The 2026 Midterms Thread

iron_maiden · February 13, 2026, 12:19am

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/…c9cc&ei=13

Nebraska’s Republican secretary of state will turn over sensitive information on every registered voter in the state to the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday after Nebraska’s highest court rejected a legal effort to block the move.
Secretary of State Bob Evnen told The Associated Press that the Nebraska Supreme Court denied the injunction Wednesday.
Last week, a state judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by government watchdog Common Cause, which sought to stop the release of voter information, including dates of birth, addresses and partial Social Security numbers, to the federal government.
“This case threatens the unprecedented and unlawful release of highly sensitive information of every Nebraska voter,” lawyers for Common Cause wrote in a brief seeking the injunction. “Once the data is released, that bell cannot be unrung.”
The legal fight in Nebraska comes in the wake of an FBI raid that saw it seize 2020 ballots and other election documents from Georgia’s Fulton County and President Donald Trump declaring he wants to “take over” elections from Democratic-run areas with the November midterms on the horizon.
The federal Justice Department began last year pushing states to turn over their voter data and other election information. The department has sued at least 23 states and the District of Columbia in its effort to obtain voter rolls.
Evnen said Wednesday that he’s giving voter information to the Justice Department so it can assess whether Nebraska is complying with federal voting laws. He noted that the Nebraska Attorney General’s office had advised that the federal request “was lawful and proper.”
His office will upload the information electronically to the Justice Department, he said, and will include a request that privacy laws be observed.
In a written statement released by his office, Evnen said he is dedicated to protecting voters’ personally identifiable information from misuse.
But when asked if he was positive that Nebraska voter information would be kept secure and not lead to legitimate voters being kicked off voter roles, Evnen responded, “The only thing I’m positive of is that the sun won’t catch in a tree when it sets tonight.”
Evnen said the state would not remove people from voter rolls based solely on Department of Justice recommendations. Instead, election officials would conduct their own investigation and would first contact anyone tagged for removal from the rolls.

iron_maiden · February 13, 2026, 6:00am

https://x.com/TeamTalaricoHQ/status/2022139947835142449

iron_maiden · February 15, 2026, 4:03am

https://x.com/boltsmag/status/2022083380150427673

iron_maiden · February 15, 2026, 5:15am

https://x.com/joni_askola/status/2022581120366256375

iron_maiden · February 15, 2026, 6:56pm

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/…c80a&ei=11

Backlash to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is putting vulnerable Republicans in a tough spot, forcing them to shift their tone to appease frustrated Hispanic voters — or risk losing key battleground seats.
It’s a delicate pivot for Republicans in South Texas, who spent years taking a hardline approach on immigration and flipped historically blue districts in the process.
Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, representing a majority-Hispanic district, has gone from calling for mass deportations to focusing on the “worst of the worst.” In lieu of expediting removals, she wants to create new visa categories for undocumented workers to fill jobs in construction and agriculture. And instead of slamming the Biden White House for its “border failure,” she’s setting up private meetings at the Trump White House to plead for temperance in immigration enforcement.
Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district shares hundreds of miles with Mexico, wants his party to talk more about the border, and said he plans to “continue to advocate that the Republican Party needs to focus on convicted criminal illegal aliens” amid broad outrage over deportations of undocumented people with no proven risk to public safety.
Like other Republicans, they are trying to slowly distance themselves from the massive immigration crackdown that has quickly become political kryptonite for the GOP — but without being seen as disloyal to the president or undercutting their previous positions.
“President Trump made a promise, and he’s kept that promise by securing the border. That was stage one,” De La Cruz said in an interview. “Now we’re at stage two, which is having a conversation of true immigration reform.”
Republicans’ efforts to change the conversation will test their ability to maintain, or even extend, Trump’s 2024 gains with Hispanic voters — and play a pivotal role in the fight for control of Congress in November. A slew of polls in recent weeks has shown many Hispanic voters across the country, repulsed by the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, are souring on the Republican president they supported to a historic degree in 2024.

commodorejohn · February 15, 2026, 8:33pm

Not that we’re not in a bad place right now, but just imagine where we’d be without their endless, endless self-owns.

iron_maiden · February 16, 2026, 4:03am

More at the link:

https://x.com/JacobRubashkin/status/2023113106214244742

iron_maiden · February 16, 2026, 7:36am

Probably better off in the “Hollywood Scandals” thread, but whatever:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/s…dfe6a&ei=9

