VOTERS

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday that she views her defeat in the Nov. 3 election as part of a much larger political phenomenon, with voters across the nation demanding change at every level of government.

Bass, 73, said Mayor-elect Nithya Raman’s win was, at least in part, the result of “a wave that took place around the country.”

“This happens every five or six years, that voters get in a space where they just want everything new,” she said. “And I think that what happened here was part of that.”

Bass made her remarks while appearing at the opening of a new 140-bed interim housing facility in North Hills, which will provide homeless people with medical referrals, job counseling and help with finding an apartment.

It was the first open-press public event scheduled by the mayor’s office since Bass called Raman, a city councilmember and onetime ally, to concede the race.

Raman, who takes office on Dec. 14, won with nearly 55% of the vote, compared to about 45% for Bass, according to the most recent results.

Her victory dealt Bass, a former state Assembly Speaker and six-term member of Congress, her first election defeat in a political career that spanned more than two decades.

“Obviously I was disappointed in the results,” Bass said after the event. “But the results are the results.”

Bass became mayor in 2022 and immediately made the fight against homelessness a cornerstone of her administration. She declared a local emergency on homelessness on her first day in office and soon afterward launched Inside Safe, which moves homeless people into hotels, motels and other forms of temporary housing.

Although Raman supported those efforts for much of Bass’ tenure, she criticized the program on the campaign trail, calling it expensive and ineffective.

Although Inside Safe has moved more than 6,000 people indoors, nearly 43% of the program’s participants had returned to the street by Sept. 1, according to figures issued by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

Despite those setbacks, Bass told reporters in North Hills that she feels good about her administration’s progress in addressing the crisis, saying her office established L.A.’s first citywide strategy for addressing homeless encampments.

During Thursday’s ribbon cutting ceremony, San Fernando Valley civic leaders thanked Bass for putting a priority on homelessness.

“It’s a hard, hard issue to solve, and we’re going to be working on it for awhile,” said Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, while addressing the mayor. “But you have moved it forward leaps and bounds.”

Bass, a Democrat, did express delight with the election results in other parts of the country, particularly in Mississippi, where voters elected the first Black U.S. Senator since Reconstruction.

“I was very happy for the election nationally. Obviously, I’d prefer different results here,” she said. “But you know, the fact that now Democrats are in control of both the Senate and the House means that we’ll be able to put a check on the president, which is something that has been needed.”

Asked what she intends to do next, Bass said she has “so many ideas.”

Another run for political office isn’t one of them.

“You understand never to say never,” she added. “Right now, I can’t imagine it.”

California’s sky-high housing costs cast a dark shadow on its sunny disposition, sending some fleeing to more affordable climes.

Yet voters decisively rejected a state ballot measure that promised to make it easier and cheaper to build housing by changing the law often blamed for driving up costs: the California Environmental Quality Act. Proposition 45 even divided pro-housing groups.

So what gives? And where do we go from here?

Proposition 45 would have offered expedited environmental review and put a shot clock on legal challenges for projects defined as essential, including those involving housing, water, transportation and internet access. Supporters said it would cut costly delays, while opponents warned it would weaken environmental protections and public input.

Skeptics pointed out that state lawmakers already changed CEQA last year, exempting the lion’s share of urban infill housing from the law. They argued that means the proposition would have largely benefited low-density development on the outskirts of cities — sometimes labeled “sprawl.”

But supporters say the measure would also boost projects in cities left out of those exemptions. All types of housing, some say, are needed to dig the state out of its shortage.

For housing advocates, where they stood on the measure “ultimately depends on how you feel about exurban development” and whether the state should be making it easier to build it, said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, who didn’t take a public position on the measure.

Jordan Grimes, legislative director for the Greenbelt Alliance, an environmental nonprofit that opposed the measure, is among those that see it as the wrong type of development.

According to Grimes, it increases greenhouse gas emissions as residents are forced to drive more; gobbles up natural areas and farmland to build; and requires outsize investment from taxpayers in the urban core to pay for the needed infrastructure.

“It’s definitely not climate friendly for sure,” he said. “But sprawl is also a pretty huge economic drag.”

The significant legislative changes enacted last year under Assembly Bill 130 are paying off, he said. He estimated some 18,000 units have since been permitted statewide.

“If you want to build a new apartment building in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills or Palo Alto or San Francisco, you can do that now,” he said, describing it as a “watershed moment” in the state’s urban housing production.

But many who laud the changes believe there’s more that can be done. For instance, infill projects over 20 acres don’t qualify for the CEQA exemption.

“So there’s still these massive projects where you know developers want to be able to do redevelopments of shopping malls and parking structures, but they just can’t,” said Paul Shafer, public policy manager for the nonprofit California Council for Affordable Housing, which backed the measure.

He added that there are certain rural areas that didn’t benefit from last year’s changes because projects there don’t fit the definition of infill housing.

“There’s a lot of hesitation around what greenfill looks like,” he said. “But when we’re in a 2.5-million-unit housing shortage, it really requires more than just that infill development to fill that gap.”

Shifting public opinion

A July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 73% of likely voters would support Proposition 45. By October, voters were divided, with 50% opposed and 46% in favor, according to another survey by the nonpartisan think tank.

Experts pointed to a number of possibilities for voters’ decisions, including what some characterized as successful but potentially misleading messaging by the opposition and confusion over the complex measure. Others suggested voters rejected it based on its substance, deciding they didn’t want to fast-track some projects it covered.

Supporters raised several million dollars more than opponents, according to state campaign finance data. Yet Jason Elliott, a consultant who helped craft the measure, said proponents were outspent 2 to 1 on paid advertising, “making it hard to compete.”

What’s next

Some want to see state lawmakers take up parts of Proposition 45, including imposing timelines for review and litigation related to CEQA. The measure generally would have meant that environmental impact reports could take no more than 365 business days and lawsuits no more than 270 calendar days.

“Death by delay is a real strategy, particularly for affordable housing,” said Linda Mandolini, chief executive of Eden Housing, which develops and owns affordable housing.

For five years, she said, the nonprofit was embroiled in a series of lawsuits over a 130-unit project it’s developing in the eastern edge of the Bay Area. It’s starting construction this year, but she estimates the delays cost them $29 million.

Shafer, of California Council for Affordable Housing, said shot clocks would offer some certainty that the state’s current development process lacks. Some say it’s hard to secure financing and insurance when you don’t know how long it will take before you can break ground.

But Shafer is not optimistic that the Legislature will prioritize making such changes.

“I don’t think there’s going to be an appetite to see reforms in this area, certainly not as far-reaching as we saw in Prop. 45, for many years to come,” he said.

Not everyone sees the environmental law as the area to target.

UC Berkeley’s Elkind believes the first step to boost housing in already developed areas would be for state lawmakers to allow denser housing in communities where it’s restricted — such as permitting apartments in areas zoned for single-family homes.

“We’re really at that point where we’ve got to start kind of chainsawing through the thicket of local requirements that keep the infill housing we need from getting built,” he said. “And it’s not really about CEQA at this point.”

A new poll shows that the majority of Americans want the Democrats in Congress this January to deliver an end to the war in Iran, reverse US President Donald Trump’s trade policies, and bring down the high cost of living.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday found that 71 percent of Americans supported Congress passing legislation to end the war with Iran, including 93 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans. About 62 percent backed repealing Trump’s import tariffs, while nine in 10 respondents said Congress should focus on the cost of living during its first 100 days.

The war with Iran and Trump’s tariffs have both contributed to economic pressures, linking voters’ concerns about living costs to the administration’s foreign and trade policies.

Americans also expect some degree of cooperation between the White House and the incoming Congress. Large majorities of respondents from both parties said it was important for Trump to work with Democrats, and for Democratic leaders to try to work with the president.

Political retaliation against the Trump administration is a lower priority. Forty-two percent said it would be bad for the country if the new Congress tried to impeach Trump, compared with 33 percent who thought it would be good.

Democrats will have between 54 and 56 Senate seats next year, depending on results from uncalled races in Mississippi and Alaska. But delivering on voter priorities could still be difficult. Most bills need 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster, and Trump can veto legislation that passes both chambers.

Repealing tariffs or reversing other administration policies would therefore require either sufficient Republican support or a willingness to confront the president politically.

Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver, said voters are motivated by opposition to the Trump administration on several fronts, including the economy, the war, corruption and immigration enforcement.

“They want to see Democrats working to fix these things. And also to some extent, to hold the Trump administration accountable,” Masket told Al Jazeera.

A fight over who leads the Democrats

The pressure to deliver on those priorities is unfolding alongside a growing dispute over who should lead the Democratic Party.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll did not measure public support for individual congressional leaders. It did, however, find that the Democratic Party itself remains unpopular, with 45 percent of respondents viewing it favourably and 51 percent unfavourably.

Hakeem Jeffries is widely expected to become speaker of the House, despite calls for an alternative. No challenger has publicly emerged, but a Change.org petition urging Democrats to reject his leadership has attracted more than one million signatures. House Democrats are due to hold leadership elections on November 18 and 19.

