Alaska’s Republican governor ordered an investigation into Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign Wednesday after The New York Times reported her campaign was involved with another person named Dan Sullivan ending up on the ballot alongside Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, the Republican incumbent. That report that Peltola’s campaign attempted to put a finger on the scale provoked a fresh round of outrage from President Donald Trump, and, at first glance, it may have seemed to support an unprecedented lawsuit by the Department of Justice lawsuit to pre-emptively discredit a Peltola victory. But not even Wednesday’s political bombshell justifies the DOJ’s involvement.

There’s a lot to find concerning about the Peltola campaign’s shenanigans, but the federal government has no power to force Alaska to alter its election procedures.

The Peltola campaign denies it did anything untoward, but there’s plenty to be concerned about in the Times’ reporting. According to Peltola’s former campaign manager, who spoke extensively with the Times but retracted her comments before publication, the campaign worked with Senate Democrats’ campaign arm to recruit the second Dan Sullivan to run. The DOJ’s lawsuit to intervene in Alaska’s election in case the incumbent Republican senator loses also leans heavily on the Peltola campaign’s supposedly nefarious moves to confound voters.

But even if there were attempts to confound voters, that doesn’t mean voters will be confounded. The ballot makes exceedingly clear which Dan Sullivan is which. The incumbent Dan S. Sullivan has the word “Incumbent” next to his name and the label “Registered Republican,” and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s name is left unadorned.

And Edward Foley, a law professor and former Ohio solicitor general, explained in an MS NOW essay why concerns of voters accidentally denying the incumbent senator re-election are “significantly mitigated” by the state’s ranked choice voting system.

That doesn’t mean we should entirely disregard the reported shady tactics and condescension from people working to get Peltola elected. At one point, some Democratic strategists seemed to delight in the idea of confusing the public:

In one exchange of text messages obtained by The Times, Peltola advisers seemed to make fun of voters while watching a focus group, surmising the participants would be susceptible to being tricked into voting for a ballot spoiler.

“Do we have a scheme for you,” wrote a consultant for the Peltola campaign. A pollster on the chat wrote that one voter seemed like the perfect audience “for our ballot strategy plan :)”

Despite Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s call for an investigation, and the DOJ’s lawsuit, the Times report makes clear that “ballot-stacking tactics are common in politics and generally considered legal — and have been employed by both parties in Alaska.” But the department’s lawsuit says it has an “obligation to protect the integrity of its election” and, if Peltola wins, wants to block certification “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan,” according to their lawsuit.

The DOJ’s suit quotes an initial claim from Carol Beecher, Alaska’s director of the division of elections, that Daniel J. Sullivan wanted to be on the ballot “for the purpose of confusing or misleading voters and compromising the fairness of the ballot.” But now Beecher is firmly against the DOJ’s suit. State lawyers in a motion to dismiss filed Monday argued that the federal government “lacks authority to intervene in state elections at all, much less in support of a favored candidate.”

If anything, in its own efforts to affect the race’s outcome, the DOJ may have jumped the gun.

Nothing in the Times’ report changes that. There may be consequences for Peltola and her campaign staff at the state level. As election law expert Rick Hasen noted, if anyone lied under oath about cooperation between Democrats and Dan J. Sullivan, then there could be cause for a perjury prosecution, but no allegations on that front had arisen as of Thursday afternoon.

Any such testimony would have come from Dan J. Sullivan’s lawsuit to remain on the ballot earlier this year. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in his favor, allowing him to remain an option for voters. Again, there’s a lot to find concerning about the Peltola campaign’s shenanigans, but the federal government has no power to force Alaska to alter its election procedures.

If anything, in its own efforts to affect the race’s outcome, the DOJ may have jumped the gun. I imagine there would be a lot more willingness to criticize Peltola outright, and a potentially less mixed bag reaction from Alaskans, without the federal intervention. As it stands, the case will still fall flat, and Alaska’s voters will still have their say in who represents them in the U.S. Senate — even if they have to take a few seconds longer to read their ballot.

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After months of ignoring the cost-of-living crisis, President Donald Trump has a novel plan to help struggling Americans: find some voter fraud. “Anybody reporting Voter Fraud in the past Elections, or the upcoming 2026 Midterm Election, will be paid $1,000,000 upon the arrest and conviction of those that created the Fraud!” the president wrote Monday afternoon on Truth Social.

