A federal appellate panel on Tuesday refused to block President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to restrict mail voting, a day after the administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the proposal in a separate case.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a May ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols that said an injunction against the order was premature. Nichols ruled that the Democrats and voting rights groups who challenged the order couldn't seek the injunction until the Trump administration issued formal regulations governing it. The administration started releasing those directives days later.
The circuit court panel, with two judges appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama and one by Trump, found that was proper and there were no noted dissents. But the unsigned decision noted that if the administration truly tried to force such changes in the few months remaining before November's midterm election, it may well get halted by courts.
"The action the Order contemplates would involve the President, whom the Constitution vests with no express authority over the conduct of elections, undertaking a substantial and unfunded overhaul of election procedures — including the implementation of a nationwide reform to Postal Service mail-handling processes —on the threshold of the November election. Put differently, the Order 'may not prove feasible to implement in any manner whatsoever,'" said the ruling, quoting a prior legal opinion.
In a separate case filed by Democratic state officials, a federal judge in Massachusetts last month blocked the executive order from taking effect for this year's elections because it was already forcing states, which are granted the power under the U.S. Constitution to control their own elections, to revise their procedures on the fly. That ruling was upheld on Saturday by a Boston-based appeals court and then was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday by the Trump administration.

#order

A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that halted President Donald Trump's executive order to create a federal list of eligible voters and limit delivery of mail ballots only to people on that list.
The ruling over the weekend rejected the Trump administration's effort to move forward with the mail-in voting restrictions in 23 U.S. states that sued ahead of November's midterm elections.
Also, the Trump administration has acknowledged in court documents that it canceled $7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state" — in this case, 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Here's the latest:
Speaking to workers at a GM facility in Milford, Michigan, Trump touted steep tariffs that he says have protected the U.S. auto industry and revived production in the United States.

#states #court #ruling #list

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to clear the way for an executive order from President Donald Trump that could dramatically change mail-in voting ahead of November's midterm elections.
The Justice Department asked the justices to halt for now lower court decisions blocking the sweeping changes in nearly half the country.
The request comes shortly after Trump delivered a primetime address elevating his yearslong push to raise doubts about the legitimacy of elections, and could be one of several voting-related challenges before the court ahead of the high-stakes midterm contest.
Trump ordered the government in March to create a "state citizenship list" of eligible voters and deliver mail ballots only to people on that list.
Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia sued, saying the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election rules, not the president. Their attorneys have said Trump's proposed changes are ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.

#Trump #asked #mail #ahead

EXCLUSIVE - Far-left Democratic congressional candidate Oliver Larkin of Florida says he supports abolishing the U.S. Senate, agrees with socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested during his upcoming trip to the U.S., and refers to Israel's ruling coalition as a "religious supremacist regime."
Larkin, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz in next month's Florida primary, is one of just four congressional candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
The 33-year-old Larkin, a veteran of progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 Democratic presidential campaign, is also the only DSA-endorsed House candidate running in one of the roughly two dozen key swing districts that will determine if Republicans hold onto their razor-thin majority in the midterm elections.
Moskowitz, who is running for re-election in Florida's newly redrawn 25th Congressional District, a Broward County-anchored seat in the southeastern corner of the red-leaning state, is heavily supported by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). He currently holds a polling and fundraising lead over Larkin.
Midterm Battle For The House: Check Out The Fox News Power Rankings

#midterm

Four days after President Donald Trump declared that his administration uncovered "shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure," dozens of state election officials from across the country gathered in Boston.
But they weren't there for an emergency summit to tackle the supposed crisis, even though the midterm elections are only 15 weeks away.
Instead, these election officials from 37 states met for a long-scheduled professional conference that struck a strikingly business-as-usual tone. In fact, Trump and his primetime address hardly came up.
In interviews with CNN, more than a dozen election officials from both parties said Trump's address surfaced little new in terms of evidence. Several GOP officials even scoffed at his presentation, pointing to the data that the administration released to try to bolster its case that there are massive numbers of non-citizens voting in US elections.
Matt Crane, a Republican who runs the Colorado County Clerks ***** ociation, said his text chat with a bipartisan group of colleagues was filled with "a lot of laughing emojis, and like, 'you got to be kidding me?' that this was all it was."