The Senate contest is less settled. Chuck Schumer, who has led Senate Democrats since 2017, faces calls to step aside. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen has said Schumer should not receive a “blank check” and is considering a possible challenge. Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has backed Van Hollen.

The backlash reflects broader dissatisfaction with the party’s direction. Jeffries and Schumer have been criticised over their positions on Israel and Gaza, their relationships with corporate donors and pro-Israel lobbying groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and what voters see as a failure to confront the Trump administration forcefully.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which counts several elected officials among its members, has not backed Jeffries or Schumer for their respective leadership posts. In a statement to Al Jazeera, the DSA said Democrats must reject “half-measures” and deliver on popular policies.

“We the people must be a counterweight both to the internal politics of Congress and the corporate donors who want to keep business as usual,” DSA spokesperson Priscilla Yeverino wrote to Al Jazeera.

Political commentator Bea Neilson said some progressives see the two leaders as representing an older Democratic establishment that is out of step with the party’s base.

“They want an avatar of a fighter,” Neilson told Al Jazeera.

But Neilson argues that the role of the House speaker is not simply to dictate the party’s legislative agenda. Rather, they respond to the positions of lawmakers across the caucus, working with policy committees and other groups to identify legislation that can secure enough votes to pass.

Individual members or blocs of lawmakers can withhold their support, making the job an exercise in negotiating competing interests as much as setting political direction.

Masket agreed that the effectiveness of congressional leaders is often measured less by their public speaking than by their ability to manage their caucuses and get legislation through Congress.

“People wanting their speaker or a Senate majority leader to be a more inspiring leader, I think they’re just asking for the wrong person,” Masket said. “That’s the wrong title for that role.”

That role, he suggested, may fall more naturally to the next generation of presidential contenders, who are expected to begin emerging early next year.

The leadership elections will take place before the new Congress begins in January. The larger question for Democrats is whether their leaders can turn a sweeping electoral mandate into tangible change.

California voters have passed Proposition 38, authorizing the state to issue $8.4 billion in bonds to fund immunology and immunotherapy research aimed at curing and preventing certain chronic diseases.

The measure, which the Associated Press called on Monday evening, requires at least $4.2 billion of the funds to be used for immunology research on cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease. It also authorizes the state to enter into a partnership with an unnamed immunology and immunotherapy research institute selected by the California Department of Public Health, and to allocate half of the bond revenue to it.

Opponents argued that the measure would saddle taxpayers with decades of debt and that the requirements to qualify for grants created such a narrow pool of candidates that only one research institute in California, the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, currently meets the criteria to receive half the bond revenue. Gary K. Michelson, a wealthy philanthropist who wrote the proposition, co-founded the institute. He was also the proposition’s largest supporter, pouring $45 million into the campaign, according to state data.

Remaining funds will be used for competitive research grants that focus on immunology and immunotherapy. Those grants would be awarded by a council of representatives from University of California campuses, universities and nonprofit research institutions.

Supporters celebrated the passage on Monday saying in a press release that it “comes as federal research funding cuts have disrupted clinical trials and delayed medical discoveries nationwide.”

“This victory belongs to the patients and families who have spent years fighting devastating diseases and waiting for the next medical breakthrough,” Chris Tarver, a nurse and president of the American Nurses Association\California, said in a prepared statement.

Californians will take on an increased cost of $500 million to $600 million annually to repay the bond for an anticipated 20 years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Some or all of the cost could be offset if any funded research generates revenue. However, it’s difficult to predict how many, if any, research projects would lead to marketable treatments.

Times staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report.

Trump concedes some voters were unhappy with his administration’s controversial deportation drive.

United States President Donald Trump has said his immigration policy may have been too extreme for voters, conceding that his deportation policy had damaged his Republican Party’s performance in the last week’s midterm elections.

During his first television interview since his party lost control of the US House of Representatives and the Senate last week, Trump said some voters were unhappy with his administration’s controversial deportation drive, which led to widespread protests.

“I think it might be too tough,” he told CBS’s 60 Minutes programme, which aired on Sunday.

He said he may be able to work with the new Democratic-controlled Congress on some kind of immigration agreement.

“The deal would be we would work something out,” he said, adding, “I think that’s something that’s actually doable.”

The interview was aired after he appointed Stephen Miller, the chief architect of his hardline immigration policy, to replace Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, prompting questions about the direction of his immigration policy.

In a post on X, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said, “Trump says his immigration crackdown went too far”, adding, “Apparently, his solution was to put the man responsible for it in charge of the White House. That’s not a course correction. That’s a promotion.”

Trump had promised an immigration crackdown during his campaign to return to office, blaming undocumented migrant “killers” and “drug dealers” for soaring crime.

Extensive operations to detain and deport immigrants were launched in multiple US cities, causing arrests to soar.

Two US citizens – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – were killed by federal officers during protests against the operations.

Democrats have said oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security is a priority for the new Congress.

During his interview, Trump said a moderate immigration deal would still deport criminals, but allow “good people” who had lived and worked in the country “paying taxes” to stay.

President Trump in his first major interview since his party lost control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections said he thinks his administration was too aggressive on deportations and that he believes he can work with Democrats in the new Congress on some kind of immigration deal.

Trump said his deportation policy was part of the reason Republicans lost, telling CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday: “I think it might be too tough, yeah.”

He added that he thinks he could reach an agreement with the new Democratic majority. “The deal would be we would work something out. And I think it’s something — I think that’s something that’s actually doable,” he said in the interview.

Trump did not give specifics about what that deal would look like — and shortly after taping the interview Friday, Trump named the key architect of his hard-line immigration agenda, Stephen Miller, as his new chief of staff.

“Trump says his immigration crackdown went too far,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer scoffed on social media Sunday after the interview aired. “Apparently, his solution was to put the man responsible for it in charge of the White House. That’s not a course correction. That’s a promotion.”

The president’s immigration crackdown has been a prominent feature of his second term with major operations in Los Angeles and other cities sending arrests soaring. Two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were killed by federal officers during protests against the operations.

Democrats have said oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security is a priority for the new Congress.

Trump said he believes that “killers” and “drug dealers” in the country illegally should be deported, but suggested he was open to the idea of a deal that would let others stay “if they’re good people working in a landscaping company, or working in a hotel, or doing something, right? And in some cases, paying taxes.”

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

Bold.

That’s what I initially thought when a political novice named Nithya Raman upset an incumbent in 2020 to become the first democratic socialist elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

That’s what I felt when Raman weathered well-funded challengers and loudmouth opponents to win reelection outright in the 2024 primary, despite representing a district redrawn to her disadvantage.

Bold was Raman filing to run for mayor just before the deadline. Taking on her ally Karen Bass, an L.A. institution she had endorsed just weeks earlier. Angering members of the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter, who hadn’t planned to mount a mayoral campaign this year. Calling out L.A. establishment shibboleths like the pricey Convention Center renovation.

Picking Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” as a campaign theme song despite its stark lyrics of urban despair. Dancing with all the grace of Elaine from “Seinfeld” on primary night, despite being in third place at the time.

“Bold,” I texted a friend when we found out Raman was holding her Nov. 3 election night party at the Greek Theatre — either a brilliant move that would mark the start of a new day for L.A., or the worst venue choice for a political loser since Hillary Clinton threw her 2016 party in a hotel ballroom with a glass ceiling.

Bold was all Raman had going for her. Bass raised more funds and was backed by L.A.’s blue establishment. Haters, from the Los Angeles Police Protective League to the California Post to her fellow City Council members, painted Raman as an immature, insecure pinko wimp who didn’t know L.A. and barely could do her job, let alone run one of the world’s great cities.

But Raman didn’t stop. She left the hipster areas of the city where democratic socialists have found a base and campaigned in districts represented by council members who openly loathed her. She trotted out her imperfect Spanish to show that she wanted to reach Angelenos in any way possible and was vulnerable enough to reveal that she still was learning. Raman even teared up in public, which City Hall insiders have long mocked her for, when crying in the name of trying for a better L.A. is as bold as you can get.

Bold is what this metropolis needs. And bold is what Los Angeles is going to get now that Raman has taken out Bass in a campaign for the ages.

Critics will downplay the victory as more a verdict on a deeply unpopular mayor than an embrace of Raman — a tree stump could have trounced Bass, they’re already saying. But that’s not what heavyweights who have long aspired to become mayor — like billionaire developer Rick Caruso, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez — were thinking when they had the chance to run this year and chose not to.

They saw the road to City Hall as too dangerous to risk their reputations on a potential loss. They weren’t bold.

I can’t say I saw any of this coming. I did call Raman the comeback kid of L.A. politics in a September columna, as indefatigable a politician as I’ve ever covered. But she spent the last month of her campaign apologizing for easily preventable gaffes that seemed to confirm all the skepticism about her. The attacks against Raman became nastier and more relentless, while Bass glommed on to anyone she thought might get her more votes, from walking alongside Caruso to standing next to future governor Xavier Becerra at Homegirl Cafe the day before the election.

