by Steve Benen | Sep 15, 2026 | 2026 election, elections, Maddowblog
As a rule, the backgrounds of first-time state legislative candidates tend not to generate national headlines, but once in a while, there are important exceptions. Talking Points Memo reported this week:
The Republican nominee for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives marched alongside neo-Nazis at the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a new Talking Points Memo investigation can reveal.
Marshall Rawson — who won an upset victory in Florida’s District 10 Republican primary last month — attended the infamous Charlottesville rally, considered the largest white supremacist gathering in a generation, marching with the League of the South, a racist and antisemitic neo-Confederate group that advocates for the secession of southern states from the U.S.
The same TPM report noted that the Florida Republican had received campaign donations from “dozens of people with either established ties to white nationalist organizations or well-documented histories of extremist, racist activism,” and used to operate a pseudonymous social media account “that he used to advocate public lynchings.”
By way of an explanation, Rawson made no effort to contest the reporting. Rather, he described himself to TPM as having been “very active defending historical monuments,” adding that he doesn’t screen his campaign donors.
His written statement did not address his role at the Charlottesville rally.
The story comes just days after Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio fired his political director after learning that he had posted a photo of Nazi soldiers as his profile picture on Facebook.
That story came on the heels of Republican Rep. Mike Collins, the GOP’s Senate nominee in Georgia, parting ways with a staffer who shared images via social media earlier
by María Teresa Kumar | Sep 15, 2026 | elections, Opinion
Every election cycle, people ask me the same question: Why focus on Texas?
The answer is simple: Texas is home to one of the largest, most dynamic Latino electorates in the nation. Making up over 40% of the state’s population, Latinos are a driving force in shaping America’s civic future. Texas is also undergoing rapid demographic expansion, adding more than 950,000 voters between recent election cycles alone. This isn’t just a state to watch — it is a cornerstone of American democracy.
Yet, transforming demographic growth into lasting civic power requires intentional, on-the-ground engagement. Nationwide, 1 in 3 young voters is unregistered. In Texas, that gap is even wider, leaving 3 in 5 young adults off the voter rolls. Young people aren’t sitting out because they lack interest; they are deeply passionate about the issues shaping their lives, from student debt and climate change to good jobs and healthcare. But turning those priorities into policy requires fundamental first steps: registering to vote and establishing a concrete plan to cast a ballot.
Earlier this month, with less than 10 weeks before the election, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court voted to cut 92 polling locations.
Right now, more than 1.2 million Texas voters are sitting on what the state calls a “suspense list,” and in Travis County alone, that represents 16% of eligible voters. Being on that list doesn’t mean you can’t vote, but it does mean the system is putting an extra burden on you to prove you still belong on the rolls — a burden a lot of people don’t even know they’re carrying until they’re standing at the polls.
That is the urgency of
by Jordan Rubin | Sep 15, 2026 | Deadline: Legal Blog, elections, Supreme Court, White House
The Supreme Court on Monday denied the Trump administration’s bid to halt a Boston judge’s order that blocked the federal government from implementing mail-in ballot restrictions for the midterms.
Over dissent from Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the court issued a brief order that said the government “is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.”
It is the latest action from the high court ahead of the November elections, as the justices have weighed in on an array of election-related issues, including congressional redistricting, campaign advertising and ballot measures.
The administration argued that the restrictions, contained in a new rule from the U.S. Postal Service, impose “only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent via U.S. Mail.” It insisted that the rule regulates the mail, not elections.
A coalition of Democratic-led states maintained that the rule is unlawful and that complying with it “would be impossible” for some states and would lead to millions of voters being unable to vote by mail and others being unable to vote at all. In other states, the coalition said, it would produce “chaos” and “a significant risk that millions more voters would be denied the ability to vote.”
The League of Women Voters and other groups who also challenged the rule said that it “would disrupt the administration of mail voting mid-election and disenfranchise eligible voters nationwide, including voters in all-mail states like Colorado and Utah and elderly, rural, and disabled voters who must vote by mail.”
In a brief concurring
by Hunter Woodall | Sep 14, 2026 | elections, News
Kansas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932. But 50 days out from Election Day, Vice President JD Vance is spending Monday in a suburb of Kansas City campaigning for a Republican incumbent.
