2026年9月8日09:00:29.125Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
上周五，堪萨斯州的共和党现任参议员罗杰·马歇尔罕见地采取了一项行动：针对其民主党对手投放攻击广告。
四个月前，牧师亚当·汉密尔顿宣布竞选该席位时，胜算看起来微乎其微。该州近一个世纪以来从未选出过民主党参议员，而且唐纳德·特朗普总统在其所有竞选活动中都至少以14个百分点的优势赢得了这里。
但随着传统的劳动节后中期选举冲刺阶段拉开帷幕，汉密尔顿表现得十分乐观。
“民众都非常沮丧，”汉密尔顿在一次采访中说道，他回忆起最近与一位79岁老人的对话，对方递给自己一张卡车柴油收据并告诉他，“这就是我为什么要投票给你的原因。”
从费城郊区到加利福尼亚州中央谷，这样的故事正提振着民主党人的希望：他们不仅能拿下众议院多数席位，还能通过在共和党领地开展强势竞选，拿下参议院的多数席位。如果成功，民主党既能在特朗普总统任期的最后两年对其形成重要制衡，也能在为下一届总统选举做准备之际，修复本党受损严重的形象。
共和党人承认，作为在赢得白宫并掌控华盛顿两党控制权两年后执政的政党，他们正面临历史性的逆风。而特朗普发动的对伊朗战争更是雪上加霜，加剧了早已是选民最关切问题的生活成本危机。
但随着11月的中期选举对阵格局基本敲定，共和党人也有理由感到乐观：他们在资金上占据优势，特朗普正加大力度动员本党基础选民，而全国各地民主社会主义者的崛起也让他们希望将此打造成民主党整体的一项负资产。
“我的竞选和其他所有人的竞选议题都将是一样的，”威斯康星州众议员德里克·范·奥尔登在采访中表示，“民众正逐渐意识到，民主党不再是民主党——它已经成了美国民主社会主义者政党。”
支持特朗普的超级政治行动委员会“MAGA Inc.”本周末加大了行动力度，开始动用其超过4亿美元的中期选举竞选资金，这对处境脆弱的共和党人来说是一个备受期待的时刻。
从周三开始，共和党人将齐聚达拉斯参加一场不同寻常的中期选举大会，预计特朗普将成为大会的主导人物。他计划在两天的活动中发表演讲，共和党全国委员会主席乔·格鲁特斯将这次大会宣传为“特朗普狂欢节”。
民主党人并未对共和党人的行动坐视不理。众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯将率领众议院民主党代表团前往达拉斯，与这次大会形成抗衡。据普利茨克的发言人莉亚·赫尔维茨透露，伊利诺伊州州长JB·普利茨克——一位潜在的2028年总统候选人——也将前往达拉斯，帮助得州民主党人展开反击。
借着这次大会的契机，特朗普承诺将在选举最后30天周游全国为共和党助选，重点关注他认为将决定国会控制权的35场竞选。
尽管特朗普在全国范围内不受欢迎，但他成为中期选举的核心人物，这让民主党人兴奋不已，同时也让处于竞争选区的共和党人纠结于应该在多大程度上与他绑定。
“这将是一场奇观，”加利福尼亚州民主党州长加文·纽森周六在北卡罗来纳州对记者说道，他用讽刺的语气称赞特朗普的中期选举计划，“他是一位历史性总统——在历史上不受欢迎的总统。”
“特朗普总统不在选票上，”密歇根州共和党众议员汤姆·巴雷特表示，他不打算参加这次大会，“我在选票上，我的对手也在选票上，这就是民众将要面临的选择。”
民主党人需要在众议院拿下数个席位才能赢得多数席位，而他们拿下参议院多数席位的道路则更为艰难。他们需要净增四个席位，其中包括一些倾向共和党的州的席位，同时还要捍卫自己目前掌握的一些竞争席位。
民主党人普遍认为，他们拿下参议院席位的最佳机会在缅因州、北卡罗来纳州和俄亥俄州，其次是在更具挑战的地区，包括阿拉斯加州、艾奥瓦州和得克萨斯州。
“民主党有六个核心进攻机会，我们仍在扩大竞选版图，迫使共和党人仓促防守深红州，随着11月临近，我们有多条路径可以赢得多数席位，”民主党参议院竞选委员会执行主任德文·巴伯在一份声明中说道。
但民主党也面临挑战。在密歇根州，民主党人提名了进步派候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德，而参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默更看好众议员黑利·史蒂文斯，认为他更具胜选可能性。在新罕布什尔州，民主党人需要防守前参议员约翰·E·苏努努这位实力强劲的知名共和党候选人。尽管民主党人对佐治亚州参议员乔恩·奥索夫的连任竞选势头感到鼓舞，但他仍在寻求连任，而该州在2024年大选中以2个百分点的优势支持特朗普。
在争夺众议院多数席位的斗争中，民主党人不断将越来越多的深红选区纳入目标名单。但他们需要防守的2024年特朗普获胜席位，仍比共和党需要守住的特朗普失利席位要多。
“他们是在我们的地盘上行动，”美国国家共和党国会委员会发言人迈克·马里内拉说道。
特朗普花费数月推动的全国选区重划计划，也让共和党人有希望遏制失利势头。但民主党人看到政治环境已对特朗普产生反感，认为即便经过重划的选区也存在变数，比如共和党在以拉丁裔为主的南得克萨斯州重新划分的选区。
路透社/益普索最近的一项民调显示，选民在通用国会选票问题上以5个百分点的优势支持民主党。他们对特朗普执政表现的不支持率高出25个百分点，对他处理经济问题的不支持率更高。
对民主党人来说，中期选举的战略很简单：回应民众日益高涨的经济不满情绪，包括那些2024年曾投票支持特朗普但如今感到被背叛的选民。
“我几乎每天都能听到‘水深火热’这个词，”密歇根州民主党众议员克里斯汀·麦克唐纳·里维特说道，“我选区的家庭正深陷困境，现在的情况比两年前糟糕得多。”