I told a friend on the morning of the election that Bass probably was going to win. Angelenos wouldn’t be brave enough to go with Raman. As I wrote just a few weeks ago, Los Angeles has long gone with the old for mayor, when it could have gone bold.

Not this time.

Los Angeles Mayor-elect Nithya Raman, left, embraces her father, Venkit Raman, during an election night party at Boomtown Brewery.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

As mayor, Raman will need to be bolder than ever. Angelenos yearn for safer streets, an end to homelessness, a renewal of the dreamland that the city has represented for more than a century. They want less of the bureaucracy that has slowed down rebuilding in Pacific Palisades and made running a small business more of a punishment than a reward. They don’t want someone beholden to any ideology other than that the City of Angels needs to be heaven again.

Raman will assume office with nearly half of those who voted, not to mention the entire City Council, having supported her opponent. She needs to go in with the humility to convince naysayers, the conviction to get rid of things and people that aren’t making L.A. better, the smarts to keep what works, the courage to defy the DSA and the vision to make the city believe in itself once again.

Above all, Raman needs to be bold enough to not become another Karen Bass.

The lifelong Angeleno used to be bold when she was an activist in South L.A. pioneering multiracial coalitions and taking on the old guard. She was an effective Assembly member and Congress member. But City Hall sucked out her creativity, her optimism, her drive. She became cautious, then negative. By the end of the race, Bass seemed to be running only so she could say she kept away another DSA insurgent as a final gift to the city.

Bright-eyed outsiders drowning in the swamp — that’s the story of L.A. politics. It’s a story Raman needs to show can come to an end.

“Bold” ultimately is having hope that you can be the one who breaks systems that need to be obliterated. That was the other big note Raman incessantly hit during her campaign, culminating in her election night speech at the Greek.

“Hopelessness can be fatal for a city,” she told an adoring crowd that kept getting bigger and bigger until security closed off the entrances. “But this campaign refused to accept that. You refuse to accept that. You saw hopelessness, and you chose hope.”

Angelenos chose bold. Let’s hope Raman stays bold.

WASHINGTON — Latino voters, whose swing to the right aided President Trump’s election in 2024, helped Democrats reclaim both chambers of Congress on Tuesday in a stunning reversal of support for Republicans.

The shift, which transpired nationwide but was especially pronounced in Texas, is seen as a rebuke of the president and his party by a group of Americans who have watched as their families and neighbors were detained by immigration agents while their cost of living shot up.

“President Trump asked voters to pretend like he was on the ballot, and our observation is that Latino voters did just by that, resoundingly rejecting his extreme policies and actions and anyone who rubber-stamped them,” said Janet Murguía, president of UnidosUS, a Washington-based Latino civil rights and advocacy group.

“While the numbers are still coming in, what we know so far indicates that this will undoubtedly be the largest turnout of Latino voters ever in a midterm election,” she added.

UnidosUS on Wednesday released findings from a poll, conducted by the Los Angeles-based analytics firm BSP Research, of more than 3,000 Latinos who voted in the midterm elections. The findings showed many Latinos are independent, swing voters — 17% of 2024 Trump voters supported Democratic House candidates in this election.

Gary Segura, president of BSP Research, said on a call Wednesday with Murguía and reporters that Latino voters returned this election to historic patterns, with about two-thirds voting for Democrats and one-third voting Republican.

In 2024, Trump won more than 40% of Latino votes, many motivated by his promises to reduce prices.

This year, cost of living and inflation are by far Latino voters’ top concerns, the poll found, with more than half citing food and grocery costs as particular burdens and saying they have no money left over each month or struggle to pay bills.

Immigration was also a factor, with 90% of Latino voters supporting a balanced immigration system and a quarter of them naming ICE and immigration reform as among their top three issues, following cost of living.

“The Republican candidates on the ballot yesterday were really struggling to swim upstream against an administration with this kind of disapproval across issues,” Segura said.

GOP strategist Giancarlo Sopo said right-wing echo chambers didn’t understand that when Latinos hear “criminal illegals” they picture gang members or people who evaded Border Patrol.

“But the vast majority of immigrants without legal status did not swim the Rio Grande,” he wrote in a post on social media. “Conflating people who sneak in with asylum applicants and visa overstayers working through a labyrinthine system is turning off Hispanics.”

In Texas, voters in majority-Latino districts near San Antonio and along the border helped Democrats break Republicans’ longstanding grip on the state to win the races for governor, lieutenant governor and senator. James Talarico’s victory against Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton marks the first time a Democrat has won a Senate seat in Texas since 1988.

NBC exit polling shows that 61% of Latino men, with whom Trump had made particular inroads, voted for Talarico.

Among those casting his ballot was Ronaldo Salgado, the son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Houston. He told MSNOW on Monday that he had placed his “I Voted” sticker on a memorial dedicated to his father.

“I always vote with my parents in mind, with my family in mind, but this year’s vote is definitely with much heavier weight on it,” he said. “I cried as I was casting my vote because I was doing it in honor of my dad.”

Bobby Pulido, a South Texas Tejano singer whose campaign strategy included performing at quinceañeras, beat Republican incumbent Rep. Monica De La Cruz by more than 20 percentage points. De La Cruz was among the battleground Republicans to warn the White House that ICE should focus on criminals and not law-abiding people.

Latino voters told the BSP Research pollsters that both parties, but especially Democrats, reached out to them more in this election cycle than in the past.

Even in districts where Democrats did not prevail, Latino votes made some races tight. In Florida, where Republican Sen. Ashley Moody narrowly won reelection and Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar holds a slim lead, Latinos also shifted left.

Doral, a municipality near Miami with the highest concentration of Venezuelans in the country, favored Trump in 2024 by 23 percentage points over Vice President Kamala Harris. On Tuesday, Doral voters chose Moody’s competitor, Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, by 3 percentage points.

Nationally, about 6 in 10 Latino voters opted for the Democratic candidate in their local House race, according to an Associated Press exit poll.

The midterm was also pivotal for Latino representation among elected officials.

In the two states with the most Latino residents, Gina Hinojosa became the first Latina elected governor in Texas, and Xavier Becerra is California’s first Latino governor in more than 150 years.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus announced that it will have at least 55 members in the new Congress, making it the largest membership in the caucus’s 50-year history.

“Our representation is growing, our voices are stronger, and no one can afford to take Latino voters for granted,” caucus leaders wrote in a statement.

But representation alone won’t cut it, said Julián Castro, chief executive of the Latino Community Foundation. Latinos will look to how their votes translate into policy changes that benefit those who trusted the leaders they helped elect.

“What are they going to do about affordability?” he said on the call with UnidosUS. “What are they going to do about corruption and rooting that out? What are they going to do about ending ICE abuse and cruelty and pursuing a more balanced approach on immigration?”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), who is likely to become the next chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, acknowledged the responsibility that Democrats have.

“One of the big stories coming out of tonight is the enormous swing that Latino voters are now re-entrusting Democrats on,” he told MeidasTouch News. “…We have to deliver on taking on ICE. We have to deliver on passing real immigration solutions and reform.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has said that anyone expecting a shift in the United States’ policy towards his country is “seriously mistaken”, hours after midterm elections dealt a blow to President Donald Trump.

His comments came as other Iranian officials struck a more optimistic tone on Wednesday, following the results of the US vote, which saw Democrats score a major victory by taking control of both chambers of Congress.

“Those who still harbour even the slightest hope that the behaviour of the hegemonic system might change through partisan or factional shifts, or who imagine that making concessions to the United States can dissuade it from hostility towards the Iranian nation, are seriously mistaken,” Khamenei said in a written statement published on his website.

He said that Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz had shattered the “myth of America’s invincibility”, and warned that any renewed US attack would draw a far wider response.

Trump himself has acknowledged the US-Israel war on Iran that began in February likely impacted his Republican Party’s poor performance in the elections, saying voters were probably not ready “for the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline”.

Khamenei said Iran’s confrontation with the US had reached a point where “every day and every hour” had become a time of resistance against “the Great Satan”. His message was to mark the National Day of the Fight Against Global Arrogance, which falls each year on November 4, the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.

The supreme leader described Iran’s management of the strait and what he called the elimination of US military bases in regional countries as a reaction to US “aggression and crimes” during the war.

“In the event of repeated transgressions, it will take on much wider dimensions,” he said.

‘Americans said NO TO WAR’

The supreme leader struck a “cautious” note on Wednesday, warning that a party shift in the US would not persuade Washington to abandon its hostility against Iran, noted Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas, reporting from Tehran.

This contrasted with a more celebratory mood among other Iranian officials reacting to the Republican defeat, Atas said.

“Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message,” said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator with Washington and his country’s parliament speaker.

“If the US [government] betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare,” he added on X.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser and assistant to the supreme leader, said Trump had been “slapped in the face by his own people”.

“The true winner in this arena was Iran, which transferred the cost of the war into the United States,” he wrote on X.

Judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei wrote on Telegram: “Trump was defeated both in war and in politics; we will certainly impose further defeats on him; this is still only the early outcome.” He added that November 4 “has always been a day of defeat for the Americans” and honoured “the dear martyred students of Minab”.

