Sixteen days before Election Day, Abdul El-Sayed is sitting at the dinette of a bus that has his face plastered all over it.

I had just played him a clip on my iPad. It was of Tashawna Gill, a Detroit organizer he knows well and who was one of his earliest supporters, describing an alarming trend in what she and her canvassers were hearing from Black voters in the city’s retirement communities.

“They’re skipping that part of the ballot,” Gill said. “We do the senior home tour, and they’re not interested. They skipped that on the ballot. They have returned their absentees, and some of them have shared that they’ve returned their absentees without checking the box for anything for the Senate race.”

In the tight space on the bus, the clip finishes, and El-Sayed says: “I hope more folks will fill out that part of the ballot. This one’s for all the marbles.”

How did it feel, I asked? Hearing that his story, his message isn’t landing with people in a community he has long served, people he needs if he wants to become Michigan’s next senator?

El-Sayed has a reputation of being pretty sure of himself. Unflappable, quick on his feet, someone who leans into the “don’t let ’em see you sweat” brand of politics.

For a second, that drops.

”Obviously, it’s heartbreaking. I’ve spent most of my career serving exactly those communities,” he says. “But I also get that campaigns are complicated.”

He blames the tens of millions of dollars in PAC money for the tepidness within the Black community toward his attempt to hold Michigan’s open Senate seat for Democrats, and for “destroying trust” he built with the Black community in his time as a public health official in Detroit.

“Rebuilding it takes a long time, so I’ve got work to do to rebuild trust, but I’ve been serving those communities for a long time,” he said. “I’m confident in the work I have done and confident in the work that I will do. And I hope I get the opportunity to do it.”

He notes that he’s not sure, either, just how widespread the sentiment Gill related is among his would-be constituents.

And just like that, the self-assuredness is back.

It’s clear, though, that he’s hurt that the work he has done in Detroit is being misconstrued or discounted, or that folks just don’t know about it. And he’s running out of time to spread the word.

Empty yards

The clip that I had El-Sayed respond to was from a walk I took with Gill on a quiet street back in Detroit.

She wanted me to see the lawns on Greenview Avenue in North Rosedale Park. It’s a neighborhood of brick houses on Detroit’s northwest side that she calls one of the most educated, highest-turnout precincts in the city. And she would know — her office is one block over.

Gill is a well-known organizer who chairs the Michigan Democratic Party’s Grassroots caucus, founded the African American Leadership Institute, helped get Gretchen Whitmer elected governor and was an early endorser of El-Sayed’s Senate campaign when most of the party establishment — including Whitmer — was behind U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens. Every day, Gill’s office sends out about 70 canvassers across Wayne County.

She knows of what she speaks, especially when it comes to Black voters.

“If you look down here, do you see any yard signs? Look left and right,” she says. I do, and it’s … empty. “It doesn’t even look like it’s an election going on anywhere,” she said.

Typically, Gill said, the streets are pretty lined with them. That they aren’t now, so close to the election, “is scary to me.”

Yard signs are not votes, but they are a sign of enthusiasm and of a campaign that is working hard to get those signs stuck in lawns.

Detroit is 75% Black, according to census data, the largest majority-Black big city in the country. And the Democratic playbook for winning statewide has not changed in a lifetime: run up the score in Wayne and Genesee counties, then hang on everywhere else.

When Detroit doesn’t turn out, Democrats lose. Two years ago, when Elissa Slotkin narrowly held Michigan’s other Senate seat, she won 86% of the Black vote compared with Republican Mike Rogers’ 12%. Recent polling shows El-Sayed hovering below 80% of the Black vote.

The concerns aren’t new. Back in the primary in August, El-Sayed eked out a 1-point win against Stevens. He won the college towns and progressive strongholds. He lost Detroit by 28 points.

El-Sayed seems well aware that the tepidness exists. The campaign says it and party entities have spent nearly $14.3 million in paid media specifically for the Detroit and Flint markets.

They’ve invited the equivalent of the Black political Avengers to endorse and campaign with him in the state, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Former President Barack Obama is stumping with El-Sayed in Detroit this weekend.

The campaign says it has been to 45 Black churches and had more than 125 meetings and roundtables with Black elected officials, faith leaders and community organizations.

It’s not something that’s been lost on his opponent either; they see an opening. The Rogers campaign opened a storefront office on Livernois Avenue in Detroit while we were there, and a group calling itself Democrats for Mike Rogers has been campaigning for him. A recent ad features Black voters saying they felt El-Sayed cared more about Palestine than Detroit.

“If you’re from Detroit, you know no Republican will be going through Detroit like they’re going through Detroit. They are in places a Republican would never be,” Gill said. “So I’m scared that a slice of that, just a little bit, will go to them.”

A Rogers campaign spokesperson touted their outreach, saying they are the first Republican to open a Detroit office, have visited a dozen Black churches and visited Flint and Pontiac “multiple times.” And multiple Democrats in Michigan have told me that Rogers is showing up in places in Detroit that haven’t seen a statewide GOP candidate in years.

Nearly every person I talked to on the ground in Detroit pointed to three reasons why El-Sayed is underperforming with Black voters.

Community conflict

The first one is uncomfortable to talk about: historic tensions between Black and Arab Michiganders. Dearborn sits right on the edge of Detroit, and today Arab Americans are estimated to make up the majority of that city’s 105,000 residents. Older Black voters know the long, violent history between the two communities. In 1980 an Iraqi immigrant store owner shot a Black customer he suspected of stealing soda. In 2023 a clerk at a gas station locked customers inside with an armed man after a card used to purchase less than $4 was declined. One of them was killed. A crash this fall reignited the fight.