#election #elections

Half of President Donald Trump's MAGA base thought the Iran war was worth its economic costs in May. Now, just a little more than a third do.
That precipitous, 13-point drop in just two months, according to a new POLITICO Poll, reveals how the president's most die-hard supporters are starting to agree with the majority of Americans who have long opposed the U.S.' involvement in the war.
Additionally, 37 percent of self-identified MAGA Trump voters say the U.S. should continue its involvement only if it doesn't increase costs, up from 29 percent who said the same in May, according to the survey, conducted by independent polling firm Public First. Nearly 1 in 5 MAGA voters believe that the U.S. should end its war in Iran, regardless of the costs.
That flagging support among the president's most loyal supporters is the clearest sign that Americans' patience is wearing thin as the economy continues to dominate as voters' top concern heading into a critical midterm cycle.
But Trump on Monday gave little indication that he was looking for a quick end to the war. The U.S. military has pounded Iran for the last two weeks, and speaking to reporters on Tuesday the president claimed that Iranian officials "want to desperately meet" but that "until they are ready to meet in a meaningful way we have no interest in even talking."

#costs #according #supporters

Following President Donald Trump's remarks during a primetime address to the nation accusing China of election interference, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, lambasted the president for his focus on unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
Here's what Fetterman said as he rebuked Trump's recent election fraud claims.
Fetterman chided Trump for his continued insistence that extensive voter fraud swung the 2020 presidential election.
"I don't know why the president is dragging up all of this stuff," Fetterman said on CNN's July 19 "State of the Union." "You're the president. Do something positive, and you are talking about 2020."
Fetterman's criticism comes after Trump flip-flopped on criticisms toward China, initially alleging that the country had interfered in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election, but later saying he believed China had changed.

#claims #donald

As President Donald Trump faces near-record-low approval ratings, a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll, conducted July 8-13, found that Democrats have a slim advantage over Republicans ahead of November's midterm elections.
Still, Democratic supporters are more motivated to vote. The WaPo-Ipsos poll shows Democrats leading Republicans by 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, two years after Kamala Harris' 2024 loss to Trump.
President Donald Trump receives a tour of Chateau de Versailles from President of France Emmanuel Macron ahead of a dinner on June 17, 2026 in Versailles, France. The dinner followed the conclusion of this week's Group of 7 (G7) summit in Evian, France.
The poll also found that Democrats' edge grows to 8 points among those "absolutely certain to vote" as 53% of highly motivated voters support Democrats while 45% support Republicans. Trump has faced low approval numbers amid issues with the economy and the Iran war.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States conducted a new round of airstrikes early Monday targeting Iran after announcing the death of another American service member, hitting around a northwestern city believed to be home to underground missile bases. Iran responded by launching an attack targeting Bahrain, the home of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, and Kuwait.
The latest attacks again showed how, step by step, the U.S. and Iran have inched closer to all-out war as last month's interim deal meant to permanently end the fighting has crumbled and shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has largely stalled. Both sides have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people.
Meanwhile, benchmark Brent crude rose Monday above $90 a barrel, further fueling a global energy crisis sparked by the conflict. An average gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. also rose to $4, a key metric for Americans that puts more pressure on their wallets ahead of midterm elections this fall.
The U.S. military said the service member was killed in Iraq on Saturday during the "controlled detonation" of a downed Iranian drone.
"We hit them very hard again tonight," U.S. President Donald Trump said. "And we did that in honor of the" soldiers killed, he said.