Mehdi Tabatabaei, deputy head for communications at the president’s office, said Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, “blind adherence” to Israel’s interests and the “futile war” with Iran had handed the Republicans their biggest defeat.

Atas said Iranians believe a Democratic-controlled Congress could restrain Trump and make him “less reckless” over the war, with some Republicans wary ahead of the 2028 elections. But some in Tehran fear that because officials have framed the result as a defeat imposed by Iran, Trump could “personalise the matter” and launch a new round of war “in an act of revenge”.

The US has warned it could carry out a short but intensive military campaign against Iran after the midterms.

Hamidreza Moghadamfar, an adviser to the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said Iran would hit targets beyond US bases if Gulf states allowed Washington to launch attacks from their territory. Speaking at a rally in Bandar Abbas, he named the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and said Iran would respond with a “new doctrine and new technology”.

The fate of a controversial ballot measure to impose a new tax on California billionaires, proposed as a lifeline for the needy and castigated as a threat to the state’s fragile economy, appeared headed for defeat in early election results Tuesday night.

California voters also rejected another hotly contested measure, Proposition 39, which would have required voters to show identification when they cast ballots and elections officials to verify that all registered voters were U.S. citizens.

The billionaire tax, Proposition 40, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires to raise an estimated $100 billion to assist millions of Californians destined to lose healthcare coverage under federal funding cuts. Two separate ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42, were crafted to nullify the wealth tax and remained too close to call Tuesday evening.

While supporters of the billionaire tax did not concede Tuesday evening, they acknowledged facing tough odds in the race because of the avalanche of spending against them and warned that people will die if the measure fails.

“In the event that we don’t succeed with Prop. 40 tonight, if Sacramento fails to deliver a real solution to the healthcare crisis instigated by the [federal government], one that actually makes billionaires pay their fair share, then California’s healthcare workers intend to be back on the ballot in 2028 to correct the damage, and to overcome all of the lies and deception, and just completely outrageous campaigning that we’ve seen,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, which crafted the proposal.

Voters rejected the Republican-led Proposition 39 at a time of growing distrust in the integrity of the electoral process nationwide, a wariness intensified by President Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and false assertions that droves of undocumented immigrants, notably in California, are swaying elections.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal by Trump’s attorneys to set aside 20,000 ballots in the state that the White House argued could be cast by people who are not citizens.

The proposals were among the 14 state ballot measures that California’s 23.3 million registered voters were asked to decide Tuesday in addition to congressional, statewide and local elections.

The billionaire tax was proposed in response to legislation signed by Trump last year that could result in millions of Californians losing Medi-Cal coverage, rural hospitals shuttering and other healthcare services being slashed unless a new funding source is found. The proposal would retroactively apply to billionaires who lived in California as of Jan. 1, prompting some to preemptively move out of the state. Ninety percent of the revenue would fund healthcare programs, and the remaining funds would be spent on education programs and food assistance.

Proposition 40 divided Democratic leaders because of concerns about its impact on the state’s volatile budget that is highly dependent on the wealthy. Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed the measure, while the state Democratic party endorsed it.

The effort supporting and opposing the tax and two ballot measures designed to nullify it came close to breaking a state campaign finance record. About $425 million had been donated to the three commingled ballot measures as of Tuesday.

The vast majority of that money was provided by California billionaires, including some of the state’s most powerful tech barons, opposing the wealth tax. The campaign was centered on three interwoven ballot initiatives: Proposition 40 and Propositions 41 and 42, both of which would undercut Proposition 40 through a series of strategic changes to state tax laws and new spending restrictions.

Neither explicitly stated that it would nullify the billionaire tax if Proposition 40 passed and either of the counter measures received more votes.

Proposition 41, which trailed slightly Tuesday evening, is framed as an effort to cut wasteful government spending and require audits of new special taxes. But it also would bar new taxes that are exempt from state spending limits. Proposition 42, which was slightly ahead, is presented as protection from state lawmakers taxing everyday Californians’ retirement funds, personal savings and home equity.

In polling leading up to election day, voters appeared to differentiate between the billionaire tax proposal and Proposition 3, which was approved by voters on Tuesday. . It would make permanent a temporary tax increase on wealthy Californians that largely funds education. The tax adds 1% to 3% to the state income tax of single filers who earn more than $360,000, joint filers who make more than $721,000 and heads of household who earn more than $490,000. Voters passed the tax in 2012 and extended it in 2016, but it is set to expire in 2031.

Voters cast ballots on several other proposals about local taxes, public financing of political campaigns, a landmark environmental law, housing, the state’s recall process, state lawmakers’ ability to redirect taxpayer money to the state’s “rainy day” fund, immunology and immunotherapy funding, and restrictions on how community healthcare clinics spend money:

Several ballot measures were decided Tuesday evening:

• Proposition 1, which proposed a $11.25-billion bond to boost the construction of affordable housing, was approved by voters.
• Proposition 2, which would gave state lawmakers more flexibility over state spending by exempting certain tax revenue from a state spending limit, allowing them to place it into a “rainy day” fund, was approved by voters.
• Proposition 37, which would create a down-payment assistance program to help middle-class Californians buy a home, was approved by voters.
• Proposition 44, which would require certain health centers to spend 90% of their revenue on patient care rather than overhead and executive compensation, failed.

Among those that remained too close to call:

• Proposition 4, which would allow state and local candidates to receive public campaign financing if they demonstrated broad support and agreed to expenditure limits.
• Proposition 5, a constitutional amendment that would alter the state’s recall process by limiting it to the question of whether to remove an elected official from office, and no longer including the cadre of candidates hoping to replace the politician.
• Proposition 38, which would create an $8.4-billion bond to support the immunology and immunotherapy fields.
• Proposition 43, which would bar local governments from imposing special taxes unless two-third of voters support the effort. Current law requires a simple majority vote.
• Proposition 45, which would amend the California Environmental Quality Act to speed up certain housing, water, energy, transportation and other projects deemed essential.

Nearly two-thirds of California voters are worried that the Trump administration may try to halt the vote count early, stoking disquieting levels of election anxiety on the eve of the midterms, a new poll shows.

Those fears arise as the Justice Department continues its aggressive efforts to challenge or wrest control over state voting processes, including threatening to prosecute uncooperative elections officials in California, after years of baseless claims of widespread election fraud by the Republican president.

Among California voters, 63% worry that the federal government may attempt to stop the counting of votes in California and other states in the days following Tuesday’s election, according to the poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times. Around half of voters — 49% — are not confident that the state’s election will be free of federal interference, the survey found.

“Both of the items, together, I think should raise alarms for threats against democracy in California,” said Matt Barreto, director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project.

California voters also have grievances with the state’s ballot propositions, a slate of 14 measures that include new taxes on billionaires and funding for cancer research. More than 8 in 10 of the state’s likely voters said that this year’s propositions were worded in a way that made them hard to understand and that special interests groups have too much influence over which propositions appear on the ballot.

Those concerns were shared across partisan lines, unlike how Californians felt about the threats posed to integrity of elections by the Trump administration. The high level of fear in the state reflects the fact that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 in California.

While 58% of Democrats are not confident the election will be free of federal interference, 27% of Republicans feel the same way, according to the poll. Similarly, 85% of Democrats are worried about the vote count being halted, compared with 22% of Republicans. A majority of California voters not affiliated with either party also expressed fears of interference by the Trump administration.

“I think voters are reflecting the reality,” Barreto said. “For the past month, the president and the Department of Justice have been attempting to directly interfere and take over California elections and voters are aware of that.”

The Department of Justice has sued California requesting the state set aside some 20,000 ballots the federal government has flagged as being potentially from noncitizens. Federal prosecutors have threatened criminal actions against election officials who refuse to comply. On Monday, the Trump administration escalated its effort to discount the flagged California ballots to the Supreme Court, which rejected its request to set aside the ballots.

Over the weekend, Newsom sent a letter to U.S. District Court judges across California sharing his “grave concerns federal agents will seek search warrants to seize ballots and ballot materials before the election results are certified” and urging judges not to comply.

Newsom wrote that President Trump’s history of weaponizing the Department of Justice to carry out his partisan agenda supports “legitimate concerns about further attempts to disenfranchise voters and undermine election integrity.” Newsom said this could include an attempt to prevent the certification of California’s election.

Concerns have also been raised about the presence of immigration agents around voting centers and performing door knocks and street stops to try to identify voter fraud.

Court rulings have recently dealt a series of blows to the Trump administrations efforts to intervene in the state’s voting process. Nonetheless, distress over election integrity remains extremely high, according to the poll.

Fears of federal meddling in the election are slightly higher among voters of color; 64% of Black voters and 54% of Latino voters said they are not confident the election will be free of interference, compared with 44% of white non-Hispanic voters, according to the poll.

Voters of color tend to lean more liberal, but the historic and ongoing efforts to disenfranchise minorities probably also contribute to this disparity, Barreto said.

Black voters have been a target of voter suppression efforts from the post-Civil War Reconstruction era through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he said. More recently, the Trump administration has singled out Latino Californians, accusing them of being noncitizens and voting illegally.

