US midterms 2026 latest: Knives out in Michigan

Welcome to Al Jazeera's Midterms Roundup. I'm Alex Marquardt in Washington. Donald Trump and the Republicans are scrambling to lock up votes ahead of Election Day, but the Democrats are counting on a wave of public resentment over rising prices to push them over the finish line in both the House and in the Senate. Giving them the keys to Congress. Now, several of the contests have turned ugly. One of the most stunning turns of this election cycle and one of the most important races in the Senate, this was in Michigan, the Republican candidate Mike Rogers was endorsed at the 11th hour by none other than Democrat Haley Stevens in a sharp rebuke to Rogers' Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed. Now, we have correspondents... In Michigan, in Maine, in Georgia, in Iowa, and in Ohio. But let's start there in Michigan with our Richard Gaisford in Detroit and this shocking turn of events. So, Richard, it is turmoil to say the least in Michigan with Haley Stevens, the woman who lost to Abdel Syed in the primary. She went out and endorsed Republican Mike Rogers. So how is Al-Syed responding? Well, he spent the last 24 hours trying not to mention Haley Stevens' name, batting questions away. Now, the style, Alex, perhaps he might have thought this was going to have a negative impact on him. Democrats here in Michigan now telling us it seems to have backfired on Haley Stevens and Mike Rogers. They say that $1.2 million of donations were made to his campaign in the hours after that announcement. And certainly when you look at the latest New York Times poll, well, you can see that he appears to be racing ahead. They're putting him 11 points clear of Mike Rogers in this Senate race. And Haley Stevens, well, she had said she would campaign with Abdul El-Sayed. She said that she would vote for him. She would bring a big block of black and Jewish voters with her. But then she started to set conditions. She wanted him. to denounce a campaign video that had been put out by another group suggesting that money paid to Israel by America for bombs that were then dropped on Gaza was actually putting up the cost of living here in Michigan. He didn't want to get involved with that. He's spent the morning now hammering home his message talking about the kind of comments that have been made by the president whilst Hayley Stephens yesterday really was trying desperately to explain what she was up to. How are you supporting a candidate that stands so firmly with some of the policies that you stood so firmly against? Look, nothing is perfect. Haley Stevens is a traitor! Haley Stevens is a traitor! Can you just... Their whole campaign has been to point to me and talk about my name and my faith. Here's the thing about it. My name and my faith aren't raising your gas prices. They're not raising the price of your groceries. Not the reason you can't see a doctor. If you see a doctor, they might actually have my name and my faith. Well, Mike Rogers' last campaign stop will be in Oakland County to the north of Detroit. It is where Haley Stevens comes from. There is a big group of Jewish voters there. It is worth remembering, Alex, that Israel has played a big part in this Senate race. Pro-Israeli lobbyists have put upwards of $7 million into the Republican funding, desperate to try and find a sympathetic senator to win here in Michigan. All right, Richard Gisbert in Detroit. Now, rounding off some of those seats that Democrats are hoping to clinch in their fight for the Senate is Maine, where we have Eva McKend in Bangor, Maine. So, Eva, Troy Jackson is the Democrat. He's one of the biggest hopes for those Democrats in terms of taking seats, flipping seats that belong to Republicans. What are the chances that he can eke out a victory against Republican Senator Susan Collins, who has been in the Senate for some three decades? Alex, with only hours to go, I would say that Troy Jackson is still very much the underdog and he has been campaigning as such exhaustively. That is because incumbent Republican Susan Collins has a long record of defying polls. Jackson right now campaigning in southern Maine. That's in Portland and the area surrounding it. Meanwhile, Collins in northern Maine, that's north of Bangor, where we are and where she lives in the rural communities where both Collins and Jackson grew. A key issue that has emerged in this contest is the closure of labor and delivery clinics. I asked Senator Collins if she regretted advancing President Trump's legislative priority, the big beautiful bill, because it included cuts to Medicaid. And here's what she told me. I am working very hard to try to keep our obstetrics services and maternity wards open in Maine. Here's the difference. Troy Jackson and I both oppose the Medicaid cuts, despite the lying ads on television. But what I was able to do was to get a rural health care fund put into the bill. That has given $190 million to the state of Maine in the first of five tranches and was just used to save the Penobscot County health clinics, which serve 55,000 people. So Jackson, of course, argues that the money that Collins has been able to bring back dwarfs the money that the country is losing because of these health care cuts. He really campaigns on Medicare for all. So that is expanding health care more broadly to be free and accessible to all Americans. But this issue is not only playing a big role in the Senate contest. It's also playing a big role in the House race. That's congressional district to take a listen. I am currently 37 weeks pregnant with my first child and so it when I found out the news that our local labor and delivery unit would be closing within just a handful of months it