ATLANTA (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, Jon Ossoff was a 30-year-old Democratic congressional candidate promising Georgia suburban voters he would "cut wasteful spending" and make "both parties in Washington" be "accountable to you." His Republican opponent even complained that Ossoff "talks like a Republican."
Nobody would make that mistake today. After losing that race in 2017 and narrowly winning a U.S. Senate seat during a runoff in 2021, Ossoff is running for reelection with a full-throated broadside on President Donald Trump as a "national disgrace" leading a "Mar-a-Lago mafia" and "the most corrupt administration of all time."
The 39-year-old senator has always been a vessel for Trump opposition, no matter his message on the campaign trail. But not until now has Ossoff openly embraced the role. His approach is being noticed across the Democratic spectrum, from activists hungry for the right message in the 2026 midterms to those pining for viable presidential candidates in 2028.
This week, as Trump renewed his fixation on false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election that brought Ossoff to Washington, the senator never missed an opportunity to denounce the "world's most famous sore loser."
"The senator is definitely having a moment, and these breakout moments can certainly become a launching pad for something bigger," said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist who helped Pete **** igieg go from being an unknown Indiana mayor to a presidential contender in 2020. She said Ossoff's approach — tying Trump's personal financial gain to his performance on the economy — is "one that more Democrats should adopt."

By Helen Coster
NEW YORK, July 16 (Reuters) - Two of the three major U.S. television networks and CNN did not broadcast a prime-time address on Thursday by President Donald Trump on their primary platforms, drawing a rebuke from a president who has placed unprecedented pressure on American media.
The speech focused on election security, four months before the critical midterm elections.
During his speech, Trump said that networks that ‌did not air his speech were engaged in a "plot" and should have their licenses revoked.
"In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said they would not cover this speech," he said, adding, "Fraud ‌like this should mean a revocation of their licenses."

By Raphael Satter and AJ Vicens
WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - If President Donald Trump repeats claims in a national address on Thursday that the 2020 election was stolen from him, as many experts expect, he would not just be rehashing ‌old conspiracy theories.
He would, they say, be threatening the very integrity of forthcoming U.S. elections, including the November midterms.
Reuters reported ‌earlier this week that Trump's forthcoming speech would cover purported voting machine vulnerabilities and that the White House was weighing whether to release controversial intelligence to do with China's intentions or abilities to disrupt the 2020 vote.
Both of those topics are staples of Republican conspiracy theories that Beijing or other foreign powers swung the election in favor of Trump's opponent, Democrat Joe Biden.

Speaker Mike Johnson suffered another humiliating political defeat at the hands of his own party on Thursday when he was forced to abandon plans to pass a veterans benefits bill designed to be one of the GOP's big legislative wins before the midterms.
Just minutes before the bill was slated to come to the floor, Johnson and his team were forced to pull it from the schedule as more than a half-dozen holdouts refused to back the measure.
The bill has been in trouble for weeks. It's been a major source of tension in the military community, with powerful groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans opposed to the measure because it reduces certain disability coverage — while others, like the American Legion, have backed it.
But Johnson and his deputies decided to go ahead with the vote. On Thursday, those concerns persisted and Johnson attempted to salvage it at the eleventh hour, holding a meeting just off the floor with a group of GOP moderates who had concerns about the bill but they could not get the votes needed.
The defeat for Johnson is the latest in a string of complications for leadership. Only days earlier, Johnson had struck a truce with GOP hardliners to reopen the floor after they'd effectively seized control and prevented the speaker from moving key bills for two weeks. Now, they are leaving Washington on Thursday without a clear path forward on the veteran benefits bill.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a $95 billion legislative plan focused on boosting defense, aiding farmers and enacting stricter voter registration rules, a sequel to the massive tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
The 47-page outline, called a budget resolution, is a long-shot undertaking designed to supplement Pentagon funding for the Iran war and address Trump's top priority of changing voter registration requirements. A more ambitious effort was narrowed to address concerns from some conservatives about adding to the deficit. The plan does not seek any offsets to pay for the new spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed ahead after meeting with Trump at the White House this week in what will be the Republicans' calling card to voters this fall heading into the midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake.
"Safeguarding American elections and strengthening our national defense are the most basic responsibilities of Congress," Johnson said in a statement.
Johnson welcomed the chance to again use a legislative process that would allow Republicans to overpower Democratic objections and eventually approve legislation on a party-line vote, saying the Democrats won't be able to block the GOP's priorities "any longer."