Gill puts it in plain terms: “African Americans, especially seniors, feel like they were treated disrespectful, targeted, kicked out of the stores in Dearborn. So our seniors and our parents, when they see Abdul, they blame him for all of that.”

He wasn’t there, I point out. She knows that but says that trauma is unfairly being taken out on his candidacy.

Former Obama administration official Portia Roberson is CEO of Focus: HOPE, a civil rights organization in Detroit founded in 1968. She put those tensions this way:

“It has seemingly been that Arab people have been able to move to Detroit in this area and find ways to be successful, whether that is owning gas stations, whether that is owning party stores, and that Blacks who have been here have been locked out of those places,” she said.

I asked El-Sayed about the tension.

“I’ll be honest with you, I understand. I’ve worked in the city of Detroit. You walk into one of these party stores, you walk into a gas station and you’ve got somebody that looks like me behind bulletproof glass, and you look at the way that they’re treating customers. The number of times that people have been denied a bathroom or their kid gets sold a loosie cigarette out of the back or they’re catcalling a woman in the community. That’s deeply inappropriate. It’s wrong and I’ve never been one of those guys,” he said, “even if I look like one of those guys.”

While he was health director in Wayne County, he said, he led a conversation with “those guys” about why that behavior was inappropriate, adding, “You can’t just take money out and not invest in the local community. You can’t just deny local contractors opportunities to service your business and think that’s OK.”

A fateful stance

That second reason? The Uncommitted movement in 2024. In February of that year, more than 101,000 Michigan Democrats, about 13%, voted “uncommitted” in the presidential primary to protest President Joe Biden’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza. El-Sayed publicly announced that he was one of them. Nine months later, Harris lost the state as Black voters watched a party they had carried for decades fail to show up for the first Black woman at the top of the presidential ticket.

When it comes to the Black community, El-Sayed leans hard on his track record. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s mandate to him when he hired him back in 2015 to run a health department that had been gutted: “rebuild it.” In his first year, the department restarted lead screenings for children and helped pay for them in Detroit schools. The department also partnered with a nonprofit to offer free eye exams and glasses to thousands of students. After his failed run for governor in 2018, El-Sayed became director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services.

His stance on Uncommitted is overshadowing all of that.

Roberson has voted consistently her entire adult life, and that movement still stings.

“As a Black woman, I’ve never had the luxury of voting on one issue. I’ve never had that luxury. I’ve never been able to walk into a polling booth and say, this is my one issue and if it doesn’t correlate with my one issue, I’m willing to throw the rest of it away,” she said. “We knew all of the things that have now happened to us, and you still decided to be uncommitted because of your issue.”

El-Sayed endorsed Harris the day after she became the nominee; Uncommitted largely was about the primary for him. And Harris came to Detroit just last month to endorse and campaign with El-Sayed. She has gotten over his criticism of the Biden-Harris policies.

“But a lot of folks haven’t,” Roberson said, laying out the very kind of single-issue objections she had just disavowed. “And I have friends who are very politically astute, and they have said, ‘I will never forgive that.’ It got so big so quickly that they couldn’t pull it back when it was time to coalesce around Kamala Harris, and now we are here.”

At the doors Gill’s team knocks on, the version that seniors are sharing is harsher than what actually happened and full of wrong information, she said.

They tell her teams, “‘He didn’t vote for Kamala. He didn’t help her get in.’ That’s the No. 1 thing,” she said. So the message from his campaign to set the record straight “needs to be louder.”

Democrats’ dilemma

The third reason is largely ideology, and in some ways reflects the maneuvering between progressives and mainstream Democrats within the larger party. Older Black voters in Detroit are more likely to be politically moderate. El-Sayed is running on Medicare for All, and Rogers has spent the fall telling anyone who will listen that Detroit is about to elect a socialist. For the record, El-Sayed says he is a capitalist.

The campaign’s answer to older Black voters has largely been to head to the Black church, the Old Faithful of politics. His team says he has been to 45 Black churches during this election season.

Last Sunday he visited two churches in Flint. His message was, yes, political and full of references to a shared God between his Muslim and their Christian faith. But one of his biggest applause lines was his promise to be back as Sen. El-Sayed.

“This is not my first time in communities like these,” he said from the front of the stage. “I’ve been showing up to do this work for the better part of a decade, and I hope that I can show up for you in the United States Senate. If you give me that honor, I promise you this will not be the last time you see me, and the next time I come, God willing, I’m bringing resources and I’m taking your pain and your purpose with me to the halls of power.”

The bridge he’s trying to build is a difficult one. A 2024 poll from AARP found that among Black Michaganders, only 29% called themselves “liberal.”

El-Sayed’s bet is that a different Black voter can come and make up the difference. “There’s a generational divide, and even if there are some seniors who might say, ‘You know what, we’re going to leave this blank because we’ve seen all the ads,’ there are a lot of young Black voters who are like, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever voted,’” he said.

The candidate isn’t blind to the tensions. On the contrary, he seems very aware of them and how hard they may be to overcome. But he’s also running out of time.

I asked Roberson if she thinks he has done enough in the short period he has been the nominee to get the Black vote where it really needs to be.

“That’s tough. Probably not,” she said. “I think there’s more he could have done. And listen, I’m giving grace to the fact that he had a contentious primary. But I do think there were more voters out there, and there are still more voters out there that he could be talking to.”

Her larger point is that it’s less about effort and more about translation. That in a lot of his ads, his platform sound great to the voters who follow politics closely, and who maybe aren’t affected by those three points of tension.

She’s also pretty hopeful. That when Detroit’s most reliable voters wake up on Election Day, they will do what they’ve always done.

”We know what we’re going to get if he doesn’t win,” she said. “So what are we so afraid of that we’re going to get if he does win?”