“We’re excited to do a fraud task force event in the Kansas City area, and then a campaign [event] with my very dear friend ‘Doc’ Marshall, who’s one of the very best United States senators, and very important that we get him re-elected,” Vance told reporters earlier on Monday.
Sen. Roger Marshall won his seat in 2020 after representing a sprawling House district across western Kansas. Democrats tried to make that race competitive by nominating Barbara Bollier, a state senator who had switched parties after years as a moderate Republican. She lost by 11 points.
Democrats argue that the ground has shifted since. In a midterm cycle that is turning into a referendum on President Donald Trump, they see an opening in a farm-heavy state where his policies carry real political risk.
Their candidate is Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist Church pastor making his first run for office.
“No amount of Washington politicians parachuting in to campaign for Roger Marshall will be able to save the senator from his flailing campaign and disastrous debate,” Glynnis Harvey, a Hamilton spokesperson, said in a statement ahead of Vance’s visit.
Kansas is not a conventional red state. It has voted Republican for president for decades, but the governor’s office changes hands regularly, and the state has a recent history of rewarding pragmatism. After tax cuts under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback pushed Kansas into deep fiscal dilemmas and split the GOP, Democrat Laura Kelly,
by Allison Detzel | Sep 14, 2026 | elections, News
Retired federal Judge J. Michael Luttig is sounding the alarm ahead of November’s midterm elections, warning that the country might be “sleepwalking” into another insurrection.
“That’s exactly what I envision, which is the next Jan. 6, 2021,” the conservative legal scholar told MS NOW. “This time, however, it will be Donald Trump and Mike Johnson refusing to peacefully transfer power to the next Congress of the United States.”
Luttig said that since retaking the White House, the president has been planning a “final battle in his war against America’s democracy” by seeking to “seize control” of the country’s electoral process despite having “no power or authority whatsoever” under the Constitution.
Lutting warned that even if Democrats overcome Trump’s attacks and win in November, it will not guarantee the party will be seated as the majority in the 120th Congress on Jan. 3.
“The House Republicans could still refuse to seat even a large Democratic majority-elect under the Constitution of the United States,” he said.
While the conservative legal scholar said high turnout and an overwhelming victory for Democrats would make it “much more difficult” for Trump and Johnson to essentially pull off a “coup,” he admitted that “it would not render their effort impossible at all.”
Luttig told MS NOW that his warning should hardly come as a shock to those who have been paying attention. He said Trump has been “as transparent as one could possibly be” about his intention not to accept defeat.
“A lot of historians and commentators said back in January of 2021 that America had been sleepwalking up to that point,” he added. “Well, if America’s sleepwalking up to this January 2027,
by Steve Benen | Sep 14, 2026 | 2026 election, elections, Maddowblog, White House
Debates over the threats posed by artificial intelligence have been raging for quite a while, but last week, the dam broke.
As Vox’s Andrew Prokop explained in a piece over the weekend, “This was the week that worries AI might kill us all finally went mainstream — captivating public attention and even starting to galvanize politicians into more aggressive stances. An unprecedented rogue AI incident, a high-profile resignation from a top AI company, and increased concern from tech researchers about AI improving itself too quickly to be contained, have all combined to draw a much louder response from elected leaders in both parties.”
The same day, the public learned of Barack Obama’s latest comments on the subject, including the former president’s concerns that without proper restrictions, AI technology could be “dangerous.” The Democrat, speaking a private fundraising event days earlier, urged Democrats to take the lead on AI guardrails, saying this should be among the party’s top priorities.
His Republican successor clearly doesn’t see the issue the same way.
Asked Thursday about potentially catastrophic AI risks and whether he has any concerns, Donald Trump told reporters, “No, I don’t have any.” Instead, the incumbent president characterized the broader issue as an international arms race he expects the United States to win.
“I have concerns that if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position,” the Republican added.
Later that day, Trump sat down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, who asked about possible “guardrails” to protect the public. The president responded with a long, meandering answer that included some insulting comments about Joe Biden, before eventually saying, “China doesn’t have guardrails,
