effort

LEWISTON, Maine — Maine Republican Susan Collins has promoted her reputation as one of the most independent U.S. senators and she is using the waning days of the election season to sell that message to voters by campaigning with a former colleague who has endorsed her.

Collins is trying to fend off a challenge from Democrat Troy Jackson, a onetime state Senate president, and on Wednesday she made appearances with Joe Manchin III, a West Virginian who was a Democrat then became an independent late in his career before retiring.

After stopping for breakfast at Simones’ Hot Dog Stand in Lewiston, Collins spoke of how she and Manchin were “part of every piece of bipartisan legislation that passed and became law” during their time together in office.

Manchin said to lose Collins would be “to lose the soul of the Senate.” He praised her independent streak, her willingness to buck Republican President Trump and her record of fighting for Maine’s interests.

“This is a true blue-blooded Maine person who knows exactly where she came from,” Manchin said.

They planned a stop later at a New Balance shoe facility in Norway. Jackson, 58, is scheduled to campaign Thursday in Portland with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York.

Collins, 73, is in what may be her toughest reelection fight as she seeks her sixth term.

It’s only the second time that she has sought reelection in a midterm with a sitting Republican president, and the national trends are much less favorable to the GOP than they were the last time she did so, in 2002. Trump’s approval has fallen well below where it was when he took office last year, and a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that a strong majority of voters want change in Washington.

Collins has been working to persuade voters that she is independent of Trump and willing to break with him. In Manchin, she enlisted a politician who was one of the most moderate voices in the Senate. Manchin said in 2023 that Trump would “ destroy democracy in America” if he was elected to a second term.

Among the few dozen Collins supporters at the Lewiston event was Mike Marcotte.

“I may not have always been a fan of her complete package of votes, but when I look at the vitriol that’s in the U.S. Senate right now, we need more people like Susan Collins,” he said.

Jackson got a late start on campaigning after the party’s initial nominee exited the race but trails Collins in the money race by less than $3 million after an aggressive quarter in which he raised more than $20 million. Jackson has campaigned relentlessly and his events have drawn hundreds. Collins has largely stuck to smaller appearances.

Some of Jackson’s backers demonstrated across the street from the hot dog stand. A few held signs bearing the face of Brett M. Kavanaugh, the U.S. Supreme Court justice whom Collins voted to confirm and whose vote eventually helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

“Someone needs to stand up and be a check on Donald Trump and his harmful policies,” said David Sysko.

Collins has broken with Trump and Republicans over the years. She voted to convict him at his impeachment trial in 2021. Increasingly during the campaign, she has worked to distance herself from the president as Democrats argue that she is too close to him.

Collins said in early October that she is “not exactly his favorite senator,” and that she did not expect Trump to campaign in Maine. He has steered clear of the state with the Nov. 3 election nearing.

Pinning Collins to Trump is central to the Democrats’ strategy. In one ad, a nurse says the state is in a healthcare crisis “because of Susan Collins and Donald Trump,” citing Collins’ vote for Trump’s push for Medicaid cuts. Collins did vote to advance the bill but ultimately voted against it.

Trump also was a major focus of four contentious debates between the candidates this month, where Collins sought to distance herself from the president and Jackson repeatedly accused her of doing Trump’s bidding.

Asked at the final debate to name a time in which she bucked her own party and succeeded, Collins gave the example of rallying support against Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed as Defense secretary.

Democrats seized on the moment and released a statement that said the exchange “underscores a central question in the Maine Senate race: Does Collins, a Republican in a state that disapproves of President Donald Trump and has grown bluer in recent years, stand up to her party enough to earn the independent streak she has staked her career on?”

Jackson has characterized Collins as out of touch with the struggles of working-class people in Maine. He has described Collins as a “rubber stamp” for the president and criticized her votes on Kavanaugh and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s second-term Health secretary. Collins has said she does not regret either vote.