Let’s be clear up front: It is highly unlikely that anybody will be collecting on this bounty anytime soon. At best, it is another desperate attempt from Trump to win over voters by throwing free money at them. But the gambit combines with the administration’s other preemptive efforts to muddy the midterm results in a far more concerning way.

In typically Trumpian fashion, the details of such a potentially consequential policy are basically nonexistent. “I’m also going to be issuing a $1 million bonus or reward, or whatever you want to call it, for anybody that reports voter fraud, leading to the arrest and conviction of somebody,” Trump told reporters a few hours after posting. “We’re giving that person $1 million.”

Let’s be clear up front: It is highly unlikely that anybody will be collecting on this bounty anytime soon.

From where will this, in theory, one or more million dollars be drawn? No idea, because as The Washington Sun noted, the “current Republican-led Congress has not yet authorized any sort of funding pool for a voter-fraud reporting rewards initiative, and if Democrats take back either chamber, it’s unlikely that a program would be authorized.” Election expert Rick Hasen told the Sun that the initiative is likely “part of a larger project on the part of Donald Trump to generate distrust of the election system by touting election fraud as some kind of problem.”

Voter fraud itself is exceedingly rare, as experts have shouted repeatedly for years. Trump and his allies falsely claim that Democrats have orchestrated en masse voting by noncitizens. They’ve never provided any proof. In 2020, Trump’s own campaign even paid more than $600,000 to have an outside group verify many of his claims, only for the group to debunk them.

Despite that, MAGA supporters yet again are leaning hard on the false narrative that noncitizen voting threatens the integrity of the midterms. The Department of Justice has already ordered Washington and California to set aside ballots from an administration-compiled list of noncitizens it claims “with a high level of confidence, have voted in elections.”

The Department of Homeland Security meanwhile claimed in July, without proof, that nearly 250,000 “potential” noncitzens were registered to vote in four states, with 16,000 on voter rolls in Nevada alone. (By August, MS NOW reported, it had only identified 185 potential noncitizens on the state’s rolls.)

Despite all that, MAGA supporters hearing Trump’s call may still think it will be easy to say they’ve spotted voter fraud in hopes of collecting the promised riches. But the fine print is important here, as Trump has stressed that a conviction on voter fraud charges is needed to cash in on the reward. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation has only identified 1,300 criminal convictions on voter fraud charges dating back to 1982 out of hundreds of millions of ballots cast in the interim.

I must admit though that there’s some twisted genius about Trump’s scam.

The GOP has had chance after chance to stop lying about voter fraud but instead continues to play upon its supporters’ fears, potentially casting doubt upon their own elections in the process. As I wrote more than three years ago, “Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories have become folded into Republican orthodoxy.” Playing along with the war on noncitizen voting gives credence to his claims that democracy is broken in a way that will be hard to recover from in the long term.

I must admit though that there’s some twisted genius about Trump’s scam. He is offering a fictional reward for reporting a fictional crime spree. There’s no money to give out, but that’s fine — there’s no way that a noncitizen winds up being convicted based on a tip that would warrant this payout. (If anything, recent history shows there’s a better chance someone is caught committing election fraud on behalf of a Republican than a noncitizen be convicted of voting.)

It could get more civilians on the lookout at polling centers. Some may even delude themselves into turning in their neighbors based on false claims in hopes of cashing in — but there’s no payday waiting.

The post Trump’s $1 million voter fraud bounty won’t pay out — but may pay off for him appeared first on MS NOW.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and already the biggest single donor this election cycle, poured even more money into midterm campaigns on behalf of Republicans in early October. The $445 million he has allocated this cycle makes him a unique force in American politics — but he’s not the only deep-pocketed power. A slew of Republican megadonors, super PACs and other sources of outside spending are aligning to dwarf the amount that Democratic-aligned groups have on hand in the campaign’s final week.

As stunning as the amounts are, there are drawbacks to the GOP’s reliance on big donors. The ways that money is being spent and for whom — especially on contests in historically red states — speak to long-term issues for the Republican Party. These factors appear to be keeping this enormous infusion of money from fatally damaging Democrats.