obviously was concerning to me. Bordering Maine's second congressional district in Lincoln County Leslie Wolfe facing uncertainty firsthand. The hospital where she plans to give birth will close its labor and delivery unit in December. The 12th such closure in Maine since 2015. Women, families have had to drive two plus hours to give birth, sometimes delivering in their cars and ambulances, which is terrible for the mom and the baby. It's one example of the challenges facing rural Maine, where access to health care, the cost of living, heating oil, and the future of the state's natural resources are all weighing on voters. The common themes don't change. The access to health care, the cost of living, generally speaking, those are the things that are most on people's minds. Democrat Matt Dunlap trying to persuade Mainers in a district President Donald Trump carried by nearly 10 points in 2024. Arguing Washington's decisions have real consequences for rural communities. I'm Paul LePage. His Republican opponent, former Governor Paul LePage, has pointed to federal funding intended to bolster rural health care. There's $50 billion that's going to be spent across the nation in rural communities to help sustain and have health care provided to those in need. But that funding comes alongside major federal Medicaid reductions under Trump's signature law. Estimates suggest Maine hospitals alone could lose more than $66 million a year in funding. I mean, you have so many people on fixed incomes who can't afford what they're paying last year. For voters, the stakes are local, but the outcome here could decide who controls the U.S. House of Representatives. Eva McKend, Al Jazeera, Maine. And to Georgia now, where the incumbent Democratic Senator John Ossoff is preparing to hold his final rally before Election Day, and our Matthew Torres is there in Decatur, Georgia. So, Matthew, the polling in that Senate race has had John Ossoff ahead of his Republican challenger, Mike Collins, quite significantly ahead for quite some time. However, Georgia is not a slam dunk for Democrats. There is a very close race for the governor. That's right. And this is a crucial race because it's going to test how strong the Democratic Party is here in Georgia. The race showing, according to that polls between the governor candidate, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican billionaire Rick Jackson is still very tight. That is, despite Jackson spending nearly 200 million dollars of his own money to fund this campaign. The question is whether Senator John Ossoff's popularity is enough to pull Bottoms to victory. Or will we see a split-ticket vote? But those Democrats are hopeful that the surge in early voting is a good sign. Georgia already broke its own record with more than 2.7 million ballots cast. And that is certainly good news for the Georgia Secretary of State, who believes this is a sign that voters trust the system. He has been fighting against skeptics of election integrity since 2020, when he resisted. President Donald Trump's calls to overturn Biden's victory in the state and as he pushed back on allegations of voter fraud. This is his last election cycle and says the changes they have made throughout the years makes the counting system fair, free and fast. Well, at the end of the day, we know that we're going to have an accurate election. We have a verifiable paper ballot, we have a clean voter list, and then we're going to have quick results. And then we have observers taking a look at that. And then we're actually then going to do an audit, a risk limiting audit, and then the scanned ballot image audit. That's another audit that you have. So those ballots are going to be counted, so we know that's not going to be an issue here in Georgia. At the end of the day, we've been shown to be very clear that we'll push back on any kind of misinformation that's put out there, because we don't want our voters to be misled. And Alex, we have been speaking with voters all over the state. And yes, while affordability rises to the top, we are hearing concerns about data centers, especially as Georgia is now leading in this type of development, enough so that it's motivating how voters vote in the ballots across party lines, as we have learned during our time in coastal Georgia. Through the swamps of Ebenezer Creek in Effingham County. So that's Spanish moss. Time has stood still. And it's just a beautiful, natural, mostly undeveloped river. It's why Jeff Bovee is fighting to protect it. I'm having my first child in a month, and I want him to be able to grow up in the kind of natural beauty that I did. But this advocate for coastal Georgia fears that could change. With OpenAI's proposed $20 billion data center plan in the county called Project Camellia, the 1,400-acre development would require 3.2 gigawatts of power and a federal permit to fill 72 acres of wetlands. We are not. Anti-data center, you know, period. We want them, again, placed in the right place that is not going to impact our natural resources and our quality of life. Unlike other regions in Georgia, Savannah and its surrounding areas do not have an AI data center. Project Camellia would not only be the first one, it's projected to be the largest in the state. Essentially diagonally to where my finger is pointing will be the first building. Raymond Carver is concerned about noise and disruption to his neighborhood. Carver accuses officials of changing zoning laws to favor open AI while failing to involve the public. A county spokesperson declined to comment due to pending litigation. Why not have the conversation with us the entire time it was being spoken about? But as communities continue to resist data centers across the