Republican ads against Jackson, a logger from northern Maine, have focused more on accusations of his having a volatile personality and behaving like a bully with female colleagues. Jackson has denied those accusations.

Collins distanced herself on Wednesday from a Republican super PAC attack ad that she said “should be taken down.”

The senator was a top target of Democrats in 2020 when she defeated challenger Sara Gideon by nearly 9 percentage points. Collins is the only Republican senator from New England, a distinction she has had since January 2013.

Whittle writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is deferring an additional $1.2 billion in Medicaid reimbursements to California, citing concerns about potential fraud in a state program that helps older adults and people with disabilities with everyday tasks.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said federal officials took action after they grew concerned about the rapid expansion of California’s personal care services program in recent years. State officials were notified of the decision Tuesday, he said.

“California has been growing that program 24% in the last three years. That is twice the rate of every other state average in the country,” Oz said. “Impossible for us to understand how that could be so we are taking major action in California.”

Oz did not provide any evidence of fraud but suggested the state was paying people too much taxpayer money to help with services that could be offered for free, like “paying somebody to carry groceries upstairs for your mom.”

“Many of you would carry groceries upstairs for your mom for free, but in California, they will pay you a lot of money for it,” he said.

The move is the latest in a series of efforts by the administration to withhold federal money from California. In May, the administration held back $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements to the state over concerns about “fraudsters” in the state’s hospice and in-home care programs. The actions have been part of a broad effort by the administration to rein in fraud in federal healthcare benefits programs, particularly in Democrat-led states.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the office has been critical of the administration’s past efforts.

In May, Newsom’s office called the action to withhold funds for in-home care programs a “sick” and politically motivated attack on services that are meant to “keep seniors and people with disabilities OUT of nursing homes.”

Those services usually cover assistants who help people with daily tasks such as bathing, laundry or cooking. They also provide needed care such as injections under the direction of a medical professional. A 2020 report by the California state auditor found that nearly three-quarters of In-home Supportive Services caregivers assist a family member.

Newsom’s office, however, has argued that the program saves taxpayers money, saying IHSS care costs $30,000 a year, while nursing home care costs $137,000 a year.

California’s hospice industry has had problems in the past and authorities have tried to crack down on the issue. A Times investigation in 2020 found that providers were billing Medicare for hospice services and equipment for patients who were not actually dying while the industry boomed.

The Trump administration, led by Vice President JD Vance, has tried to focus attention on the issue of waste, fraud and abuse as a centerpiece policy platform to bring down healthcare costs.

On Tuesday, Trump and Vance announced a $25-million whistleblower program designed to pay out cash to people who tip off the federal government about fraudsters. The program will offer a 1% commission for tips that lead to a successful conviction. Trump said he would be the sole arbitrator of who gets to keep the money.

“I’ll determine whether or not the person is deserving, and I will be very generous believe me. We are not looking to save on that,” Trump said. “I promise you I will be fair.”

Trump said the money will be handed out “expeditiously and fairly.”

“I promise there is nothing in this for me,” he said.

The White House referred comment about the decision to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The federal agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With less than two years until the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, serious questions remain about funding and coordination for the Cultural Olympiad, the arts and culture program accompanying the Games.

The Cultural Olympiad is a measure of a host city’s commitment to the creative arts and can have a lasting impact on a region’s artistic legacy. The 2024 Olympics in Paris featured more than 2,500 projects over a period of three years. And while Los Angeles arts organizations and neighboring cities are already commissioning work and developing neighborhood celebrations, critics say a more formal and cohesive plan has failed to materialize.

At a legislative hearing Wednesday at the California Science Center, lawmakers pressed organizers for answers to a basic question: How much money will there be to support the Cultural Olympiad, and when will that money reach the artists and communities expected to bring it to life?

Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, criticized the failure to mobilize cultural planning earlier. Los Angeles was awarded the Games in September 2017, giving it nearly 11 years to prepare.

