Michigan Democratic unity teeters amid new fight between Abdul El-Sayed and former primary rival
Top Alaska prosecutor says he’s not discussed ballot investigation with White House
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• Michigan party strife:Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is brushing off a call from his former primary rival, Rep. Haley Stevens, to denounce a controversial advertisement criticizing the United States’ foreign aid for Israel. He and Stevens are set to appear Sunday at a Detroit church for a unity event.
• Rallies back on:President Donald Trump claimed he restored his weekend events in Kansas and Iowa that were abruptly canceled yesterday because of requests from Republicans in the red states. The president is in Florida tonight for hissecond rally there in a week.
• Voter rolls:An appeals court has rejected a Trump administration lawsuit demanding California set aside the ballots of thousands of people it claimed could be noncitizens, citing a controversial data matching program.
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Updates
Mike Rogers, the Republican former congressman running for Michigan’s Senate seat, said Friday night on X that his Democratic rival Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign “has been based on vile racism and antisemitism.” He told those who backed El-Sayed’s former Democratic primary rival Rep. Haley Stevens that they have “a home with us.”
Rogers’ comment comes after El-Sayed brushed off pressure from Stevens to denounce an outside group’s controversial advertisement criticizing the United States’ foreign aid for Israel.
Rogers has been attempting to siphon Jewish Democratic votes away from El-Sayed, a progressive critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and US spending bolstering Israel’s military. He has sought to link El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood.
“I say today: if you are a Haley Stevens voter who rejects this bigoted and hateful candidate, you have a home with us. If you believe we can all work together to make housing affordable, improve education and, lower gas prices, you have a home with us,” he wrote.
President Donald Trump has arrived in Florida, where he’ll be rallying supporters in Daytona Beach — the latest stop on his red-state blitz with just days before the midterms.
It’s also his second rally in Florida in a week, after appearing in Fort Myers last Friday.
The Republican National Committee believes this stop, and others, highlight that the GOP isn’t taking anything for granted this year, an official said.
“The Sunshine State is Trump Country, and Floridians are fired up to rally with the President because they want more America First results,” the official said.
Florida has trended very Republican in the Trump era. A New York Times/Siena poll released earlier this week showed that the Senate race here is not nearly as competitive as in some red states with margin-of-error races. GOP Sen. Ashley Moody led Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon by 6 points, 50-44%.
The governor’s race was slightly closer, with GOP Rep. Byron Donalds at 48% and Democratic former Rep. David Jolly at 44%.
Attendees holding signs cheer before Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed arrives to speak during a campaign rally at the UAW Local 600 union hall on Friday, Oct. 30, in Dearborn, Michigan.
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is brushing off a call from his former primary rival, Rep. Haley Stevens, to denounce a controversial advertisement criticizing the United States’ foreign aid for Israel.
El-Sayed said in a statement Friday night that Stevens “seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago.”
His comment comes two days before they are scheduled to appear together at a Detroit church for a unity event — their first joint appearance since the August primary. El-Sayed is working to consolidate support among two groups that largely backed Stevens during the primary: Jewish and Black Democrats.
El-Sayed also pointed out in his statement that in his narrow primary victory, he’d overcome tens of millions of dollars in spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee aimed at boosting Stevens.
Hours earlier on Friday, Stevens released a statement of her own, lambasting El-Sayed for failing to sufficiently denounce an advertisement by the outside group Rebellion PAC, founded by leftist commentator Cenk Uygur. The ad features a couple at a grocery store, discussing how they can’t afford items like eggs “because we have to put that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”
El-Sayed’s statement Friday night said that his campaign “has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing: Skyrocketing gas prices, unaffordable groceries, and the inability to see a doctor.”
“Now the stakes are even higher — defeating Trump’s hand-picked candidate, taking back the Senate, and defending our democracy,” El-Sayed said. “That should be the priority for all of us right now.”
A woman casts her early vote at the Silverlake Community Church in Los Angeles on October 29, 2026. Americans voting in the November 3 midterm elections will decide who controls Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, along with dozens of governorships and thousands of state offices. (Photo by David Swanson / AFP
As we enter the final weekend before Election Day, a flurry of legal activity concerning vote casting and counting integrity is adding another layer of unpredictability to a midterm cycle already full of surprises.
Just today, we’ve gotten a decision in California concerning voter rolls and new developments in the Alaska Senate race saga concerning the multiple Dan Sullivans on the ballot.