Professor Eric Schickler, co-director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, described the level of alarm over election integrity in California and across the nation as without precedent.

He noted that both parties are distrustful about different things, with Republicans focused on allegations of fraudulent voting and Democrats fearful that the federal government may attempt to overturn results.

The last time America saw extreme political polarization paired with widespread claims of illegitimacy over election outcomes was during the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, when there were widespread accusations of voter suppression in the South and of people voting illegally in the North, he said.

“That hasn’t happened really in the United States for well over a century now,” Schickler said, “so what we’re seeing now is really unusual, especially for a modern and long-lived democracy.”

Schickler said his highest level of concern with possible federal efforts to halt California’s vote count would be with congressional races. A handful of California races could play a pivotal role in deciding which party takes control of the U.S. House of Representatives. However, he said current polling data do not indicate that a Democratic path to victory in the lower house will rely on Golden State voters.

Trump in the past has criticized California for being one of the slowest states in the nation to finish tabulating its election results due to its large population and high number of voters who mail in their ballots. He’s also complained about late arriving ballots. Votes processed after election day in California typically contain a higher proportion of Democratic ballots than those processed on election night.

In addition, to highlight the unprecedented anxiety many California voters are feeling, the poll also shines a light on frustrations voters have with the state’s ballot propositions. Among likely voters, 82% agree that the wording of this year’s propositions made them hard to understand and 82% also agree that special interest groups have largely taken over which initiatives qualify.

In addition, 62% of likely voters feel that there are too many propositions on this year’s ballot. There are 14 statewide propositions, with many voters also seeing additional initiatives at a county and city level.

“The initiative is meant to be an outlet for voters when special interest groups lead legislators to fail to respond to their concerns,” Schickler said. “But now most voters believe the initiative process is itself too beholden to special interests.”

In the last 20 years, California’s ballot initiative campaigns have become increasingly controlled by large corporations or union groups. Part of this is due to the fact that it takes at least $50 million to run an effective campaign capable of reaching the state’s 23 million registered voters, making it challenging, but not impossible, to run a grassroots campaign, Barreto said.

The poll surveyed 2,787 registered voters in California from Oct. 19 to 25 in English and Spanish and has an overall estimated margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. Among likely voters, the estimated margin of error is about 3 percentage points in either direction.

Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — After spending a month asking voters to treat the midterms as a vote on him, President Trump closed his monthlong campaign sprint on Monday sounding like a man bracing for defeat.

“For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” Trump said. “But we gave this a very strong shot.”

Still, Trump said he hopes Americans are “ready to do the right thing” and insisted that Republicans could hold on to Congress if voters who buoyed his 2024 victory turn out again. He urged voters to do so, calling this election “the most important midterm, I believe, in our lifetime.” The alternative, he warned, will be a “radical agenda” in Washington as he finishes his last two years in office.

“With your vote, we will decide if these extremists will be given power or not,” Trump said, claiming that the Democratic Party has “nominated the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history.”

The message capped a dizzying campaign push in which Trump made himself the focus of the midterms as he held dozens of rallies in mostly Republican states. In those rallies, he promised $5,000 checks and brighter days ahead to Americans who vote to keep Republicans in control of Congress. But heading into Tuesday, most polls are predicting a Democratic wave amid a voter backlash to Trump’s handling of the economy and a war in Iran.

Democrats are heavily favored to retake power of the House and are leading in all the key states that would be the likeliest to decide which party will control of the Senate, according to a New York Times/Siena University poll released Sunday. But polling can be flawed, as evidenced by forecasts that underestimated Trump’s support in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Trump’s approval rating is near historic lows this time around, the poll found. A separate NBC News poll released Sunday found nearly two-thirds of voters are seeking a change from the direction Trump is leading the country.

This year, early voting has already seen strong turnout, outpacing the last midterm election cycle, a trend that could mean bad news for Republicans. If a Democratic surge materializes, party leaders have vowed to use their potential congressional powers to investigate Trump and his family’s business dealings, with a focus on alleged corruption and economic harm to the American people.

Trump told Fox News on Sunday that if Democrats win control of both chambers he will “become Mr. Veto” and “make deals” with them, but hopes he won’t have to “worry about that.”

On the eve of the election, Trump’s message once again seemed to acknowledged that possibility, but his focus was largely focused on the numerous beautification projects his administration is leading in the nation’s capital.

President Trump holds up an image of algae in the Reflecting Pool as he delivers remarks Monday.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

His final pitch to voters was made in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a landmark his administration has spent months trying, and at times failing, to repair. For the first 20 minutes, he did not mention the election at all. Instead, he flipped through photos of the damaged pool, describing in detail how crews resurfaced and re-caulked its granite, and worked to address the “tremendous algae” that covered the pool.

“Look, it is not an easy thing. The algae is brutal. It forms easily and I don’t think you’ll see too much,” Trump said as he showed a picture of the algae layered over the water. “The green, that’s not grass, that’s algae. It took over the entire pool.”

The renovation has not gone as promised. When he took on the project in April, he said contractors he knew would refinish the pool within weeks for about $1.5 million. The work wrapped up behind schedule at more than 10 times that cost, after algae blooms and a peeling blue liner forced crews to drain it again in July. Trump blamed vandals for the issues, but federal prosecutors in Washington attributed the problems to shoddy workmanship.

Trump spent time listing numerous other renovation projects around the capital, arguing that the construction work shows how his presidency is delivering for the American people.

“Our country is strong, respected and prosperous once more and our capital is cleaner and safer and more spectacular than ever,” Trump said.

His focus on renovation projects drew the attention of Democrats, who argued his message was out of touch with what American voters want from leaders now.

“This is just [what] the median voter wants to hear — an update on various capital improvement projects in the District of Columbia,” Ashley Schapitl, a former Biden Treasury official, posted on X.

It was not the first time Democrats had poked fun at the president’s for being too focused on construction projects. At a rally last week, former President Obama said Trump “should be on HGTV,” ridiculing his ballroom project and the changes he has made to the Rose Garden and the Oval Office.

“He has the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said. “There’s just gold everywhere.”

Trump has bristled at such criticism, insisting that renovations relax him and that he gets them done quickly.

His message on Monday struck a similarly dismissive tone as in other campaign events. Even as voters say they are struggling with the cost of living, Trump has insisted the economy is “booming” and brushed off higher gas prices as a “very small price to pay” for the war in Iran.

The contrast was on display over the weekend at a glitzy Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida. As hundreds gathered in the club’s ballroom, eating Alaskan king crab and caviar, Trump showed off the crowd to reporters.

“Look at all my rich members,” Trump told reporters. “They spent all day getting ready. Look at these guys.”

Americans will vote in the US midterm elections on Tuesday, with the economy, the cost of living, and immigration among the top issues. While Democrats and Republicans share concerns about the rising cost of living, recent surveys suggest differences in how they view the economy, President Donald Trump, and other key issues.

In an NBC poll released on Sunday, 75 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the state of the US economy, and 51 percent said they were dissatisfied with their personal financial situation.

Other surveys conducted in October also offer a look into how voters from both parties felt about their finances and which issues mattered most.

Here is what we know:

What issues matter most to Democrats and Republicans?

The economy is the main concern for US voters, but Democrats and Republicans vary on the importance of issues like healthcare, immigration, and crime.

A Pew Research Centre survey, conducted between September 28 and October 4, suggested that 84 percent of registered voters considered the economy very important to their midterm vote. It was the top issue for 82 percent of respondents who prefer Republican candidates, and 88 percent for those who back Democrats.

However, the two groups differed on other issues.

About 85 percent of Democratic Party supporters considered the future of democracy very important, compared with 69 percent of Republicans. Healthcare was a priority for 82 percent of Democrats, compared with 53 percent of Republicans.

Republican supporters were more concerned about immigration, with 72 percent saying it was very important, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.

Violent crime was also more important to Republican supporters, at 64 percent, compared with 37 percent Democrats.

A KFF survey, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent nonprofit, from September 16 to 21, suggested 42 percent of registered voter respondents trusted Democrats more to handle healthcare costs, compared with 22 percent who trusted Republicans.

On the cost of living, 39 percent trusted Democrats more, while 25 percent preferred Republicans.

What grade do Democrats and Republicans give Trump’s second term?

Views of President Trump and his economic policies remain divided along party lines.

In the Pew Research Centre survey, 91 percent of Democratic respondents and those who leaned Democratic believed Trump’s economic policies had made things worse.

Among Republican supporters, 39 percent said his policies had improved the economy, 35 percent said they made conditions worse, and 25 percent said they had little effect.

In the November 1 NBC News poll, 40 percent of registered-voter respondents approved of Trump’s overall job performance, compared with 60 percent who disapproved.

How do Democrats and Republicans feel about the economy?

Americans are concerned about rising costs, but Democrats are more likely than Republicans to express negative feelings about economic conditions.

In an October Pew Research survey, 36 percent of Republicans rated the US economy as excellent or good, compared with just 9 percent of Democrats or Democrat-leaning voters.

