trump election fraud

Veteran conservative columnist George F. Will is openly advocating for Republican losses in the November midterms on the grounds that President Donald Trump has left a large part of the GOP unwilling to act without him.

In his opinion article in the Washington Post, Will stated that he hopes most of the Republican Party will be "smashed to atoms" on Election Day; he described the party as "trembling and embarrassed" and said that most Republican lawmakers had exchanged their independence for political survival under Trump.

Will, having written for The Post since 1974 and winning the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary in 1977, has for many years been one of the most well-known conservative writers in the country; his most recent criticism was not directed at conservative policy but at what he called the congressional Republicans' failure to curb Trump's power.

Will stated that “vast Republican carnage should not be entirely indiscriminate,” but makes an exception for two of the Republican Senate candidates to survive in the event of a Democratic wave.

Will praised Maine Senator Susan Collins, who is running for reelection, for her vote in 2018 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Justice, on the grounds that she had carefully gone over Kavanaugh's record and the claims of sexual assault made against him before deciding to back his nomination.

The second is Mike Rogers, a former member of Congress from Michigan who is now running for Senate against the surging Democratic nominee, Abdul El-Sayed. Rogers has positioned himself as a supporter of Trump and states on his campaign website that he will support the president, even though he has at the same time parted ways with Trump over some issues during the campaign.

Will's main point was that setbacks suffered by the Republican Party might prompt it to reevaluate its position on Trump and lead to a more independent role for Congress. He stated that voters should judge the members of parliament who had allowed the president to carry on rather than concentrating solely on Trump.

As Will put it, “if there is no penalty for travesties, travesties will proliferate.”

He directed attention to voters' anger about the high prices of gasoline, diesel, and fertilizer, as well as towards Trump's trade policies, the immigration restrictions and the ongoing war with Iran. He also maintained that congressional Republicans have mostly given up their constitutional role by accepting presidential decisions instead of challenging them.

Will went a step further by stating that losses in Republican-held Senate seats, ranging from Alaska and Iowa to Texas and Ohio, could be forced upon the party to review its future direction and restore “legislative checks on the executive.”

He concluded plainly that Republicans needed enough lawmakers to act as an opposition and to have a presidential veto, but beyond that, voters had no reason to reward members of Congress who had made themselves politically irrelevant.

As the GOP becomes more and more worried about surprise midterm losses in their own strongholds, a second former GOP governor has publicly endorsed a Democratic candidate in a deep-red state.

Republican Mike Hayden previously served as governor of Kansas from 1987 to 1991, and later served as head of the state's Wildlife and Parks Department under two subsequent administrations. Writing for the Kansas City Star newspaper on Friday, Hayden became the second former GOP governor to endorse Democratic Senate nominee Adam Hamilton in his race to unseat Sen. Roger Marshall, following in the footsteps of former Gov. Bill Graves.

"I ran for office for the first time when I was only 28 years old because I felt the person representing my community in the legislature was failing to fight for the needs of our state," Hayden wrote. "Today, I am endorsing Adam Hamilton for the U.S. Senate for the same reasons. I am a proud lifelong Republican. My conservative values guided me throughout my time as governor and the years since. I fought for property tax reform, stood up for agricultural producers, and put our state on stronger financial footing. Governing should always center around the best interests of the people."

Hayden argued further that Marshall, the state's one-term junior senator, "is failing to live up to that standard," and that Kansans "deserve champions in Congress who fight for them every day." Instead, "the policies currently coming out of Washington are leaving them behind," including President Donald Trump's "chaotic tariffs," as well as his Iran war, which "is causing record-high diesel prices, driving up the cost of planting, harvesting, and hauling, and more family farms are at risk of going bankrupt."

"Sen. Marshall time and again has chosen to back the tariffs and the war, despite what is happening back in Kansas," Hayden continued. "Kansans need a senator willing to stand up and say this isn’t working, and to press for relief and real solutions. We need a senator who listens. I believe Adam will be that kind of leader for our state."

He added: "We also need a senator who understands compromise and bipartisanship are not weaknesses, but strengths. As speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives and as governor, I knew it took reaching across the aisle to deliver for Kansans. Adam’s experience as the pastor of the largest United Methodist church in the country — a church that is made up of equal parts Republicans, Democrats, and Independents — makes him uniquely prepared to go to Washington and bring people together around the solutions we need to solve our nation’s biggest problems, whether it’s the Farm Bill or reducing the national debt."

Hayden noted that he had supported Marshall in the past, but lamented the fact that he "has spent his time in the Senate putting party and politics over the people of Kansas," leading him to believe that "it's time for a change."

