by Allison Detzel | Nov 13, 2026 | Congress, elections, News
Back in the Columbus High School gym where he once played basketball, Mississippi’s Democratic Sen.-elect Scott Colom sat down with MS NOW’s Symone Sanders Townsend to reflect on the hard-fought campaign behind his historic win and revealed where he stands on Chuck Schumer’s bid for Senate majority leader.
On Wednesday, more than a week after Election Day, The Associated Press officially declared Colom the winner in what was perhaps the midterm’s most stunning upset. Although Schumer said he personally recruited Colom, the underdog’s victory against Republican incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith came despite a noticeable lack of support or major financial investment from the national Democratic Party.
Following his victory, Colom told Sanders Townsend he spoke to Schumer and “thanked him for his part in making this happen.” He said he believed Schumer understood the importance of Democrats securing viable candidates in the South, but he pushed back on the suggestion that the senator personally recruited him to run.
“There’s steps forward, but there’s also potential for steps back. And we got to make sure we don’t take more steps backwards than we do forward,” Colom said.
“It’s not accurate to say he recruited me, though, because the people of Mississippi recruited me,” Colom said. “You think I was listening to somebody that lives in Brooklyn when I was deciding to run for United States Senate? No, I listened to the people of Mississippi.”
When Sanders Townsend asked Colom about whether he believed Schumer or other national Democrats should be “taking credit” for his win, the senator-elect said he had to be “careful about talking too much about the past.” There’s “no benefit to it,” he
by Mychael Schnell | Nov 13, 2026 | Congress, News
Sen. Chris Van Hollen is launching a bid for Senate majority leader, the Maryland Democrat announced Thursday evening on MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
“I am planning to run for the Senate majority leader, and let me tell you why,” Van Hollen told Psaki in a wide-ranging interview.
Become an MS NOW Member here to watch Jen’s full, exclusive interview with Sen. Chris Van Hollen live tonight at 9 p.m. ET in the MS NOW app.
“This is not about any one individual, but it is about answering the call of the American people,” he said. “We saw a huge outburst of democracy on Election Day — red states, blue states, purple states — and it wasn’t only a rejection of Donald Trump and his corruption and his wars and his cruelty, it was also about a call for a larger change to take on a broken economic system that’s rigged in favor of the very wealthy against working people, led by a corrupt political system.”
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Strategist says Sanders announcing he won’t support Schumer for Majority Leader is ‘seismic’
November 10, 2026 / 07:34
Voters, Van Hollen said, sent a message on Election Day to “reject the status quo and to reject business as usual.”
“And to do that, I think we need new leadership,” he said.
The bid sets up a direct challenge to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a Capitol Hill institution who has led Senate Democrats for nearly a decade and has held a position in the party’s leadership for more than three decades. The election will take place in December.
Asked what had changed from last weekend, when Van Hollen suggested he was not particularly
by Doug Bock Clark | Nov 13, 2026 | 2026 Elections, elections, News, Voter Suppression, Voting Rights
Ahead of the midterms, conservative election activists discussed plans to wield a powerful new weapon in the war against fraud: a data tool built by one of their own that could identify suspicious voters and help with contesting their ballots. The system was put to the test this week in Forsyth County, Georgia, where a member of the county’s election board provided other officials with what…
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by Sydney Carruth | Nov 13, 2026 | Business, Donald Trump, News
Prediction market giant Kalshi has ended its advisory contract with President Donald Trump’s eldest son after his venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, made a significant investment in the prediction market’s chief rival, Polymarket.
“We have mutually agreed to end Don’s advisory role after his firm’s significant investment in a competitor this past summer,” Kalshi spokesperson Dani Lever said in a statement to MS NOW, adding that the company is “grateful” for his early marketing help.
Discussions about ending Donald Trump Jr.’s advisory role at the company began in August, after 1789 Capital made a major investment in Polymarket, according to a person familiar with the decision-making process who spoke to MS NOW on background. This person was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the decision publicly.
Kalshi officials and Trump Jr. spoke about his firm’s investment and his position on Polymarket’s advisory board this fall, according to the person familiar with the process. They reached a decision to end Trump Jr.’s contractual involvement after mutually concluding that his role as an adviser to both prediction market giants in the rapidly evolving industry is a conflict of interest.
Trump Jr. previously served on the advisory boards of both Kalshi and Polymarket. He holds a large volume of shares in Kalshi, while his venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, has invested heavily in Polymarket. He has publicly denied that his ties to the companies have influenced the Trump administration’s aggressive support for the platforms and or its position in legal disputes involving the industry and numerous states.
Trump Jr. and 1789 Capital did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
In an interview
by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours | Nov 13, 2026 | Asylum Seekers, Canada, Deportation, Deportations, Donald Trump, Human Rights, ICE, immigration, News, Refugees, Safe Third Country Agreement, Trump Administration
Canada is violating its own constitution by turning asylum seekers away at the border with the United States, where they face serious threats under U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian legal experts and rights advocates say. Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and the Canadian Council of Churches are in court this week to challenge a decades-old pact that allows…
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