However, the majority in both groups expressed concern about the cost of essential goods and services.

According to PEW, 82 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners were concerned about food and consumer prices, compared with 62 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners.

Healthcare costs concerned 80 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans, while petrol and energy prices worried 81 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of Republicans.

A Fox News poll released on October 14 also had 74 percent of registered voter respondents rating the economy negatively, and 60 percent identified the cost of living as their biggest economic concern.

The November 1 NBC News poll found that 53 percent of Republican respondents were dissatisfied with the state of the economy.

The Pew Research Center also found that abortion and gun policy were less central to Democratic respondents in comparison with 2022. Among Republican voters, education policy and energy policy were less important than they were four years ago.

Are Americans satisfied with their financial situation?

In the NBC poll, 51 percent of registered voters were dissatisfied with their personal financial situation, compared with 49 percent who were satisfied.

It was the first time in 30 years of NBC polling that dissatisfaction with personal finances outweighed satisfaction.

In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll on October 19-20, 38 percent of likely voters said their finances had gotten worse over the past year, 44 percent said they had remained about the same, and 15 percent said they had improved.

A total of 51 percent of Democratic likely voters said their finances had deteriorated, compared with 21 percent of Republicans.

In a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted from September 30 to October 5, 71 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans said their incomes had not kept pace with rising prices.

Eric Ham, a former Democratic congressional staffer and Senate national security adviser, said that Trump’s global tariffs and the US-Israel war on Iran had added to the financial pressure on American households.

“Americans are paying more not just in terms of self-inflicted wounds that President Donald Trump implemented through tariffs, but also if you look at this war of choice,” Ham told Al Jazeera.

Are Democrats or Republicans more enthusiastic about voting?

Democratic voters reported higher enthusiasm about participating in the elections.

In the Marist poll, 91 percent of likely Democratic voters were enthusiastic or very enthusiastic, compared with 86 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of Independents.

John Fury, a former Republican congressional staffer, said the final days of campaigning were focused on turnout.

“This is not a persuasion election. This is a get-out-the base election,” Fury said.

In a KFF survey, Democratic candidate supporters were 25 percentage points more likely than Republican supporters to describe themselves as “more motivated” than usual to vote (63 percent versus 38 percent).

The November 1 NBC News poll also reported high interest in the elections, with 70 percent of registered voters rating their interest at nine or 10 on a 10-point scale.

Who are Americans planning to vote for?

Surveys conducted in the final weeks before the election suggested voters preferred Democratic candidates or Democratic control of Congress over Republicans.

An NBC poll conducted on October 28-30 and published on November 1 suggested that 52 percent of registered voters preferred Democratic control of Congress compared with 45 percent who preferred Republican control.

Similarly, the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from October 22 to October 26 suggested that 53 percent of likely voters would vote for or lean towards the Democratic candidates in their district, compared with 44 percent who supported Republicans.

These surveys measure voting sentiment, but they do not reflect the results of the individual races.

The stakes in Tuesday’s midterm elections are so high that Shane Dunn voted for the first time in his life, at age 65.

After a career as a cook up and down the East Coast, Dunn moved to the Philadelphia suburbs and voted last week in Levittown. “I was always a busy man,” he said outside his polling place. But now, “I’m learning what’s going on within our country, and this is actually what brought me out.”

Democrats got his vote. “It feels great, to put my word in,” he said, patting the “I Voted” sticker on his black hoodie.

Voters across the United States are getting their word in, too, as they determine which party controls the Senate and the House and takes charge of governors’ offices, legislatures and state leadership posts in the final two years of Republican Trump’s presidency.

What many of them see is that the America they’ve known is slipping away.

They see lawlessness coming from those who create the laws. They see hate stirred by politicians among neighbors, corruption at every turn, billionaires ruling the roost and a culture that doesn’t speak to how they live — in short, American bedrock at risk of crumbling. Not to mention those crazy gas prices.

In dozens of Associated Press interviews with people who cast ballots at advance polling places or drop boxes across the country, the angst was palpable, most sharply from those who oppose Trump but also from many who support him.

A vote is cast to stop the ‘madness’

“I saw my vote today as trying to put the brakes on just the madness,” said Arthur Horner, 59, who runs a food importing and marketing company that has been hurt by tariffs, after dropping his mail ballot at Dauphin County’s election bureau in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He voted for Democrats.

In Sioux City, Iowa, cattle rancher Elizabeth Marlett, 61, voted in Woodbury County’s historic Prairie-style courthouse and walked out stewing about a variety of things — the chemicals in processed food, her son’s struggles to get his veterans’ benefits and, perhaps most of all, what she sees as society’s leftward lurch. Things seem broken to her, too.

“Family values are going by the wayside, and they need to be brought back,” she said. “Our liberties have been stomped all over. Religion has been stomped all over. And I believe we in the majority need to step up and stop being silent.” She voted Republican.

Voters despair at the stoking of anger by Trump and allies

The anger in the air, stirred by a cursing president who abides no slights, is too much for some people.

“He’s just destroying us,” Democrat Linda Markle, 72, said of the president. She spoke outside the Warminster Township library in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

“I am so afraid for this country,” she said. “People used to look out for each other. Not anymore.”

“All people do now is just hate each other,” she said, and Trump “seems to have given them the courage to go ahead and be like that. … The division is horrible, absolutely horrible, and I can’t wait to see the back of him.”

Republican Chris Smith, 27, a Harrisburg software engineer who voted for Trump in 2024, sympathizes with Markle’s sentiment, to a point.

“A lot of people hate him for various reasons, and I can understand why,” he said, noting that ”I think he’s kind of going a bit crazy on a lot of things.” But he likes Trump’s effort to return manufacturing to the U.S. along with the goals of his tariffs, and he voted Republican because he still thinks that party is more fiscally responsible than Democrats.

In Ohio, Lori Wilkinson, a retired home health worker from New Pittsburg, and her husband, David, a janitor, consider themselves independents. David recently wrote to their Republican governor, Mike DeWine, to tell him what a good job he’s doing, and they voted for Republican George W. Bush for president in the past.

Trump? “He’s the worst president in United States history,” David said from the Wayne County election center. “You get up every day, and you’re like, ‘What’s he going to do now?’” Said Lori: “He’s got the hate just so bad, it’s just out of hand. It’s just out of control.” She fears that if Democrats win widely Tuesday, Trump will “go fricking berserk.”

Trump supporter Therese Mennell gets it. “There’s that kind of arrogant vibe about him that people don’t like, and sometimes I shut him off because of the way he talks,” the retiree said from the Wayne County center. “But, I mean, he’s doing the right thing. He is saving our country.”

Some pretend Trump is on the ballot

Despite his striking unpopularity in polls, Trump repeatedly asked supporters to pretend he’s on the midterm ballot, betting that would motivate fans to vote who otherwise might not. But that cuts both ways.

Samontae Mwangi, 20, and his brother, Gathenya Mwangi, 19, voted for the first time, casting early ballots Tuesday at their election center in Topeka, Kansas. Both work at a plant that manufactures trackside buildings for railroads.

They went with their grandfather, Lynn Henderson, 68, a retired Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. worker and a former Marine lance corporal who wore a Marine’s cap. Henderson said he took his grandsons to vote because his own mother died recently and he wanted them to have an event to remember him when he’s gone.

All three are hoping that the election produces Democratic victories and political change. Gathenya said the economy and discontent with Trump could motivate people who’ve voted in the past to show up, as well as those who never have. “It really could change, make a difference, I feel, if a lot of people vote,” he said.

Denise Wunder, a retired sandwich shop manager, pulled up to the center in a van featuring a decorative license plate with an American eagle. The strong Trump supporter is the daughter of Democrats. Illegal immigration is her top issue.

“I think Trump is kind of our last hope, because otherwise this world’s going to go to hell in a handbasket,” she said. “Yeah, he says stupid stuff, but, you know, so do we.”

In the Richmond, Virginia, suburb of Henrico County, voters arrived at a steady clip on a crisp fall afternoon a week from Election Day. The moment of decision found one conservative couple, Joan and Frank Bark, lamenting the country’s direction.

“I’m afraid Trump has gotten so egotistical, it’s affecting his ability to make intelligent or more favorable decisions,” Frank said. But, he said, “I don’t want the decisions that would be generated from that far left side, either.”

Joan, a retiree like her husband, said of Democrats: “I haven’t found very much that they want to change or work with. It’s just mostly, ‘I hate Trump.’” But Trump really isn’t on the ballot. They voted for Republican candidates.

In Nanuet, New York, people streamed into the small room of a community center to vote; some were in Halloween costumes. Primrose D. Sullivan, a nurse, is an independent. She scoffed at Trump’s wish that voters act as if he’s running.

“No, because he’s not,” she said. “When a patient comes into the hospital, you want me dealing in facts, not in, ‘Hmm, let me act like you might have cancer.’ No. Do you or do you not have cancer? We need to proceed based on facts.” She voted for Democrats.

Yet some see a cancer on politics, if not the presidency

Sullivan was among a number of voters who singled out the billionaires Trump has made common cause with and how that might feed into American decline.