country, the project is also fueling a political divide and unlikely alliances. Democrats and Republicans view data centers as a ballot issue. In local and Georgia's governor's races, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms sports a state moratorium. Republican Rick Jackson, who has invested in a data center, wants communities to decide. And I don't believe that because the... The community that they put their data center in doesn't want it. For me, it's not about red or blue, it's about right. Do you know people who are crossing party lines because of this? Personally, yeah. The county says Project Camellia will boost the economy, with OpenAI paying for its own infrastructure and electricity and using limited water. Do you believe them at all? I'm not really interested in being in the space where I have to believe somebody. But he knows change may be unavoidable, even where time has stood still. The question is what that change will look like. Matthew Torres, Al Jazeera, Rankin, Georgia. One of Donald Trump's final campaign rallies took place in Iowa, and that's where we find our Patty Culhane, who is in Des Moines. So, Patty, Iowa, yet another state that went reliably for Trump in the last few presidential elections. Now Democrats are seeing a chance to flip not just the Senate seat, but several in the House as well. Why is Iowa in play for Democrats? Well, I was in play because the polls say it is in play. I'm at the last early voting site in Polk County. That's where the capital, Des Moines, is located. Just take a look at the line for early voting. It goes all the way down this hallway, all the way back up. And you can see. The line's not exactly speeding along. It's about an hour and a half to two hours to cast a ballot. And in the time we've been here, it's been a while, I've only seen one person walk away and say that's simply too long. And part of the reason why is because of what they are voting for. As you mentioned, there's an open governor's race, but also an open Senate seat where we see Ashley Hinson, the Republican. And Josh Turek, the Democrat, they're really polling neck and neck. And there's four congressional house districts in Iowa, all of them now held by Republicans. And the polling shows Democrats might be able to flip. three of those. So early voting across the country, we really saw across states that the early voting numbers were huge. We weren't seeing that in Iowa, despite what you're seeing here. But I just checked the latest numbers and it is about 70,000 more early voting than happened in 2022. The majority of those are Democrat, but that really you can't reach too much into that because Democrats tend to early vote. Republicans tend to vote on the day. Interestingly, 19% of those votes are independents and independents are going. to decide this race. And I want to tell you, we have been all over the state of Iowa, from Des Moines to Iowa City to Davenport to Cedar Rapids, now back to Des Moines, talking to voters. And it's not just affordability and gas prices and grocery prices that they're telling me is the reason they're voting. For some, they like the immigration policies. Others say they're appalled by the crackdown from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some say they're coming out to vote because they want to support Donald Trump. Others say they believe it's a check. They need to check his power. And cultural issues still very much a center of the race here. People talking very much about the idea of trans athletes playing in women's sports. That's still driving people to the polls here. And one of the things I tend to do when I talk to people is I ask, how's it going to go? Especially when there's a sentence for race. Because the voters here, especially in Iowa where they take their politics so seriously, they tend to know. And a couple have said they think that the Senate race will go to the Republican Hinson. But more often than not, they've all said to me, look, I almost always know how these races are going to turn out. This time. I really don't, and that is telling, because over the last 24 hours, we always see the big pollsters. They release their last snapshot of how things go, and you're starting to see in all these battleground races, Democratic candidates in those important Senate races, they are starting to move ahead. In every state but Iowa, it is still pretty much... And so we'll have to wait just a few more hours to figure out exactly which way all of these voters are going, but they're taking it seriously. It's just not an easy thing, waiting two hours in a long line, but they're doing it because they want their voices to be heard. Iowans always take it seriously, and they are very proud of their political acumen. Patty Culhane in Des Moines, thank you very much. Now on to Ohio. The president visited Ohio three times just last month to rally for Republican candidates. Our Heidi Jo Castro is in Columbus, Ohio. So, Heidi, Ohio often seen as a bellwether. What are the critical races that you're watching? Well, there are two nail-biter races here, Alex. Of course, there's that Senate seat held by the incumbent Republican John Husted, the Democrat Sherrod Brown trying to flip that in what could be a pivotal race for control of the Senate. But we're also looking at the governor's race. That is the Trump-backed Republican billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy facing the state's former health director Amy Acton. Acton is leading slightly in the polls, and her campaign may have inadvertently gotten a boost from an attack ad That was aired by Ramaswamy against her. That ad featured Acton's estranged mother, but it served to actually bring up public sympathy for her and