Much of Musk’s spending has gone to his super PAC, which The New York Times says has built “a sprawling canvassing program to try to turn out hard-to-reach Republican voters.” Musk’s America PAC is active in almost three dozen House campaigns and seven Senate battlegrounds, the Times reports. Musk has almost single-handedly helped keep Texas in play for Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton. Musk’s $158 million donation to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC that backs senatorial candidates, got passed on to Texas PAC and has helped keep Paxton afloat amid a bruising campaign against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.

As many beneficiaries of these GOP funding boosts are realizing, late money is often inefficient.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC has finally begun spending its massive reserves. In federal disclosure forms published last week, the group reported $300.5 million in disbursements this election cycle. The Federal Election Commission documents include data through Oct. 14 and show that $75.5 million of MAGA Inc.’s total spending came during the first two weeks of the month. The group reported having $164.3 million on hand.

It’s a political axiom that campaigns should never have money in the bank at the end of the race. But as many beneficiaries of these GOP funding boosts are realizing, late money is often inefficient. The earlier that spending can be directed toward strategic outlays such as ad buys in larger markets, door-to-door canvassing and other field infrastructure, the more likely it is to pay off down the line. Floods of last-minute cash don’t go as far as earlier contributions would have.

Although the Supreme Court struck down limitations on coordination between national and state party committees and federal candidates, the firewall between campaigns and super PACs remains in place. The first part has helped Democrats only slightly amid lackluster fundraising by the Democratic National Committee this cycle. But some individual Democratic candidates have been drawing in buckets of cash. (It must be noted, though, that Democrats have also benefited from the largesse of billionaires including George Soros and Michael Bloomberg.)

The result is evident in 10 competitive Senate races, Politico recently noted, where “the Democratic campaigns raised more than five times as much as the Republican ones. Put another way: Talarico alone raised more than all those Republicans combined.” As it stands, many of the closest races, including the Senate contest in Texas, wouldn’t have needed pallets of cash airdropped in during most campaign cycles.

The disparity in fundraising by individual campaigns has made Republicans reliant on outside spending for broadcast ads, Politico reported last week, often one of the biggest campaign expenses:

In Ohio’s Senate race, Republican groups make up 63% of the $218 million spent. But in spite of their nearly 2-to-1 spending advantage over Democrats, they make up just over half of ads that are on the airwaves, according to data from the tracking service AdImpact. In Texas, Republicans have outspent Democrats by a 3-to-1 margin but have aired just 58% of the ads. And in Michigan, the GOP accounts for 60% of the spending but just over half of the ads.

A large part of this discrepancy comes down to the mechanics of broadcast advertising. Candidates, and now political parties thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling, are entitled to significantly lower rates. That has allowed Democratic candidates — who have posted bonkers fundraising hauls — to offset much of the GOP advantage in super PACs. Republican Senate candidates, on the other hand, struggled overall with their fundraising. And some GOP outside groups bought their ad time later, when it was even more expensive.

Historically, Republican congressional candidates have relied more on big donors than Democrats have, but Trump’s fundraising operation has upended norms on multiple levels. Although the MAGA Inc. reserves mostly came from the president pressing big donors for seven-figure checks, his past campaigns were financed largely by a wide swath of loyal supporters, sometimes via questionable means, such as fine print saying that donations would be converted into recurring payments. In 2024, there was already evidence that well was running dry, and donor fatigue has since increased among GOP small-dollar supporters.

The economic fallout from Trump’s tariffs and war against Iran, including higher prices on a range of goods and services, also helps explain the decline among ordinary GOP donors. If enough Republicans continue to feel alienated from politics, that could be disastrous for the party’s long-term electoral outlook.

If enough Republicans continue to feel alienated from politics, that could be disastrous for the party’s long-term electoral outlook.

The DNC, by contrast, is reporting a late surge of small donors as the cycle finishes. The hope among Democrats is that this support translates into voter turnout and possibly also volunteers. (And while new research dims the shine on small donors as the saviors of democracy, it still beats the rich trying to buy the Congress they want to see.)