Speaker Mike Johnson suffered another humiliating political defeat at the hands of his own party on Thursday when he was forced to abandon plans to pass a veterans benefits bill designed to be one of the GOP's big legislative wins before the midterms.
Just minutes before the bill was slated to come to the floor, Johnson and his team were forced to pull it from the schedule as more than a half-dozen holdouts refused to back the measure.
The bill has been in trouble for weeks. It's been a major source of tension in the military community, with powerful groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans opposed to the measure because it reduces certain disability coverage — while others, like the American Legion, have backed it.
But Johnson and his deputies decided to go ahead with the vote. On Thursday, those concerns persisted and Johnson attempted to salvage it at the eleventh hour, holding a meeting just off the floor with a group of GOP moderates who had concerns about the bill but they could not get the votes needed.
The defeat for Johnson is the latest in a string of complications for leadership. Only days earlier, Johnson had struck a truce with GOP hardliners to reopen the floor after they'd effectively seized control and prevented the speaker from moving key bills for two weeks. Now, they are leaving Washington on Thursday without a clear path forward on the veteran benefits bill.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a $95 billion legislative plan focused on boosting defense, aiding farmers and enacting stricter voter registration rules, a sequel to the massive tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
The 47-page outline, called a budget resolution, is a long-shot undertaking designed to supplement Pentagon funding for the Iran war and address Trump's top priority of changing voter registration requirements. A more ambitious version was narrowed to address concerns of conservatives about how it would be paid for and adding to the deficit. The resolution does not seek any offsets to pay for the new spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed ahead after meeting with Trump at the White House this week in what will be the Republicans' calling card to voters this fall heading into the midterm elections, with control of Congress at stake.
"Safeguarding American elections and strengthening our national defense are the most basic responsibilities of Congress," Johnson said in a statement.
Johnson welcomed the chance to again use a legislative process that will allow Republicans to overpower Democratic objections and eventually approve legislation on a party line majority vote, saying the Democrats won't be able to block their GOP priorities "any longer."

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — High-ranking Senate Democrat Ron Wyden has alleged that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke the law with recent phone calls urging third-party candidates to drop out of two Iowa congressional races.
In a complaint to the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel filed Monday, Wyden requested an investigation into whether the June calls violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that restricts certain political activities by federal employees. The Oregon Democrat said Kennedy acted inappropriately by interfering with elections that Trump's Republican administration wants GOP candidates to win.
"Kennedy has spent sixteen months using his official position to undermine the health and well-being of his fellow Americans, and now he is using his official position to undermine the integrity of democratic elections too," reads a statement from Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which plays a role in overseeing the nation's health agencies.
The accusation comes as Trump has dispatched Kennedy to swing districts around the country as a key surrogate for the administration, promoting its widely popular efforts to encourage healthy eating and exercise. It takes issue with another task Kennedy reportedly did on behalf of the administration: calling Libertarian candidates to push them to drop out of two races where they could be spoilers for GOP candidates. At stake is control of Congress in a competitive midterm election year, where any win could be decisive in shaping the next two years of federal policy.
Spokespeople for Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano criticized his school on Sunday for its slow response to a massive artificial intelligence (AI) cheating scandal among his students earlier this year.
In an op-ed for The Free Press, Serrano recounted that he announced that after a deadly shooting took place on campus in December, he opted to move his in-class midterm and final exam to an online, take-home format for the upcoming semester. As a result, he saw his course enrollment jump to 86 students, beating the course's previous record of 30 students enrolled at one time.
Serrano reported that the average grade of the online midterm was 96, significantly higher than the previous years' average of between 65 and 80. He also found that 40 students achieved a perfect score and detected answers that resembled responses provided by ChatGPT.
Ai Backlash Reaches Major University With Bold Ban On Laptops And Phones For Law Students
As a result, he announced that the final exam would return to an in-person format and that the midterm scores would be declared void if they did not resemble the average final scores. After this decision, Serrano found that only 59 students took the final exam, leading to an average grade of 48.6 with a maximum score of 95 and minimum of zero.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday said he won't return to the Capitol for votes "quite yet" as lawmakers prepare to return from recess.
"As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time. And on the advice of my doctors, I won't be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet. But rest ***** ured that, in the meantime, I'm not taking a break from the Senate business that matters to you," McConnell wrote in a Sunday statement shared with The Hill.
"I've been working closely with my legislative staff on current issues, and with my Kentucky team who help me provide timely constituent services across our Commonwealth. I've also been keeping in touch with my Senate colleagues on the appropriations process, midterm politics, and everything in between," he added.
The press release had a photo of the Kentucky senator with a copy of The Washington Post in hand while seated on a hospital chair next to his wife.
McConnell has been hospitalized and absent from the Senate for more than four weeks, following a medical emergency at his Washington, D.C., home on June 14.