Nobody on Greenview Avenue has answered that yet. The lawns are still empty.

“Detroit just needs to be waking up. It needs to be waking up because it is asleep,” Gill said. “That is my fear, that Detroit has not woken up.”

El-Sayed says he’ll keep coming back either way.

“At the end of the day, whether folks vote for me or they don’t vote for me, I intend to serve in the same way that I showed up to serve back in 2015 when I came to Detroit to rebuild the health department.”

MS NOW producer Alexander Trowbridge contributed to this report.

The post The signs for El-Sayed in Detroit — and the lack of them — are setting off alarm bells appeared first on MS NOW.

The Superior Electoral Court enforces free public transport mandates and monitors vote access nationwide.

The Brazilian presidential campaign has entered its final stage ahead of the runoff vote scheduled for October 25, 2026. Incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva faces Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, a candidate for the Liberal Party (PL), after a competitive first-round election on October 4, 2026.

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Lula Proposes Constitutional Amendment for Free Weekend Transit in Brazil

The general election results established a narrow margin between the top two candidates. In the first round of voting, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro finished first, securing 47.03 percent of valid votes, or 56,103,033 ballots. Incumbent President Lula da Silva finished second, receiving 45.16 percent, or 53,870,724 ballots.

Turnout remained consistent with historical participation figures, reaching approximately 79 percent of registered voters. Lula maintained a structural lead throughout the Northeast region, winning majorities in key states such as Bahia, Pernambuco, and Ceará.

Economic indicators and social policy debates formed the primary foundation for candidate speeches throughout the first round. In campaign speeches, President Lula highlighted the accomplishments of his current administration, citing expanding employment rates, social assistance programs, and inflation control measures implemented since 2023.

Flávio Bolsonaro focused his campaign speeches on public security concerns, national debt levels, and economic challenges, presenting his platform as a continuation of conservative governance under his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who remains legally barred from holding office.

Street Mobilization and Electoral Propaganda Networks

Campaign operations shifted toward intensive physical rallies and structured broadcast messaging during the runoff period. The Workers’ Party (PT) and its broader political coalition centered their ground mobilization around major urban centers and traditional working-class strongholds.

Popular social movements, including the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), along with trade union confederations such as the Unified Workers’ Central (CUT), coordinated door-to-door canvassing operations and public rallies in major metropolitan areas including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s ground strategy relied heavily on state-level executive endorsements and conservative municipal networks. Key allies, including re-elected conservative governors from São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro, organized regional logistics to boost conservative voter turnout.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign speeches during street rallies emphasized hardline public security measures, moral issues, and support for the agribusiness sector, utilizing alliances with conservative caucus members in Congress to secure local political support.

Broadcast media exposure operated under the free electoral advertising time framework regulated by the Superior Electoral Court. The regulations ensured equal daily broadcast time across television and radio networks for both finalists during the runoff window.

Parallel to traditional broadcast propaganda, digital media networks expanded rapidly. Both campaign organizations directed significant funding toward micro-targeted online advertising and social media distribution channels to capture voters outside traditional media formats.

Digital outreach strategies diverged between the two operational teams. Lula’s digital apparatus utilized organized volunteer networks, endorsements from cultural figures, and policy fact sheets distributed through verified messaging channels.

The Flávio Bolsonaro campaign relied on decentralized messaging channels, emphasizing direct-to-voter video distribution, security rhetoric, and critiques of government institutions.

WHO'S THE REAL THIEF? LULA CHALLENGES BOLSONARO TO SHOW RECORDS

Ahead of Brazil’s presidential election, Brazilian President Lula da Silva publicly challenged rival Flávio Bolsonaro to open his bank accounts, release his phone records, and let the Brazilian people decide who… pic.twitter.com/U6Ge0yOV6A

— Sovereign Media (@sov_media) October 21, 2026

Meta, Disinformation, and Electoral Defense

The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) established strict administrative parameters to govern political content across major social networks, focusing heavily on Meta’s platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Electoral judicial resolutions prohibited paid digital political advertising in the final 48 hours leading up to the October 25 vote, restricted automated messaging software, and required tech platforms to execute judicial content removal mandates within expedited timeframes.

Monitoring reports submitted to electoral authorities by digital rights watchdogs and research institutes identified recurring patterns in content dissemination across Meta’s channels.

Independent audits logged instances of dark ads, unverified allegations targeting electoral integrity, and micro-targeted digital campaigns deployed in private messaging groups.

Meta adjusted its content moderation operations in Brazil to comply with TSE directives, expanding its ad library transparency protocols and updating content review procedures.

The company reported the removal of non-compliant posts and the deactivation of unauthorized bulk-messaging networks. Despite these technical platform adjustments, electoral oversight bodies noted that closed messaging networks remained a primary vector for unverified political narratives due to end-to-end encryption limitations.

Broad Coalitions, Strategic Endorsements, and Voter Demographics

The transition from the October 4 first round to the October 25 runoff required both campaigns to expand beyond their primary ideological bases.

President Lula da Silva maintained a broad front coalition uniting left-wing parties with center-right political figures. Vice President Geraldo Alckmin returned as Lula’s running mate, reinforcing ties with business sectors and moderate electors, while key cabinet figures and allied governors led outreach campaign efforts aimed at consolidating anti-far-right voter segments.

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro expanded his campaign footprint by consolidating conservative regional power structures and legislative blocks. Selecting PL lawmaker Alfredo Gaspar as his vice-presidential running mate, a former prosecutor and public security secretary from Alagoas, Flávio Bolsonaro sought to bolster his law-and-order platform while solidifying backing among conservative lawmakers in Congress.