Here’s a rundown of what’s been happening in the courts today:
- California-DOJ case: A federal appeals court rejected the Justice Department’s demand that election officials in California set aside some 20,000 ballots. The Trump administration claims the people who cast them could be noncitizens, but their evidence relies on a controversial data matching program.
- What the judges said:In a 2-1 ruling, the majority pointed to the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which says states are in charge of running elections while giving Congress the option to pass regulations. The dissenting judge called the request “a modest remedy—stopping California from mixing the ballots of citizens and suspected noncitizens.”
- What’s next?The appeals court’s rejection of the DOJ lawsuit Friday sets up the possibility that President Donald Trump will now go to the US Supreme Court with the case.
Trump claims Alaskan voters ‘don’t know what incumbent means’
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- Separate hearing on voter rolls:A federal judge in Washington, DC, will hold an emergency hearing tomorrow about the lists the DOJ is citing in states like California. The lawsuit there says the federal government’s compilation of lists of possible noncitizens on state voting rolls is unreliable, and creates an “illegal policy trying to dictate who gets to vote.”
- Alaska Senate controversy:Meanwhile in Alaska, a judge could rule as soon as Saturday evening on the Justice Department’s lawsuit over whether the state must block certification of its Senate race if the Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses. The DOJ requested today that all Alaska ballots that rank Daniel J. Sullivan be immediately segregated.
- Investigations into race: The DOJ is leaning into the New York Times’ reporting this week that Rep. Mary Peltola’s campaign and Democratic operatives sought to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan to possibly confuse voters, a charge Peltola denies. Michael Heyman, the US Attorney in Alaska, said both criminal and civil investigations are underway.
- Lawsuit on voting access:Alaska Democrats have filed a lawsuit of their own. The state’s Democratic Party and several state representatives alleged the Division of Elections failed to open numerous absentee early in-person voting locations and are asking for an emergency court order.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed, Katelyn Polantz, Isa Mudannayake, Kyung Lah and Hannah Rabinowitz contributed reporting.
Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, speaks during a news conference with Abdul El-Sayed, standing left, at the Spirit of Detroit shortly after El-Sayed was declared the winner of the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Michigan on August 5, in Detroit.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow urged Rep. Haley Stevens to get behind her former primary opponent, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, just days before a critical midterm election for the party.
Michigan is key to Democrats’ hope to win back the Senate majority.
Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in the contentious primary, is scheduled to appear for the first time with the Democratic nominee on the campaign trail Sunday, she announced in a statement today. But she said the appearance was contingent in part on El-Sayed condemning an ad from an outside group linking US aid to Israel with cost-of-living problems.
“People are not talking about ads. They’re not talking about Haley Stevens. They are talking about the price of gas and groceries and the fact that Donald Trump lied to them,” McMorrow said.
“Let’s stop getting caught up in the nonsense about ads,” she added.
El-Sayed is still trying to motivate core Democratic constituencies despite running in a state that hasn’t elected a GOP senator in 30 years. His opponent, Republican Mike Rogers, is making direct appeals to “Haley Stevens Democrats,” notably Black and Jewish voters who favored her.
El-Sayed has long criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and US foreign aid for Israel.
The nominee’s campaign has said it has nothing to do with the provocative ad by Rebellion PAC.
CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere contributed reporting to this post.
Dearborn, Michigan voter says he regrets his 2024 Vote for Trump
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In Dearborn, Michigan — the US city with the largest Arab American community — some voters who cast their ballots for President Donald Trump in the past are rethinking their decisions.
Ahmed A., a 24-year-old Arab American student who voted for Trump in 2024, told CNN he plans to vote for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed this time around. He cited disagreement with the president’s rhetoric and language about the Middle East.
The voter said he supports El-Sayed regardless of his ethnicity or religion, because of his platform and promises to “keep our tax dollars for us.”
Walid Fidama, a resident of Dearborn for over 30 years and longtime Democrat, met with the president during a 2024 visit to the city and voted for him. He now regrets his vote.
Fidama told CNN that Trump has “made America worse” and blamed him for the rising cost of healthcare and gas.
“He’s not doing anything from what he promised,” Fidama said, arguing that Trump had promised peace but instead gave the US war.
He’s already cast his vote for El-Sayed in this election, and thinks that the Democratic candidate’s draw in this community is not because of his religion, but because of his political platform.
“He know’s what he’s talking about and he knows what I need,” Fidama said, listing priorities including Medicaid and Medicare, social security, roads and schools.
In new filings Friday afternoon, the Trump administration requested that ballots immediately be segregated as part of its lawsuit targeting Alaska’s Senate election and the Justice Department asked the judge to fast-track its requests that Democrats turn over information about their efforts to recruit a spoiler candidate in the race.