A Democrat is carrying out a rather strong campaign for the office of Alaska governor while three Republicans are still in the race. A well-known observer of the state's politics has even described the Republican candidates as "a bunch of political losers".

In the August open primary, 37-year-old former state Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins took first place. He is the sole Democrat among the four candidates who will be running in November. All of the Republican candidates, Bernadette Wilson, Dave Bronson, and Treg Taylor, have remained in the race, which means that voters in the Republican Party have three choices available to them under Alaska's ranked-choice voting system.

This unusual lineup gives Kreiss-Tomkins the chance to become the first Democrat elected governor of Alaska since Tony Knowles, who secured a second term in 1998 and retired in 2002.

Larry Persily, who has for a long time been an observer of Alaska politics and who previously owned the Wrangell Sentinel as well as worked as an editorial page editor at the Anchorage Daily News, said to The Guardian that Kreiss-Tomkins' stance is shaped by both his campaign and national politics.

Persily said that the Republicans “just put up a bunch of political losers.” A recent bipartisan AARP survey shows why Republicans are worried.

Kreiss-Tomkins received 40 percent of the first-preference votes, whereas Wilson, Bronson, and Taylor collectively obtained 41 percent. The results from the ranked-choice voting process indicated that Kreiss-Tomkins defeated Wilson, the leading Republican, by a margin of 10 points.

Wilson has requested that both Bronson and Taylor should withdraw so that the Republicans may unite behind her, but neither of them has agreed. Bronson maintains that the Republicans can win if conservative voters rank all of the GOP candidates rather than just selecting a first choice.

The race is taking place in a state which President Donald Trump won by 13 points in 2024; Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy is retiring after serving two terms, and the voters also dislike the state's Permanent Fund Dividend, which is one of the campaign's issues. The amount for the 2026 payment will be $1,000 together with $200 for energy relief.

Kreiss-Tomkins has directed his campaign towards getting face-to-face with people. This summer he covered hundreds of miles by boat along the Yukon River, visiting small villages which candidates usually do not go to. He has made education and reducing daily costs the key elements of his campaign.

The Republicans have also encountered their own set of difficulties. Wilson came third in the primary, coming after Kreiss-Tomkins and the Democrat Tom Begich. Begich then withdrew from the race and backed Kreiss-Tomkins, which enabled Taylor to enter the final four along with Wilson and Bronson.

Since all three Republicans are still appearing on the November ballot, the contest will show whether GOP voters rank all of their favored candidates or whether Kreiss-Tomkins will be able to turn his primary victory into a rare Democratic win in Alaska.

The Republican Party is stuck with "ridiculous" messaging plans and faulty strategies with a month left till the midterms, according to conservative pundit Bill Kristol, who told MS NOW that a 2006-style wipeout is looking likely.

On Friday, Kristol, a vocal anti-Trump conservative and editor-at-large for The Bulwark, appeared as a guest on MS NOW's On the Line, discussing the political prospects for both parties with roughly a month left until Election Day. Guest host Ali Vitali highlighted recent remarks from Montana Sen. and former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee Steve Daines, who said at a recent event that the GOP might be in for a repeat of the 2006 midterms, when factors surrounding and including George W. Bush's toxic unpopularity cost them dearly.

"There arguably could be some similarities between the '06 cycle and the 2026 cycle," Daines said. "Think about the condition of the country back in '06: an unpopular war, 6 in 10 Americans opposed the Iraq War. At that point, gas prices had doubled. Does this sound familiar? And we ended up losing six seats [in the Senate]."

Kristol, who was working for the GOP back in 2006, said that he has suspected that the 2026 midterm would end up being a similar anti-Republican wave for a long time now.

"If a president's party controls Congress, a midterm election becomes a referendum on, 'do you want the president's party to continue controlling Congress and enabling what he's doing, approving what he's doing? Or do you want to put a check on the president, maybe rebuke the president a little bit?'" Kristol explained. "Midterm elections are about that. And so we focus a lot on individual candidates, and they matter at the margin. Precisely the definition of a wave is [that] it's about something bigger. It's a national phenomenon. And that's why you see all these states moving in the same direction. And we get a little too obsessed sometimes with this individual race."

He continued: "So I think it's a wave. Trump's the biggest picture. Trump's approval has gone from 49, 50 percent two years ago on Election Day, when he was running as a candidate, to what, 34, 35, 37 percent? That's a huge drop, and it's going to take his party down with him. And the only question is how deep it goes. And I now think it can go pretty deep."

Later on in the segment, reacting to a clip of former Bush adviser Karl Rove encouraging Republicans to engage in "positive" messaging around Trump's agenda, Kristol called the idea "ridiculous," and added that their current strategy of demonizing Democrats is also faulty, given the nature of midterm elections.