麦克唐纳·里维特所在的密歇根州中部选区是传统的摇摆选区，2024年仅以2个百分点的优势支持特朗普。但民主党人也在其他地区发现了机会，比如肯塔基州第6国会选区，该选区以15个百分点的优势支持特朗普。
该选区的民主党候选人、前联邦检察官扎克·登博表示，经济负担问题在肯塔基州中部选区“被高度聚焦”。他指出，肯塔基州是密西西比河以东养牛最多的州，因此特朗普最近降低对外国牛肉生产商关税的决定对该州影响尤其大。
“这场竞选本质上不是民主党对共和党，”登博在采访中说道，“这是变革对现状。”
在许多竞争激烈的选战中，民主党人知道他们需要与本党的全国形象划清界限——该党的民调表现通常比共和党更差，如今在一定程度上还被等同于纽约市市长佐赫兰·曼达尼等民主社会主义者。
例如，汉密尔顿表示他支持“坚固且安全的边境”，称前总统乔·拜登在该问题上是一场“灾难”。
“当堪萨斯州民众想到全国民主党人时，他们想到的是美国民主社会主义者组织，”汉密尔顿说道，“有人问我，‘你是社会主义者还是共产主义者？’我的回答是，‘不，我是有独立想法的民主党人。’”
民主党形象在少数几场竞选面临尤其大的压力，在这些选战中，独立候选人正在共和党掌控的席位上展开强势竞选。在其中一些竞选中，民主党候选人已经退出，以便给独立候选人更好的获胜机会。
内布拉斯加州就是一个突出例子。在上周的首次辩论中，共和党参议员皮特·里基茨多次将其独立对手丹·奥斯本贴上“民主党人丹”的标签，而奥斯本则坚称如果当选，他不会与任何一个党团结盟。
经济问题对共和党来说更为敏感，他们需要体谅选民的担忧，同时还要应对特朗普坚持继续发动战争的立场。特朗普周三表示，在考虑结束战争时，他“不受中期选举的影响”。
共和党人在战争问题上基本团结在特朗普身后，但有时也会流露出不耐烦。众议院议长迈克·约翰逊最近表示，如果能在中期选举前结束战争“将是件好事”，但如果做不到，共和党人“可以解释为什么这是必要的，为什么我们必须完成任务”。
曾是海军海豹突击队队员的范·奥尔登表示，如果伊朗获得核武器，后果将是灾难性的。
“当我向民众解释这一点时，他们都说，‘哦，我明白了’，”范·奥尔登说道，他将在中期选举大会上发表演讲，“我还提醒他们，尤其是我的民主党同事和许多媒体人士，我们现在一加仑汽油的价格仍比拜登政府时期低。我们确实如此。”
少数处于竞争选区的共和党人已经通过支持限制特朗普战争权力的决议，与战争问题保持距离。巴雷特就是其中之一，他表示作为一名有22年服役经历的陆军老兵，他“对长期战争的性质非常敏感”。
“我没有动摇，这是我非常坚定的立场，我将按照自己的良知投票，”巴雷特说道。
特朗普有惩罚党内批评者的癖好，但在一些处境艰难的共和党人与他保持距离之际，他基本保持了克制。副总统JD·万斯周四表示，他理解一些候选人可能为了专注于“当地”事务而选择不参加大会。
白宫更愿意将中期选举变成一场对民主党人的公投，称他们已经过于左倾。
在一些关键的众议院竞选中，民主党选民提名了全国性团体担心过于激进、难以在大选中获胜的候选人。巴雷特的对手威尔·劳伦斯就是其中之一——CNN周五报道称，他的社交媒体账号上有数百条已删除的帖子，内容包括支持废除警察和监狱等。作为“日出运动”的联合创始人，劳伦斯表示他不再支持解散警察，并对自己过去的一些言论表示后悔。
共和党人还从全国性委员会账户中更充裕的资金中看到了乐观理由。共和党全国委员会7月底手头有1.3亿美元现金，而民主党全国委员会仅有1600万美元存款，还背负着1800万美元的债务。
今年6月最高法院一项裁决取消了政党委员会与竞选团队之间协调支出的限制，使得这些资金的重要性愈发凸显。美国国家共和党国会委员会已经利用这项裁决为至少20名候选人预留了协调广告资金，而其民主党 counterparts则在利用这一机会方面行动较为迟缓。
不过，直到本周末，人们仍不清楚处于摇摆选区的共和党人是否也能指望“MAGA Inc.”出手相助。但该超级政治行动委员会周六披露将在得克萨斯州参议院竞选中投入1000万美元，这一问题有了答案——民主党候选人詹姆斯·塔莱里科的筹款额已远超共和党州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿，差距近6000万美元。
特朗普周五暗示，他手头掌握着近10亿美元的外部资金，并计划将其中一半用于中期选举。
“我们将投入大量资金，因为我们不想失去我们的国家，”特朗普在椭圆形办公室对记者说道。
共和党人还希望特朗普在竞选活动中加大活动力度，能重新激活他2024年的选民基础，即便这会让处境脆弱的现任议员陷入尴尬境地。
在最近一次共和党犹太联盟的会议上，北卡罗来纳州参议院共和党候选人迈克尔·沃特利估计，该州有多达25万选民曾在总统选举中为特朗普投票，但在中期选举中弃权。“这样的投票率绝对至关重要，”沃特利说道。
一位参与摇摆选区众议院竞选的共和党策略师也同意，共和党选民的投票率是一个重大问题，但他表示解决办法必须“比特朗普外出竞选更深入”。
“人们必须更乐观地认为经济状况正在好转，”这位策略师说道，他补充称白宫缺乏“关于经济何时好转的明确信息”。
特朗普因素并不是选举前最后两个月唯一的重大变量。
两党都在紧急应对选民对数据中心及其资源消耗日益高涨的愤怒。在内华达州州长这场重磅竞选中，共和党现任州长乔·隆巴多和民主党对手、州总检察长亚伦·福特互相投放电视广告，指责对方与该行业关系过于密切。
“数据中心推高了我们的成本，但乔·隆巴多不在乎，”福特在一则广告中说道，该广告重播了隆巴多5月份“全心全意支持数据中心”的言论。
