Having seemingly given up on the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump and his administration officials indicate they intend to steal the 2026 midterm elections to maintain Republican control of the Senate.
Trump continues to try to use government power to increase his own popularity. On Friday and Saturday, Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano sent an email to people with online Social Security accounts stating that under Trump, “the Social Security Administration (SSA) is transforming into a model of excellence,” producing “the best performance in the agency’s 91-year history.” More than 100 million Americans have online SSA accounts.
In fact, as Tara Siegel Bernard reported in the New York Times in July, reductions of approximately 14% in staff at the Ministry of Government Effectiveness caused delays in services. It’s much harder to get an appointment in person, and although the agency reports that average phone response times have dropped from 11 minutes to 5 minutes, it achieved this reduction by counting anyone agreeing to hang up and accept a return call as waiting zero minutes.
But it’s not just by empowering Trump that the administration is corrupting our government. Yesterday, in a stunning illustration of how Trump and his acolytes are using government as a weapon to consolidate their power, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop threatening local and state election officials with criminal prosecution if they do not do what the administration requires.
Victoria Craw Washington Post reported that Thompson said Attorney General Todd Blanche and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin exceeded their authority when they sent warning letters to state election officials because states, not the federal government, are responsible for congressional elections. She also noted that they likely violated the Voting Rights Act by intimidating election officials.
“In the run-up to the election,” Thompson wrote, “senior DOJ and DHS officials have engaged in a campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce state and local officials and employees who are engaged in the administration of the ongoing 2026 midterm elections. Although the defendants assert that their actions are intended to stop illegal non-citizen voting, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with the election administration and to deprive legal voters of the right to vote.
“One of the hallmarks of a fair election is the freedom to exercise one’s right to vote without threat, fear or intimidation,” the judge wrote. “The free exercise of the right to vote is a fundamental principle of our democracy. It must be protected to ensure full participation and public confidence in our elections.”
The state of Alaska is at the heart of this effort to maintain control of the Senate, where Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola has a slight advantage over incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
In late October, the administration filed a lawsuit to block the certification of any candidate in the election unless Sullivan won. The administration’s argument was that Alaska election officials agreed to allow two candidates with similar names to appear on the ballot.
On Friday October 30, after a New York Times The article alleged that Peltola staffers had recruited a challenger with a name similar to Republican Dan Sullivan — a common and legal maneuver that both parties engage in. The administration asked a judge to order Alaska election officials to separate all ballots ranking Daniel J. Sullivan from the rest of the election’s ballots.
As Gary Grumbach and Kyla Guilfoil reported on NBC News, they claimed they wanted the ballots separated “in an effort to determine whether such tabulation was the product of voter confusion, should such an investigation be necessary.”
They did not explain how such a ballot could be examined or how examining a ballot would explain whether a voter was confused. He also downplayed the fact that, under Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, any ballots on which the lesser-known Sullivan is ranked first will automatically go to the voter’s second choice — presumably Dan Sullivan — if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round.
Today, U.S. Judge Sharon Gleason of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska dismissed the lawsuit barring the state from certifying any winner in Alaska other than the Republican incumbent. She wrote that the administration had not provided a “workable plan for how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct an unspecified court-ordered ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy.”
The administration, willing to violate Americans’ right to a secret ballot in order to ensure a Republican fills Alaska’s Senate seat, immediately filed notice that it would appeal.
The Alaska Supreme Court approved the ballot months ago, specifying that the ballots would identify Sen. Sullivan as the incumbent Republican and list the other Sullivan with no party affiliation.
Meanwhile, Democrats have filed a lawsuit over Alaska’s apparent failure to fully open at least 18 early voting locations in rural Alaska, disproportionately affecting the ability of Native Alaskans to vote.
Trump wants to hold on to power, but he seems to care little about the Americans he wants to govern. Tyler Pager from New York Times reported that Trump spent last night at a lavish jungle-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, where guests could feast on Alaskan king crab and eat at a caviar bar.