“I don’t begrudge any of our wealthy people, Jeff Bezos or, you know, Elon Musk,” she said. “But I do have a certain problem with them wanting more and more and doing things that really don’t help humanity.”

“If we keep going the way these guys are going,” she went on, meaning both the political and CEO classes, “we’re not going to have anything like what we had in the past.” Theirs is a “self-destructive attitude,” she added, “because, honestly, if the whole planet destroys itself, the wealthy go with us.”

Outside the polling station at the YMCA in Fort Mill, South Carolina, Benjamin Updegraft offered a piercing denunciation of the elite as he traced his evolution from a “full-throated young Republican” who voted for Trump as a young man in 2016 to a “lifetime Democrat,” after casting his ballot in the Senate race.

He cited Musk’s throttling of his Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, which disrupted a key defense against Russian attacks, and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad in the Ohio governor’s race featuring the estranged mother of Democratic rival Amy Acton among the reasons powerful men must be brought to heel.

“That needs to be cut out from this country like a cancer,” Updegraft said. “We have an incredible responsibility to take back the stranglehold that the worst people in this country have on the reins of power and to inflict punishment on them for their actions.”

In Scottsdale, Arizona, David Lee described his conservative upbringing, his past voting for Republicans and now his decision to turn against that party and vote Democratic in the contested races for governors and the House. He considers Trump’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement to be lawless.

“Nobody wants open borders, but you’re treating these people without due process, sending people to countries they don’t even belong to,” said Lee, 63. “There’s no more rules.”

Then there are those prices. And that war

The Trump supporters interviewed by the AP at the polls signaled their tolerance of the surge of gas prices from the Iran war, in some cases blaming factors other than the actual cause. Nor did they break with him on the war itself.

Among them was David Stouffer, 59, branch manager for a mortgage bank and three-time Trump voter, who spoke outside the Harrisburg elections office. “Iran has been killing Americans for 50 freaking years,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll suffer with some higher gas prices in the interim until they get that nonsense figured out.”

Does that put a crunch on your household budget, Stouffer was asked. “Of course it does.” How to cope with that? “I just keep driving.”

“He’s made the tax cuts real,” Stouffer said. “He has secured the borders. That, to me, is a very, very big deal.”

By the dozens, Democrats, independents and Republicans outside the core of Trump’s support differed with that assessment, even as some of them granted the president his achievements on taxes and immigration.

Horner, the food importer, is going “bonkers” with the tariffs and all the other moves bouncing between the Trump administration and the courts while a “feckless” and now electorally endangered Republican Congress largely stands aside.

“You can’t do business when every month you have to readjust your pricing because the president gets a wild hair on something that he’s not even constitutionally allowed to do,” Horner said. He added, “He’s just playing out the clock on all of this stuff — where you just know he knows it’s wrong.

“And what do we have? Higher healthcare, higher food, higher gas, a business environment that is complete chaos.”

But Jerry Casner, 74, of Mechanicsburg, a suburb of Harrisburg, wants as much of Trump as he can get. Alas, “he can’t run again,” Casner noted.

“Well, technically,” Casner said, “he can’t run again.”

Levy, Catalini, Hanna and Woodward write for the Associated Press. Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan.; Levy from Harrisburg, Pa.; Catalini from Levittown, Pa.; and Woodward from Washington. AP journalists Julie Carr Smyth in Wooster, Ohio; Erik Verduzco in Fort Mill, S.C.; Thomas Beaumont in Sioux City, Iowa; Joseph Frederick in Nanuet, N.Y.; Tassanee Vejpongsa in Warminster, Pa.; Mikella Schuettler in Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Sarah Rankin in Henrico, Va., contributed to this report.

As Americans head to the polls on Tuesday in the much-anticipated midterms, the record number of voters identifying as independent could prove decisive for control of the US Congress and state legislatures.

Nearly half of US voters – as many as 117 million adults – now identify as politically independent, with the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, jockeying for their votes.

At the same time, independent or third-party candidates win few federal or state seats. The Democratic and Republican parties have dominated US politics, from state legislatures to the US Congress and the presidency, for generations.

“The whole [electoral] system is built to frustrate the independence of voters,” says Rick Bennett, the former Republican Party chair in Maine, where he is running to become only the third independent governor in the state’s history.

Bennett’s candidacy runs headlong into one of the most stubborn contradictions in US politics: While millions of eligible voters reject Republican and Democratic labels, far fewer will cast their ballots for independent candidates.

“For decades, candidates outside the Democratic and Republican parties have struggled to achieve [a high] level of support,” political scientist AJ Simmons said. “[But] 2026 is shaping up to be one of the strongest election cycles for independent candidates in recent memory.”

Who are independents and how will they vote?

According to the Pew Research Center’s annual National Public Opinion Reference Survey, 44 percent of US adults identify as politically independent. This is in contrast to 29 percent who identify as Democrat and 28 percent as Republican.

But there is a caveat: Most self-described independents still gravitate towards one of the major parties. Independents who express absolutely no partisan leaning make up only about 7-10 percent of the total electorate.

These “true” independents are sought after by candidates because they are persuadable, the core of the coveted so-called swing vote in a deeply divided and partisan electorate and political system.

In the 2026 midterm elections, 52 percent of likely independent voters are supporting Democrats, while 39 percent back Republicans, polling firm Marist suggests.

Frustration with President Donald Trump is permeating the midterm electoral landscape, with independent respondents more than three times as likely to say their vote is mainly against the president, and 28 percent saying they are voting for “change”.

Why does the US have a two-party system?

The US does not legally restrict elections to two parties, and many local officials are not party-affiliated.

But for more powerful federal and statewide seats like Tuesday’s House of Representatives and Senate races, the winner-take-all electoral system and single-member congressional districts work against outsiders and can discourage voters from backing them.

Even substantial support for a minor party is rarely concentrated enough in one district to win a congressional seat.

Voters, too, can unknowingly reinforce the system.

Polling trends and data further suggest that voters who identify as or prefer an independent will often instead back a Republican or Democrat they see as more politically viable. Voters are also reluctant to support “spoilers”, who may peel away votes from one of the two major-party candidates.

Why do third parties struggle to win US elections?

Bernard Tamas, a political scientist at Valdosta State University who studies third parties, said that although laws are often blamed for keeping third-party candidates off the ballot, “there is very little evidence that legal barriers are undermining these candidates”.

The real barrier, he says, is money.

A total of $14.8bn was spent on federal elections during the 2024 presidential cycle, and the 2026 midterms are projected to surpass that, reaching up to $11.6bn in political advertisement spending alone.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC), which heads the Democratic Party, raised nearly $252.3m during the 2026 midterm campaign cycle while the Republican National Committee (RNC) took in about $341m.

Unlike other democracies, the US “offers virtually no public support” or funding to political parties and does not set limits on campaign spending”, Tamas said. Independent candidates “raise very little money” and are less well known by voters.

Why don’t more Americans vote independent?

Lesley Shedd, a Republican strategist, told Al Jazeera that the surge in voters identifying as independents obscures their support for one of the two major parties.

“When somebody says they are independent, they really are a Republican or Democrat but they maybe don’t agree with the party on absolutely every issue,” Shedd said. “Or they [just] don’t want to feel as though they are part of the culture of the swamp of [Washington] DC.”

The real test for independent candidates is persuading Americans to vote for them, not just a “protest vote” against the system. And voters are reluctant to cast a “wasted” ballot, Simmons said, given the most competitive candidates are Democrats or Republicans.

There are efforts to support independent candidates. The Independent Leadership Council, launched in July by former Democrat-turned-independent Senator Joe Manchin, provides donors and campaign resources for independent congressional candidates. The project has raised more than $10m.

But the longer-term test, analysts maintain, is whether independent candidates can be viable across multiple races and election cycles.

Will third-party candidates influence the 2026 midterms?

There is currently one independent in the US House and two in the US Senate. None holds a state governor seat.

Bennett, the independent Maine candidate, is one of just 11 independent or third-party candidates vying for gubernatorial or US Senate seats whom Simmons expects to surpass the 5 percent vote threshold often used to gauge electoral viability.

Additionally, Simmons sees several ways independent congressional hopefuls could throw the midterm map into disarray, mainly in two key states: Nebraska and Montana.

He identified Nebraska’s independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn, a 51-year-old Navy veteran, as the “most likely alternative candidate to win” across the country, given the race has been deemed a toss-up by RealClearPolling, an election analysis website.

The Nebraska Democratic Party chose not to field a replacement nominee after its candidate withdrew, leaving Osborn as the principal challenger to Republican Pete Ricketts.

In Montana, Simmons sees another opening for an independent, though the race is complicated by the possibility of an unpredictable “spoiler” effect.

Seth Bodnar, a former University of Montana president and Army veteran, is running against Republican Kurt Alme for the US Senate seat. He is being backed by the Independent Leadership Council, which is also supporting California Congressman Kevin Kiley, who left the Republican Party to seek re-election as an independent.

