Midterm Elections

Aug. 12 (UPI) — Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are escalating their criticism of Paramount Skydance’s attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, with one lawmaker accusing the Paramount CEO of “colluding” with President Donald Trump and his administration.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent Paramount CEO David Ellison, a letter Wednesday, inviting him for an interview to “answer the committee’s questions about your Donald Trump-enabled shopping spree to consolidate news organizations, movie studios, cable channels and streaming stations.”

Raskin opened his letter referring to a New York Times opinion piece by Ellison in which the CEO defended the deal and said he would stay silent “no more.”

“This is great news,” Raskin wrote. “Over the past 12 months, I have sent you four letters. You have responded to none of them.”

“I have repeatedly sought answers from you about the Paramount Skydance merger and your planned acquisition of Warner Bros.Discovery in light of troubling reports that your company is colluding with President Trump and his administration to curtail media independence, spread political censorship and suppress dissent.”

Raskin also wrote that he’s sought answers about alleged political interference in CBS News reporting and that he has “significant concerns” that the acquisition would “dangerously” consolidate power in a single conglomerate.

Paramount had not commented on the letter Wednesday afternoon. However, Makan Delrahim, during a summit this week hosted by Politico, said the company is “transparent” and responsive to lawmakers’ concerns.

As of now, Raskin cannot require Ellison’s cooperation. However, if Democrats win control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections, Raskin — who is expected to become committee chairman — could subpoena Ellison.

Raskin previously told Politico that he plans to increase oversight of the merger and that “anyone involved should be prepared to answer under oath for their roll in this brazen campaign to bend America’s free press to Donald Trump’s political, financial and personal will.”

In 2025, Paramount paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit (which many called “meritless”) brought by Trump, and Democrats have said the money could be considered a bribe to allow the Paramount-Skydance merger, which was approved shortly afterward.

However, the merger has been postponed because of an antitrust lawsuit brought by attorneys general of 12 states and the Writers Guild America. A trial is set for March.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate passed a stopgap funding bill Saturday that would fund the government through Dec. 11 to prevent a government shutdown in September.

The bill was put in place to avoid a shutdown before November’s midterm elections. It’s unclear if the bill will pass the House of Representatives. The Senate passed the bill in a bipartisan 90-6 vote, with Sen. Darline Graham , R-S.C., voting present.

The Senate is now on a five-week recess and is scheduled to return Sept. 14.

The House passed a similar bill on July 22.

The Senate bill includes a section that would bar President Donald Trump from transferring funds to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a provision that Democrats demanded.

It would also delay a ban on intoxicating hemp products, which is scheduled to go into effect in November. The ban was made law in November 2025 with a one-year delay. The law redefined hemp and would make most hemp products illegal, including CBD, Delta-9 and others. The new delay would push implementation back until December.

A group of Republican Senators, led by Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., tried to block the delay of the law, but failed.

“After three unnecessary lapses in funding during the fiscal year 2026 cycle, putting the possibility of yet another harmful shutdown off the table should be a priority for each and every one of us,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Collins is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Democrats lauded the measure to prevent backdoor funding of the Border Patrol.

“This is an important step forward to prevent a shutdown no one wants and provide the runway we need to negotiate funding bills in the months ahead as we fight to rein in Trump’s corruption and make life more affordable for families back home,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the committee.

The bill also blocks the Trump administration until the end of the stopgap from finalizing a rule that would put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said this week that he’s going to “fight like hell” in December to ensure Congress doesn’t further block Trump’s grant overhaul.

Collins said she will “continue to oppose” the administration’s plans “because I think they politicize the grants process, and I don’t want that to occur.” Murray said she, too, would “welcome the fight.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, praised the Senate bill for including the grant and immigration enforcement language.

“This bill is a clear improvement over the House Republican continuing resolution, but we are still nearly two months away from the end of the fiscal year and should be working together to pass full-year funding bills,” she said in a statement.

After passing the funding legislation, the Senate narrowly approved the confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general early Saturday morning.

July 27 (UPI) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on his way to Washington, D.C., on Monday for his eighth meeting with President Donald Trump since he returned to the White House last year.

The war in Iran will be the key topic Trump and Netanyahu are expected to discuss when they meet at the White House this week. It will be their first meeting since the war began. The two leaders have expressed differing opinions about peace agreements in recent weeks.

“In these complex times, you need to act with both great determination and great wisdom,” Netanyahu said in a video statement Monday. “We will discuss all the issues on the agenda, primarily Iran. Of course, our goal is to protect our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us.”

Fighting between the United States and Iran resumed over the past two weeks after a preliminary peace agreement between both sides fell apart. The U.S. military said it paused strikes on Iran over the weekend after a series of daily attacks.

Iran’s military said it is also halting strikes against the United States as long as the United States holds off.

It is a politically significant time for both Netanyahu and Trump. On Oct. 27, Israel’s legislative election will include all 120 seats in the Knesset, determining who will lead the government. The prime minister will be determined in consultation between the Israeli president and the Knesset, through a series of coalition formations.

Meanwhile, Trump’s focus politically is on the midterm elections in November. The elections will determine the political makeup on Capitol Hill and Trump’s path toward advancing his agenda in the final two years of his term.

July 24 (UPI) — A federal court has allowed Tennessee to use a new congressional map that eliminates the state’s only majority-Black district in November’s midterm elections, rejecting a challenge from civil and voting rights advocates.

The three-judge panel on Thursday denied a motion filed by Black Memphis voters for a preliminary injunction against implementing the map, ruling they lacked evidence of racial motivation for the map’s unorthodox mid-decade redistricting, which could be explained by a political motivation.

“The road to a reliably 9-0 map runs through Memphis. Thus, political motivations readily explain the map’s dilutive effects,” the panel, which consisted of two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee, wrote in its decision.

With the ruling, Tennessee may use the map in next month’s primaries.

November’s midterms have been of increasing concern for President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly voiced worries about impeachment proceedings and investigations if Republicans lose the House to Democrats, and has pushed GOP-led states to redraw their congressional maps to create additional Republican-favored districts.

Texas was the first last summer to agree to Trump’s request, sparking a gerrymandering arms race, with at least 10 states have redrawn their maps. All but Democrat-led California and North Carolina, which has a Democratic governor, are Republican-led.

Tennessee’s GOP-majority legislature passed its redistricting map to eliminate the one Democrat-held seat in May, a week after the Supreme Court issued a controversial decision that weakened a key part of the Voting Rights Act, by greatly limiting the use of race in drawing electoral districts.

The three Black Memphis voters, along with the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, the Memphis A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Equity Alliance sued days later, alleging that the new map unlawfully discriminates against Black Memphis voters by dismantling a district where they had long been able to meaningfully participate in the political process.

In its ruling Thursday, the court said that the plaintiffs had to show that the map redraw was racially motivated, which they failed to do.

“The map’s effects — breaking Black Memphians into three separate congressional districts — are readily explainable by political motivations,” the court said.

“It’s no secret (supported by Plaintiffs’ own statements) that city voters prefer Democratic candidates and that rural voters prefer Republican candidates. So, it makes sense that Tennessee’s legislature would split Memphis into thirds when attempting to create a map that favors Republican candidates. And it’s no surprise that the resulting map would also split the Black population of Memphis into thirds.”

Amber Sherman, a plaintiff in the case, said the court’s decision further disenfranchises Black voters in Memphis.

“It’s painful to know we’ll head into another election under a map that was designed to weaken the Black voters in Memphis,” she said in a statement.

“We deserve the same opportunity to shape our future as anyone else.”

July 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday made sweeping, largely unsupported claims of widespread problems with U.S. elections, many of which have been debunked or overstated, as he called on Congress to pass legislation he says would protect the electoral system but critics describe as voter suppression.

During his roughly 25-minute prime-time speech to the nation, Trump attempted to make his case for measures needed to address the alleged vulnerabilities, stating, “Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost.”

“This cannot be allowed to continue,” he said.

The speech was delivered only months before November’s midterm elections, on which Trump has increasing focused, having repeatedly warned that if Republicans lose their slim majority in the House to Democrats, impeachment proceedings and investigations will follow.

Democrats and other critics have accused the president of attempting to sow confusion and distrust ahead of the midterms while pushing the election SAVE American Act, which would require photo identification to vote, documentary proof of citizenship to register and restrict mail voting to certain eligible groups. Opponents say those requirements would disproportionately burden Black and other minority voters and prevent some otherwise eligible citizens from voting.

This is a developing story.

June 17 (UPI) — Rep. Mike Collins was projected Tuesday night to win Georgia’s Republican Senate primary runoff, defeating former football coach Derek Dooley as voters cast ballots in contests across the country.

The Collins-Dooley race was the highest-profile race on a primary night.