Former White House attorney Ty Cobb warned Friday that President Trump's decision to fire the remaining Democratic members of an independent election administration commission this week is part of a "deliberate plan" to put his thumb on the scale of the upcoming midterm elections.
"You can't look at the termination of the Election ******* istance Commission (EAC) as anything other than another effort by one side to try to take over part of the referee role for the elections," Cobb said during an appearance on MS NOW.
Trump removed Democrats Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks from the commission on Thursday, with the White House citing his authority to do so under the Supreme Court's recent decision in the recent Slaughter case.
The justices ruled in a 6-3 decision that the president can fire the heads of most independent agencies at will, overturning a nearly century-old precedent that allowed Congress to insulate those bodies from political interference.
"The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America's elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted," a White House official said in a statement. "The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so."

David Axelrod warned on Friday of possible election interference in the midterms after President Trump fired the remaining Democratic members of the Election **** istance Commission on Thursday.
"All the signals are flashing red, the latest being POTUS's summary dismissal of the remaining Federal Election **** istance Commission members," the Democratic strategist wrote in a social media post.
The commission is a bipartisan and independent board established in 2002 to help voters participate in the election process and **** ists election officials. Republican member Christy McCormick also resigned on Thursday.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) criticized the firings as a "brazen attempt to seize control of our elections" in a statement.
"Senate Democrats will fight this power grab at every turn," he wrote. "The American people — not Donald Trump — will decide the 2026 election."

NEW YORK (AP) — Middle-income Americans straining to pay for Affordable Care Act health insurance are unlikely to get relief next year, according to a new ****** ysis that shows insurers in the marketplace are proposing a second straight year of double-digit premium hikes.
Across the 77 insurers in the ACA program that have submitted rate filings that are publicly available, the median proposed premium increase for 2027 is 14%, according to Wednesday's ****** ysis from the healthcare research nonprofit KFF. The insurers cited mounting healthcare costs, federal regulatory changes and the recent expiration of pandemic-era enhanced subsidies as the biggest factors driving premiums higher.
The rise in premiums adds to what already was a significant jump in 2026, when the median rate increase was 20%, according to KFF.
While most Americans in Obamacare still qualify for subsidies that protect them from paying the full premiums, middle-class enrollees who don't get those subsidies will face an especially stark increase in costs. That group includes households with incomes at or above 400% of the poverty level — about $63,000 per year for an individual or $129,000 for a family of four.
The rate increases come as federal lawmakers have proposed various policy changes to overhaul the expensive U.S. healthcare system, but no comprehensive legislation has amassed enough support to pass. The higher costs are contributing to Americans' existing worries about overall affordability, a concern that many voters say is front of mind with November's midterm elections looming.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate's top two Republicans have spoken individually to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, according to aides, as the former GOP leader remains in the hospital more than three weeks after being admitted for undisclosed health issues.
Aides to McConnell have declined to release any information about his condition, fueling speculation about his prognosis and whether he will be healthy enough to be at the Capitol when the Senate returns to Washington next week after a two-week recess. McConnell, 84, is retiring at the end of his term in January.
A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he had spoken with McConnell by phone on Monday and that the two had a "lengthy and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics, including national security." As leader, Thune is generally kept up to date on illnesses and absences in his conference as he has to navigate vote counts and his narrow 53-47 majority.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican, had a 20-minute conversation with McConnell on Tuesday, according to a spokeswoman. The two discussed Senate races ahead of the midterm elections, the Supreme Court and other topics, the statement said.
"Senator McConnell was fully engaged and is eager to get back to the Senate," said Barrasso spokeswoman Kate Noyes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday sought to take credit for recent price cuts by Walmart, but a statement by the retailer made no mention of the administration's involvement in its decision.
The president has faced public backlash over inflation rising during his watch, as prices climbed initially in the aftermath of his tariffs and later with the start of the Iran war in late February. Trump described a recent bipartisan measure to trim housing costs as "a yawn" and tried to blame the Democrats for inflation staying elevated.
Going into the November midterm elections for control of Congress, Trump has sought to deride Democrats as communists who would have the government interfere with private companies. But in his social media post about Walmart, he said the business had trimmed prices at the specific request of his administration.
"I have just been informed that one of the biggest, best, and smartest Retailers in America, Walmart, will be lowering prices, by a lot, at my Administration's request to celebrate our great Country's 250th birthday," Trump said. "Walmart will, in particular, be dropping the price for a pound of ground beef by almost 15%, among many other products."
Walmart has benefited in part from higher inflation under Trump, as consumers have turned to its stores and website in search of lower prices, according to its quarterly earnings released in May.