for her survival of childhood sex abuse at the hands of her stepfather. Now, other Republicans in Ohio actually denounced Ramaswamy's campaign for airing that ad. He initially supported it. Then he finally. Did take it off the airwaves early, and now he's crisscrossing the state trying to convince voters to talk about anything but that ad. I was at one of his events yesterday hearing from his supporters who liked his messages calling Democrats socialists and saying he would reform the state's education and tax systems. Here's what they said. I came to see Vivek Ramaswamy, and just, he's an awesome man, and I hope that everything goes well for him and his family, and I just wish him all the luck on this election, and he's going to be our next governor. It could motivate Republicans to come out and vote by getting more people, you know, reminded that there's even an election. As sad as it is, I think about, you know, this stuff a lot, but there's a lot of people that it's like, they're like, oh, there's an election? And I'm like, how could you not know there's an election? And you know what? Republican turnout among early voters has been trailing that of Democrats, similar to other stories across the country. But here in Ohio, there has been record overall early voting turnout, more than 1.7 million ballots so far already submitted. That, Alex, does shatter all previous midterm elections in Ohio. Ohio, one place we will be watching very, very closely. Heidi Jo Castro in Columbus. Thank you very much. Now, Vice President J.D. Vance has visited upstate New York, a rural Republican stronghold. Many voters there are farmers. They've been hit hard by rising fuel costs. And our Kristen Salumi went there. Upstate New York's 21st congressional district is home to more tractors than taxi cabs and more registered Republicans than Democrats. Donald Trump won here by a 20 20% margin in 2024. But the last two years here have been challenging for local farmers, the backbone of the district's economy. This Iran war skyrocketed the diesel fuel, which we very depend on diesel here. Everything we got here runs on diesel. And we're paying, you know, twice as much right now per gallon. It's tough along with everything else. The rising cost of fuel and fertilizer, not to mention tariffs on Canada, have caused some here to reconsider their political loyalties. We were very red. And that's what helped drive some of the choices, right, as to who's in office now. But I think it's been a wake-up call for people, really, because the things that were promised are not being delivered. With just one day to go, Vice President J.D. Vance has come here to Rome, New York, where polls suggest this once reliably red district is now too close to call. He joined Anthony Constantino, the owner of a local sticker factory, who's running for an empty house seat on the Republican ticket. His MAGA platform and campaign style earning him the endorsement of President Trump. I'm tired of losing my friends and family to other states. You can go out and vote tomorrow, vote every Republican you can find. His challenger isn't exactly a liberal lefty. Now we're heading across the district, sitting down with farmers, families, and small businesses. Blake Jendebean is a local dairy farmer who describes himself as a middle-of-the-road Democrat and free-market capitalist. Still, distrust of Democrats runs deep here. If we could keep the Republicans in. I think within two years, we'd be pretty good shape, if we don't have any more wars. In a district that has consistently backed Donald Trump, the outcome is anything but certain. Kristen Salumi, Al Jazeera, Rome, New York. Let's unpack all of this with our midterm analysts. We have Patrick Mara. He is chair of the Washington, D.C., Republican Party. And Eric Hamm, who is a former Democratic congressional staffer and a proud son of Michigan. Go blue. Go blue. Eric, I mean, this is just unbelievable to have this turn of events in Michigan that happened over the weekend. And I want to actually put up a tweet from the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party who announces that Haley Stevens, who is a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, is Is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future. So she has been turfed out of the Democrats in Michigan. How much will this help or hurt the Democratic nominee, Abdullah Syed? Well, look, already 2.3 million people in the state have already voted. So I doubt it's going to shape. Much in terms of what we're going to see tomorrow. However, I think because this actually took place in Detroit, southeast Michigan, where that is still the bulwark for Democrats, it only hardened, I think, the case for Democrats. And I think it will energize the party heading into the final day to say nothing of what we've already seen in terms of the final fundraising numbers for Al-Sayed, where it was a record number in terms of what they were able to raise as a result of what we saw from Haley Stevens about face yesterday. There has been a narrative in Michigan that has been disputed that Rogers has been pushing, that he's been able to peel off African-American voters, Jewish voters from the El-Sayed campaign. How much do you think, Patrick, that this move by Stevens is actually going to give Rogers any kind of boost? I think it does give Rogers a bit of traction, and this is one of those endorsements that... You would definitely want, if the roles were reversed, and this were the leading Republican in the Republican primary who endorsed El-Sayed, then this is an endorsement that he would want. This is huge for Republicans, and Mike Rogers in particular. It's no secret that Jewish Democrats, many are on the fence about