Flávio’s runoff effort secured endorsement commitments from conservative state governors, agribusiness associations, and international right-wing figures, reinforcing his position across traditional conservative strongholds.

Incumbent President Lula retained consistent lead margins among female voters, lower-income households earning up to two minimum wages, residents in the Northeast region, and older age demographics.

Conversely, Flávio Bolsonaro maintained stronger support metrics among male voters, higher-income earners, Evangelical Christian voters, and electors situated in the agribusiness-heavy South, Southeast, and Center-West regions.

Both campaign organizations directed their final operational focus toward undecided voters and middle-income suburban districts in the key battleground states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo.

Lula's campaign says Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp are muffling the left days before the October 25 vote. Meta blames glitches.https://t.co/qdSD2z01ny pic.twitter.com/SfYhdxpi4L

— The Brazilian Report (@BrazilianReport) October 20, 2026

Debate Performances, Fact-Checking, and Media Coverage

The televised presidential debates between incumbent President Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro emerged as decisive turning points during the three-week runoff window. Major media coalitions organized direct face-to-face encounters, allowing the candidates to present competing vision frameworks for Brazil’s governance.

During the live broadcast exchanges, President Lula focused his arguments on economic stability, job creation, and social progress achieved during his term, emphasizing the expansion of public investments, inflation control, and environmental protection initiatives.

Lula confronted Flávio Bolsonaro on fiscal proposals, judicial integrity, and the anti-democratic precedents associated with the far-right movement.

In response, Flávio Bolsonaro framed his candidacy around conservative public security policies, government austerity, and tax reforms. Flávio heavily criticized the economic administration’s public debt metrics and targeted the federal judiciary, presenting his campaign as a necessary alternative to political continuity.

Mainstream media coverage focused heavily on candidate posture, tone, and strategic attempts to appeal to the estimated 10 percent of undecided voters heading into the final days of the race.

Brazil’s top electoral court has said it will fine Meta $200,000 a day until it can prove that president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his far-right challenger Flávio Bolsonaro get equal treatment on its platforms.

Last week, a judge at Brazil’s top electoral court ruled that… pic.twitter.com/AWLGPT6mKT

— Novara Media (@novaramedia) October 21, 2026

Election Day Execution, Institutional Resilience, and Regional Impact

Supervised directly by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), voting logistics across all 26 states and the Federal District rely on fully digitized electronic voting machines (urnas eletrônicas) to ensure rapid processing and secure transmission of total ballots.

To facilitate maximum democratic access, federal judicial rulings mandated free public transportation (passe livre) across capital cities, while electoral inspectors monitored security forces to prevent voter transportation disruptions or targeted law enforcement checkpoints.

Following the October 4 first round, where Flávio Bolsonaro led with 47.03 percent (56,104,503 votes) against Lula’s 45.16 percent (53,879,538 votes), both organizations focused their final operational pushes on key battleground states like Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo.

The outcome of the October 25 vote carries far-reaching geopolitical implications across Latin America and the broader global stage. A victory for President Lula would ensure the continuation of active multilateral diplomacy, regional integration through BRICS and CELAC, and strong federal commitments to Amazonian environmental conservation.

Conversely, a victory for Flávio Bolsonaro would mark a significant resurgence for the continental far-right, shifting Brazil’s diplomatic alignment toward conservative international blocs and introducing sweeping changes to domestic fiscal and environmental policy frameworks.

Sources: Brasil de Fato – Agência Brasil – Gov.br – O Globo – Folha de S.Paulo – O Estado de S.Paulo – El País – CNN Brasil – EFE – Instituto Tricontinental – La Base América Latina – Diario Re

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In Mississippi’s unexpectedly interesting U.S. Senate race, former Vice President Kamala Harris headlined a rally in support of local prosecutor Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee.

“Mississippi matters!” Harris shouted to thunderous cheers at Thursday’s event.

The rally came on the heels of Donald Trump’s political operation confirming that the president will hold a rally on Monday in hopes of boosting Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who’s struggling to a surprising degree in a race the GOP long assumed would be easy.

The news coincides with an Axios report that said Senate Republicans are so concerned about the Mississippi race that it’s “weighing a cash infusion” for the contest.

* In Maine’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, the latest Fox News poll found Democrat Troy Jackson and incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins tied, with each garnering 49% support.

* In Kansas’ closely watched U.S. Senate race, incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall has finally sold his house in Florida. The sale was finalized the same day early voting began in Kansas.

* In Texas’ closely watched U.S. Senate race, The New York Times reported that a covert Russian influence operation is targeting Democratic state Rep. James Talarico’s candidacy as part of an apparent effort to boost Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

* Speaking of Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott recently boasted about endorsements he received from several Democratic sheriffs, but The New Republic reported that some of them deny having endorsed the GOP incumbent.

* While voter turnout is expected to be strong in New Hampshire this year, there is a new hurdle for voters to keep in mind: The Supreme Court granted New Hampshire’s emergency request to block the use of student IDs for voting in the midterms.

* Over the first two weeks of October, Republican megadonor Elon Musk invested an additional $76 million to boost GOP candidates. Five months after the billionaire publicly vowed to curtail his campaign spending, Musk has now donated more than $442 million to advance the Republican cause in the 2026 cycle.

* Speaking of Republican megadonors, billionaire Jeff Yass has now invested nearly $110 million to boost GOP candidates in the midterms. Yass is also the top donor to Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican’s gubernatorial nominee in Ohio.

* And speaking of Ramaswamy, to appreciate the scope of the controversy surrounding his scandalous attack ad, it’s worth noting that 10 sitting Democratic female governors issued a joint statement on Thursday, condemning the candidate’s vile commercial as “an insult to survivors everywhere.”