Stephanie Pratt is urging people not to give brother Spencer Pratt their vote for mayor of Los Angeles as she makes several serious allegations against her older sibling.
More than a month after Spencer, 42, announced that he is running for L.A. mayor, his younger sister Stephanie, 39, spoke out against his mayoral bid in a series of posts on X. In the posts shared on Saturday, Feb. 14, she claimed that her brother — with whom she has long had a strained relationship — is only running in an attempt to “stay famous.”
Stephanie also made several allegations against him while giving “a history of Spencer,” claiming that her older brother “beat” her, got her “hooked” on drugs during her teen years and was once in a cult. She also made reference to Spencer and Lauren Conrad’s infamous feud on The Hills.
A representative for Spencer Pratt did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Saturday, Feb. 1 4.
“Spencer has done great work for the palisades,” Stephanie wrote on X. (Spencer and his wife, Heidi Montag, filed a lawsuit against the city of L.A. after their home was destroyed in the Pacific Palisades fire.)
“But LA does not need another unqualified and inexperienced mayor,” she continued of The Hills alum. “A vote for him is a vote for stupidity.”
In two of several subsequent X posts, Stephanie wrote that “in an ideal world the palisades would have their own mayor and police department,” and said that she “would love him [Spencer] to be” in charge of the neighborhood, but not the entire city.
“I have no problem with Spencer playing government but our city needs help,” she wrote.
Stephanie also claimed that her brother is “just trying to stay famous and sell his memoir,” referring to January’s The Guy You Loved to Hate: Confessions from a Reality TV Villain.
After her posts urging people not to vote for Spencer inspired backlash, Stephanie also shared allegations of an alleged assault that occurred when she was 18, writing: “Everyone saying I should support him no matter what. Sorry he beat me up when I was 18 & put me in the hospital. So no he doesn’t belong in the government. Run the palisades all you want not LA.”
She also alleged that he got her “hooked” on drugs. “Almost forgot how it all started - he’s the one who got me hooked on hard core drugs at 15,” she claimed on X. “I’ve kept this all a secret for years. He also had a hidden drug addiction. Now do you get he shouldn’t be running LA. Thank you. Amen.”
Stephanie also alleged that Spencer was once arrested in Costa Rica for activity related to the alleged cult. “At least hire someone with work experience who wasn’t in a cult,” Stephanie wrote of her brother.
In September 2010, Spencer said he was arrested in Costa Rica for felony possession of a firearm, according to TMZ. It is not clear if he was ever charged or faced court following the arrest.

iron_maiden · February 17, 2026, 4:53am

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-…ly-voting/

michaelm · February 17, 2026, 4:48pm

Wasn’t Paxton nailed for all kinds of fraud?

Schwartz2 · February 17, 2026, 5:18pm

Yeah, but he’s running in a Republican primary. So.

iron_maiden · February 17, 2026, 11:11pm

The last time some Dems thought Iowa was in play, they got burned. But this isn’t an action you take if you’re confident:

https://x.com/DMRegister/status/2023763165524205729

Former Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer responded:

https://x.com/Abby4Iowa/status/2023802255871537350

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 12:38am

It’s important to recognize that no other state has been affected by the tariffs quite like Iowa:

https://x.com/LoganR2WH/status/2023819634458456070

And:

