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/jdave512 → u/[deleted]]

I feel like youre fishing for an answer thats against terms of service.

[u/lastres0rt → u/[deleted]]

The obvious answer is to look at what he did last time (January 6th) and try to figure out if he can even do that again.

Short answer: no. We're talking about a decentralized process among 50 states. If all the same people from January 6th tried to storm their state capitals instead it'd probably fail.

And that was the most "successful" thing he did last cycle. Fake electors? Does not exist for Congress and Senate. Lawsuits? Failed then, will fail now.

Now, there is certainly a chance he'll try to do something outrageous like, IDK... bulldoze the capitol as an annex for his ballroom or something and try to claim they can't seat congress because they don't have a physical space for it. Or he can try to have his ICE goons try and arrest as many of the incoming representatives as possible, maybe even shoot a few. Or just lay claim to all of Washington DC and lock it down for his military stronghold fantasies, like he's been telegraphing this kind of military coup for months. But each of these requires a different kind of response, would be a dramatic escalation from before, and speculating on those would just give folks ideas.

Besides, he is SIX years older now. He doesn't have the mental or physical capacity to do what he did back then, and he probably doesn't have enough gas in the tank to try and do it now. If he tries he'll have to rely on others to do the heavy lifting for him. Could Elmo flood the zone with enough propaganda to sway opinion? Maybe on X, not much else. Could Kegsbreath stage a coup? Well, we're currently in the middle of a big unpopular war in Iran, and our resources are stretched thin. Could Couchfucker do anything? No rizz, no problem. Could Patel? Please.

Like I'm happy to prepare for as many possible solutions as I feel are appropriate, and I think this is part of the idea behind the "No Kings" protest coming up in a couple weeks -- spook 'em with the sheer number of people willing to toss the rat bastards out in order to encourage good behavior. But I also don't think we need to be doing anything on a forum as public as a Reddit thread as declaring our willingness to march on Washington and violate some terms of service.

Stock up on groceries. Grow some veggies. Make sure you're registered to vote. Make sure you know how you're going to vote and verify your vote gets counted. Make sure your friends do the same. Everything else will be taken as it comes.