The post Friday’s Campaign Round-Up, 10.23.26: Kamala Harris rallies for Colom in Mississippi appeared first on MS NOW.

After months of arguments, a state judge in Alaska ruled in late June that retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan could run against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, overturning the ruling from the Alaska Division of Elections. A few months later, after the first round of balloting, state election officials finalized the top four candidates for Alaska’s unique system, and both Dan Sullivans advanced to the general election.

That Donald Trump and his political team are worried about the race is obvious, but what the president’s team is doing about it is another matter entirely.

Late Thursday, Trump’s Justice Department filed a preemptive lawsuit that intends to block certification of the Senate race — but only if the Republican incumbent loses while the rival with the similar name remains on the ballot.

As The Associated Press reported, the litigation kicks off “what many have feared could become a lengthy battle between the U.S. government and states over certifying an election where the president’s party is struggling.”

What’s more, it’s entirely possible that former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola will win this race and the efforts by Trump’s DOJ will determine whether she’s seated — and which party ultimately holds a majority in the Senate.

The lawsuit is a dramatic escalation, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. At a White House event in early September, the president publicly urged Attorney General Todd Blanche to pursue a case in Alaska specifically focused on the competing candidates with nearly identical names.

Last week, Trump went further, claiming that federal authorities were “looking into” the matter and pushing assorted conspiracy theories for which there was no evidence. As recently as Wednesday of this week, the president used his social media platform to publish a statement that read, in part, “Dan S. Sullivan is leading by a lot, but this is CHEATING in an Election, and the Judge that allowed this to happen should be ashamed of himself. We are looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot, and holding the Democrats accountable for their Election Interference, in the pursuit of Justice and Fairness.”

The statement included obvious falsehoods — most recent polling in Alaska shows the Republican incumbent trailing, not “leading by a lot” — and there is nothing to suggest Democratic officials have engaged in “election interference,” other than championing their party’s nominee.

Nevertheless, there have long been concerns that the Trump administration might try to derail election results it doesn’t like, and the DOJ’s new lawsuit regarding Alaska suggests those concerns are well grounded.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The post Trump administration sues to block possible Democratic win in Alaska Senate race appeared first on MS NOW.

Any story about a family dispute is bound to be complex, but the politics surrounding Vivek Ramaswamy’s abhorrent attack ad are relatively straightforward. Amy Acton, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Ohio, was allegedly raped by her stepfather when she was a child.

Her Republican opponent, Ramaswamy, is trying to weaponize this in despicable fashion, pushing a campaign commercial that features Acton’s estranged mother, who sided with the stepfather even after his arrest and stayed with him until his death.

But in recent days, it’s become clear that this ad has taken on far greater significance than one commercial in one gubernatorial election. As The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg summarized in her latest column:

It’s quite a feat, in this numb and debased era, to create a political advertisement so shocking and indecent that people from across the political spectrum feel the need to denounce it. The Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has long fashioned himself as a kind of Donald Trump 2.0 — younger and brainier but just as brash — has managed it.

By releasing what may be the most disgusting ad in American political history, he’s done more than just reveal his own low character. He’s opened a kind of proxy debate on the right about whether a post-Trump conservatism should try to reclaim some base-line morality or continue along its current smashmouth course.

Donald Trump has changed his party and his nation’s politics in a great many ways, but among the most important shifts is the degree to which the president has championed the politics of cruelty and dishonor. There are messages — from attack ads to speeches to social message postings — that Republican officials used to avoid, even when they agreed with the underlying point, in part to avoid backlash and in part to maintain their public reputations and credibility.

In recent years, however, those scruples have been cast aside. GOP officials and candidates no longer hedge on depraved messaging: After having seen Americans twice elevate a malicious television personality to the nation’s highest office, they now routinely echo his amorality and cynicism, seeing it as a way to satisfy the party’s far-right base, to advance their own ambitions or both.

Most decent people can and will agree that Ramaswamy’s attack ad is indefensible, but the ad has also taken on totemic value.

“What the ad represents … is an opening salvo in the post-midterms fight for the Republican Party’s future,” Politico’s Jonathan Martin explained. “It’s a battle that will accelerate next year but may not culminate until the 2030s. Put simply, what sort of party does the GOP want to be — and what will the market bear?”

Trailing in polls and short on options, Ramaswamy made his choice, and the stain on his character is likely to be permanent. What the Ohioan might not have anticipated, however, is just how much his disgusting tactic has divided his own party.

Several prominent Republicans in the state, including outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine, have publicly condemned the ad, and others outside of Ohio have taken similar steps. Former GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley, for example, said via social media that Ramaswamy is “a bad guy.” A day later, Rep. Ashley Hinson, the party’s Senate hopeful in Iowa, called the commercial “absolutely terrible.”

On the other side, there’s the White House, where the politics of cruelty and dishonor still thrive, and where there are Republican leaders who still believe repugnant messaging will dominate for the foreseeable future.

JD Vance, for example, declared this week that he’s “a little bit disgusted,” not by Ramaswamy’s gutter politics, but by members of his own party who are “whining” about civility.

The vice president’s reaction itself drew swift rebukes — The Bulwark published a piece that described Vance as a “sociopath” — but that didn’t stop Trump from picking up where his vice president left off.

On Wednesday, the president told reporters he didn’t “know anything about it,” before shifting gears and talking about how important he considers it to see a mother “hate her daughter that much.”

A day later, Trump went much further and spent much of Thursday defending the ad, urging Ramaswamy to keep running it, demanding the public take the underlying claims “seriously” and at Iowa rally, predicting that the ad would work in the GOP candidate’s favor.

