San Diego Union-Tribune Politics

By GARY FIELDS WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Monday complicated President Donald Trump’s efforts to plow forward on construction of a memorial arch, setting multiple notification deadlines before any work can begin. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration plans, said she must be told of any decision by the National Capital Planning Commission within an hour. The order set the same time limits for any decision by the National Park Service

By MICHAEL CASEY BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against Harvard University over its alleged failure to provide admissions records that the Justice Department had demanded to ensure the Ivy League school stopped using affirmative action in admissions. The Justice Department said Harvard had “thwarted” efforts to investigate potential discrimination. It accused Harvard of refusing to comply with a federal investigation and asked a judge to order the university to turn

Election Day is here for the 2026 gubernatorial general election, and there’s still time to vote if you haven’t already. Here’s what to know and expect Tuesday. What’s being decided? Depending on where they live, voters will face decisions on a number of statewide and local ballot measures, as well as candidate races for various leadership positions in California, San Diego County and various cities. California voters will elect a new governor on Tuesday and decide a handful of House races that

By CYBELE MAYES-OSTERMAN CHICAGO (AP) — The former head of the FBI’s Chicago field office says he lost his job after being wrongly blamed for prosecutions that fell apart against six people who protested the federal immigration crackdown in the city, according to a lawsuit he filed Monday. Douglas DePodesta, a 24-year veteran of the FBI, says in the suit against top Justice Department officials that federal prosecutors pushed “politically motivated prosecutions” against Chicago’s demonstrators b

By Hayley Harding for Votebeat In the middle of March, Barb Mullaly wasn’t thinking much about elections. She was thinking about how it was allegedly going to be spring any day now, and yet it was still 30 degrees outside in Elk Rapids, her village on the shore of Grand Traverse Bay in Northern Michigan. She was thinking about the upcoming village council meeting in which she and her fellow council members would be criticized about a short-term rental ordinance. And now she was distracted, think

Ray Suarez for The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Capital and Main An estimated 36 million Latino adults are eligible to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. In the 2024 election, Democrats were shocked to see those voters, especially men, choose Donald Trump by the highest margins Latino voters had given a Republican in decades (Trump won an outright majority of Latino men, but Kamala Harris still edged him in Latino women). As Nov. 3 draws near, Ray Suarez for The Economic Hardship

By Geoff Hing for The Marshall Project Arizona is one of a half dozen states with voter ID measures on the upcoming November ballot. The state-level push echoes proposed federal legislation championed by President Donald Trump that would have required showing a passport, or a birth certificate and government-issued photo identification in person to register to vote. That federal bill, which would have also required photo ID to cast a ballot, ultimately failed to pass in the Senate. Arizona’s pro

The urgent need for childcare businesses near San Diego’s job centers is prompting the City Council to take the unusual step of trying to override a county ban on new childcare businesses in a large swath of the city. Aiming to spur such businesses in University City, Mira Mesa, Clairemont, Kearny Mesa and parts of Sorrento Valley, the council voted 6-0 last week to launch a multi-step effort required to overturn the ban. The controversy began in May when the council voted unanimously to allow n

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and STEVE PEOPLES, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than 24 hours before polls opened across America, Democrats on Monday fought to stay focused on the economy and move past intraparty infighting in the Midwest, while President Donald Trump promoted construction projects in Washington and cast his Democratic opponents as dangerous radicals. The dueling closing messages came as the nation’s two major parties battled for control of Congress and key governors&#8217

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, COREY WILLIAMS and MIKE HOUSEHOLDER, Associated Press YPSILANTI, Mich. (AP) — Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and fellow Michigan Democrats scrambled on Monday to refocus attention on turning out voters for Election Day after his former primary rival stunned the party by endorsing the Republican candidate in one of the country’s most closely watched races. The final push before Tuesday’s midterms followed a dramatic Sunday, when Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Mik

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a push for California to set aside thousands of mail ballots from people President Donald Trump’s administration claims are noncitizens, a decision that comes on the eve of the pivotal midterm elections. The high court refused to intervene in a case involving 20,000 people the Republican administration flagged as likely noncitizens on the largely Democratic state’s voter rolls. It was the latest in a flurry of election-

By JOSHUA GOODMAN and JIM MUSTIAN PETERSBURG, Alaska (AP) — In the sleepy Alaskan fishing community of Petersburg, nobody has seen Dan J. Sullivan for weeks. His rustic home stood dark a day after FBI agents visited friends who donated to his quixotic campaign to unseat the Republican senator with the same first and last name — Dan S. Sullivan. The only display of politics at his home was a yard sign from the League of Women Voters: “Stand Up for Democracy: Vote 2026.” What may have begun as a p

By STEVEN SLOAN WASHINGTON (AP) — For President Donald Trump, this week’s elections are about him. For his fellow Republicans, the risk is voters will agree. Midterms almost always serve as a referendum on the president’s party, and losses typically ensue. But Trump’s decisions to impose tariffs, start a war and oversee extravagant Washington renovations — largely without congressional consultation — have made it harder for Republicans to navigate those historical headwinds. There is a direct co

By MARC LEVY, MIKE CATALINI, JOHN HANNA and CALVIN WOODWARD The stakes in Tuesday’s midterm elections are so high that Shane Dunn voted for the first time in his life, at age 65. After a career as a cook up and down the East Coast, Dunn moved to the Philadelphia suburbs and voted last week in Levittown. “I was always a busy man,” he said outside his polling place. But now, “I’m learning what’s going on within our country, and this is actually what brought me out.” Democrats got his vote. “It fee

By SARAH RAZA SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has made $15 billion worth of promises to agriculture producers in the last few weeks before the midterm elections, initiatives intended to help offset higher costs for diesel and fertilizer that farmers have endured largely due to his tariffs and the war in Iran. Whether that will motivate more voters to turn out in agricultural states where traditionally Republican seats are now seen as competitive is unclear. It ma

By ERIC TUCKER WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday dismissed a criminal complaint against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about Hunter Biden, citing what he said was the “weaponization” of President Donald Trump’s Justice Department just before the midterm elections. In a scathing, hourlong ruling read from the bench, U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said the investigation that produced the charges against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides was rushed, conduc

Citing a “heightened” level of threats against President Donald Trump, the U.S. Secret Service prompted the military to install missile defense systems near his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and at the international airport in West Palm Beach. In recent days, photographs of the anti-missile systems appeared in local media prominently displaying military hardware characterized as the Avenger Air Defense System, which is capable of intercepting various aerial intruders ranging from mis

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Sunday defended the accuracy of a list of what it says are more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in California and suggested that a federal judge consider whether an immigrant rights group and its lawyers should face contempt charges after they published an analysis of the names. On Friday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg allowed the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, access to fede

By WILL WEISSERT WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is making his closing pitch of the midterm elections at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, pushing his slow, expensive and problem-plagued efforts to repair it back into the spotlight on the eve of Election Day. In comments to reporters as he deplaned from Air Force One for a Sunday rally in Iowa, Trump said his speaking at the site would “show how beautiful it is.” “We might hold it tomorrow or something,” the president added, without

By Amanda Watford, Stateline.org A half-dozen states enacted laws this year changing voting rules for people with felony convictions, including when their rights can be restored and how they can register to vote — affecting voters in next week’s elections. A couple other states advanced measures that will affect such voters in future elections. And Virginia voters will decide on Tuesday whether to approve a measure advanced by the legislature to automatically restore such rights. Altogether, at