"This is the problem with the demonizing of the Democrat side of it," Kristol said. "That works in a presidential race: you don't want this person as president. It doesn't work very well in a mid-year election where Trump's going to be president for the next few years. As for the positive agenda, it's a little ridiculous. He's been president with a Republican Congress — a totally compliant one, I might add — for two years... What's he going to do in the next two years that is different from what he's been doing in the last two years?"

President Donald Trump gave a lengthy defense of his Texas midterm convention Thursday, boasting about its audience and reminding reporters of his successful presidential campaigns in the state.

However, the argument also pointed back to a much less comfortable reality for Republicans: In parts of South Texas where Trump made major gains in 2024, his numbers now appear to be sinking.

Trump was responding to a question about Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, who was reportedly caught on tape complaining that the September GOP convention in Dallas had damaged Republican candidates.

“That convention was a tremendous success,” Trump said, claiming it drew 107 million views, before adding, “I won Texas all three times.”

In audio obtained by The New York Times, Paxton said the convention “dropped our numbers” and that “everybody’s numbers dropped.” His campaign has disputed the report and released its own internal polling showing him leading Democrat James Talarico by three points.

The more striking numbers, however, are coming out of South Texas.

Madison Andrus, an official with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent that Trump’s job approval stood at just 36 percent in Texas’ 15th Congressional District and 35 percent in the 34th District.

In the 28th District, Andrus said Trump’s approval was down to 28 percent, while 60 percent disapproved.

"Just 28 percent of people approve of the job he is doing right now, with 60 percent disapproving. It’s just truly abysmal numbers for House Republicans to try to overcome," Andrus said. He added that South Texans are struggling with the cost of living, which contradicted claims made by Henry Cuellar's challenger for his congressional seat, Tano Tijerina.

The figures stand out because Trump performed strongly across the region in 2024. Sargent noted that Trump carried the 15th District by nearly 18 points and the 34th by about 10 points. Those margins were part of a Republican improvement in South Texas, where Democrats once dominated federal races.

Another survey from House Majority PAC showed Democrat Bobby Pulido leading Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz 54 percent to 41 percent in the 15th District. Andrus said voters she is hearing from are focused heavily on everyday costs, including groceries, gasoline, health care and beef. That part of Trump’s response may matter most.

While the president continues to point to past wins, convention crowds and online viewership, Republican candidates in South Texas are dealing with a different problem of whether the voters who moved toward Trump two years ago are still willing to stay with the GOP now.

Democrat David Jolly has built a 26-point lead over Republican Byron Donalds among voters in Broward County, according to a new poll offering a fresh look at one of the places Democrats will count on heavily in Florida’s increasingly competitive governor’s race.

According to South Florida’s Sun Sentinel, the Bendixen & Amandi International survey found Jolly ahead of Donalds 52 percent to 26 percent in Broward, one of Florida’s largest and most reliably Democratic counties.

The result is not a statewide poll, and Broward was always expected to favor Jolly. Kamala Harris carried the county by about 17 points in the 2024 presidential election. Still, Jolly’s 26-point advantage gives Democrats the kind of cushion they would want in South Florida if they hope to overcome Republicans’ statewide voter-registration advantage.

It also arrives at a moment when the race for governor no longer looks as comfortable for Republicans as it once did. The Cook Political Report moved the contest from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” this week, citing a tightening race between Jolly and Donalds.

For Jolly, Broward is familiar political territory in another sense. The former Republican congressman left the GOP years ago and eventually joined the Democratic Party, making his political transformation a constant part of the campaign.

Donalds, meanwhile, has campaigned as a conservative successor to Gov. Ron DeSantis and has enjoyed strong financial backing heading into the final stretch.

The Broward poll also found voters narrowly supporting Amendment 3, the property tax proposal that will appear on Florida’s November ballot.

The measure would dramatically increase the homestead exemption on non-school property taxes, beginning with an increase from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and then to $250,000 in 2028. It needs 60 percent statewide support to pass.

The issue has opened another clear divide between the two candidates.

Donalds supports the amendment and has argued that homeowners deserve relief after years of rising property tax bills.

“The reason why I support Amendment Three is because property taxes have almost doubled in the state the past several years, personal budgets haven’t doubled,” Donalds said this week.

Jolly opposes it, warning that such a steep reduction in local tax revenue could hurt counties that depend on property taxes to pay for services. He has instead pushed for more targeted relief, including help for first-time homebuyers.

For now, the Broward numbers show Jolly doing what a Democrat needs to do in one of Florida’s bluest corners: building a large lead. The harder question is whether he can carry enough of that strength beyond Broward to make the statewide race just as uncomfortable for Donalds.

