrats can flip control of Congress.

Collins announced that the exemptions would apply to nine agricultural products, including blueberries, potatoes, apples and seaweed. She added that many of the state’s farmers rely on specialized equipment and materials from across the border that are “unavailable from American suppliers or cannot be replaced without incurring significant expense”.

Trump justice department claims there could be ‘confusion’ about two Republicans on the ballot named Dan Sullivan

Donald Trump said he ordered the justice department to file a lawsuit to block the certification of Alaska’s US Senate results if the Republican incumbent loses, a move that voting rights experts called an “unprecedented intervention” by the federal government with control of Congress in the balance.

“I’m the one that said do it,” the president told reporters as he landed in Florida for a campaign rally on Friday.

Despite distraction and distortion, voters know what issues will be informing their votes in this election

• This was originally published in The Stakes 2026, a newsletter about the midterm elections. Sign up to get it in your inbox

Elections too often get pigeonholed. The hot take, or simplistic analysis, would have it that just one issue – often the issue the source so happens to be most animated about – will decide the entire result.

Tens of millions of Americans will go to the polls next month. Will they be galvanized by affordability? Maybe it’s Iran. Or healthcare? Taxes, perhaps. Or crime.

Voting rights advocates say directive would disenfranchise young and low-income voters, but Republicans say it’s needed to combat voter fraud

• US politics live – latest updates

The US supreme court has cleared the way for New Hampshire to prohibit student IDs as a form of voter identification ahead of November’s midterm elections.

In a brief unsigned order, justices sided with a Republican National Committee (RNC)-backed appeal on the matter. They cited a longstanding rule that lower federal courts should not “alter election rules” too close to election day.

Conservative media personalities who have long benefited from boosting the president will be forced to wrestle with the likely fallout of Republican losses in next month’s US midterm elections

Nothing lasts forever. Jesse Kelly knows his meteoric rise through conservative radio will end one day – just like Donald Trump’s power over the Republican party.

Every day, the 6ft 8in Kelly walks a tightrope between sycophancy and criticism of the US president: the same fine line many rightwing hosts have attempted to tread throughout Trump’s rise, fall, and then resurrection from the political graveyard after his 2020 presidential election defeat.

Republicans are resorting to childish taunts to defend an uncommonly dishonorable state attorney general

It’s a bit like Lucy with the football. Every few years, Democrats convince themselves that a Texas Senate seat might finally switch from red to blue. On paper, it makes sense. Texas is a large and urbanizing state with an increasingly educated – and increasingly non-white – population.

Other one-time Republican strongholds that have undergone similar demographic shifts have turned purple or even blueish – think Georgia, for example. The border counties along the Rio Grande valley, with their deep poverty and big Latino populations, were long thought to be fertile ground to nurture a kind of anti-Trump populism that could be converted into pro-Democratic sentiment. The state Democratic party is anemic there, but a few talented candidates have emerged.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

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With less than two weeks until the midterms, my colleague Jonathan Freedland and Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan are answering your questions in this week’s episode of Politics Weekly America.

They break down the final stretch ahead of these hugely consequential elections, that will decide control of Congress in Donald Trump’s final two years of office.

Byron Donalds removed mentions of the president from his website and has barely uttered his name – will his ploy prove successful in a tight governor’s race?

It took Byron Donalds, addressing a wildly supportive crowd at a rally in Florida’s bluest county, some time to list those he blamed for any “affordability” issues they might be experiencing.

Joe Biden, and the radical policies of the Democrats, were at fault, the Republican nominee for Florida governor insisted in his stump speech at Broward county’s Green Glades West ranch, even though neither has wielded power in Washington for almost two years.

Trump’s latest tactic to champion Republicans at midterm rallies? Assessing men’s bodies in meticulous detail

Speaking at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, earlier this month, to support the Republican senator Jon Husted, Donald Trump broke from his prepared remarks.

Trump said he had recently learned that Husted played football at university. The president, 80, said this had prompted him to conduct a physical assessment of Husted.

Voters in 39 states will face an array of referendum issues – including Alabama’s on the national anthem in schools

Americans heading to the polls for next month’s midterm elections are not just choosing whom to send to Washington, or their state capitols. There are also 145 statewide measures on ballots across 39 states, polling voters on actions from a novel wealth tax on California’s billionaires to requiring Alabama’s public schools to broadcast or perform the first stanza of the national anthem each week.

Voters in Idaho, Nevada and Virginia are asked to protect abortion rights; voters in Missouri are asked to give those rights back. Property tax issues appear on dozens of state ballots. Several state referendums ask voters to bar trans athletes from competing in women’s sports, or bar gender-affirming medical care for minors.

To reclaim control of the Senate, Democrats need to retain all the Senate seats they have and flip four more in the 2026 midterm elections. Shrai Popat, the Guardian's US politics reporter, explains which are the key races to watch in November.

The president shows a unique disregard for the opinions, norms and ideals of the nation – and, for that matter, humanity

The Democrats’ focus on affordability seems to be a winning strategy (we’ll know for sure in a little over two weeks). But we mustn’t lose sight of the moral squalor at the core of the Trump regime and the necessity of ending it.

It’s that moral squalor – the utter disregard for the opinions, norms and ideals of the nation and, for that matter, of humanity – that uniquely marks Trump and the reprobates he has attracted to Washington. It has also poisoned much of the Republican party, including the billionaires and tech bros who finance it.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK