US Midterm Elections 2026

The United States Supreme Court has rejected Donald Trump’s bid to restrict voting by mail ahead of the November midterm elections, in a setback to the US president’s efforts to change rules governing elections.

The ruling on Monday by the conservative supermajority court allows states to continue sending out mail ballots as they have done for years, dealing a blow to Trump’s plans to stop the ballots before the elections and halting possible last-minute legal actions as voting begins in some states.

Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the security of mail-in voting, citing debunked claims of widespread election fraud associated with it. That is despite the president voting by mail himself, including during the 2024 election.

Mail ballots, in place for decades, have been found to increase voter turnout and currently account for a third of all votes cast in the US.

Here’s what we know about the legal challenge to overturn them:

What are mail-in votes?

Voting by post works by sending ballots to the homes of registered voters, who then mail them back before a deadline.

Eight states, several of them Democratic-leaning – California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington – as well as the District of Columbia, allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.

Others only allow smaller elections to be conducted by mail.

Although there are cases of forgery or repeat voting, they are rare and amount to just four in 10 million mailed votes, according to the Brookings Institution.

What has Trump said about the mail-in votes?

Trump falsely blamed his 2020 presidential election loss on mail-in voting fraud. He and his supporters also opposed changes made during the COVID pandemic to expand mail-in voting.

During the 2020 Republican National Convention, Trump called mail-in voting changes “the greatest scam in the history of politics”.

His attempt to push the SAVE America Act, which calls for sweeping voting laws, has stalled in the US Senate. The bill, passed in the House of Representatives in February, faces opposition over concerns that millions of voters will be disenfranchised.

How did Trump target mail-in votes?

In March 2026, Trump signed an executive order directing the US Postal Service to take control of mail voting by designing new envelopes with special barcodes that would allow the federal government to ensure ballots are only from eligible voters.

For the midterms, that move would force all states to adopt a uniform envelope style in a short time.

The order also required states to provide the US Postal Service with a list of eligible voters ahead of elections. Several government departments, including Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, would also have the voters’ lists.

The postal agency was additionally empowered to deny mailed ballots if they did not comply with new standards or were not associated with registered voters on the states’ lists.

What happened to the order?

Democrats and activists challenged the order in several courts, resulting in a series of back-and-forth rulings between May and August.

US District Judge Indira Talwani imposed an injunction against the rule in June on the basis that it likely violated the US Constitution. Talwani also noted in her injunction that Trump’s executive order would be impossible to apply when the midterms were already so close.

But her ruling was overturned by the conservative-majority Supreme Court in late August in a temporary judgement.

The Supreme Court had not decided at the time whether Trump’s move was constitutionally legal. Rather, it only sided with the Trump administration on procedural grounds after the administration argued that Democrats sued too soon.

What does the latest judgement mean?

In the latest and final decision, the Supreme Court refused to lift Judge Talwani’s injunction.

In a brief written order that did not go into detail, the court noted that the administration was likely to fail in its push to restrict mail-in votes ahead of the midterms.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump, voted with the majority against the administration, though he indicated he could support the policy at a later stage. Two judges, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented.

Critics have long warned that restricting mail-in ballots could disenfranchise some voters who typically rely on this method.

It could also disrupt the delivery of mailed votes, as some states, including Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin, have begun sending in midterm ballots.

A quarter-century after the attacks on September 11, 2001, officials across the United States have taken part in tributes and memorials to honour the 2,977 victims and those who risked their lives as part of the rescue efforts.

The incident is considered the deadliest “terrorist” attack in US history.

Four planes were hijacked. Two crashed into the World Trade Center, causing its Twin Towers to collapse. A third struck the Pentagon outside Washington, DC. And the fourth plummeted into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew rose against their attackers.

Through social media messages, public speeches and appearances at ceremonies, US leaders on Friday took different approaches to remembering the lives of the thousands who perished on the fateful day.

Here’s what they said:

US President Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump chose to stay in Washington, DC, to observe the 25th anniversary.

During the attacks, 184 people died near the capital when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US military.

Trump opted not to attend a Friday ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York, where all his living presidential predecessors were in attendance.

His vice president, JD Vance, travelled to New York instead. The ceremony at the World Trade Center has a policy of not allowing political speeches.

In his remarks at the Pentagon, Trump described what happened as “true evil”. He also paid tribute to those who died in the attacks.

“We will honour their lives, we will cherish their beautiful memories, and we will protect this country and its freedoms for every future generation,” Trump said.

The president also praised US troops as he appeared to link the 9/11 attacks with his administration’s war against Iran.

“We will never, ever forget. That’s why we fight today. We don’t have a choice. There can only be victory,” Trump said.

“We salute the service members working right now to ensure the world’s number one sponsor of terror – the Islamic Republic of Iran – will never, ever have a nuclear weapon,” he later added.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also spoke at the Pentagon, delivering his remarks shortly before Trump’s.

He warned the audience to practice “eternal vigilance” against what he called continued threats.

“There are still enemies who hate us. Every day, enemies plot to curb our power and kill our citizens, including from Islamic terrorists abroad and at home,” he said.

He proceeded to seemingly use the 9/11 attacks as justification for the US-Israeli war against Iran, which started on February 28.

“Over the past six months, we have laid waste to the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism,” Hegseth said, referring to Iran. “Our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century, that cheered on 9/11.”

He went on to claim that the US military has destroyed Iran’s defences and that the US controls the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for international trade.

Iran has stopped commercial traffic through the strait since the start of the war.

“We’re still sending terrorists where they belong, to hell, and tankers to the bottom of the ocean where they belong,” Hegseth said. “And we’re ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The economic pressure tightens every day. We control the strait. We will finish this fight.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attended the New York memorial service, alongside the city’s former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who led the city through the attacks.

Before the event started, Giuliani shook hands with the mayor, despite previously calling on Mamdani not to attend the event.

Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, had recently come under fire from some conservative politicians and victims’ family members who said his presence at the memorial would offend them.

A Change.org petition garnered more than 100,000 signatures from those who wished to express concern about Mamdani’s participation.

Like all politicians attending the service at the National September 11 Memorial, Mamdani was not permitted to speak.

Instead, the mayor released a video on social media remembering those who were killed and challenging the public to honour their memory by doing good works.

“Twenty-five years later, we have a sacred obligation to those who were stolen from us. To care for one another as they cared for strangers. To live lives worthy of the sacrifices they made. And to build a city worthy of their courage. A city where we run toward one another,” Mamdani said.

“That is how we’ll remember.”

On Tuesday, Mamdani also released a trove of previously undisclosed documents suggesting city officials tried to downplay – or even mislead – first residents about the dangerous air quality following the attacks.

US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed

Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed took to the social media platform X to honour the lives lost during what he described as a “cruel act of terror”.

El-Sayed is locked in a tight midterm race in Michigan against his Republican opponent, former US Representative Mike Rogers.

Michigan’s open Senate seat is considered a must-win seat for Democrats, if they hope to take back control of the US Senate.

Rogers has sought to create controversy over El-Sayed’s past comments about the September 11 attacks. He has pointed to audio of El-Sayed reportedly saying, “9/11 scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9/11 scarred millions of other people.”

During the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday, Rogers blasted El-Sayed, who is Muslim, for being sympathetic to terrorists. He also sought to highlight El-Sayed’s links to left-wing internet commentator Hasan Piker.

“I never imagined that, 25 years after 9/11, I would be running against somebody who campaigns with Hasan Piker, who thinks America deserved it,” Rogers said. “Yep, but here we are.”

On Friday, however, El-Sayed used his social media post to push back against Rogers’s attacks.

“Nothing can justify the murder of innocent civilians. Nothing,” El-Sayed wrote.

He also called on Americans to help build a country that was “more inclusive, more empowering, more just” in tribute to the lives lost.

“They didn’t just attack America that day. They attacked the idea of America,” El-Sayed said of the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers who participated in the attacks.

“The notion of a nation brought together by ideals where it doesn’t matter how you pray or if you pray at all. A place where freedom and commitment to justice bind us, even if at times we struggle to fully realise it.”

Pennsylvania senator who has clashed with party over Israel support says he will reject ‘the extremes and socialism’.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who has distanced himself from his party, has appeared in a video recording on the first day of the Republican Party’s two-day midterm convention in the United States.

The video on Wednesday was a surprise for those who attended the conservative gathering in Dallas, Texas, where President Donald Trump is seeking to galvanise support ahead of the November elections.

“Yes, I’m Senator John Fetterman, Pennsylvania. Yes, I’m a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I’m a common-sense Democrat,” Fetterman said as he introduced his Republican colleague, Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania.

Fetterman, a 57-year-old first-term senator, has cast himself as an outsider within the Democratic Party.

He has offered outspoken support for Israel and the war on Iran, even as voters and progressive voices in his party criticise those elements of US foreign policy.

“I’m always going to stand with America. I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life,” Fetterman said in the video clip.

But his appearance at the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention is likely to exacerbate criticism from his Democratic colleagues.

US Representative Brendan Boyle, another Pennsylvania Democrat, has repeatedly questioned Fetterman’s party allegiance, as well as his commitment to public service. He renewed that sentiment after Wednesday’s video aired.

“A year ago I labeled John Fetterman ‘Trump’s favorite Democrat.’ Tonight, he yet again proves why,” Boyle wrote on social media.

Fetterman has also faced questions about his fitness for office following a series of reports that detail his apparent lack of enthusiasm for his Senate responsibilities.

A recent Wall Street Journal article found that the senator had cancelled meetings with constituents.

In one case, The Wall Street Journal said he skipped a June meeting with injured military veterans, citing illness, only to show up later for a Fox News interview about Israel and its joint war with the US on Iran.

His approval rating is now higher among Republicans in Pennsylvania than among members of his own party.

Last month, a poll from The New York Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer suggested that 73 percent of Pennsylvania Republicans approved of Fetterman’s performance, up from 25 percent in 2024.

Meanwhile, Democratic support in the state had slid dramatically over the last two years, slipping from 74 percent to 22 percent. Some 63 percent of Democratic respondents held an unfavourable view of him.

While Fetterman has depicted himself as a maverick within the Democratic Party, he has denied that he would switch parties to become a Republican.

“I’m not going to be a Republican, but I’m going to be a Democrat that’s going to have a conversation with whoever is playing it straight,” he said in a recent interview with Fox News.

Still, speculation about Fetterman’s party credentials has continued as the midterms near.

The election on November 3 will decide which party controls Congress for the final two years of Trump’s term.

Republicans currently hold a small majority in the House of Representatives and Senate, but they could face a setback at the polls as voters express frustration over cost of living issues and Trump’s deepening unpopularity.

Still, reclaiming the Senate especially could be an uphill climb for Democrats. Only a third of Senate seats are up for re-election this year, compared with all 435 House seats.

Fetterman is not up for re-election until 2028.

The United States Republican Party – and its talisman President Donald Trump – is descending on Dallas, Texas, to host a rare convention before the midterm elections in November.

Usually reserved for presidential election cycles, Trump’s call to hold the high-cost event before the November 3 midterm vote has underscored both the president’s unorthodox campaign style and the urgency of the political moment for his Republican Party.

Trump’s approval rating has tanked in the lead-up to the midterm vote, with polls pointing to a panoply of factors, most notably the US-Israel war on Iran and its knock-on economic effects for US consumers.

The lack of enthusiasm threatens what are already considered long-shot odds in the Republicans’ effort to hold on to control of the House of Representatives. Shifting public opinion has also put control of the Senate increasingly in play, although Democrats still face an uphill battle to pull off an upset.

A loss of control in either chamber would serve as a major check on Trump’s authority in the final two years of his second term.

But not all Republicans have bought into Trump and the party’s claims that the convention will spur voter turnout.

Several, particularly those in the tightest races, have kept the event at arm’s length amid concerns that associating with the president could only further mobilise his detractors.

Here’s what to know:

When and where is the Republican midterm convention?

The convention will be hosted at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, September 9 and Thursday, September 10.

The event is expected to run from 3pm to 9pm Central Time (20:00 to 02:00 GMT) on both days.

Trump is scheduled to speak on both nights, including a Wednesday address and the convention’s closing keynote on Thursday from 8pm to 9pm Central Time (01:00 to 02:00 GMT on Friday).

US Vice President JD Vance will close out night one with a speech.

Is this a typical political convention?

Not at all.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), the party’s official organising body, has billed the Dallas midterm convention as a “first in American political history”.

Both Democratic and Republican national conventions have historically capped the primary season before a presidential election. The emphasis has historically been on the presidential nomination process during the largely ceremonial events.

During those conventions, so-called “delegates” from every state pledge their votes for a candidate based on the primary election outcome from their home state.

A candidate who secures the required majority of delegates formally becomes the party’s presidential nominee at the convention.

Parties also typically hold several smaller meetings surrounding the event to establish and release the party’s official platform.

Why are Republicans holding a midterm convention in 2026?

To start with, there will be no nominating process – presidential or otherwise – during the event, as there is no presidential election in 2026.

Instead, the convention has taken the shape of a supercharged campaign rally and fundraiser.

It has been pitched as an opportunity to introduce candidates in punishing races to potential donors and to give a clear, if Trump-dominated, party message as the races enter their final stretch.

The RNC has promised “a primetime showcase for President Trump’s success, candidates, and causes that have propelled the 2026 midterms to unprecedented focus”.

What’s on the schedule?

There will be quite a lot. The official programme lists “53 items and speakers” on night one, followed by 56 more on night two.

The first night will focus on issues including tax cuts, healthcare affordability, immigration, border policy, trade and domestic manufacturing.

The second night will focus more on affordability and families, including policies related to taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security.

The subject areas hew closely to Trump’s wider political messaging.

The official programme gives relatively little attention to several other subjects. The US-Israel war with Iran and Trump’s aggressive tariff policy receive scant mention.

Who else is speaking?

Trump and Vance are the convention’s marquee speakers, but an array of prominent Republicans and candidates are expected to feature across the two-day programme.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is likely to get a healthy amount of stage time. Paxton is running for Senate against Democrat James Talarico, whose early lead in polling has raised alarm bells for Republicans. A Democrat has not won statewide office in Texas since 1994.

“We’re going to have a lot of speakers, and the ones we want to focus on will be obviously Ken Paxton,” Trump told reporters last week. “We gotta get him elected.”

The race is particularly personal for Trump, who endorsed MAGA-aligned Paxton over Republican Senator John Cornyn, a four-term incumbent seen by many as the surest challenger for Talarico.

Will Trump’s convention help Republicans in the midterms?

It remains to be seen whether the convention will help to turn out voters in a meaningful way.

Trump has proven a canny campaigner in the past, leveraging his eye for television spectacle to build support and turn out low-propensity voters. But several factors could limit the impact.

Trump’s Thursday night speech conflicts with the opening games of the National Football League (NFL) season. The event also runs up against several memorial events for the September 11, 2001 attacks throughout the week.

Some Republican officials have also reportedly criticised the hasty announcement of the event, which Trump called for in late June, raising questions over whether organisers will indeed be able to achieve the spectacle envisioned.

For his part, Trump enters the convention with his approval rating continuing to tank, hovering at a 38 percent average in major polls. Several of the most recent polls, including a Reuters-Ipsos poll and a Financial Times-Focaldata poll conducted in late August, reflected only a 33 percent approval.

Trump entered office in January 2025 sitting at about 52 percent approval.

Why are some Republicans skipping?

To be sure, several Republicans in key races have said they will attend the convention.

They include former Congressman Mike Rogers, who is running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed for an open Senate seat in Michigan; Ohio Senator Jon Husted, who is facing an unnerving challenge from former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown; and Georgia Congressman Mike Collins, who is seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

Others have been wary.

Trump’s policies in his second term have cast a long shadow, leaving many candidates calculating whether attendance could backfire and instead energise voters opposed to Trump.

Democratic primary turnout in several key states – including Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas and Georgia – has soared this year, while Republican turnout has remained steady but unextraordinary, as reported by The Associated Press news agency. That has been a worrying sign for Republicans.

Maine Senator Susan Collins, a Republican incumbent seen as vulnerable in her race against Democrat Troy Jackson, has been among those who have said they will not attend.

Several candidates in key House races have pointed to prior commitments.

Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks told The Bulwark she preferred to spend her time in her home district in Iowa, where she faces a challenge from Democrat Christina Bohannan.

“Because I have a district that I have to be in and take care of, so I’ll be in my district,” she explained about her decision.

Miller-Meeks eked out a victory over Bohannan in 2024, winning by a margin of just 0.1 percent.

Are Democrats countering?

Several left-leaning groups are organising protests.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has announced that four Democratic lawmakers will travel to Dallas for counterprogramming during the Republican convention.

However, the cash-strapped Democratic National Committee (DNC) has avoided holding its own midterm convention.

The committee went into debt in the wake of the 2024 presidential election, even putting up its Washington, DC-based headquarters as collateral for a $15m loan, the NOTUS news site reported in July.

The RNC has not yet released a final price tag for its convention.

Voters in two US states — New Hampshire and Rhode Island — will head to the polls this week to select Democratic and Republican candidates for this November’s United States midterm elections.

In what’s been a campaign season full of unexpected twists and turns, from the continued growth of the Democrats’ progressive arm to mixed results for President Donald Trump-endorsed Republican candidates, the contests mark some of the last primaries before the US makes a final determination on which party will control both chambers of the US Congress.

Before that happens, candidates in some of these New England states’ most notable races will have to contend with some of this midterm’s biggest themes: How much Republicans should align with Trump, and whether a Democratic incumbent can fight off a primary challenger.

Here are the races to watch:

In New Hampshire, a battle to replace a retiring senator

• When does voting in New Hampshire start? Opening times for polling locations vary across the state, but all polls must open on Tuesday, September 8 by 11am (15:00 GMT).
• When does voting in New Hampshire end? Closing times also vary, but state law stipulates polls cannot close earlier than 7pm (23:00 GMT).

The most notable race in New Hampshire will determine the two candidates who will face off to replace outgoing Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

US Representative Chris Pappas has emerged as the frontrunner to win the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side, John Sununu holds the benefit of strong name recognition from being a part of the state’s most prominent political dynasty.

Democrats have hoped to retain this seat, a critical must-keep as they look to take back the US Senate currently controlled by Republicans. But recent polling of likely voters conducted by Senate Republicans’ campaign arm shows Sununu leading Pappas by one point. The survey, conducted in the final days of August, found nearly one in four voters are undecided.

However, both candidates, if they win their primaries on Tuesday, may have to confront actions by their party’s top figures, who could complicate their campaigns.

In the Democratic primary, Pappas remains the favourite, but his lead has dropped by double digits, according to some polls.

Pappas’s closest opponent is democratic socialist Karishma Manzur, who has picked up support, in part, over her calls to “end US complicity in the genocide of Palestinians”. While Pappas has stressed the importance of the current US-Israel relationship, the congressman has also said he supports a two-state solution and “increasing” aid to Gaza.

Manzur has criticised Pappas for connections to political donors, including those connected to Israel.

Former US Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed Pappas last week. Harris’s support, which Pappas said he was “proud” to receive, could help him across the finish line in the state’s Democratic primary, where most of the party’s voters lean more moderate. Pappas has served in the US House since 2019 and has held elected office almost continuously since graduating from college in 2002. He defeated Karoline Leavitt in his 2022 reelection bid before her stint as Trump’s White House press secretary.

In the Republican primary, Sununu is running to recapture the Senate seat he once held before being defeated by Shaheen in 2008. He faces Scott Brown, also a former senator who once held Massachusetts US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s seat, along with seven other opponents.

Sununu has been trying to put distance between himself and Trump. Trump is, however, backing Sununu over Brown in the primary, despite an ongoing war of words he’s had with Sununu’s family over the years — Sununu’s father and brother have both served as governor, and all have been critical of Trump.

Brown won a special election in Massachusetts after the death of Senator Ted Kennedy in 2009, lost his seat three years later, and unsuccessfully challenged Shaheen in 2014. In Trump’s first administration, Brown served as the US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

In Rhode Island, can an unpopular sitting Democratic governor fight off a challenge?

• When does voting in Rhode Island start? With the exception of one town, voting starts on Wednesday, September 9 at 7am (11:00 GMT).
• When does voting in Rhode Island end? Polls close at 8pm on Wednesday (00:00 GMT on Thursday).

Unlike other states this election cycle, the biggest race in Rhode Island is for governor, not for seats in the US Congress.

Vulnerable Democratic Governor Dan McKee is fighting off a strong primary challenge from pharmacy executive Helena Foulkes.

The highly unpopular incumbent has trailed Foulkes, whose grandfather and uncle were both lawmakers in the neighbouring US state of Connecticut, by as much as 38 points, according to a recent poll. Foulkes has also outraised McKee.

This race is a rematch of a bitter, hard-fought primary four years ago, when McKee, who had been elevated to governor when his predecessor became former US President Joe Biden’s commerce secretary, narrowly beat Foulkes in a crowded race.

While most of this year’s competitive midterm primaries have centred on ideological or generational differences, the outcome of this race could come down to complaints about a freeway bridge in Providence, the state’s largest city, that was partially closed in 2023 due to safety issues.

The resulting congestion and economic fallout caused by the closure have fuelled strong voter resentment towards McKee, one of the most endangered elected Democrats this cycle. Should McKee be unsuccessful in warding off Foulkes, he would become the first sitting US governor to lose a primary in eight years.

In the Republican primary, Aaron Guckian and Elaine Pelino are vying for the nomination. Guckian is a state trade association executive and was the nominee for lieutenant governor in 2022. He won the two-way primary that year with about 68 percent of the vote. Pelino is a former actress and first-time candidate. The state’s  Republican Party has endorsed Guckian.

It’s been 20 years since Rhode Island elected a Republican governor.

The Missouri Supreme Court has unanimously blocked a congressional map backed by United States President Donald Trump ahead of November’s midterm elections, restoring the state’s previous districts.

Thursday’s ruling delivered a rare judicial rebuke to Trump in the national battle over redistricting. But it is unlikely to be the final word in the case, with Republican officials already pledging to appeal the ruling.

At the heart of the case is a congressional map signed into law in September 2025, designed to help Republicans win an extra seat in the US House of Representatives this year.

But the partisan redistricting effort prompted a popular backlash, with nearly 300,000 Missouri residents signing a petition to instead put the new map to a vote.

Missouri’s Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected the petition as legally insufficient. That set up the legal fight, which the Missouri Supreme Court decided on Thursday.

“The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise,” the court wrote in its ruling.

It added that the Missouri Constitution has made such petitions legal, and “no exception applies”. The court is staffed by seven judges, five of whom are Republican-appointed.

The decision, however, places Missouri in a complicated position. Two months remain until the midterm elections, and ballots will soon be printed.

There are also outstanding legal questions over whether a state’s general election can use different congressional districts than its primaries did.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, a Republican, said she would immediately appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court. She called Thursday’s decision a “full-fledged constitutional crisis”.

“Never before in American history has a court overturned a congressional map after a primary and before a general election,” she said in a statement.

Trump also denounced the ruling in a social media post, calling it “horrible, ridiculous, and unConstitutional”.

“The Missouri Supreme Court just ridiculously ruled in favor of changing the maps back to what they were a long time ago. It’s called, Ancient History,” he wrote.

Last year, Trump triggered the nationwide redistricting fight when he approached Texas state lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would give Republicans an advantage.

Normally, congressional maps are redrawn once every 10 years to reflect census results.

But Trump encouraged Republican-led states to issue new maps mid-decade, as a strategy to help the right-wing party maintain control over the House.

Some 10 states ultimately decided to redistrict, including Missouri. Most tilted in favour of Republicans. California, meanwhile, redrew its map to skew Democratic.

Prior to Thursday’s ruling, Missouri’s Supreme Court affirmed that the special legislative action to change the state’s congressional map was lawful. In the US, no federal law bars partisan redistricting, known as gerrymandering.

But Thursday’s decision upheld the legality of the petition campaign to put the map up for a vote.

The Missouri Supreme Court barred the 2025 map from being used in November’s midterm election or any future election until Missouri voters approve it first.

The group People Not Politicians spearheaded the referendum petition. In a statement on Thursday, it applauded the state court’s decision, which overturned a lower court ruling.

“Supreme Court of Missouri has ruled: Missourians will vote on politicians’ rigged map,” the group wrote on social media.

It also blamed Missouri’s secretary of state for any hurdles to restoring the old map.

“Hoskins had the power to prevent all this confusion months ago — and he chose not to,” the group said.

A day before the court’s ruling, hundreds of people rallied outside the state Supreme Court, chanting: “Let us vote!”

Grant Christensen, a resident of Jefferson City and referendum supporter, said he had signed the petition.

“Gerrymandering is the same as voter suppression,” Christensen said. “Cutting up districts in order to steer them to vote one way or the other is not fair.”

Missouri’s 2025 congressional map had already shaped the state’s primary elections. Critics, however, point out that Hoskins did not reject the referendum until August 4, the day of the party primaries.

The outcome of the legal battle is likely to be most pivotal for Missouri’s 5th congressional district, currently held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver. His district, which encompasses parts of Kansas City, was reshaped to favour Republicans.

Judge blocks Trump’s mail voting rules for a second time, just days before ballots go out for the midterms.

A United States federal judge has for a second time blocked the Trump administration’s overhaul of election rules aimed at limiting voting by mail.

District Judge Indira Talwani late on Thursday blocked the US Postal Service’s new ballot rules for 14 days, hours after the agency said they had taken effect.

The ruling is part of an ongoing battle prompted by President Donald Trump’s bid to limit voting by mail, which is heating up as the US heads towards midterm elections in November that will decide control of Congress and the Senate.

Nearly a third of American voters cast votes by mail. The first ballots for the midterms are due to be sent out in about a week.

The new rules require states to submit approved voter lists and follow new ballot formatting before USPS can deliver voting slips. The restrictions were enacted on Thursday after the Supreme Court cleared the way for them.

Talwani wrote in a statement late on Thursday that states “have neither time nor funds” to redesign ballots, update election systems or train officials on the new USPS portal before the upcoming election.

The fight traces back to March, when Trump ordered the Postal Service to withhold ballots unless states supplied approved voter lists and new formatting rules.

Voting rights groups and democratic officials sued, arguing only states and Congress, not the president, can set election rules. Talwani agreed, blocking the rules over the summer.

On Monday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority threw out that earlier ruling on a technicality, saying that the legal challenge on which it was based was filed too early.

Democratic officials and voting rights groups quickly refiled their challenge once the rules became official, allowing Talwani to block them once more in a late-night order.

Separately, attorneys general from 24 states filed a new lawsuit this week making the same core argument: that only the Senate and Congress, not the president, can have constitutional authority to set election rules.

A hearing on the refiled case is scheduled for September 3, just as ballots are set to go out. That timeline means whatever Talwani or a higher court decides next could take effect as voting begins, or after it is already under way.

Voting from home

California’s mail-in voting system has also become a particular target for Trump.

Voting by mail surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, California passed a law to automatically mail a ballot to every registered voter.

More than 80 percent of the state’s voters cast a mail-in ballot in 2024 alone.

Moreles, the Santa Clara registrar, said his county has an even higher rate. More than 90 percent of voters in his jurisdiction use mail-in ballots to vote.

His county processed more mail-in ballots in the last general election than the entire state of Texas did. While Texas accepted roughly 342,000 mail-in votes, Santa Clara County sent out more than a million.

That widespread use suggests that voters do not share Trump’s scepticism of the mail-in system, according to Moreles. “They like the accessibility of it. They must believe it’s secure as well,” he said.

But mail-in ballots can continue to trickle in after the election ends, causing vote tallies to fluctuate in the days and weeks after polling stations close. In California, all mailed ballots are valid so long as they are postmarked by election day, and must also be received no later than seven days after.

Trump has pointed to those long vote counts and shifting tallies as evidence of fraud.

Even some Democrats have pushed for the process to be faster. By law, elections must be certified within 30 days of the election. But Moreles argued that not rushing can have its virtues, too.

“For the folks who are living here and are used to it, it makes sense and, to a lot of people, is reassuring,” Moreles said. “Taking the time to get it right is something that intuitively makes sense to people.”

Still, on August 24, the Supreme Court opened the door to additional uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots.

In a six-to-three ruling, the court’s conservative majority allowed the Trump administration to begin implementing a March executive order that would impose new restrictions on mail-in voting.

The order could impact both the design of mail-in ballots and who is eligible to receive one.

But state officials have questioned the feasibility of redesigning and reprinting ballots with so little time before the midterm elections. Early voting in some states starts as early as September.

Others have speculated about whether the legal wrangling with cause confusion or discourage voters who rely on mail-in ballots.

On Wednesday, California announced it was co-leading a group of 24 state attorneys general in filing a new lawsuit to see the executive order blocked.

“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do. And his latest attack on democracy is proof of how weak he has become,” the state’s Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement accompanying the suit.

“California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy — using every tool at our disposal and every minute in our day. This perilous moment in history demands no less from us.”

A second court order pausing part of Trump’s plan for mail-in ballots remains in effect.

The amended law was an attempt by state Republicans to crack down on unproven claims of voting by noncitizens.

A United States federal court has temporarily blocked an Ohio law that required proof of US citizenship from residents who wanted to register to vote while they obtained a driver’s license.

In his ruling on Tuesday, US District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr granted a preliminary injunction against the law, saying it likely violates the US National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) because it requires more information than necessary to determine a resident’s eligibility to vote.

“Election officials do not need documentary proof of citizenship to assess a voter registration applicant’s citizenship because signed attestation of citizenship is enough,” Oliver wrote.

The judge also pointed to a clause in the act that says each US state’s driver’s license application “shall serve as an application for voter registration with respect to election for Federal office unless the applicant fails to sign the voter registration application”.

Oliver said that Ohio must offer applicants the opportunity to register once they’ve submitted their driver’s license application, not after it’s been approved by the state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV).

“To interpret this section of the NVRA otherwise would allow States to make registering to vote at the BMV more onerous, and could result in fewer voter registrations because the opportunity to apply was not proactively offered to otherwise eligible citizens,” Oliver added.