（和许多共和党州长一样，隆巴多也要求数据中心承担责任，避免给当地资源造成压力。）
候选人未来几周还将围绕是否举行辩论、以及辩论形式展开拉锯。缅因州参议员苏珊·柯林斯和民主党挑战者特洛伊·杰克逊似乎已敲定10月举行四场辩论，这场选举至关重要；但其他竞选则存在更多不确定性，比如俄亥俄州州长竞选，民主党候选人艾米·阿克顿周三表示，她无意与共和党候选人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米辩论。
还有一个悬而未决的问题：尽管最近有关外部支出的猜测大多集中在支持特朗普的团体，但与以色列支持者、加密货币和人工智能行业结盟的超级政治行动委员会仍持有数亿美元资金，这些资金可能会影响选举结果。
选民未来几周还将看到更多潜在的2028年候选人露面，尤其是民主党人，他们希望向本党证明自己的价值，并在国会中建立新的盟友。
前交通部长皮特·布蒂吉格仅在9月就计划访问至少六个州。宾夕法尼亚州州长乔希·夏皮罗预计将继续大力开展竞选活动，帮助拿下该州四个众议院席位，同时他自己也在寻求连任。前副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯预计将加大为候选人助选的出行力度，即便一些共和党倾向地区的候选人表示不欢迎她的支持。
哈里斯周四在一次电视采访中对这种冷落不以为然，她告诉MS NOW：“我支持他们为获胜所做的任何努力。”
周四，被广泛视为2028年共和党提名实际领跑者的万斯向所有共和党人呼吁，聚焦中期选举——此前包括得州参议员特德·克鲁兹在内的一些人已经引发了关于其总统抱负的猜测。
麦克唐纳·里维特表示，在最后冲刺阶段她不会掉以轻心，即便她所在选区的共和党人提名了相对不知名的候选人汤姆·史密斯，而非特朗普支持的对手。
“我认为这次选举的结果会比大多数人想象的更接近，”她说，“我们必须为每一张选票而努力，一直全力以赴到11月。”
Democrats enter the midterms looking to conquer red territory
2026-09-08T09:00:29.125Z / CNN
On Friday, Sen. Roger Marshall took a rare step for a Republican incumbent running in Kansas: launching an attack ad against his Democratic rival.
When pastor Adam Hamilton launched his campaign for the seat four months ago, the odds seemed long. The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly a century, and President Donald Trump has won it by at least 14 percentage points in all his campaigns.
But as the traditional post-Labor Day sprint to the midterms begins, Hamilton is optimistic.
“People are very frustrated,” Hamilton said in an interview, recalling a recent conversation with a 79-year-old man who handed him a receipt for diesel for his truck and told him, “This is why I’m voting for you.”
From the suburbs of Philadelphia to California’s Central Valley, such stories are fueling Democratic hopes that they can not only flip the House but also capture the majority in the Senate by running strong campaigns in GOP territory. If successful, Democrats would both provide a consequential check on President Donald Trump for his final two years in office and begin to repair their party’s tattered brand as they prepare for the next presidential election.
Republicans acknowledge they face historical headwinds as the party in power two years after winning the White House and capturing unified control of Washington. And Trump has not helped by starting a war with Iran that has exacerbated a cost-of-living crisis that was already on the top of voters’ minds.