“I’m not trying to point a finger here, but it just didn’t happen,” he said.

The delay had consequences, he warned: major artists book engagements years in advance, limiting what organizers can now arrange.

“So that’s the kind of thing that we lose. But that doesn’t mean that the Cultural Olympiad is a flop.”

Yaroslavsky also described the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival as a catalyst for Los Angeles’ cultural growth. “It allowed us to think much bigger,” he said.

“The urgency to share what our local communities can expect has been pressing, and many local cities and nonprofits could no longer wait for outside direction,” said Sofia Klatzker, Santa Monica’s cultural affairs manager.

She outlined Santa Monica’s proposed cultural framework, “Land and Water Here and Now,” encompassing performances, exhibitions, public art and international cultural exchanges.

The joint hearing of the Senate’s Special Committee on International Sporting Events and the Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Arts brought together about 100 city and county officials, LA28 Cultural Olympiad leaders and arts advocates. Their presentations revealed a patchwork of efforts, with municipalities and organizations moving ahead while seeking clearer coordination and financial commitments.

Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), who chairs both committees, convened the hearing.

A September report from City Administrative Officer Matthew W. Szabo and Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon M. Tso puts LA28’s Olympic and Paralympic Games budget at $7.263 billion.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Dwayne Jones, LA28’s senior vice president for the Cultural Olympiad and stakeholder events, did not disclose a precise cultural budget or how much funding had been secured. He described a fundraising ambition in the tens of millions of dollars, with conversations underway with philanthropic donors and LA28 partners.

The Olympic cauldron is lit at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum ahead of the launch for ticket registration to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Los Angeles.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) repeatedly questioned how those resources would reach artists and community organizations. After the hearing, she conceded that “there are a lot of unanswered questions.”

LA28 Cultural Olympiad Executive Director Nora Halpern and Jones provided updates on plans first outlined in May, including an official Cultural Olympiad mark recognizing participating programs and a digital calendar and mapping platform. They also said programming spanning fashion, film, food, music, performing and visual art, will be announced in 2027.

Applications for the mark are expected to open in early 2027. The calendar and mapping platform is scheduled to launch in January 2028.

Separately, Halpern said artists had been selected to create 16 official posters — eight Olympic and eight Paralympic — through a process involving nominations from regional curators. The posters will be unveiled in July 2027.

Jones also described free community film screenings paired with local food and musical performances, as well as plans for dance, theater and spoken-word programming. Further announcements will come in 2027, he said.

City and county cultural affairs officials presented complementary efforts. Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs general manager Daniel Tarica said $15 million from its existing budget has been committed to its core program.

The department reported completing 19 programs and events this year, citing World Cup celebrations that combined sports screenings with art-making and dancing. The department is continuing exchanges between local and international artists and testing neighborhood programming ahead of an official summer 2027 launch. Additional initiatives, including 15 new Olympic and Paralympic murals and disability arts celebrations, depend on further funding.

Los Angeles County’s Department of Arts and Culture is building its 2028 effort around existing grants, youth programs, public art and neighborhood partnerships, Director Kristin Sakoda said. Plans include a Year of Creative Youth, an Olympic arts education curriculum being developed with the Olympic Museum in Switzerland, and outreach through parks, libraries and cultural venues.

Arts administrators from Long Beach and West Hollywood described local initiatives. Long Beach Cultural Affairs Officer Griselda Suarez reported investing $135,000 in 12 groups to pilot cultural projects, while Rebecca Ehemann, arts manager, City of West Hollywood, said the city was completing its first year of implementing a multiyear creative plan.

Arts for LA CEO Gustavo Herrera presented Mosaic LA, a community-led initiative intended to coordinate neighborhood cultural programming and sustain investment beyond 2028. Its proposals include a pooled fund, technical assistance and shared promotion, alongside exploration of a new county-level arts funding mechanism. Cultural districts would anchor the effort.