https://time.com/7378634/democrats-senat…ent=170226

Something might be happening in Iowa.
Despite its reputation as a solidly Republican state, Iowa is increasingly coming up in conversations of Senate races to watch this year. And that glimmer of optimism is playing out in the fight for the Democratic nomination, which saw a significant shift Monday evening, with one of three contenders announcing he was stepping aside and endorsing state Rep. Josh Turek, a paralympian gold medalist and state lawmaker.
“We’re seeing the field consolidate around the most electable candidate because I fundamentally believe that Iowa is in play far more than what people on the coast realize,” Turek tells TIME. “I think we are going to be the center of the political universe here in 2026. There’s no other state where you’re looking at being able to flip three of the four congressional seats, flip the Senate seat, and flip this Governor’s race.”
Turek is pointing to how not only Senator Joni Ernst but Gov. Kim Reynolds chose not to run for another term, marking the first time since 1968 both gigs are open on the same ballot in Iowa. For many observers, both GOP incumbents opting out of the midterms is a sign of the party’s broader troubles with an electorate weary of President Donald Trump’s version of the GOP.
Yet Turek hasn’t yet won the June 2 primary, which is shaping up to offer two competing versions of what it takes to win as a Democrat this year. Zach Wahls, a fellow state lawmaker representing deep-blue Johnson County, is still in the race and he’s got a national brand thanks to a 2011 viral moment of him testifying in the state House against a proposed ban on same-sex marriages like his mothers’. These days, he’s in the state Senate and has racked up such a progressive record that his GOP critics in Washington have started calling him the Mamdani of Iowa.
Then there’s Turek, a two-time Paralympic medalist in basketball who was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, who is campaigning with a framework of “Prairie populism,” not dissimilar to the rhetoric of former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin. In fact, Turek often cites Harkin and his work on the Americans With Disabilities Act as someone who “made sure that the doors were open for kids like me.”
If you had last year considered a map for Democrats to retake the majority this year, the road did not exactly lend itself to an Iowa detour. Ernst seemed to have the pulse of her constituents as second nature. Yet with two dynamic major Democratic candidates in play now—rather than a jumbled field that included former Knoxville Chamber of Commerce Director Nathan Sage, who is now backing Turek—Iowa may well be the Senate race no one saw coming.
When the year started, races in Georgia, Michigan, and Ohio were seen as the real battlegrounds—not Iowa, which last elected a new Democratic Senator, Harkin, in 1984. Yet Democrats in recent weeks have summoned surprising credibility to their claims of having a shot at winning back the Senate majority. Marquee recruits in Ohio and North Carolina all but cleared the field, New Hampshire and Illinois seem settled, and the fact Democrats are looking with greedy ambition at Alaska shows how underwater the Republican brand is with voters. (Democratic primaries in Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, and Texas remain open questions, though.)
But when no one on the East Coast was watching, things got wobbly even in the Heartland for Republicans. Reynolds, who is not going for a third term, is among the least popular Governors in the nation. Similarly, Ernst decided against a third term after remarking “Well, we are all going to die” while defending the prospect of Iowans losing health insurance coverage under Trump’s massive domestic policy bill. (Both are the first women to win those roles.)
Need proof that the Trump-led GOP brand is not invincible in Iowa? Iowa was the first state the President hit this year on a tour to reboot his pitch on the economy, one his advisers had been urging to counter the settling narrative that things were not recovering as promised.
Democrats in Iowa have been busy casting Trump’s second term as a basket of failed promises on everything from affordability and health care to exports and tariffs. It has worked; he is now underwater by 2 points in Iowa, according to recent Morning Consult polling. (Trump is similarly underwater in other must-win Senate states for Republicans, including Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, and New Hampshire while being just barely above water in Ohio.)

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 1:39am

https://x.com/MarkStewart_AZ/status/2022765570756874458

A Call for a Pause and Clarity
This morning I sent a letter to the Board Chair requesting we postpone Wednesday’s discussion to allow time for full staff participation and so the Board can meaningfully review the sworn report, Shared Services Agreement, and signature verification changes before decisions are made.
My neighbors deserve public meetings grounded in facts, transparency, and we all need time to understand these complex election operational inquiries. The Recorder answers to the voters and so does the Board. State law tasks the Board with oversight to ensure county departments function well and within financial boundaries.
A negotiated SSA is on the table, and advancing it should be our top priority so we stay focused on a successful election in Tempe now and across the county this fall.
I’m confident the Board will work in tandem with the Recorder to deliver a best-in-class election for Maricopa County voters, and I’m optimistic about the path ahead.

And:

https://x.com/Garrett_Archer/status/2022780576634409065

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 2:47am

More at the link:

https://x.com/Garrett_Archer/status/2023813159111573594

And:

https://x.com/Garrett_Archer/status/2023859275114967160

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 3:48am

https://x.com/LoganR2WH/status/2023803158808654263

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 5:05am

https://x.com/Uncrewed/status/2023957726821277962

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 10:02am

https://x.com/atrupar/status/2023745717790011400

And:

