Politics

Midterm campaign enters final weekend as Alaska probe intensifies and California ballot fight heads toward Supreme Court

Washington • October 31, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

Editorial illustration: voters lining up outside a courthouse in autumn, with American flags and a ballot box in the foreground

Editorial illustration — Press Pass USA

The Trump administration pressed a criminal investigation into Alaska's pivotal U.S. Senate race and said on Saturday it would likely take its fight over thousands of California mail-in ballots to the Supreme Court, as the midterm campaign for control of Congress entered its final weekend.

Tuesday's vote will decide 35 Senate races and all 435 House seats, setting the terms of President Donald Trump's final two years in office. Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow edge in the House; losing either chamber would let Democrats block Trump's agenda and launch investigations of an administration that has until now faced largely compliant Republican majorities.

In Alaska, federal prosecutors are investigating whether aides to Democratic challenger Mary Peltola helped recruit retired schoolteacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. to run because he shares a name with the Republican incumbent, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. The closely contested race is seen as crucial to Democrats' hopes of taking the Senate.

U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman, the Justice Department's top prosecutor in Alaska, said at a Friday press conference that a recent New York Times report on the alleged recruitment effort had driven a "surge" of FBI resources onto the case. Heyman said he had assigned several prosecutors to it and that investigative steps were taking place "intensely and swiftly." He called Sullivan Jr. a "sham candidate" but declined to say what crime may have been committed.

Peltola and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have denied involvement in any effort to recruit the second Sullivan, and the retired teacher has denied coordinating with Peltola's campaign. Separately on Friday, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to order Alaska election officials to isolate ballots ranking Daniel J. Sullivan, as part of its civil lawsuit seeking to block the state from quickly certifying the Senate result if the incumbent loses.

In California, a federal appeals court earlier this week ruled 2-1 that the Justice Department had failed to justify its emergency bid to force the state to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters it alleges are likely noncitizens. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told Fox News on Saturday that the Supreme Court is the likely next step. "I hesitate to give a final answer, but I think probably the Supreme Court's next on this one," McCotter said, adding that any request for Supreme Court consideration would come before Tuesday's election.

On Friday, a federal judge separately ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening to prosecute California election officials who defy its directives. Beyond California, the administration has sued roughly 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking unredacted voter rolls — legal maneuvers that have alarmed state election officials, who note that the Constitution gives states primary authority over how elections are run.

Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center for Justice told Reuters the efforts, while unlikely to win in court, aim at "creating uncertainty, sowing fear, distrust, chaos," in hopes of pressuring officials such as Alaska's lieutenant governor "to do something that they're not supposed to do." Even so, 76% of U.S. voters say they are confident their ballots will be counted accurately, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted September 30 to October 5, with confidence about equally high among Republicans and Democrats.

Early voting has already set a record. More than 51 million Americans have cast ballots in person or by mail, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab, up from nearly 46 million who voted before Election Day at the last midterms in 2022.

Trump has been on a campaign blitz in multiple states over the past month but is spending Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. He returns to the campaign trail on Sunday in Kansas and Iowa, where Republicans are playing defense in Senate races in states that traditionally go Republican. In Michigan, another closely watched Senate race — Democrat Abdul El-Sayed against Republican Mike Rogers — was roiled by a flare-up in El-Sayed's feud with the rival he beat in the primary, Rep. Haley Stevens, who has backed El-Sayed but demanded he condemn an outside group's ad blaming Israel for high grocery prices.

Sources: Reuters, “US campaign enters final weekend as Alaska, California ballot fights heat up” (Oct 31, 2026, by Andrew Goudsward, David Morgan and Nathan Frandino); NPR / Associated Press, “Justice Department seeks to isolate Alaska ballots amid criminal probe” (Oct 30, 2026, Anchorage); USA Today, “'28 days in a row of this crap is a lot.' Trump weighs in on midterm rallies” (Oct 31, 2026).