Its financing remains unresolved. “There are budgets that have been laid out, but no resources that have been allocated to it yet,” Herrera said.

The discussion also touched on the federal government’s role. Congress has appropriated $1 billion through FEMA’s State Homeland Security Grant Program for Olympics-related security, planning and other costs, and $94.3 million for Games-related transportation assistance. Those commitments are separate from the cultural fundraising described at the hearing.

Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego) called for federal financial support and “a little bit of a better attitude,” saying recent political rhetoric was unhelpful to attracting visitors to California.

Earlier this month, President Trump drew criticism for remarks at a Nebraska rally about Iran potentially striking Los Angeles and San Diego. He subsequently said his comments had been misinterpreted.

The potential benefits of the Games are not automatic, UCLA professor of history Dr. Tawny Paul cautioned. Her research found that large Olympic visitor numbers do not necessarily translate into higher museum attendance, underscoring the importance of local audiences and programming before and beyond the competitions.

For Smallwood-Cuevas, securing additional state support requires a clearer account of the needs.

“At the end of the day, we need a concise, coordinated and clear ask,” she said after the hearing. “That’s rooted in some real facts.”

Horowitz is a special correspondent.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals nixed a trailblazing California law on Wednesday, permanently barring the state’s efforts to force federal immigration agents to display identification while on duty.

“As before, we conclude … the No Vigilantes Act attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions,” Judge Mark J. Bennett wrote for the panel. “No set of circumstances exist under which the Act would be valid.”

The U.S. Justice Department first sued to block the ID requirement alongside a related law attempting to ban masks for federal agents and local police in the fall of 2025.

The joint case hit Los Angeles federal court at the beginning of this year amid a surge of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis that led to the shootings of civilians Renee Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

By then, more than a dozen other states were pursuing similar statutes in an effort to rein in what many saw as lawlessness in President Trump’s sprawling deportation force.

Judge Christina A. Snyder ultimately blocked California’s law prohibiting the use of masks by law enforcement, on the grounds that it unfairly carved out an exception for state peace officers, but allowed the ID requirement for ICE agents and others to go forward, agreeing with the state that it was more akin to a speed limit on the highway than a direct regulation of the federal government.

The 9th Circuit quickly disagreed.

“If a state law directly regulates the governmental conduct of the United States without congressional authorization, it is void irrespective of whether the regulated activities are essential to federal functions or operations, and irrespective of the degree to which the state law interferes with such functions or operations,” Bennett wrote.

The decision comes as ICE is quietly shedding many of the 12,000 new recruits it hired last year. Although public outrage over Trump’s militarized mass deportation efforts has diminished somewhat since the winter, it remains a potent election issue.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll from September showed more than 40% of Americans strongly disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration. Meanwhile, the share who fret over unauthorized immigration is nearly identical to the proportion who worry about the unchecked spread of measles — anxieties that pale in comparison with stress over the cost of living, the proliferation of data centers and the war with Iran, data show.

Iran’s IRGC says it struck a “giant LPG gas carrier named NV Sunshine” that was “attempting to pass through the illegal route” south of the Strait of Hormuz.

Oct. 9, 2026 8:06 AM PT

WASHINGTON — President Trump opened another chapter in his effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook Friday by establishing a “committee of inquiry” to investigate allegations that she made false statements in mortgage applications.

The inquiry will include a hearing at the White House Nov. 5, Trump said in a written memo, that Cook “shall” attend to answer questions from the committee. The hearing wouldn’t be public but a transcript would be published, the memo said.

Trump’s extraordinary demand that Cook testify before the committee will likely renew concerns about threats to the Federal Reserve’s independence as the president demands the central bank cut its key interest rate. Just last month, the Fed raised its key rate instead, led by Chairman Kevin Warsh, whom Trump appointed earlier this year.

“As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,” Trump wrote in the memorandum.