If there’s a vote for Daniel J. Sullivan, the Justice Department wants it to be set aside.
The administration made the requests as the judge has set a quick timeline that could resolve the case by Monday.
Judge Sharon Gleason is considering requests from Alaska election officials, Democrats and outside groups that she toss the DOJ’s lawsuit, which seeks to delay certification of the election if the incumbent GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses in order to investigate whether voter confusion caused his defeat.
In response to Alaska’s arguments that the administration is not putting forward evidence that voters are being confused by the presence of the candidate Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot, the DOJ said that it was “common sense that a sham candidate on the ballot with the same name as the incumbent might confuse voters.”
Alaska election officials had also noted that the administration had not spelled out how exactly it would be determined, if Sen. Sullivan lost, that voter confusion led to his defeat.
“Defendants can take measures, including but not limited to the segregation of ballots, to ensure the integrity of Alaska’s elections results, and this Court can order them to do so,” DOJ said Friday afternoon.
The administration also said the judge should order the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and the campaign for Rep. Mary Peltola, the Sen. Sullivan’s Democratic challenger, to quickly comply with “tailored” discovery requests aimed at sussing out whether Sullivan’s candidacy was “frivolous or fraudulent.”
Alaska’s Republican-led elections office — which tried to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot but was stopped by the state supreme court several months ago — agued that Daniel J.’s motives for running were irrelevant to the legal debate over whether the federal government has the legal right to interfere in certification.
The DOJ said that the information it is seeking from the Democrats “strikes at the core of the United States’ claims.”
An Ohio voter who said she attended the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, underscored her support for the Trump administration at a Friday campaign event for GOP candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Jon Husted in Defiance.
Other voters in Defiance expressed similar confidence in Trump to end the war in Iran, while emphasizing issues including affordability and fraud.
Tony Norton, a Defiance, Ohio, resident, said momentum around fraud investigation will likely stop if Republicans don’t win in the upcoming midterm elections.
John Rath, another Defiance resident, stood by the Republican Party, too.
Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola speaks during a campaign event in Juneau, Alaska, on Thursday.
A top Republican super PAC is launching a last-minute ad buy to attack Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Alaska, over a New York Times report that links her campaign to a spoiler candidate.
The commercial would run as part of a “high six-figure” ad campaign on TV and streaming platforms, an SLF spokesperson exclusively told CNN Friday.
The late buy comes as Republicans are scrambling to capitalize on Wednesday’s Times story, which found Democratic operatives aligned with Peltola recruited a candidate with the same name as the GOP incumbent, Dan Sullivan. The buy is being paid for by 59 PAC, an SLF affiliate group in Alaska, and Last Frontier PAC, a super PAC that supports the incumbent.
Peltola’s campaign has continued to deny involvement in the other Dan Sullivan’s candidacy.
Alaska’s GOP governor, Mike Dunleavy, has ordered an investigation into the efforts described in the Times piece, while President Donald Trump’s administration had already sued to delay certification of the election if the incumbent lost.
Abdul El-Sayed condemned progressive streamer Hasan Piker’s comments comparing the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee’s canvassers door-knocking in the heavily Jewish West Bloomfield to “going to that like Klan KKK neighborhood to stump for like a Black candidate.”
West Bloomfield is home to Temple Israel, the synagogue that was attacked by a terrorist in March.
El-Sayed’s comments come as he attempts to win over Jewish Democrats — a group heavily courted by his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers — in the closing days of one of 2026’s marquee Senate races.
El-Sayed has long criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and US foreign aid for Israel. He appeared with Piker, a strident pro-Palestinian commentator, at multiple events before the August Senate primary.
His condemnation of Piker’s comments comes as he faces pressure from some Democrats, including his former primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, to condemn an outside group’s advertisement that blames Americans’ cost-of-living struggles on US foreign aid for Israel.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller attends a Halloween event at the White House on Thursday.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller called Alaska Democrats’ alleged attempt to confuse voters with a second Senate candidate named Dan Sullivan “a profound criminal act.”
“It’s a criminal conspiracy to disenfranchise the voters and citizens of Alaska,” Miller told Fox News’ Will Cain.
Last week, the Trump administration preemptively filed a lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s US Senate election if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan loses.
Miller told Cain it’s important “to understand the gravity of the matters being alleged and how seriously this is being taken by the US Department of Justice.”