In other words, Trump took care to keep dividing Republicans — with less than two weeks remaining, during the early voting period — in one of the nation’s most important gubernatorial races, by leaning into support for one of the most repulsive campaign ads in recent memory.

Election Day is 11 days away. Watch this space.

The post Ramaswamy’s vile ad is dividing the Republican Party. Trump is leading the wrong side. appeared first on MS NOW.

The series continues as we report on developments following April’s historic election and on the steps taken since then by the Tisza government. This week, we cover the following topics:

• Orbán’s former right-hand man in custody.
• What did we learn from Tisza’s first budget?
• Ursula von der Leyen to give a speech on the anniversary of the revolution.
• Poll of the week: more than four million people back Tisza.

Orbán’s ex-right-hand man in custody

The last time a central bank governor was taken into custody in Hungary was in 1944, during the German occupation, as Válasz Online pointed out. This 82-year hiatus ended on Wednesday (21 October), when György Matolcsy was taken into police custody.

But Matolcsy is not simply a former central bank governor; he is one of the architects of Orbán’s economic policy, a key figure in the former prime minister’s system, and together with his family he has in recent years become one of the symbols of Fidesz’s taste for luxury.

Who is György Matolcsy?

“I have a very strong emotional relationship with Matolcsy. I owe him a great deal, I have learned a great many things from him. Matolcsy is an economist of historic stature,” prime minister Péter Magyar quoted ex-prime minister Viktor Orbán’s words from an interview last November, after the former central bank governor had been taken into custody.

Matolcsy was a member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP), and after the regime change he became prime minister József Antall’s chief adviser. In 1999 he joined Orbán’s advisory board, and from 2000 to 2002 he served as economy minister in the first Orbán cabinet.

Even after the 2002 election defeat he remained loyal to Orbán, and in 2010 he became minister for national economy, meaning he was put in charge of both the finance and economy portfolios at the head of a merged super-ministry. It was at this time that Orbán called him his right-hand man.

Matolcsy was the architect of Orbán’s “unorthodox economic policy”; he oversaw the nationalisation of private pension funds, the sending home of the IMF from Hungary, and the introduction of high sectoral surtaxes.

The great bank heist

He was appointed central bank governor in 2013, and by 2016 the foundations scandal had already broken. It emerged that 266bn forints’ worth (€840m) of public assets had been shifted into the foundations of the Hungarian National Bank (MNB). These foundations bought buildings and works of art, and also granted substantial benefits to their own leaders.

Later, the foundations’ money was entrusted to an asset management company, which obtained further funds and thus came to control assets of around 500bn forints, of which some 400bn forints (€1bn) – was public money.

This asset manager built up an international corporate network, behind which stood the central bank governor’s son, Ádám Matolcsy, and his circle. The asset manager bought into risky foreign companies, spending a significant part of its resources. The Matolcsy family visibly became very rich, and Ádám also amassed a notorious Porsche collection.

György Matolcsy’s mandate expired in 2025, and after his departure the State Audit Office also concluded that abuses may have taken place at the central bank. For a long time, however, no police investigation was launched.

The current case

The current charges relate to a case that unfolded in the final days of Matolcsy’s activity as central bank governor. Matolcsy wanted to ensure that his family would control the roughly 500bn forints (€1.25bn) of central bank assets even after he no longer held office.

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President Donald Trump traveled to Iowa on Thursday, looking to energize his base as he touts a financial-support plan to reassure farmers, a key constituency that has been hit hard by rising prices.

It’s another campaign trip to a reliably red state that has become surprisingly competitive. Trump won Iowa three times — carrying it by 13 points in 2024 — but this year several Republicans are in tight races.

Returning to Iowa for the first time in nearly 10 months, Trump campaigned, in part, for Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP Senate hopeful who is running to fill retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat. Hinson and her Democratic rival, state Rep. Josh Turek, are almost neck and neck in polling averages from MS NOW/FiftyPlusOne.

“There are a number of Senate seats in play that we did not expect to be in play,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “[Trump’s] record and his approach are likely to appeal much more to members of his base than they are to independent or swing voters.”

In Sioux City, Trump sought to appease Americans hurting from high fuel prices by announcing that his administration is using the Defense Production Act to release $150 million to increase U.S. refining capacity to produce more diesel and gas.

Trump spent the first few minutes of the rally railing against familiar political targets he has repeatedly invoked to rile up supporters at recent campaign stops, including Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Speaking to Iowans, Trump claimed without providing evidence that Omar used a different name to get elected and sworn into Congress, a claim the congresswoman’s spokesperson has publicly denied.

As the president attacked Omar and argued she should resign, his supporters chanted, “Lock her up.”

The president also spoke at length about a controversial attack ad by Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy targeting his rival, Democrat Amy Acton. The ad features Acton’s estranged mother saying her daughter lied about being sexually assaulted by her stepfather. Trump told supporters that he asked Ramaswamy to keep running the ad and to “look upstairs and say thank you, God, very much.”

And Trump, who frequently talks about running again in 2028 — despite the Constitution’s two-term limit — again bragged he would beat any opponent if he ran, but acknowledged that, after studying the law, he has learned that there was “not a lot of wiggle room” to allow him to seek another term.

“I think I have the right to run again because they cheated,” Trump said, repeating repeating his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Thursday’s rally at Sioux Gateway Airport is the first of at least two planned visits to Iowa by the president in the final stretch of the midterms. The president’s campaign blitz in typically Republican strongholds reflects shifts in the political landscape in a midterm that initially favored the GOP.

“The problem right now is that people perceive that the economy is not better, and inflation has not only not come down, but it’s higher,” Ayres said.