Trump and some of his economic advisers have blamed the Fed’s broader rate-setting committee, which includes 12 voting members and 19 officials in total, for the rate hike. Cook is one of the 12 participants on the committee that votes on interest-rate decisions. The vote to lift rates Sept. 16 was unanimous.

The move follows a Supreme Court ruling in June that Cook could keep her job after Trump sought to fire her last year. That ruling included a footnote that said nothing prevented Trump from “trying again” as long as she was given proper notice and an opportunity to respond to the charges.

Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.

Rugaber writes for the Associated Press.

History was made this week on Capitol Hill when a female senator womansplained sports to a male senator, and surprisingly, the gender-shaming reversal did not cause the universe to collapse on itself.

During a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, MAGA’s manhood cloak was breached when Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) revealed that Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) had mixed up the names of basketball teams in an unsuccessful attempt to perjure former Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Smith was testifying before the committee because he had led the investigations into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and retain classified documents. Several Republican lawmakers have said that Smith overstepped his duties and launched a “witch hunt” against Trump and his allies.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) speaks during a 2020 event in Las Vegas.

(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

Schmitt was trying to suggest Tuesday that Smith improperly colluded with Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis on their separate criminal cases against Trump by placing the former special counsel on Willis’ home turf of Atlanta in 2024.

But a watershed Watergate moment this was not. If Schmitt’s effort to ensnare Smith was set to a musical score, it would have been far more “Curb Your Enthusiasm” than “Mission Impossible.”

His gotcha moment became a schooling by Klobuchar on basketball, turning the tables on the age-old art of mansplaining. For those who need a quick definition, it’s when a man explains something to a woman in a patronizing way, with sports usually at the top of that talk-down-to-her list. He assumes she knows less than he does, even if she’s versed on the subject.

Klobuchar is an avowed sports fan and the daughter of respected Minneapolis sportswriter Jim Klobuchar and a former prosecutor known for her sharp questioning. The combination proved unfortunate for Schmitt during the hearing when he tried to catch Smith in a lie.

The Republican senator asked Smith, “Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on Feb. 3, 2024?”

Smith, whose normally commanding presence has launched countless memes, appeared genuinely perplexed. “What city would that be in?” he asked.

“Atlanta,” replied Schmitt.

Smith denied he was there.

“So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024. Is that correct?” Schmitt said.

“I have no recollection of that,” a bewildered Smith said.

As evidence, Schmitt introduced text messages from Smith’s security detail about seating arrangements for a game, displayed on a poster board that was taken down so quickly that Smith and various senators said they didn’t have time to read it.

“I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” said Schmitt, a former Missouri attorney general who then used the rest of his time to condemn Smith for subpoenaing the communications of Republican lawmakers while investigating Trump.

“You have weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies to an extent that has never happened in the history of this country,” Schmitt proclaimed. “You will go down as a total dirtbag.”

Klobuchar, who was up next to question Smith, asked if the poster board could be produced again.

“I’m a former prosecutor too, and I have never seen anyone just say, ‘What do you think of this?’ and put it down,” she said.

Schmitt’s evidentiary board was produced again, and this time for more than a few seconds. There was no mention of Atlanta in the text messages.

One could almost hear the sound of Schmitt’s perjury trap crumbling under Klobuchar’s heel.

“Could it then be that it was the University of Iowa, [which] is the ‘Hawkeyes,’ could that be it?” she asked Smith. “That might be the confusion over the names of the team.”

Then she addressed Schmitt: “Perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully. I think people should have their facts straight before they accuse people of being a ‘dirtbag,’ and not get the teams wrong.”

Leave it to a man to confuse the Atlanta Hawks, an NBA team, with the Iowa Hawkeyes of women’s college basketball. Perhaps his emotions got in the way.

Smith said he attended the game in Maryland to see the Hawkeyes’ supremely talented star, Caitlin Clark. Regardless of his whereabouts, Republicans contend that Smith was on a political witch hunt after then-Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland appointed him to oversee the twin investigations into Trump. Smith’s team scrutinized the retention of national defense information and classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, as well as the president and his allies’ efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and impede the peaceful transfer of power.