The lawsuit alleges a candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan could confuse voters and wants a court to potentially delay the certification of the election if the incumbent is defeated but would have won if “all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan” had “been cast instead for Senator Sullivan.”
Miller maintained that the alleged actions from the Democrats are “repugnant” and claimed they are against the law.
“To lie so casually, so repeatedly, so comfortably, it’s genuinely it’s sociopathic,” he said. “They lied again and again and again when everyone knows the truth.”
However, legal experts say the findings from The New York Times investigation aren’t illegal and don’t give the DOJ’s lawsuit any more credence.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Ethan Cohen contributed reporting.
Democratic candidate for Senate Abdul El-Sayed again dismissed attacks on his religion today at a union hall in Dearborn, Michigan.
He turned his focus again to economic issues.
“My name and my faith are not the reason you can’t afford a tank of gas. My name and my faith are not the reason that you’re worried about your groceries,” he told attendees. “It is their war in Iran that is raising the price of our gas around us. It is necessary. It is their big ugly barrier that is making it harder to see a doctor in the United States of America.”
Many candidates up and down the Ohio ballot are in close contests, some with no clear leader.
CNN’s Lauren Fox explains why Rep. Max Miller’s 7th Congressional District, which was once seen as a Republican inevitability, is now one to watch this midterm election.
Ohio reemerges as a key battleground state
Many candidates up and down the Ohio ballot are in close contests, some with no clear leader. CNN’s Lauren Fox explains why Rep. Max Miller’s 7th congressional district, which was once seen as a Republican inevitability, is now one to watch this midterm election. Discover more videos, including live streams and exclusive storytelling, on our Watch page.
1:45• Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska, center, speaks during a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday
The top federal prosecutor in Alaska said Friday that he has not had any interaction with the White House about the ongoing criminal investigation into the state’s Senate race.
CNN reported Thursday that Heyman recused himself because he was up for a federal judgeship, which he ultimately was not nominated for. His recusal was rescinded by DOJ leadership after The New York Times report Wednesday.
The criminal investigation has been ongoing for months and faced pushback from some career prosecutors in Alaska, CNN previously reported.
Heyman added that he is “not aware of” anyone in his staff discussing the matter with the White House.
As for the pending civil lawsuit brought by the Justice Department seeking to delay certification if Sen. Sullivan loses his election, Heyman said that the department would ask for a preliminary injunction by the end of the day.
Read more about the criminal probe into Alaska’s Senate race.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday.
President Donald Trump said he got calls from people in both Iowa and Kansas urging him to reinstate the in-person rallies there instead of telerallies the weekend before midterm elections.
“They said, ‘If you could go it would be better than a telerally.’ And I tried to talk them out of that and I said, ‘What about a telerally?’ But they asked me,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, just before departing for a campaign event in Daytona, Florida.
“So I’m going to do two on Sunday,” He added. “And I was a little bit concerned about Saturday because college football. It’s Iowa, Kansas.”
Trump originally had a rally in Salina, Kansas, planned for Saturday and another in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday. Those were shifted to telerallies on Thursday, in a confounding last-minute strategy shift that was covered critically in the media, leading to Trump becoming irritated at how the cancellations were being received. The rallies were subsequently revived Friday morning.
The president insisted Friday afternoon that the telerallies are a successful medium for him, saying he’s “unbelievable” and “it only seems to work for me.”
Trump still plans to stump for several candidatesf them the day before the election
“On Monday we’ll do some — quite a few tele rallies. These are telephonic rallies. They’re fantastic, actually. And we’re going to do a lot of them for a lot of congresspeople.”
Democratic candidate for US Senate Roy Cooper votes on the first day of early voting, in Raleigh, North Carolina on October 15.
Former Gov. Roy Cooper’s early and sustained lead in the North Carolina Senate race freed up millions of dollars for Democrats to spend in red states, helping pave the way for the party to expand its map, according to a memo obtained by CNN.
Because of Cooper’s position in the race, Democrats’ top super PAC supporting Senate contests, Senate Majority PAC, and its affiliates, were able to divert more than $24 million expected to go to North Carolina to a number of red states including Ohio, Alaska, Kansas, Iowa and Mississippi, according to the memo showing the Cooper campaign’s analysis.
Cooper, a Democrat who’s never lost a race in a career spanning over four decades, is hoping to become the first Democratic senator from North Carolina since 2008. Democrats originally thought they would have to spend millions more to help him in the Tar Heel state.
His opponent, Republican Michael Whatley, lagged behind him in polling throughout the race. In early October CNN reported the top Republican super PAC in Senate contests, Senate Leadership Fund, paused its ad spending in North Carolina, signaling a major shift in its strategy to save the Republicans’ Senate majority.