him, and so this helps with that demographic. And it doesn't necessarily mean translating to votes for Mike Rogers. But what it does is some of those people will not vote. They'll leave the ballot blank on the Senate line or they'll write somebody in. And at the same time, the same can be said for African-Americans in Michigan, urban and suburban African-American voters. This pushes them a little at least more to the fence, considering Rogers or deciding not to vote or not to at least vote that line on the ballot. This is actually going to, I think... Really have an impact, particularly with Jewish voters. And quite frankly, it's just not enough of them to actually change the outcome of this race in terms of what we've already been seeing in the record turnout already. There are also a lot of non-Jewish voters who are concerned about what El-Sayed has said about Israel. I've spoken to a handful of them. So I guess Eric's hoping that, you know, a lot of the Democrats have actually already gone out and cast their vote, while, Patrick, you argue that not only could they go to the ballot box and not check it for Democrats, they could actually stay home. Yes. All right. So let's broaden this out. We have some extraordinary new polling. And I emphasize that polls have gone We've gotten it wrong in the past, but some of these numbers really are incredible. New York Times, CNN, out with new polling that looks at seven of these swing states in the Senate races. And, Eric, they're showing a good chance of Democratic pickups in Kansas, in Maine, and in Texas. Of course, Democrats need four seats to flip the Senate. Are Democrats letting themselves get their hopes up? I think they are. But nevertheless, they're keeping their foot on the gas. But we're again, it comes down to not what polls are saying, but what voters are actually doing. And if you look at a state like Texas, which has been the white wall for Democrats for years now, we have seen a record turnout of young voters, Latino voters in that state. So I do believe that race is going to be very competitive, a nail biter, much like what we saw in 2018. If Kansas is actually in play and if Democrats can flip Kansas, and that's a big if Democrats can do that, I think we see that being the first domino to fall in a number of these competitive races going to Democrats tomorrow. But it wouldn't necessarily be a first domino, right, because they're in the middle of the country. So we will have been looking at, say. North Carolina, where Democrats expected to win some of the Midwest before we get to Kansas, right? I think North Carolina is a state that has not been in play this entire cycle. Roy Cooper has been leading for more than 10 points throughout this entire year, very much like what we're seeing in Georgia. Those just aren't competitive races. Democrats are going to hold in Georgia. They're going to pick up in North Carolina. Even Republicans recognize that, which is why they pulled most of their resources out months ago. But again, places like Iowa. Iowa, Kansas, and we're already hearing that Republicans are privately conceding they're going to lose in Kansas. Democrats have not sent anyone to Washington in nearly 100 years. So if that's a state that falls, I think of the eight competitive states that we're watching, I think Democrats may turn the table on all of them if they pick up in a place like Kansas. Yeah, that would be shocking, and that's a whole other conversation about candidates I think it's important to think about this versus the issues And the reason I mentioned North Carolina, that are at play that are significant, by the way, is because of some House seats that we'll be watching closely to get a sense of which way the voters are going. Otherwise, I agree with you, Cooper's probably got it in the bag. Patrick, last question to you. Where do you expect Republicans in these Senate races to block those Democratic successes in terms of them flipping the Senate? Yeah. So starting early in the evening, obviously, if we look at Maine, you have Susan Collins in Maine. That is a much more localized race. You know, she grew up in Maine. She's talking about potato farming as a youth, and she's done a lot for the state. She's among the most bipartisan members of the United States Senate. So she keeps her seat? I think she keeps her seat. If she does not, this creates serious problems for Republicans. But then in terms of a bellwether, I'd also be We'll be looking at Iowa, because Ashley Hinson there, right, and this is what many Many of the congressional seats, members of Congress in swing states have done, she has differentiated herself on the Iran war, on agriculture, on the foreign beef imports, and she is selling herself as bipartisan. Over in Kansas, that's a little different. Roger Marshall there, he... He agrees with President Trump on everything throughout the campaign, except for one thing, the $5,000 gift. So it will be interesting to see what happens in Kansas. I think Roger Marshall is going to win regardless, but I would be looking at Iowa and Ashley Hinson as really as a bellwether. If Republicans don't win there, that has to do more with the economic situation, the price of gases, agricultural prices, et cetera. That Midwest stretch of Ohio, Michigan, Iowa is going to be very, very interesting. Unfortunately, we've got to leave it there. Thankfully, we've got a lot more time with you gentlemen to talk about all this. Patrick Mara, Eric Hamm, thank you both very much. Appreciate it. Thanks. And that's all for us in this midterms roundup on Al Jazeera. You can catch up with all of our midterms coverage on YouTube and our website, aljazeera.com. I want to hand it back to our global headquarters in Dome.