Even as Americans suffer from soaring gasoline and diesel prices caused by Trump’s war on Iran, and polls show nearly 70 percent of Americans are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy, Trump was proud to party with rich people three days before the midterm elections. “Look at all my rich people,” Trump sang to reporters covering the event. “They spent all day preparing. Look at these guys.” “They’re the biggest guys on Wall Street.”
Pager reported that Trump repeated his anger at his former lawyer Alina Habba Mildon, who allegedly pocketed $50 million for getting Trump to pardon a Venezuelan billionaire. In another article on October 29, Pager reported that Trump told his inner circle that Mildon should make sure some of that money went his way. He wants her to donate part of the $50 million to one of the projects he defends: his future presidential library, for example.
Pager noted that at his Halloween party, Trump also acknowledged the stories of Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Ana Swanson, Paul Mozur, Tripp Mickle and Julian E. Barnes. New York Times On October 29, a Chinese spy targeted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for information about the company’s advanced AI chips. Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, allegedly sent information collected from Jensen Huang directly to Beijing, facilitating China’s acquisition of cutting-edge chip technology. Previous presidents have deemed such a transfer to endanger national security.
Despite being briefed on the intelligence about a year ago, Trump chose to do nothing. The reporters note that Trump did not want to disrupt Nvidia’s sales, which are key to the stock market’s strength, or make trade with China even more difficult.
Last night, when asked about Jensen Huang, Trump told reporters: “I have a lot of respect for him. I like him. We hope everything goes well.” He added: “We’re going to check it. We’re going to check it very closely.” Asked if he would keep Huang on the Council of Presidential Advisers on Science and Technology, Trump said he “would like to say yes.”
“I mean, unless we find out something to the contrary,” Pager said Trump reports. “I’ve always found Jensen Huang to be very honest. But you know, you’re dealing with a very complex problem, I would say.”
As the midterms approach and early turnout appears to favor Democrats, Republicans who are not close to Trump appear to be distancing themselves from him. On Saturday, Republicans who control Alaska state government asked Judge Thompson to dismiss the administration’s lawsuit, pointing out that “frivolous” candidates are legal and that the Alaska ballot actually includes a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, Eric Hafner, apparently pressured by Republicans to take votes from Democrats. Hafner is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in New York and has never lived in Alaska.
They reiterated that states, not the federal government, control elections.
And although administration loyalists suggest they will only accept Alaska’s election results if incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan wins, when asked today if he shares that position, Sullivan himself told CNN: “No, I’m going to accept the election results.” »
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Remarks :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2026/10/31/social-security-administration-sends-email-touting-trump-days-before-election/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/business/social-security-offices.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/31/justice-department-election-officials-threats-ruling
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/10/31/judge-orders-trump-officials-not-threaten-or-intimidate-election-workers/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/a1c913c8-dd14-4053-94ef-ad49d4ad58b6.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_10
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/28/us/politics/alaska-dan-sullivan-conspiracy-peltola.html
^ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/doj-requests-separating-alaska-ballots-rank-dan-j-sullivan-senate-race-rcna606646
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.akd.80263/gov.uscourts.akd.80263.79.0_1.pdf
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.akd.80263/gov.uscourts.akd.80263.81.0_1.pdf
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/doj-asks-appeals-court-to-greenlight-effort-to-overturn-alaskas-election-result/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/11/01/lawsuits-say-rural-alaska-voting-sites-failed-open-before-election-day/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/31/us/politics/trump-halloween-party-scene.html
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/alina-habba-has-to-give-the-boss-his-cut
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/us/politics/trump-alina-habba-mildon-deal.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/us/politics/nvidia-china-jensen-huang-trump.html
https://www.newsweek.com/eric-hafner-alaska-democrat-gop-ballot-mary-peltola-12638704
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.akd.80263/gov.uscourts.akd.80263.76.0.pdf
^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/11/01/sen-dan-sullivan-says-he-will-accept-alaskas-election-results-even-if-he-doesnt-win/
Blue sky:
soozbee.bsky.social/post/3mz5cqxm6kc2j
klasfeldreports.com/post/3mzbn7vbs3q26
klasfeldreports.com/post/3mzbotmtses2x
Gn headline