When Trump won the presidency a second time, Smith moved to dismiss both cases because Department of Justice policy prohibits the criminal prosecution of a sitting president.

Now, it’s game time for Judiciary Committee members who’d like to put Smith on the ropes. There’s just one new rule: Don’t talk sports around the ladies. They deliver a knockout punch.

Sept. 29, 2026 2:56 PM PT

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration was set to issue a last-minute reprieve Tuesday over the planned closure of a camp in Qatar that houses more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort or are the relatives of U.S. service members.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to sign off on a diplomatic note to Qatar extending for nine months the life of Camp As Sayliyah, which had been due to close Wednesday at the end of the U.S. budget year, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The officials spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to offer details before the public announcement.

The decision comes months after Rubio told Congress that the U.S. was still in discussions with several third-party countries to take the 1,039 Afghans who worked as interpreters or in other roles helping the American war effort as well as relatives of U.S. service members who have been stranded in Qatar for more than a year.

Rubio’s testimony in June came after the AP and other outlets reported that war-torn Congo was among the countries where the Trump administration was considering resettlement.

The State Department would not immediately comment on Rubio’s extension for the camp but said it “continues to work toward a positive resolution that provides safety for these remaining people to start a new life outside of Afghanistan while upholding the safety and security of the American people.”

The department also repeated its claim that the camp is a legacy of an attempt by President Biden’s administration “to move as many Afghans to America as possible without properly vetting them” — an assertion that has been denied by former officials and refugee advocates.

The group of Afghans in Camp As Sayliyah includes those who fought or worked alongside the U.S. military between 2001 and 2021, with more than 70% of the camp’s residents being women and children, according to statistics from #AfghanEvac. The group has spent the last five years advocating for Washington to make good on its promise to resettle those whose service has put them at risk since the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s reassertion of control.

“This is a victory for those people, and they’re going to have some semblance of knowing that they’re safe there because they’ve been worried that at any moment somebody’s going to come and rip them out of there,” Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads #AfghanEvac, told the AP.

But he added that there needs to be a permanent solution to this years-long crisis.

Despite the camp’s reprieve, which protects those housed there from possible forcible removal to Afghanistan, residents have little hope of being allowed to enter the United States.

Upon entering his second term, Trump, a Republican, paused his Democratic predecessor’s Afghan resettlement program as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration, including dramatically altering refugee admissions to focus on white South Africans. Only five Afghans have been admitted to the U.S. since October 2025, #AfghanEvac says.

The refugee changes left thousands of people who fled war and persecution — and had gone through a sometimes years-long vetting process to start new lives in America — stranded at places worldwide, including the base in Qatar.

Advocates have warned that if there is no alternative, the only other option for the group of residents would be to go back to Afghanistan, where they face likely reprisal from the Taliban.

In the coming nine months, the State Department said it would “continue to work to identify options for voluntary resettlement of all Camp As-Sayliyah residents.” It gave no additional details.

Lee and Amiri write for the Associated Press. Amiri reported from New York.

DENVER — The office of Colorado’s attorney general is a perch 10 stories above downtown Denver. From his aerie, Phil Weiser has a sweeping view of the city skyline, the gold-domed Capitol and, occasionally, a red hawk on the wing.

But looking toward November, Weiser sees something darker.

Federal agents swarming polling places. Voters intimidated or blocked from casting their ballots. A tyrannical president using his powers, real and imagined, to undermine or try to overturn the Nov. 3 election.

“With this administration what we have seen is it’s important that we not limit our imagination to what … type of harm could happen,” Weiser said during a sunny noon hour in the Mile High City.

For that reason, Colorado’s attorney general and his Democratic peers around the country have spent more than a year strategizing — by phone, via Zoom, sometimes in person — on ways to Trump-proof the midterm election.