"They're animals," President Trump said about the success of leftists in this year's Democratic primaries.  "We have to stop this…horrible threat of cancer that's permeating our country called communism," he told right-wing evangelicals in a desperate effort to stir fear about Democrats.
The Washington Post described his words as "dehumanizing," and similar to 1950s "redbaiting," attacks on Democrats that led the U.S. Senate to censure the infamous Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.).
Trump is pushing every ****** on with the November midterms getting closer.
As his poll numbers sink to 61 percent disapproval in a Fox survey, Trump is frantic for any tactic to stop Democrats from taking control of the House and possibly winning a Senate majority.
He is even planning a national Republican convention before the midterms.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Democrat Mallory McMorrow suspended her campaign for the U.S. Senate on Sunday, abruptly reshaping the party primary just a month before the election and leaving a two-person contest between moderate Haley Stevens and progressive Abdul El-Sayed.
McMorrow's exit comes after many Democrats increasingly viewed her as a long shot for the nomination. It also creates a fresh dynamic in one of the country's most closely watched Senate races, forcing Democratic voters into a direct choice between Stevens, a mainstream congresswoman backed by much of the party establishment, and El-Sayed, supported by many progressive movement leaders.
The binary choice will be on full display Tuesday, when Stevens and El-Sayed are set to face off in a televised debate. During a May debate, El-Sayed repeatedly went on the offensive against Stevens, who mostly declined to engage directly with him.
McMorrow's departure could also prompt influential Democrats in the state to announce their support for Stevens because of concerns about El-Sayed's electability in a general election. Some had stayed on the sidelines because of relationships with McMorrow.
The seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is one that the party must hold if it hopes to reclaim the Senate majority in this fall's midterm elections. The primary winner is expected to face Republican Mike Rogers, who lost to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024.

Republicans' cash advantage just got a lot more powerful thanks to the Supreme Court — and the Democratic National Committee's fundraising struggles just got a lot more concerning for their party.
Democrats argue that the court's Tuesday decision, which allows political parties to freely coordinate with candidates, will give the GOP the ability to offset Democratic candidates' fundraising lead in battlegrounds.
Republicans have a cash edge with the Senate and House Republican committees. But the starkest cash disparity by far is for the Republican National Committee, which has $125 million in the bank, while the Democratic National Committee has more debt than cash on hand, $18.3 million to $14.8 million.
That disparity was already going to matter for the GOP. But with the Supreme Court decision, they can spend without constraint — and their dollars will go a lot further, erasing Democrats' cash advantage in some battlegrounds while allowing the GOP to level up. That's especially important for expensive campaign advertising: Candidates have long gotten reduced rates, but parties now can get that rate, too.
More than a dozen Democrats working on key midterms races from North Carolina to Maine expressed various levels of concern over the Supreme Court decision Tuesday.