A GOP strategist familiar with Republicans’ thinking in the midterms, granted anonymity to speak freely about internal strategies, told MS NOW the president’s visits to some of the reddest districts in states like Iowa in the final days of the campaign are part of a deliberate strategy to maximize turnout by loyal Trump voters in key races.

“Specifically, the 4th District, where we’re deploying him, is the heart of the base, the heart of Republican support,” the strategist said. “If we can churn out our base voters in that area, Democrats’ path to winning the state just shrinks dramatically.”

Seeking to address the financial hardships hitting major agricultural states like Iowa, the Trump administration has announced an $8 billion relief package for farmers and construction plans for a $15 billion steel plant in the state. The president himself has also touted new foreign trade deals to export American farm products and other efforts to boost farmers and ranchers.

But some farmers MS NOW spoke to say Trump’s trade deals have made little impact on their businesses as their operating costs have increased from rising diesel and fertilizer prices. And the president’s announcement that he would lower tariffs on ground beef from Argentina earlier this year came as a blow to the state’s cattle industry, with both Hinson and Turek calling the policy a bad idea.

Craig Moss, a fifth-generation cattle and hog farmer from Hull, about 50 miles north of Sioux City, told MS NOW the volatile cattle market had been “rough” in the past year, in part because of the president’s lifting of tariffs on Argentine ground beef.

“Trump makes a trade deal with Argentina, and then when he’s questioned about it by reporters, he says, ‘You don’t know anything about what’s going on over there,’” Moss said. “Well, sir, you don’t know anything about the cattle market.”

Moss said the current diesel price “kind of stinks,” adding that the ongoing Iran war was to blame. Still, Moss, who voted for Trump in the past, said he agreed with the president on most issues and did not regret voting for him before.

Julius Schaaf, a corn-and-soybean farmer of more than 40 years based in Fremont County, voted against Trump in past elections and said the current volatility in the farming industry was because of Trump’s trade policies. Schaaf criticized the administration as a “rude and difficult” trading partner.

“A lot of the people that supported him were farmers that have a lot of equity in their property, and they can weather a storm for a while,” Schaaf said. “But you talk to the young guys that are just getting started and trying to buy inputs and inputs have gone through the roof — they’re the ones that are really struggling.”

Vice President JD Vance addressed some of those concerns last month at a rally in the state, telling supporters that the Trump administration’s trade and tax policies have directly benefited farmers and blue-collar workers. He has also sought to show understanding of economic realities, acknowledging the high cost of gas and telling voters “we’re working on it.” Trump, for his part, has at times downplayed those concerns, calling the focus on affordability a “hoax” and insisting that prices would plummet once the Iran war ends.

Many Iowans across the political spectrum whom MS NOW spoke with agreed that their No. 1 concern was the cost of living. And while Trump’s performance got mixed reviews, they still had not decided how they would vote in the Senate and House races.

Tiffany, an Iowa voter who backed Trump in 2024, plans to vote in the midterm races but said she is currently undecided. Her top issue: the cost of living, she said, because “prices keep going up.”

“If you can’t afford to put gas in your car, how can you go to work to make money to put a roof over your head to put food on your table?” said Tiffany, who asked to go by her first name only. “You can only stretch your penny and your dollars so far until you can’t stretch it anymore.”

The post Trump rallies in Iowa, where farmers have been hit hard by tariffs and rising fuel prices appeared first on MS NOW.

The series continues as we report on developments following April’s historic election and on the steps taken since then by the Tisza government. This week, we cover the following topics:

• Another blow for Hungary’s richest man;
• New chief prosecutor nominee, plus a former chief prosecutor ready to testify on political pressure;
• Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law;
• A state secretary has unexpectedly left the government;
• Orbán to keep quiet on one of Hungary’s most important national holidays;
• Ukraine adopts the minority education law;
• More EU funds and money from the Norway Grants have become available.

Another blow for Lőrinc Mészáros

Last Friday (9 October), prime minister Péter Magyar and Dávid Vitézy, minister for transport and investments, announced that the state was suspending implementation of one of Hungary’s largest rail projects – the Budapest southern circular railway, and will launch a new public procurement procedure.

The works had been carried out by V-Híd, the most profitable company of Lőrinc Mészáros, who became Hungary’s richest man during Viktor Orbán’s premiership.

However, the European Court of Auditors uncovered serious public-procurement irregularities: V-Híd may have colluded with the company that drafted the project plans and thus already possessed information at the time of the tender that its competitors did not have. Because of this, the European Court of Auditors would withdraw EU funding from the project.

The Hungarian government does not want to forfeit the EU money and make Hungarian taxpayers foot the bill for the costs of the project, which is why it is terminating the contract with Mészáros’s company and launching a new tender.

The Hungarian state had already taken away from Mészáros the right to operate a motorway section, and later also terminated the 35-year motorway concession.

Previously, one of his food-industry companies had EU funding already granted to it withdrawn, while his energy company was excluded from a call for proposals financed from the repatriated RRF funds.

New chief prosecutor nominee, plus former chief prosecutor ready to testify

On Monday (12 October), president András Baka nominated a former chief prosecutor, Péter Fejes, for the post of chief prosecutor. His first nominee, Zoltán Szathmáry, was not voted through by the Tisza group in parliament after it emerged that his brother was implicated in the so-called gold convoy case, in which a Ukrainian cash shipment was stopped and confiscated by the Hungarian authorities.

Fejes was dismissed in 2012 from his position as chief prosecutor of Vas county by Péter Polt, the chief prosecutor serving the Orbán system, citing loss of confidence. Since then he has continued to work within the prosecution service and as a university lecturer, and he has no party affiliation. For the time being neither prime minister Magyar nor the Tisza group has stated whether they support Fejes’s nomination.