But with November’s midterm matchups largely set, the GOP sees cause for optimism in their financial advantage, Trump’s increasing efforts to galvanize the party’s base and the rise of democratic socialists across the country, whom they hope to make a liability for Democrats writ large.
“The issues are going to be the same in my race and everybody else’s,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin said in an interview. “People are waking up to the fact that the Democratic Party is no longer the Democratic Party – it’s the Democratic Socialists of America party.”
The GOP push ramped up this weekend as the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. began tapping into its $400 million-plus war chest for the midterms, a highly anticipated moment for vulnerable Republicans.
Starting Wednesday, Republicans are set to gather in Dallas for an unusual midterm convention that is expected to be dominated by Trump. He is scheduled to speak on both nights, and the Republican National Committee chairman, Joe Gruters, has hyped the gathering as “Trumpapalooza.”
Democrats are not letting the Republican ramp-up go unanswered. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is sending a delegation of House Democrats to Dallas to counter the convention. And Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, is also heading to the city to help Texas Democrats push back, according to a Pritzker spokeswoman, Leah Hurwitz.
Building off the convention, Trump has promised to spend the final 30 days of the election crisscrossing the country for his party, targeting 35 races that he believes will determine control of Congress.
Trump’s emergence as a main character in the midterms, despite his unpopularity across the country, has excited Democrats and left Republicans in competitive districts weighing how closely to tie themselves to him.
“It’ll be spectacular,” California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters Saturday in North Carolina, sarcastically praising Trump’s midterm plans. “He’s an historic president – historically unpopular.”
“President Trump is not on the ballot,” GOP Rep. Tom Barrett of Michigan, who does not plan to attend the convention, said in an interview. “I’m on the ballot and my opponent is on the ballot, and that’s the choice people are going to be faced with.”