Invoking a counterpoint to the idea of "Trump Derangement Syndrome," a conservative pundit writing for The Hill argued that "Trump Fatigue" is a very real thing, which he would know because he has "got it."

Bernard Goldberg is a veteran reporter and pundit, best known for his nearly three-decade tenure at CBS News. While he has occasionally bristled at the label, he has often been described as politically conservative, a description he now largely accepts, while noting that he would not consider himself a right-wing "nut." Over the years, this more moderate stance has meant that he has not been shy about leveling criticism against President Donald Trump, the same as he often has for Democratic leaders.

Writing for The Hill on Friday, Goldberg argued that the growing resentment and pushback towards Trump could not be dismissed summarily as part of a "derangement syndrome," despite his fondness for doing so.

"Not that it matters to President Trump, but a lot of Americans are not fans," Goldberg wrote. "They don’t like his public vulgarity, his narcissism, his appetite for vengeance and a lot more. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they have Trump Derangement Syndrome, the catch-all diagnosis his supporters like to apply to anyone who finds him objectionable."

He continued: "They may have another condition brought on by the president. There’s a good chance they’re suffering from Trump Fatigue. I know the symptoms because I have it. Every day with this president, something new hits the fan. Trump may need a daily dose of chaos, but the rest of us don’t. Chaos and controversy may be his oxygen. They may be what energize him. But after all these years, they’re what wear a lot of us out. And there’s rarely time to digest one controversy before the next one comes barreling down the road and smacks us in the mouth."

Goldberg proceeded to go through a laundry list of scandals and controversies that have engulfed Trump's second term from its very first day, all of which have cumulatively made him an exhausting presence to deal with. This included his pardoning of January 6 rioters, his antagonism towards Canada, his persistent threats to annex Greenland, his renaming of things like the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, and his refusal to accept his loss in the 2020 election.

"Enough already," Goldberg continued. "And that’s the point about Trump Fatigue. It isn’t the same thing as hating Trump. It isn’t even necessarily about disagreeing with his policies. You can support what he’s doing on the border, or taxes, or regulation, or foreign policy and still wonder why every day has to come with another insult, another provocation, another grandiose idea, another enemy, another controversy."

He added: "Trump Derangement Syndrome is supposed to describe people who can’t stop thinking about Trump. Trump Fatigue describes people who would occasionally like the opportunity to stop thinking about him."

President Donald Trump has survived political situations that at the time seemed as if they might end his career, but with the Republicans now facing a tough midterm election and voters becoming more dissatisfied with the economy, the political factor that has repeatedly enabled Trump to avoid disaster appears to be weakening.

On Friday, Brian Karem, writing for Salon, claimed that Trump's greatest political skill has always been his ability to keep going after suffering a defeat; however, he said that another significant setback for the Republican Party, such as major losses in the midterm elections, could result in the “effective end of his presidency.”

The column doesn’t imply that Trump would leave office since his term continues until January 2029 or, as Karem said, "if he lasts that long". A Democratic takeover of either chamber could also leave Trump with less room to advance legislation while giving Democrats greater power to investigate his administration, as party lawmakers have pledged to do.

The warning comes at a time when Trump is once again getting back onto the campaign trail. Beginning an intensive campaign push in October, he made visits to Texas and Oklahoma, telling Republican voters to treat the midterms as if his name were actually on the ballot. At one of his rallies, he asked his supporters to "pretend I'm running."

For a president whose political identity has always been based on refusing to stay down, this situation is nothing new; Trump had survived two impeachments, a defeat in the 2020 election, along with criminal investigations and convictions ebefore returning to the White House in a historic comeback.

Karem did describe Trump as something of a "one-trick pony", but pointed out that this trick has worked exceptionally well; that is, keep fighting, keep talking, and turn every defeat into the starting point of the next battle.

“Every failure is fuel for the next fiasco,” Karem wrote.

This time, though, Trump is facing the challenge with the Republicans dealing with ongoing voter frustration about the cost of living and increasing anxiety within his party regarding November.

With Trump’s approval on the economy hitting a new low, the Republican candidates are having to justify the party's record as voters lash out over grocery bills, housing costs and other ordinary expenses.

In response, Trump has set up an aggressive campaign timetable involving a number of rallies up to October. Nevertheless, his first visits took him to areas that are strongly Republican, even though GOP candidates are fighting for competitive seats in other places.

Karem observes a president who is still fighting but might no longer have the same ability to influence the political discussion surrounding him. Even if the Democrats achieve major gains in November, Trump would still have more than two years left in office.

However, the final two years of his presidency could look very different since a Democratic-controlled Congress would be able to block legislation, issue subpoenas, and initiate investigations. Karem believes that, “What comes after that could be chaos.”