Democratic US Senate candidate Alani Bankhead could siphon off support from the same centre-left and anti-Republican pool of voters that Bodnar draws from, risking a three-way vote and potentially leaving the Republican to collect the spoils.

“Montana is the second most likely,” Simmons said, adding that “if that were to happen, the Republican Party would be having an extraordinarily bad night”.

In Idaho and South Dakota, independent candidates are not forecast to win, but they are expected to make Republicans pay for treating those seats as safe, diverting money, campaign time and attention to races Republicans may have otherwise taken for granted.

The greatest impact of independents may be the pressure they have historically brought to bear on the major parties to “implement a new policy or govern more effectively”, Simmons said.

WASHINGTON — Barbara Weigand could not have prepared more for retirement. She stayed healthy and saved diligently for years.

This year, though, a shoulder surgery and a bladder cancer diagnosis have really tested her finances. She recently withdrew $4,000 from her retirement account to cover medical expenses associated with her cancer treatment.

“On my monthly income, I would not be able to afford my new medical expenses,” says Weigand, 83, who lives in North Canton, Ohio. She is currently on a Medicare Advantage plan and was searching for new coverage as Medicare’s open enrollment period began in October.

For older adults in the United States, the rising cost of healthcare is hitting where it hurts most — their pocketbooks. With Medicare costs, prescription drug prices and long-term care expenses weighing on household budgets, their concerns could carry significant political weight heading into Tuesday’s elections.

Weigand is part of a reliable voting bloc; 83% of voters over age 50 say they’re extremely motivated to vote in the midterms, according to an AARP poll conducted in early October. Their concerns over managing healthcare costs put the issue of affordability squarely in the spotlight.

Here are some of their biggest healthcare concerns — and how Weigand sees them.

Changes to Medicare plans

Open enrollment for Medicare plans began in mid-October, and enrollees are facing a slew of changes that will go into effect in 2027.

During the enrollment period, people are considering higher Part D out-of-pocket caps, the end of temporary federal Part D premium subsidies, and new drug price negotiations. Additionally, in some states, insurers put caps on the number of people who can enroll in Advantage plans, pulling out of markets or eliminating plans that people have come to rely on.

Juliette Cubanski, director of KFF’s program on Medicare policy, told the Associated Press that the open enrollment period offers enrollees “an opportunity to evaluate the coverage they have and see if there might be better options for them in terms of accessing the care that they need, at possibly a lower cost.”

Although Weigand is grateful to have the mental acuity to do the research and the spiritual community that she relies on, she worries about other older people who are struggling to plan for the year ahead. “There are so many changes, and a lot of people my age who don’t know where to start,” she says. “What do they do?”

The affordability of prescription drugs

The Trump administration says it has made a priority of lowering drug prices in its effort to show that it is addressing soaring costs. President Trump has struck multiple most-favored-nation drug deals with pharmaceutical companies and has launched the discount drug website TrumpRx, among other steps.

In September, his administration said all 50 states would join in on a program set to provide most-favored-nation pricing to some drugs within the Medicaid program, bringing the net price of selected drugs down to prices paid in certain other countries.

Still, the cost of prescription drugs prevents some people from filling prescriptions. A KFF survey from March found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they have not taken their medication as prescribed in the last year due to costs.

Weigand is considering rationing her drugs to save money. “I’ve been thinking — if I could just do this every other day rather than every day to make the medicine last longer,” she says. “Isn’t that sad?“

The KFF report says about 1 in 5 people surveyed had cut pills in half or skipped doses of medicine in the prior year because of the cost.

The costs of long-term support

The costs of receiving long-term care — whether from spouses, home-care aides or friends — have risen steeply for retirees.

An AARP report released Wednesday that examines out-of-pocket caregiving expenses finds that family caregivers are spending nearly 60% more supporting a family member or friend than five years ago. They spend an average of $11,508 a year supporting a family member or friend, compared with $7,242 in 2021, according to the report.

Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s executive vice president and chief advocacy officer, said “we’re already hearing from our members about healthcare affordability — its prescription drug costs, caregiver costs, copays, premiums,” she said. “Not only are we trying to help family caregivers with their finances, but also to get them the kind of information they need to help their loved ones.”

These worries are top of mind for older people. About one-third of Americans over 50 provide regular care to an adult relative or friend with a health issue or disability, according to a national poll on healthy aging conducted in September 2025 by the University of Michigan.

The solvency of Social Security

The Social Security Administration announced last month that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for older adults and people with disabilities will rise by 3.6% beginning in 2027. That translates to $75 extra per month for the nearly 72 million people who receive monthly Social Security benefits and about 7.3 million beneficiaries who get Supplemental Security Income.

The agency faces an approaching bankruptcy date if a funding shortfall is not addressed by Congress.

The Social Security and Medicare trustees’ report from June states that Social Security’s combined trust funds, which cover old age and disability recipients, will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. After that, incoming revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits.

With 2034 not far away, the upcoming Congress will be faced with determining how to shore up the program.

Matt Hogan, a partner at the polling firm Impact Research, has this advice to candidates in the closing days of the midterm campaign: “Regardless of party, to make inroads with these voters, Social Security and Medicare should definitely be part of their messaging.”

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Next week’s elections are widely seen as a referendum on President Trump, his team and his party, with most voters telling pollsters they seek a check on his power. But the midterms will also serve as a reckoning for one of the least productive sessions of Congress in a century.

A stunningly low 10% of Americans approve of the job performance of Congress, which has passed fewer bills and conducted less oversight than any of its predecessors in modern history, according to scholars of the legislative branch.

The biggest achievement of unified Republican control has also become one of its biggest liabilities. Deeply unpopular when signed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has only grown more controversial, with most Americans still unclear on what’s in it — and those who do know largely disapproving of the law, which cut taxes for businesses and billionaires while adding trillions to the national debt.

A summer Politico poll found that just 8% of Americans believe the law has improved their bottom line. The bill cut billions of dollars for food stamps and over a trillion in health programs and Medicaid.

Two other significant bills passed by this Congress — the Epstein Files Transparency Act and a housing reform package targeting corporate purchases of single-family homes — ultimately became law over Trump’s opposition, leaving Republicans little credit for bipartisan wins.

“It’s not a partisan statement to say that the current Congress will go down in history as one of the most ineffective in history,” said Charles Stewart III, director of the Election Data and Science Lab at MIT. “It may not be the most ineffective, but it’s down there.”

Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that congressional performance can be measured by several criteria, including the quantity and quality of legislation, its oversight of the executive branch, investigations of government and private-sector failures, and its defense of congressional powers and ethical standards.

By all accounts, he said, “the 119th Congress is an abysmal failure, perhaps the worst I have seen in well over five decades of immersion in the legislative branch.”

Senate pages walk through the halls outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol on Oct. 1, 2026. The Senate had completed its last votes in the middle of the night before going on recess through Nov. 9.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

A recent Fox News poll found that government corruption is voters’ top concern this year, surpassing even the economy. Yet the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to deliver meaningful oversight. The enrichment of Trump, his family, allies and aides has gone uninvestigated, while Senate Republicans continue to block legislation targeting insider trading by members of Congress.

It has been a running theme from Democrats working to unseat Republican incumbents, with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York — slated to become speaker of the House if Democrats win control of the chamber — repeatedly characterizing the current session as a “do-nothing” Congress.

Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola speaks at a campaign event Oct. 29, 2026, in Juneau, Alaska.

(Chloe Anderson / Associated Press)

In Alaska, Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate, accused her GOP opponent, Sen. Dan Sullivan, of doing nothing to stop Trump’s tariff policies or his war with Iran. Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio has attacked the Republican incumbent Jon Husted for his procedural attempts to end debate over legislation on the Epstein files. And Democrat Adam Hamilton has targeted Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas for voting for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that jeopardized funding to rural hospitals.

Defending the record of his majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has highlighted a decline in prescription drug prices, the elimination of “wasteful spending” on various federal programs and bipartisan housing reform. Only so much can be accomplished with a razor-thin majority in the chamber, Johnson has said.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) listens as U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) lends his support at a campaign rally on Oct. 29, 2026, in Platteville, Wis. Van Orden is in a rematch from 2024 with Democrat Rebecca Cooke for the state’s 3rd District seat.

(John Moore / Getty Images)

Trump has vowed on the campaign trail that, if kept in power, a Republican Congress would pass a $5,000 dividend to each American, despite its thin record to date.

Critics of the speaker say Johnson’s deference to Trump — and relinquishing of congressional authority to the executive branch — has unilaterally ceded power, souring voters on unified government.

But Stewart, who also co-directs a voting technology project with Caltech, said Congress’ problems run deeper than its current record.

Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) speaks during a campaign stop at the Palmetto State Armory on Oct. 30, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. Graham is running about even in the polls against her opponent, South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews.

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

“Not only is Congress not pushing back against the administration, or even innovating in policy, but its members also don’t seem especially interested in serving their constituents on the small-ball aspects of representation,” Stewart said.

“It’s hard to say members of this Congress are connecting with their constituents as they did in decades past,” he added. “We’ll see if that lack of constituency connection will have an impact on the results.”