Democrats need to flip a few seats in the House to win the majority, while their path to controlling the upper chamber is harder. They would need to net four seats, including some in Republican-leaning states, while defending a few competitive seats they already hold.
Democrats generally agree their best opportunities to pick up Senate seats are in Maine, North Carolina and Ohio, and then in tougher territory including Alaska, Iowa and Texas.
“Democrats have six core offensive opportunities and we are still expanding the map, forcing Republicans to scramble to defend deep red states as we head into November with multiple paths to win the majority,” Devan Barber, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement.
The map is not without its challenges for Democrats. In Michigan, Democrats nominated progressive Abdul El-Sayed over the opposition of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who saw Rep. Haley Stevens as more electable. And in New Hampshire, Democrats are playing defense against a strong and well-known GOP candidate in former Sen. John E. Sununu. And while Democrats are encouraged by the strength of Sen. Jon Ossoff’s reelection campaign in Georgia, he is still seeking another term in a state that Trump won by 2 percentage points in 2024.
In the fight for House majority, Democrats continue to add redder and redder districts to their target list. But they still have to defend more seats won by President Donald Trump in 2024 than Republicans have to hold on to seats he lost.
“They’re operating on our turf,” said Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The nationwide redistricting effort that Trump spent months waging has also given Republicans hope they can stem their losses. But Democrats, seeing a political landscape that has revolted against Trump, believe even some of the redrawn seats are in play, such as those that Republicans reconfigured in predominantly Latino South Texas.
In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, voters said they favored Democrats over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot by 5 percentage points. They disapproved of Trump’s job performance by a 25-point margin and his handling of the economy by even more.
For Democrats, the strategy for the midterms is simple: speak to the mounting economic frustrations of voters, including those who took a chance on Trump in 2024 but now feel betrayed.
“The word that I hear almost daily is ‘drowning,’” said Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan. “Families in my district are drowning, and it is so much worse for them now than it was two years ago.”
McDonald Rivet’s district in Central Michigan is a traditional battleground district, voting for Trump by just 2% in 2024. But Democrats are also finding opportunity in places such as Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, which supported Trump by 15 points.
The Democratic nominee there, former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo, said the issue of affordability is “hyperfocused” in the Central Kentucky district. Kentucky raises the most cattle east of the Mississippi River, he noted, making it especially impacted by Trump’s recent decision to lower tariffs on foreign beef producers.
“Really this race is not a Democrat versus Republican,” Dembo said in an interview. “It’s about change versus the status quo.”
In many competitive races, Democrats know they need to separate themselves from a national party brand that often polls worse than the GOP and has now become equated, in part, with democratic socialists such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Hamilton, for example, said he is for “strong and secure borders,” calling former President Joe Biden a “disaster” on the issue.
“When people in Kansas think about national Democrats, they think about the DSA,” Hamilton said. “I’ve been asked, ‘Are you a socialist or communist?’ My answer is, ‘No, I’m an independent-minded Democrat.’”
The Democratic brand is especially under pressure in a handful of races where independents are running strong campaigns for Republican-held seats. In some of those contests, the Democratic nominees have stepped aside to give the independents a better shot.
Nebraska is a prominent example. During their first debate last week, GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts repeatedly labeled his independent opponent, Dan Osborn, as “Democrat Dan” as Osborn insisted he would not caucus with either party if elected.
The economy is a far more sensitive issue for Republicans, who have to sympathize with voters’ concerns while grappling with Trump’s insistence on continuing the war. Trump said Wednesday he was “not affected” by the midterms when considering an end to the war.
Republicans have mostly remained united behind Trump on the war, though their impatience has shown at times. House Speaker Mike Johnson recently said that it would be “great” if the war would end before the midterms, but if not, Republicans “can explain why that was necessary, why we had to complete the job.”
Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL, said the consequences would be disastrous if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon.
“When I explain that to folks, they’re like, ‘Oh, I got it,’” said Van Orden, who is set to speak at the midterm convention. “And I also remind them, especially my Democratic colleagues and many people in the media, that we’re still not paying as much money for a gallon of gas as we did under Biden. We’re not.”
A few Republicans in competitive races have distanced themselves from the war by supporting resolutions to limit Trump’s war powers. Among them is Barrett, who said he is “very sensitive to the nature of prolonged war” as a 22-year Army veteran.