The Terrion Arnold news could have the Cowboys and Lions talking about a trade. What's going to happen to the former first-round pick regarding his felony kidnapping and robbery charges remains to be seen, but his release has left Detroit with a hole in their secondary... and Dallas suddenly finds themselves in a position to do a deal. To top today's Cowboys headlines, we explore why Caelen Carson might bring the best return in a swap with the Lions.
Elsewhere in Cowboys Nation, we get to know Curtis Robinson, the newly-added veteran linebacker who may be flying under fans' radars, and we learn that a new poll has the Cowboys coming in second when it comes to identifying who is truly "America's Team."
Looking at the Cowboys' upcoming opponents, it's worth noting that Micah Parsons not only played in but won a star-studded pickleball tournament recently. While Parsons is expected to miss the first four games of the season for the Packers, he's certainly making moves toward getting back on the field. Wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk may have blown his chances with the Commanders, and the Rams are looking very much like the team to beat in 2026.
Elsewhere in the league, the NFL's kickoff weekend may suddenly have a scheduling conflict. Republicans have just announced a midterm convention- to be held in Dallas- that will clash with the first two games of the NFL's primetime schedule: the Sept. 9 Patriots-Seahawks kickoff, and the Sept. 10 Rams-49ers tilt being played in Melbourne, Australia. No word yet on whether either side will budge. We're learning more about Dianna Russini's wild story where she supposedly FaceTimed an NFL coach during a traffic stop. Bodycam video shows a different reality... and actually pulls the Minnesota Vikings and quarterback J.J. McCarthy into the drama, too.
Cowboys and Lions could link up for trade after Terrion Arnold release :: SI.com (Link)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday described the upcoming midterm elections as a choice "between communism and common sense" following a string of recent progressive wins in Democratic primaries.
"I know the president and many Americans are extremely concerned [about] how far left the Democrat party is moving," Leavitt said in an interview with "Fox & Friends."
"This is not your granddaddy's Democrat party," she continued. "These are communists. The president is trying to call them that. They want to abolish private prisons, they want to abolish the police, they want to abolish private property. These are radical, Marxist ideas that have never worked in the history of the world."
"I think it's a choice coming up between communism and common sense. That's how the president views it," she said.
The press secretary's comments come after three leftist candidates supported by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) won congressional primaries in New York last Tuesday, with two candidates beating establishment-backed incumbents.

When Brown University Professor Roberto Serrano changed the format of his midterm exam last spring, he was thinking about his students' mental health, not academic fraud. Two of them had been shot, including Ella Cook, a young woman who had sat in his office just days before the December 13 massacre at Brown University and asked him to be her academic advisor.
"We had a very nice conversation," Serrano recalled in an interview with Fortune. "She was a wonderful young woman, full of energy, full of ideas. Imagine my shock when a few days after that conversation took place, they released the names of the two mortal victims, and I saw that one of them was her."
In that grief, Serrano made a decision he had never made in his 34-year career at Brown and gave his ECON 1170 class—an advanced undergraduate course in mathematical economics—a take-home, closed-book midterm. He wanted to remove the stress of sitting in a classroom on a campus where, he says, quite a few students were still too traumatized to set foot. Two of his students had been among the nine wounded in the attack; they fought for their lives for weeks, and both survived.
What Serrano got instead of gratitude was the largest known AI-assisted cheating scandal in the Ivy League, as previously reported by El Pais.
Of the 86 students who took the March 5 exam, 40 scored a perfect 100. The class average was 96 whereas in previous years, the average had ranged between 65 and 80—and this exam, by design, was harder than usual. "The beauty of take-home exams used to be that we professors were able to challenge students a little more, just to push them to a higher level," Serrano said. "The fact that this was a harder exam and this distribution made it absolutely clear that something very unusual had happened."