From left: Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., Mary Peltola and incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.
The Senate election in Alaska is ongoing, but the state’s Republican governor is already suggesting certification of the outcome could be “changed or stopped.”
It’s the result in an effort to confuse voters with a second Dan Sullivan on the ballot to challenge the incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. The contours of the story have been known for months, but The New York Times documented more direct Democratic involvement in the scheme than previously known.
There’s a lot of time, and an Election Day, between now and the first day of the next Congress on January 3 to resolve all of this.
Only twice in the last 50 years has a contested election threatened to delay the seating of a senator.
►In 1997, Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu did take the oath of office on time after winning the 1996 election against Republican Woody Jenkins by a mere 5,788 votes. The state had certified her as the winner but Jenkins filed a “petition of election contest” with the Senate, alleging “vote tampering.” An investigation conducted by a special Senate committee ensued. The election was ultimately found for Landrieu.
►In 2008, Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican, had a 215 vote lead after the intial vote count in Minnesota. A recount gave a 312-vote lead to Democrat Al Franken. Months of legal wrangling followed. It wasn’t until June that the Minnesota Supreme Court declared Franklin the winner. When he took the oath of office it gave Democrats their 60th vote, allowing them to break a filibuster on the Affordable Care Act and pass Obama’s most important legislative achievement.
There are many other examples from further back in US history. The bottom line is that even if a state government and state courts certify a winner, the loser can petition the Senate to take another look next year.
President Donald Trump tosses hats into the crowd at a campaign rally in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump’s rescheduled red-state rallies will be held on Sunday in Dubuque, Iowa, and Salina, Kansas, officials announced today.
Trump heads first to Dubuque for remarks at 2 p.m. central time, 3 p.m. eastern time at the Five Flags Events Center.
He then heads to Salina for an evening rally, which starts at 6 p.m. central time, 7 p.m. eastern time at the Salina Regional Airport Hangar.
The president’s cancelling and re-scheduling of campaign events in the final days before the midterm has raised questions about his strategy to help propel GOP candidates to victory.
Yesterday, Trump told reporters that he wasn’t traveling to Kansas anymore because GOP Sen. Roger Marshall was “doing very well,” and instead planned to do several telerallies. He later canceled a planned Iowa appearance, too.
But less than 24 hours later,d the schedule had merely been rearranged to allow more time for Trump to dial into virtual events. But people familiar with the matter said Trump grew irked over the media coverage about his decision to cancel his final rallies and demanded they be reinstated
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez transferred a total of $450,000 to Democratic Senate candidates in Maine, Alaska and Florida this week, giving a boost to her party in a series of key races.
According to AOC’s team, she transferred $150,000 to Troy Jackson in Maine, $150,000 to Mary Peltola in Alaska, and $150,000 Angie Nixon in Florida.
It’s the latest instance of influence building from the progressive icon, whose national prominence has made her both a fixture of GOP attack ads and a frequent subject of presidential speculation.
Earlier this month, AOC also transferred $1 million to the campaign of Abdul El-Sayed, the party’s Democratic Senate nominee. And she’s hit the campaign trail for Democrats across the country, including in Michigan, Maine and Florida.
Ocasio-Cortez’s most recent report to the Federal Election Commission showed her with more than $17.5 million on hand as of mid-October – a sizable cash reserve for a popular Democrat in a safe House district.
And those funds would be directly transferrable to any other campaign for federal office, including a run for US Senate in 2028, or even a White House campaign.
A golfer plays near felled trees at East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, DC, on October 22.
A top Justice Department official who is a leading force behind an effort to halt certification in Alaska’s Senate race if the GOP doesn’t win endured a brutal hearing Friday in which a federal judge opened an investigation into whether he misrepresented the president’s plans to renovate a golf course.
In a fiery hearing that lasted nearly three hours in Washington, DC, US District Judge Ana C. Reyes pressed Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward on whether the administration had tried to evade the court’s review, including by offering only a last-minute notice to the court before felling hundreds of trees at East Potomac Golf Course earlier this month.
Now Woodward will have to pivot back to the Alaska case, where the Justice Department has filed a placeholder civil case to challenge the results of an election in which Democrats allegedly recruited a candidate with the same name as the Republican incumbent, Daniel Sullivan, to siphon away votes. The department has also accelerated a criminal probe into that effort.
A federal judge in the civil case ordered DOJ to file new paperwork in that case later Friday.
Read more about the hearing involving Woodward
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