“I haven’t budged and this is something I feel very strongly about and I’m going to vote my conscience,” Barrett said.
Trump, who has a penchant for punishing intraparty critics, has largely held back as some Republicans in tough races have sought daylight with him. And Vice President JD Vance suggested Thursday that he understood if some candidates wanted to skip the convention to focus on “local” matters.
The White House would much rather make the midterms a referendum on Democrats who they say have lurched too far to the left.
In some key House races, Democratic voters picked nominees that national groups worry are too liberal to win in the general election. Barrett’s opponent, Will Lawrence, is one of those candidates – and CNN reported Friday about hundreds of deleted social media posts where he backed the abolition of police and prisons, among other things. Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, said he no longer supports defunding the police and regretted some of his past remarks.
Republicans are also drawing optimism from a larger stockpile of money in their national committee accounts. The Republican National Committee ended July with $130 million cash on hand, while the Democratic National Committee had $16 million in the bank, along with $18 million in debt.
That money is more relevant than ever after a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down limits on coordinated spending between party committees and campaigns. The National Republican Congressional Committee has already taken advantage of the ruling by reserving coordinated ads for at least 20 candidates, while the NRCC’s Democratic counterpart has been slower to capitalize.
Up until this weekend, however, it was unclear whether Republicans in battleground seats could also count on MAGA Inc. to come to the rescue. But the super PAC began answering that question Saturday when it disclosed $10 million in spending on the Texas Senate race where Democratic nominee James Talarico has vastly outraised Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by nearly $60 million.
Trump suggested Friday he had almost $1 billion in outside money at his disposal and planned to spend as much as half of it on the midterms.
“We’re going to spend a lot of money because we don’t want to lose our country,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Republicans also hope Trump’s increased activity on the campaign trail reactivates his 2024 voters, even if it puts vulnerable incumbents in an awkward position.
At a recent meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, the GOP nominee for Senate in North Carolina, Michael Whatley, estimated that his state had as many as 250,000 voters who have turned out for Trump in presidential elections but sat out the midterms. “That turnout is absolutely essential,” Whatley said.
One Republican strategist working on a battleground House race agreed that Republican turnout is a major issue but said the solution to the problem has to be “much deeper” than Trump hitting the road.
“I think there has to be more optimism that things are getting better” economically, the strategist said, adding that the White House lacks a “clear message” about when that will happen.
The Trump factor is not the only major variable heading into the final two months before the election.
Both parties are scrambling to respond to voters’ rising anger at data centers and the resources they consume. In the blockbuster race for governor in Nevada, GOP incumbent Joe Lombardo and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Aaron Ford, have traded TV ads accusing one another of being too cozy with the industry.
“Data centers are raising our costs, but Joe Lombardo doesn’t care,” Ford says in one ad that replays Lombardo saying in May that he is “wholeheartedly in support of data centers.”
(Lombardo, like many GOP governors confronting the issue, has demanded data centers take responsibility for not straining local resources.)
Candidates will also spend the coming weeks haggling over whether to debate — and if so, how much. While Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson appear set for four debates in October in their all-important race in Maine, there is more uncertainty in other contests, such as the contest for Ohio governor, where Democrat Amy Acton indicated Wednesday she was not interested in debating Republican Vivek Ramaswamy.
And, in another open question, while much of the recent speculation about outside spending has focused on pro-Trump groups, super PACs aligned with Israel supporters and the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industries are still sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars that could shape races.
Voters can also expect to see more of potential 2028 candidates in the coming weeks, especially Democrats, as they work to show their usefulness to the party and build new allies in Congress.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to visit at least six states in September alone. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is expected to continue campaigning heavily to flip four House seats in his state as he runs for reelection himself. And former Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to step up her travel for candidates, even as some in GOP-leaning territory have said they would not welcome her support.
Harris shrugged off their snubbing in a TV interview Thursday, telling MS NOW, “I support them in doing whatever they need to do to win.”
Addressing reporters Thursday, Vance, widely seen as the de facto frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2028, urged all Republicans to focus on the midterms as some of them, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have stirred buzz about their White House ambitions.
McDonald Rivet said she was taking nothing for granted in the final stretch, even after Republicans in her district nominated a relatively unknown candidate, Tom Smith, over a Trump-backed rival.
“I think that this is going to be closer than most people think,” she said. “I think that we are going to have to work for every single vote and run hard all the way through November.”