They’ve researched history and the law, war-gamed what-ifs, divvied up responsibilities and drafted emergency lawsuits and temporary restraining orders so they can be hurried into court at a moment’s notice.

“We have prepared for a range of contingencies … so that we’re ready to act,” Weiser said.

“We’re not going to be reacting in real time” or pulling all-nighters, he added. “We are going to be following through on plans we’ve made, having looked at what’s possible.”

The efforts of Weiser, California’s Rob Bonta and more than 20 other Democratic attorneys general are part of a mass mobilization aimed at thwarting Trump’s unprecedented efforts to pervert and subvert November’s midterm balloting.

It’s remarkable that kind of man-the-barricades action is needed to preserve and protect the voting franchise in this, the land of the free and home of the brave. But having weighed the threats, Weiser said his greatest fear of election interference comes not from a bad overseas actor or some terrorist group, but rather our own federal government “and what this administration might do.”

So here we are.

To fend off that threat from within, state Democratic parties across the nation are aiming to recruit 10,000 volunteers to guard polling places in the event armed federal agents show up.

Various sponsors have launched education campaigns to explain election rules and offer hotlines for voters who have trouble casting their ballot.

Civil rights groups and democracy-defending organizations have staged their own tabletop exercises brainstorming and rehearsing various scenarios. A group of Democratic U.S. senators has done the same.

“What we’re doing is preparing for the fact that Donald Trump, in 2020, lied about the election in advance, lied about it in the aftermath, went to court … and then he instigated a violent insurrection in this very building,” Marc Elias, a Democratic elections attorney, told MS NOW in a July interview at the Capitol. “So I think we need to take these threats in the 2026 midterm run-up … both seriously and literally.”

In a more courageous, less heedlessly partisan world, Republicans would be working with Democrats to keep the power-drunk Trump in check. (The House and Senate supposedly comprise a separate and equal branch of government, with its own power, prerogatives and such.)

But, as Weiser noted, this Republican-led Congress “has been lacking in backbone, lacking in the role of checks and balances. That has left it to state attorneys general to fill that vacuum, going to court and essentially playing the role of a check on a lawless and often bullying president.”

The nation’s 24 Democratic attorneys general have filed more than 125 lawsuits in Trump’s second term alone, fighting his moves on trade and tariffs, energy and immigration policies and efforts to gut or eliminate programs and whole government agencies. They’ve prevailed in the overwhelming majority of cases that have been adjudicated or settled.

Even before Trump was elected again, some attorneys general began conferring on ways to fight the excesses they anticipated in a second administration. Anyone who didn’t see them coming wasn’t paying attention, said Weiser, who, most likely, will be elected Colorado’s next governor on Nov. 3.

(His victory in Colorado’s Democratic primary stemmed in good part from Weiser’s record battling Trump in court.)

“The worst-case scenario was that a Trump presidency would work to implement Project 2025 and would do things like try to end birthright citizenship, try to interfere with the delivery of ballots in the mail, would seek to use ICE in ways that were a basic affront to the rule of law,” Weiser said. “All those things have happened.”

So why not expect more of the same come November?

Trump is constitutionally (small “c”) incapable of acknowledging the result of any election he didn’t win. He’s openly urged supporters to “cheat like hell.” Thus, one can only assume malign intent when the president tries to wantonly purge voter rolls, hijack the U.S. Postal service to gum up mail balloting and override the Constitution (capital “c”) by federalizing November’s election.

Some might call such fears melodramatic, or overblown.

But as Weiser said, “We need to stay nervous and stay vigiliant because [of] what this president has shown, Jan. 6 being one of the telling examples.”

Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of elections “is historic,” the attorney general said. “It is unique. It’s a threat. And it’s why we have to stand our guard.”

Vote, to bring this rogue president to heel. Stay vigilant, to make sure that vote counts.

Two good watchwords for this midterm election.