However unlikely campaign finance reforms are in the near term to stanch the flood of megadonor money into politics, there is still reason to be optimistic about what money can, and cannot, buy Republicans. In 2025, Musk poured $20 million into a Wisconsin Supreme Court race and even promised million-dollar checks to two voters — and his preferred candidate still lost. If history is any guide, Musk can try to buy his preferred outcome, but there are limits to what even his vast fortune can accomplish.

The post The bright side of the GOP’s big-spending midterm bailouts appeared first on MS NOW.

Federal agents took possession of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s laptop and personal cellphone when they raided her Washington home last week. While some members of the GOP leadership team have taken potshots at the Minnesota Democrat, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., ought to stand up for her rights as a congresswoman — now.

Pay no attention to the flimsy allegations driving the Trump administration’s investigation into Omar’s immigration paperwork. (The Washington Post reported said allegations were investigated and abandoned years ago.) What we have is the executive branch raiding a member of Congress’s home because of her race and politics. And yet, Politico reported Wednesday that Johnson had not instructed the House’s top lawyer, Matthew Berry, to intervene on Omar’s behalf.

What we have is the executive branch raiding a congressmember’s home because of her race and politics.

MS NOW host Chris Hayes, who interviewed Omar for “All In” on Thursday, raised her attorneys’ claim that the Justice Department violated her rights as a member of the House. Article I, Section 6, clause 1 of the Constitution protects all members of Congress from being prosecuted for “any Speech or Debate in either House.” Supreme Court rulings and other precedents have extended that protection to almost all “legislative acts” federal lawmakers undertake when drafting laws and ruled that it shields their staffers and any documents produced as part of their official duties.

Omar said the agents who searched her home asked her to sign a document essentially waiving her rights under the speech and debate clause.

“That was obnoxious,” she said. “I just I couldn’t understand why they would think that I would sign such a thing.”

The legislative branch has an incentive to call out what happened to Omar. Lawmakers need the freedom to openly debate ideas and policies, especially those the president favors, without the threat of the chief executive jailing them for disagreeing. That’s why the House as an institution has often intervened and fought to protect its members from executive overreach — even if it means lawmakers crossing the aisle.

Federal investigators seized the phone of Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., in August 2022 as they investigated President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Perry was one of the House Republicans most involved with Trump’s attempt to discard enough Electoral College votes to triumph after losing the 2020 election.

The House filed a motion in early 2023 to access sealed material case to ensure that Perry’s speech and debate clause rights were protected. Soon after, Berry, the House’s general counsel, filed an amicus brief arguing that the speech and debate clause applied to the contents of Perry’s phone and any “informal fact gathering” he might have been doing. Though Perry’s early involvement with Trump’s scheme to overturn the election made him a valid target for investigation, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and House Minority Whip Kathleen Clark, D-Mass., signed off on the House’s intervention. According to the rules of the House, their support wasn’t necessary, but a bipartisan front sent a powerful message to the courts.

It’s because of Perry’s case that personal phones are now considered an extension of lawmakers’ offices. Accordingly, Omar is within her rights to review the materials seized to ensure any legislative work stays out of the DOJ’s hands.

Republicans have spent four years hammering special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, especially his subpoenas of some members’ phone records (though not the actual contents of those calls). Just last month, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee accused Smith and the Biden-era DOJ of violating the speech and debate clause in the process.

The House GOP should keep that same energy for Attorney General Todd Blanche and the seizure of Omar’s devices. But House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a fellow Minnesotan, told Fox News that he was all for the investigation without raising any separation of powers concerns. And with a potentially rocky midterms looming, Johnson may be afraid that coming to Omar’s defense will cost him his leadership over the GOP caucus.

But no matter how useful Omar is to the GOP as a foil, Johnson should instruct Berry to ensure that Omar’s rights as a legislator are being protected. Even if Emmer and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise disagree, Johnson voting with Jeffries and Clark would be enough to set the ball rolling. While he may seem to act like a member of the White House staff, Johnson’s responsibility to protect the rights and privileges of Ilhan Omar, House representative, should supersede any misgivings he holds against Ilhan Omar, Democrat.

The post Mike Johnson needs to speak up for Ilhan Omar appeared first on MS NOW.