President Donald Trump has loomed large over November’s midterm elections, encouraging GOP-led states to redraw congressional maps, warning of impeachment and investigations if Democrats win control of the House and endorsing candidates who align with his agenda.

The Georgia Senate runoff drew national attention as a race that could help decide control of the Senate and test Trump’s influence in a battleground state.

Collins of Georgia’s 10th Congressional District ran with Trump’s endorsement, while Dooley had the support of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

With all 159 localities reporting, Collins had secured 55.5% of the vote to Dooley’s 44.4%, according to unofficial results from the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Collins, speaking to supporters Tuesday night, projected an image of GOP unity, stating he had spoken with both Dooley, thanking him for running a “spirited campaign,” and Kemp “for his leadership and his friendship over the years.”

“We’re going to have some robust primaries out there. Sometimes, we got some strong disagreements, but I can tell you we stand united around one mission,” he said to applause.

“That’s right. And y’all know what the mission is: Is to put a Republican in that seat and get rid of that Jon Ossoff in November.”

Ossoff, a Democrat, won the Senate seat in 2021, flipping control of the chamber from the Republicans.

In his victory speech, Collins attacked Ossoff for voting in favor of President Joe Biden‘s landmark Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan as well as voting against banning transgender athletes from competing in female-segregated sports.

Following Collins’ victory, Ossoff attacked him on social media, calling him a “notorious bigot, antisemite and extremist” who is being investigated by the House Committee on Ethics for illegal misuse of tax dollars.

“Collins, who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman, voted to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians, for the Iran War and for the Trump tariffs,” he said in a statement.

Dooley conceded defeat.

“While tonight didn’t go our way, I want you to know that I’ll continue to be in this fight,” he said on social media.

“No matter who you voted for or what you believe, one thing we all can agree on is Jon Ossoff does not represent our Georgia values. In November, we’re sending him to the bench!”

Trump endorsed Collins on Friday after early voting ended, while Kemp endorsed Dooley in August.

But Tuesday night was not a clean sweep for Trump-backed candidates in Georgia. Rick Jackson, the billionaire founder of Jackson Healthcare, was poised to defeat Trump-endorsed Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the GOP governor runoff race.

According to unofficial results, Jackson had secured 52.65% of the vote share to Jones’ 47%.

The Georgia governor’s mansion is up for grabs as Kemp, a Republican, has been term limited. He faced Democrat Stacy Abrams in the last two gubernatorial elections.

Jones had won 38% of the vote in the primary election last month. Jackson received 32% of the vote. The runoff was scheduled as neither candidate surpassed the 50% threshold needed to win the GOP nomination outright.

Joe Fisher contributed reporting.

May 26 (UPI) — South Carolina’s state Senate adjourned Tuesday without acting on a new congressional map that would have redrawn voting districts in favor of Republicans.

President Donald Trump has called on states to redraw their voting maps to favor Republicans, especially after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that badly weakened a part of the landmark federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 that helped protect minority voting power.

However, as voters started heading to the polls Tuesday for the first in-person voting in primaries, state senators said it was just too late. If the state Senate pushed the map through Tuesday, the state would have had to throw out tens of thousands of ballots that had already been cast that day and schedule a new primary.

“Neither my conscience nor my common sense would allow me to stop an election that is already underway,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said during the vote, The BBC reported.

The new congressional map pitched for South Carolina would do away with the state’s only majority Black district, which is represented by Rep. James Clyburn, a Democrat. Clyburn is seeking his 18th term in office this year.

Republicans have a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Trump and other conservatives are calling for district changes to hold on to that majority during the midterm elections in November. Other states, including Tennessee, have already redrawn and approved new maps eliminating majority Black districts.

CNN reported that Trump called Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey at least twice about the plan, and the president has posted regularly on social media about the matter as well.

“South Carolina Republicans: BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS, just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week!” the president wrote in a post earlier this month.

South Carolina state senators will likely pick up the matter again after the primary voting ends June 9. State Sen. Brad Hutto, a Democrat, said his party members worked all weekend to make voters headed out to the polls today, The New York Times reported.

“The people in South Carolina were sending us a message that their vote mattered,” he said. “It was important, and they didn’t want us to cancel their vote.”

Democrats had another win in the redistricting wars on Tuesday, with a federal court temporarily blocking Alabama from using its newly redrawn congressional map, which includes only one Black majority district out of seven. The population of Alabama is about 27% Black.

The South Carolina map in question, meanwhile, would have resulted in no Black majority districts out of the state’s seven. The state is about 26% Black, based on 2025 U.S. Census numbers.