US midterms 2026 latest: Key debates turn personal

Welcome to Al Jazeera's midterms latest roundup. I'm Alex Marquard in Washington. A lot of action this week, both on the campaign trail and on the debate stages. President Donald Trump showing how difficult things are for Republicans this year by flying all the way from Washington to Alaska to help defend a Senate seat that could be slipping from their grasp. Alaska joining a growing list of states that Trump won easily in 2024 that could see Democrats win important seats and possibly flip the Senate. Here's what Donald Trump said in Wasilla, Alaska on Tuesday night. It was at a campaign rally for Senator Dan Sullivan. But as we've heard before, he recast it as a race about himself. Pretend, if you will, I'm on the ballot. And actually, I am on the ballot because they will destroy everything that we've built. We've built something in Alaska as an example that's nobody's ever seen anything like it they will destroy it they will terminate it they'll terminate all the jobs all the oil deals all the everything that we've made we've done things i've done more for this state than any other state in the union and they'll repeal it immediately so please so please get out and vote one of the ways the candidates are trying to motivate voters to head to the ballot box is through debates in these final weeks we have a slew of debates that were hosted on Tuesday night in Maine, Georgia, Iowa, and Illinois. And then there are also other major races where the candidates have not debated and they don't plan to. In Maine, the Democrat Troy Jackson pounced on his Republican opponent, the longtime Senator Susan Collins. It was during a question about Trump's immigration crackdown in Maine, which is front and center in their politics after ICE agents shot and killed a man there in June. Jackson questioned Collins about her pronunciation of the victim's name. Well, first of all, my heart goes out to the family of the man who was shot in Biddeford, Mr. Duran Guerrero. Mr. Jackson, your response to that question? Well, the man's name was Joan Sebastian Guerrero. That was his name. I mean, he had a family, he had a daughter, and he's not coming home anymore to that family. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the Epstein files and the war in Iran dominated that debate between the Democratic incumbent Senator John Ossoff and his Republican challenger, Congressman Mike Collins, where it also got personal. We have been at war with this Islamic terrorist regime for over 47 years. They've been killing Americans ever since. And they were this close to getting a nuclear weapon. And thank goodness we had the leadership to send people over there to take care of those nuclear weapons that they were trying to create. Congress is full of congressmen's sons who are only in Congress because their daddies were congressmen, just like Mike Collins, who are perfectly happy to send other people's children to die in war. For more on this, we are now joined by our correspondent, Phil Lavelle. He is in Haltom City in Texas, and Heidi Jo Castro, who is on Capitol Hill. Thank you both for joining me. Phil, I want to go to you first, and let's start with Georgia and that debate. This was the second debate between Ossoff and Collins, and they clearly still had a lot to say to each other. Yeah, two in a week. I mean, you can't get these guys off the stage, which is probably, when you look at how important Georgia is, it's probably quite understandable, because remember, this is a state that can swing in either direction. It's gone Republican. It's gone Democrat. that this is not a safe bet for either party. And like you said, it got personal. We heard about Iran, we heard about affordability. We had Collins trying to paint Ossoff as a rich kid who doesn't understand what life is like for Georgians. We had Ossoff trying to link Collins to white supremacists. But when you look at the polls, here's where we're at at the moment. Ossoff has pretty much consistently been ahead with a fairly substantial lead. We're talking maybe six to eight points, depending on which poll you look at. Where it gets tighter is where you look at the governor's race, where you've got Keisha Lance Bottoms, who's the Democrat. She is the former mayor of Atlanta versus Rick Jackson. They actually had a debate the other night. He didn't show up. She empty chaired him. She had the floor to herself. Now, the Democrats are using this as a campaign tool because remember that race is quite tight. We're looking at maybe one point difference. He's ahead of the moment, but it's way within that margin of error. And all of this is really important because you look at what's happening right now. Georgians have taken to the polling stations and they have started voting early already. And Phil, let's talk about Texas where you are, because in this campaign cycle, it has become a major battleground state. We have tight races for both governor and for that critical Senate seat. The candidates in that Senate race, Tallarico and Paxton, they have not gotten on the debate stage together. Yeah, it's all about Georgia. You can't get them off the stage here in Texas. You can't get them on the stage, right? James Tallarico has been pushing for weeks for a debate with Ken Paxton. He actually put this post up on X, formerly Twitter, a few days ago where he said, President Trump says we should debate. I agree. Probably the only time a Democrat will agree with President Trump. But this follows President Trump being in Texas alongside Ken Paxton last week. And he said, you guys should debate. And Ken Paxton has been asked about this again and again and again. And he was even asked about it on Fox News. Remember, Fox News is a conservative right-leaning channel. It's considered friendly territory. Here's how that conversation went down. President Trump, he called you guys out, said you all should have a debate and talk about the issues, contrast between your policies. Is that in the works? Are you requesting one with him? Are you working on the details with one? Or do you think that doesn't need to happen? Well, no, look, we've been working on that for months with him. And of course, we can never quite work out the details because he always wants something we can't do. So the reality is the big story is the fact that he was missing from the campaign trail. I know he'd love to change the topic to debates. Now, when it comes to debates, they are a campaign cycle tradition for candidates at almost every level running for senior office. They often get fiery, and at the best of times, they are illuminating for the voters. Sometimes, however, the candidates refuse to debate at all. Our Alex Barr takes a closer look. So, day after day, we've been talking about those competitive races for the U.S. Senate, giving you pithy one-liners, something quite fun. But once you sift past all that great stuff, it could be easy to forget that this election is actually for 35 Senate seats plus all the other votes at the midterms. Because you definitely aren't seeing 35 sets of candidates showing up for debates. In fact, for 60% of these states, you're not seeing a single debate. And there's no scheduled debates for any of the major candidates. Last time we checked, if you're voting in any one of these states, you wouldn't have an opportunity to see your candidates go head-to-head, to defend their policies, to see how they stand up to pressure. That's a lot more than usual. The last midterms, only 40% of the Senate seats had no debates. And when you vote in one of those swing states where every vote counts, the big ones who have no debates in that calendar, well, that really matters. And they are North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. In North Carolina, well, neither candidate has given a reason why. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown had said he had hoped to debate, but still nothing in reality from him. A spokesperson for the incumbent, John Husted, had said he would be shocked if Brown agreed to a debate. And then there's Texas with James Tallarico and Ken Paxton. This has become a whole thing. Republican Ken Paxton is the holdout. He hasn't agreed to a debate or responded to an invitation for one. And James Tallarico, his opponent on the blue side, said he's given him calls, that he's accepted four invitations and still nothing. Radio silence. No debates. And now there are no debates across more than half of those midterm elections for the Senate. We are now two weeks into President Trump's 32-day campaign blitz. Let's take a look at where he's gone. What's most interesting is he's going to places the Republicans don't usually have to focus on. That includes Texas, Alabama, Alaska, traditionally solidly conservative, deep red territory. He's also going to some liberal cities like Syracuse, New York and Youngstown, Ohio. So for more, let's bring in our Heidi Jo Castro, who is on Capitol Hill. Heidi, Trump has been crisscrossing the country for weeks. We still have a couple more weeks before the midterms and we expect to see him out there all around the country. What does this tell us about how uneasy the Republicans are? Yeah, it is notable that the president is going to all these considerably red states and he's continuing his Western tour today. He is in Arizona. There's no Senate race there, but there are two House seats that Democrats are trying to flip and they are, in fact, leading in the polls. There's also Trump's supporter, Andy Biggs, who is a Republican and trying to become governor of Arizona, trying to unseat the Democrat there. Katie Hobbs. Trump will be on stage trying to pitch for all of those Republican candidates. Then it's on to Montana, where there is an interesting three-way race for an open Senate seat being vacated by a Republican. And the Republican candidate in that race, Kurt Allmey, who is a former U.S. attorney, he is leading in the polls. He's facing off against two former Army vets. We have Alani Bankhead, who is the Democratic nominee, but she is splitting the support of Democratic electorate with Seth Bodnar, an independent who's gotten most of the Democratic endorsements. So that seems like one that Republicans are forecast to win. So why is Trump going there then? Well, a lot of people are looking at this and saying he's trying to drum up enthusiasm, not just for these specific races in the geographic locations where he's visiting, but he's trying to get the attention of supporters of Republicans across the country. As we've said many times, the polls have shown that they may be floundering. And Trump has been very confident, as you just heard him say again in Alaska last night. He says that if he were on the ballot, he could win all of these races. Well, he's not on the ballot, but he's trying to get his MAGA supporters to act like he is. They turned out for him in mass in previous elections. And now the big question is whether Trump's lack of support among political independents and even among some non-MAGA Republicans, whether that could drag him down the other way, dragging down those Republican candidates. And it's a gambit that the president is willing to take as he continues touring the country. Yeah. And we're expecting to see him in Georgia, where, of course, Mike Collins needs some help, as Phil was just mentioning. Heidi, one of the biggest issues for voters around the country, of course, is the state of the economy, its affordability, its the cost of living. We have new inflation numbers today. So to what extent do you think the president's pitch to voters is going to be enough to stop them from blaming him over the state of the economy? Yeah, these are the final set of inflation numbers, Alex, we're getting before voting the election day, and it's 3.7 percent. That is the inflation rate, and it is above what was forecast. So this is bad news for Republicans who are in charge. And if you break down those numbers further, most of it's being pushed up by the rising gas prices, 34.2% during the last year, electricity, 4.4%, and food, 2.5%. These are expenses that are unavoidable to every American, that everyone feels at their dinner tables, in their pocketbooks. And it's no question that cost of living time and time again have been said by voters to be their number one issue during this election. And there has been recent polling that further confirms that Republicans may be in trouble on this. Reuters releasing a poll that said that found 78% of Americans blame Trump's economic policies on this rise in cost of living and notably among those 64% of Republicans believe the same again blaming Trump's economic policies and then this is the part that matters for when voters go to the polls they were asked which party they believe could solve this cost of living issue and Democrats won that question by 8% because their political headwinds that are not blowing in the Republicans favor Yeah, Trump very much underwater when it comes to the economy. Heidi Jo Castro on Capitol Hill, thank you very much. And thank you for watching this latest midterms roundup here on Al Jazeera English. And coming up at 18.30 GMT, 2.30 p.m. Eastern time, This Is America examines what's become of one of Donald Trump's most controversial policies, immigration enforcement through ICE. Here's what some voters are saying about it. The administration is absolutely horrible on immigration. I think they're disgusting. If I hear anyone speaking poorly of immigrants, they would definitely not get my vote. Don't get mad at the workers who actually come here to work. I just deeply disagree with their immigration policies at large. Immigration, I think they're handling it terribly. America was born with immigrants. First thing they need to do is stop ICE.