https://x.com/DarrigoMelanie/status/2023747891035320493

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 11:19am

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/…7b48&ei=22

Colin Allred never fumbled the ball during his four-season NFL career with the Tennessee Titans, but many Texans were pondering if he had fumbled his political career Tuesday after the Texas Black Democrats passed him over for an endorsement.
Allred represented Texas’s 32nd congressional district from 2019 to 2025. He unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in 2024, outperforming Vice President Kamala Harris in the state but still falling short with 44.6% of the vote to the Cruz’s 53.1%.
For the 2026 election, Allred was originally going after Texas’s other senate seat, currently held by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), but dropped out after Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) entered the race. Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D-TX) is also running in the Democratic primary.
Allred instead decided to seek re-election to Congress, but this time in the newly-redistricted 33rd congressional district, facing off against Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX), who currently represents the 24th congressional district, plus two other candidates.
…
Allred took his own hit on the first day of early voting too, with the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats endorsing Johnson, who shared the news in a tweet saying she was “[p]roud and grateful to earn the endorsement” and touting the “broad coalition” her campaign had built.
Johnson has also scored endorsements from numerous other groups including EMILYs List, Equality PAC, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, LGBTQ Victory Fund, Elect Democratic Women, AIPAC, and the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund. Her website lists 52 current Democratic members of Congress who are supporting her, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and dozens of legislators and other local elected officials. Allred’s website does not have an endorsement section but a Texas Tribune article from last December listed two state representatives and a county commissioner who were backing him.
(That same Tribune article noted that the primary battle had “already grown contentious,” noting that Allred did not call Johnson before he filed to run against her and a PAC that endorsed Johnson calling Allred’s entry into the race “[u]nconscionable” for “try[ing] to unseat the first openly LGBTQ Member of Congress from Texas.”)
Reaction to the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats picking Johnson over Allred came quickly, and was often brutal.
“Oh man, this is a shiner for Colin Allred that Julie Johnson, who is white, got the support of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats,” wrote the Independent’s DC bureau chief Eric Michael Garcia. “The guy burned every bridge.”

iron_maiden · February 18, 2026, 8:29pm

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/…9046&ei=35

President Donald Trump is pushing Congress to end mail voting as Americans have come to know it. So far, Republican lawmakers aren’t heeding his calls.
Trump has long railed against the expansion of vote-by-mail, arguing despite scant evidence that it is rife with fraud and suggesting it was responsible in part for his 2020 election loss. Since retaking office, he has repeatedly called for action — most recently Monday night to reporters on Air Force One.
“Why would you want mail-in ballots if you know it’s corrupt?” Trump said. “It’s a corrupt system.”
But other Republicans don’t see it that way — many of their own voters have voted by mail consistently for decades. So far, the type of blanket ban on mail voting Trump wants has not gained traction on Capitol Hill as GOP lawmakers counsel for a more targeted approach.
“I support the use of mail-in voting,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican facing a tight reelection contest. “The idea that some states just mail out ballots without any requests is absurd, but the use of mail-in balloting, I do not have an objection.”
A sweeping elections bill the House passed last week, the SAVE America Act, included strict proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration and new photo-ID rules for casting ballots.
But it did not address voting by mail — even though Trump publicly called for a crackdown in a Truth Social post just three days before the vote: “NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!)”
Behind the scenes, the White House pushed to include language in the bill that would prohibit mail-in voting, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the issue. But that risked losing support from some Republicans and endangering the bill’s ability to pass the narrowly divided House, and it was ultimately left out.
A White House website touting the bill still lists “No Mail-in Ballots” as one of its features.
Asked about the discrepancy, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Trump “has repeatedly urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to ensure the safety and security of our elections.”
Several House Republicans said in interviews over the past week they sympathized with Trump’s push to crack down on mailed ballots, but many couched their words carefully. A number hail from states like Florida that have a long history of expansive mail voting and little evidence that the practice has been abused.
Even as the president pushed to curtail mailed ballots, the RNC and state Republican parties worked to take advantage of the practice during the 2024 campaign to increase voter turnout — and they are planning to do much the same in 2026.
Instead, many congressional Republicans insist that Trump is really targeting states like California, Oregon and Utah that conduct their elections almost entirely by mail. Others emphasize the need for exceptions, as Trump has acknowledged, for cases of illness, military service and other reasons they view as legitimate, as well as the other election changes Trump is backing.
“We have to be very cautious about mail-in-ballot voting,” Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) said in an interview. “But I think that if we get the registration process correct, then that’ll fix a lot of this.”
GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, who is running for governor in Florida, said his state’s laws should serve as a model for the country. Florida voters have to request a mail-in ballot and include identification. But there is no limitation on who can request a mail ballot along the lines of what Trump is proposing.