In 1995, Ohio passed a so-called “motor-voter” law that allowed residents the opportunity to register to vote when they applied for a driver’s license

But that law was amended last year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in an attempt to crack down on unproven claims, pushed in part by US President Donald Trump, that noncitizens were voting in the state’s election. US law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

The ruling marks a victory for voting rights advocates like Red Wine & Blue, which sued Ohio’s secretary of state, Frank LaRose, over claims that the law disenfranchised eligible voters and violated the NVRA.

One of the group’s lawyers, Ben Stafford, praised the ruling, calling it “a win for Ohio voters.”

“With the registration deadline just weeks away, eligible Ohioans will now have the opportunity to register to vote at the BMV without having to produce unnecessary paperwork that is not required by federal law,” Stafford, an attorney at Elias Law Group, said in a statement.

LaRose said his office disagrees with the decision and will appeal.

For the first time since becoming vice president of the United States, JD Vance has returned to his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, with a goal of rallying Republican voters ahead of November’s pivotal midterm elections.

Vance delivered Friday’s speech at a symbolic location: the steel plant where his late grandfather once worked.

He used the appearance to tout a $1bn investment from the steel manufacturer Cleveland-Cliffs that was supported by $500m in government awards.

That funding, he said, illustrated his party’s commitment to the manufacturing sector and reinvigorating the US economy overall.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy – or it’s all going to happen overnight – but in just 18 months, we have seen an explosion of rebuilding in the American heartland,” Vance said, crediting the growth to policies under President Donald Trump.

Vance’s speech comes at a critical time for the Republican Party and Trump in particular.

November’s midterm races will decide whether Republicans are able to maintain control over both chambers of Congress. Should their hold on the legislature slip, Democrats could stymie Trump’s policy priorities for the last two years of his presidency — or even impeach him, as Trump himself has suggested.

Polls have shown that the state of the economy remains the top issue ahead of the midterms.

But how voters perceive each party’s ability to address economic strain has shifted. Before the start of Trump’s second term, the Pew Research Center found that voters were more likely to favour Republican policies on the economy.

In July, however, the dynamic had switched: Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed backed the Democratic approach to the economy, compared with 36 percent for Republicans.

Another poll this month from the news agency Reuters and the firm Ipsos likewise found slightly more respondents siding with the Democrats on economic policy than Republicans, upending a longtime trend that stretched back to 2017.

Trump, for his part, has publicly appeared to dismiss cost-of-living issues as a partisan invention, calling questions of affordability a “hoax” and a “con job” engineered by Democrats.

At Friday’s speech, Vance took a different approach, trying to assuage concerns about the administration’s handling of the economy.

“We got a lot of work to do, but we’re making progress on all the things that matter the most,” Vance said, citing efforts to make homeownership more affordable.

The speech is part of an intensifying campaign under Trump to boost the prospects of Republican candidates ahead of the midterms, with the president and other top officials holding rallies for their party’s candidates.

Ohio, part of a historic manufacturing region known as the Rust Belt, has become increasingly conservative since Trump’s first White House victory in 2016.

But amid rising dissatisfaction with Republican leadership, Democrats see a chance to win back the state’s governor’s office, as well as the US Senate seat left vacant when Vance became vice president.

Whoever wins the special election in November will serve the remainder of Vance’s Senate term, which would have ended in January 2029.

The Republican nominee in the race, Senator Jon Husted, joined Vance on stage at the Middletown rally on Friday. Husted was appointed to fill Vance’s Senate seat until a special election could be held.

Vance, for his part, dedicated part of his speech to attacking Husted’s Democratic rival, former Senator Sherrod Brown, who lost his re-election race to Republican Bernie Moreno two years ago.

He accused Brown of being among the politicians “who pretend to be friends of the workers in this facility”, while instead advancing their own priorities.

“It’s hard to understand what these modern Democrats actually stand for,” Vance said, characterising the party as having strayed from its ideals.

He pointed to Brown’s record of siding with the policies of former Democratic President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential race.

“[Brown] was a man who claimed to represent this state but never once raised his voice against Joe Biden’s border crisis or against the inflation that was brought on by Joe Biden underinvesting and trying to destroy American industry,” Vance said.

The vice president also singled out Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, repeating a false claim that the Democratic Senate candidate called for “Sharia law” in the US.

“I’d love to go back in time and tell my papaw that there’s a man who claims to stand for working people, who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticise it, you are a white supremacist,” Vance said about El-Sayed.

Trump’s approval rating currently sits at 33 percent, according to Reuters-Ipsos polling from this month.