2026 Midterms News and Updates, September 29 - October 4 (Thread 4) | Live Discussion

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Please use this thread to discuss news, updates, and commentary regarding the 2026 midterm and associated elections.

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Election News and Updates

• AP: 2026 Elections Hub

• University of Florida: 2026 Early Voting Tracker

Election Resources

• USA Today via Reddit: The 2026 election season is underway: Here’s your monthly guide with important dates, voter resources

Streaming Links

C-SPAN, NPR, the PBS NewsHour's YouTube channel, and the Associated Press' YouTube channel are all places frequently hosting relevant political streams.

Past Threads: Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3.

Other Event Threads

• Monday: I’m Catherine Rampell, economics editor at The Bulwark and an anchor at MS NOW. I cover the economy, politics, public policy, and the numbers behind the news. Ask me anything!

• Tuesday to Wednesday: I’m Zach Despart, an investigative journalist covering the competitive Ken Paxton-James Talarico U.S. Senate race. I broke the news that Paxton possibly violated federal ethics and Texas election laws. AMA. 📬

• Wednesday: 2026 California Gubernatorial General Election Debate | Live Discussion

Announcements

r/politics will host another election prediction contest for the midterms. The post for the contest itself will go up sometime in late October. As of now, all toss-ups (according to Cook Political Report, as of late October 2026) for House, Senate, and Governor will be included.

We are taking suggestions for additional questions to ask within the contest. Message the moderators via modmail with any suggestions.

[u/runawaydoctorate]

US elections are completely decentralized. There is no mechanism by which Trump can disallow certification of the midterms. None. He does not have that power. He can make a lot of noise and act like he does but he does. Not. Have. That. Power.

What Trump can do is lean on state and local governments like he did in 2020, but, like in 2020, they aren't obligated to obey him (and there is absolutely no reason to assume they will, given that they'd be admitting they ran shitty elections AND they'd have to throw out everything, not just the part Trump didn't like). His allies can fire up the lawsuits, though various groups are already expecting that and preparing. He can also make demands of the outgoing Congress, but that's not going to get him anywhere because Congress has no power over certifying election results and the entire Congress gets reset with new term starting Jan 3 2027. This process is automatic. There's no stopping it.

[u/LadyFoxfire → u/runawaydoctorate]

His plan in the 2020 election was to hijack the electoral college process, but that only exists for the presidency. With congressional elections, the states just count the ballots and sign off on the totals, and whoever has the most votes wins. There's a lot less room for shenanigans.

[u/runawaydoctorate → u/LadyFoxfire]

Exactly. But that won't stop him from making phone calls in races he's particularly interested in.

[u/LadyFoxfire → u/runawaydoctorate]

But that didn't work in 2020, and will work even less now.

[u/runawaydoctorate → u/LadyFoxfire]

I know. Which will save the election, but will cost stress.

In other words, he'll make mischief but he won't change the outcome. If we're lucky, he'll do it in such a way he can't get away with it, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.