Since the change of government, another former chief prosecutor, Pál Fürcht, has frequently spoken to the media. Among other things, he has claimed that the gold convoy case was created for political purposes, and that the authorities raided the Ukrainian cash couriers on Orbán’s orders.

On Sunday (11 October), Magyar sharply criticised Fürcht in a Facebook post, reproaching him for having been a servant of the system himself. According to Magyar, Fürcht constructed a criminal case, on political orders, out of the notorious nightclub altercation for which the prime minister is currently under investigation on charges of theft.

It was likewise Fürcht who left former propaganda minister Antal Rogán out of the corruption case known as the Völner–Schadl affair.

In response to Magyar’s criticism, Fürcht said he was ready to make an official statement before any authority. In parliament on Monday, the prime minister was already referring to the former chief prosecutor as a future witness.

Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law

Child protection was one of the most important topics of the campaign and played a major role in Orbán’s downfall. Magyar kept the issue on the agenda even after his government took office; most recently, last Thursday, the prime minister and the state secretary responsible for the field, Szilvia Gyurkó, presented the report on the children’s home in Bicske.

This home had been run by a director who was decorated by Orbán and later convicted of paedophile crimes, together with his deputy, who helped cover up the abuses. The presidential pardon granted to the deputy shook the Orbán government and helped lead to its collapse.

On Tuesday (13 October), parliament adopted an amendment to the child-protection law, which takes a tougher stance against media content accessible to minors that propagates sexual violence, manipulation and exploitation, and would speed up the placement of babies abandoned in hospital.

The amendment removed those homophobic passages that the Orbán government forced into law in 2021, and which the Court of Justice of the European Union also ruled to be contrary to EU law.

Fidesz, the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) and the far-right Mi Hazánk did not vote for the amendment; Magyar called this a disgrace.

A state secretary unexpectedly leaves the government

On Tuesday, András Tótth, state secretary for energy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and minister István Kapitány’s most important aide, unexpectedly resigned.

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More than a year ago, we launched our Hungary Briefing, a weekly round-up of the election campaign. Since the historic vote in April to remove Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government, the series has followed the new Tisza administration and its first moves in office. This week’s topics:

• How Viktor Orbán used Lőrinc Mészáros.
• According to Orbán, they deliberately did not give money to the liberals.
• Orbán’s brother also has a gold-convoy case.
• A wealth tax is coming.
• Support for Hungarian media beyond the borders.
• This week’s opinion polls: slight drop for Tisza, strong support for the Olympics

How Viktor Orbán used Lőrinc Mészáros.

The investigative outlet Direkt36 revealed important details about the links between Lőrinc Mészáros’s companies and Orbán-era propaganda in a new series of articles. The investigators obtained internal documents from a company called V-Híd, which showed that the firm belonging to the Mészáros portfolio paid out several billion forints between 2022 and 2026 to influencers in the Megafon network.

The oligarch was not stingy.

V-Híd is one of the most important and most profitable companies in the Mészáros empire, primarily engaged in railway construction. It owes its success almost entirely to the fact that it won huge public procurement contracts under Fidesz governments.

In recent years, V-Híd has become the dominant player in railway construction in Hungary, pushing out its competitors. Enormous dividends have been taken out of the company by the Mészáros clan (most recently, despite weaker results, 10 billion forints, or around €25m).

The Direkt36 article also reveals that Orbán-era propaganda was financed directly from the company’s revenue. Donation contracts were leaked showing that V-Híd regularly sent hundreds of millions of forints as “gifts” to Megafon. In 2024 alone, they sent 3 billion forints (around €7.6m at the time) in support to the influencer network.

The path of public money to propaganda

The formula was very simple: through public procurement, the government stuffed the Mészáros group’s companies with public money, and part of the revenue generated was channelled to the propaganda machine.

From 2020, Megafon was a key communication channel for Fidesz, where well-known influencers conveyed the party’s messages and huge sums were spent on online advertising.

The money won through public tenders did not only go towards financing propaganda. Direkt36 also uncovered luxury perks V-Híd and other Mészáros companies offered their staff.

Many would envy V-Híd’s team-building events. In 2024, nine employees of the company travelled by private jet to a château in south-western France, at a cost 62 million forints, or about €150,000, including €500 spent on cigars.

According to Direkt36, V-Híd has spent more than 1 billion forints in total – roughly €2.5m – on foreign trips in recent years.

On one trip to Tajikistan, V-Híd paid out €46,000 – the Central Asian country is a popular destination for exotic hunting excursions, and Mészáros also took part in such a hunting tour.

The Mészáros clan were also keen on yachting and spent money on private jets. One private jet linked to the Mészáros family was used at least once by Orbán himself.

The money did not go to the liberals

Fidesz has tied itself in knots after the arrest of culture minister Balázs Hankó. Hankó is suspected of aggravated breach of fiduciary duty causing particularly significant financial loss, committed in a criminal conspiracy, and the court has placed him in pre-trial detention.

The Hankó case blew up shortly after the elections, when activist Áron Molnár revealed that the National Cultural Fund had disbursed more than 17 billion forints (around €44m) to artists close to Fidesz for the purposes of the party’s campaign.

After a few months of investigation, the authorities reached the former minister, now a member of parliament, who said the allocation of grants had been lawful and that a politically-motivated show trial had been launched against him.

Shortly before he was taken into custody, Hankó told HírTV, a Fidesz-friendly channel, that being a Fidesz member or linked to Fidesz had never been a precondition for receiving NCA funding.

Orbán, however, explained the Hankó case differently in a speech at a closed-door event, from which former state secretary Péter Takács shared a clip. According to Orbán, Hankó was the only culture minister since 2010 who did not give support to the “liberals in Budapest”, and that is why, in his view, he was locked up.

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