• Alaskans weigh in : Several voters told CNN the reported efforts by Mary Peltola staffers to recruit a second Dan Sullivan to the Senate ballot wouldn’t change their vote . More subpoenas are expected today as the DOJ accelerates a criminal probe into whether the Democrats sought to confuse voters, sources said.
• Trump’s final midterm rally? The president visits Florida today for another red-state rally. But he’s canceled his weekend events — a decision that took even Republicans by surprise and raises questions about his strategy .
• New early voting data : Younger Democrats are far outpacing younger Republicans in early votes cast so far in the midterms. Democrats lead Republicans in turnout by 31 points among voters younger than 30, a 20-point increase from the same time two years ago.
A super PAC that got $10 million from Elon Musk is using an AI-powered robocall campaign to attack Texas Senate candidate James Talarico for allegedly taking money from “data center special interest” groups. Talarico tells CNN the move is “pretty rich,” arguing he’s the “only candidate in this race who has a plan to crack down on data center companies.”
Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, who is running in Texas against GOP nominee Ken Paxton, responded to a recent push of AI-powered robocalls attacking his campaign. CNN's Ed Lavandera reports.
Elon Musk said early Friday he’s concerned about what Democrats would do if they won in the House, Senate and 2028 presidential elections.
In a post on his platform X, Musk urged voters to support Republican candidates and wrote that his biggest concerns if Democrats win control are they could “make DC and Puerto Rico states to gain a strong majority in the Senate,” “legalize everyone living in America illegally,” and “increase the size of the Supreme Court to gain an immediate majority.”
“This would result in America becoming a permanent one-party state and the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word,” he wrote in the post .
He also announced that he had voted early in Texas’ midterm elections.
The world’s richest man did not reveal who he had voted for, but Musk has been a strong GOP ally and mega-donor in recent years and is the largest single disclosed donor of this election cycle.
Much of that support has gone to boost Republican Ken Paxton over Democrat James Talarico in the heavily contested Texas Senate race.
Musk has built a massive business empire in the state, centralizing operations for its companies SpaceX, Tesla, X, among others. In 2024, Musk relocated headquarters for X and SpaceX to Texas from California.
We’ve previously reported on weak youth turnout among Republicans to start early voting. Now, early voting data from states across the nation clearly show this is not an isolated trend.
Overall, in 25 states that are reporting both counts of early votes cast and where voters register with a party, registered Democrats lead registered Republicans by nearly 15 points, 10 points more than at the same point in 2024, according to data from Catalist.
But that shift is even greater among young voters. Democrats lead Republicans in turnout by 31 points among voters younger than 30, a 20-point increase from the same time two years ago. And for voters ages 30 to 49, the Democratic lead is 27 points, up 15 points from this time in 2024.
The Democratic advantage is smaller among voters 65 and older – it’s 11 points now, 7 points higher than the equivalent point two years ago.
This dynamic is driven by a collapse in turnout among younger Republicans. Republicans under age 30 have cast just 30% of the ballots they’d cast at the same point in 2024, compared to 63% for younger Democrats. The gap is smaller among older voters: Republicans age 65 and older are at 72% of the same point two years ago, while older Democrats are at 84%.
CNN’s most recent national poll found younger Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are highly unmotivated to vote and are particularly sour on the state of the country compared to their older counterparts.
Younger Republicans in particular are more likely to vote on Election Day, and they still may show up. But the early vote suggest Republicans are on track to be much more reliant on election day this year to match their 2024 margins among young voters.
An October surprise has surfaced in a race that could well determine who wins the Senate majority in next week’s midterm elections. The New York Times reported that Democratic operatives helped recruit a potential spoiler candidate in Alaska — the other Dan Sullivan — who qualified for the general election ballot. CNN's Patrick Svitek reports.
More subpoenas are expected today as the Justice Department dramatically accelerates a criminal probe into whether Alaska Democrats sought to confuse voters by recruiting a Senate candidate intended to siphon votes from the Republican, according to sources.
Department officials filed a long-shot lawsuit last week seeking to delay certification if Sen. Sullivan loses and the votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan under the ranked choice system would have been enough to change the outcome.
They worked quickly to amend that lawsuit after a New York Times report describing an alleged coordinated effort linked to Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign.
In the new version of the lawsuit , the department alleges that her campaign and a national Democratic Party office submitted “misleading” arguments about their knowledge of the alleged efforts to recruit Daniel J. Sullivan, nicknamed “Decoy Dan” by his opponents.
Critics have slammed the lawsuit as political maneuvering, particularly after President Donald Trump told reporters he directed it.
Some in the department privately admit that the lawsuit, which is all but destined to fail, serves a purpose by creating headlines that warn Alaskans about what one source described as a “massive voter fraud attempt.”
A state official told CNN that there are examples of voters who are well-informed about the dueling Sullivans still erroneously filling out their ballots and having to seek new ones. It’s unclear how many of the spoiled ballots are related to the Sullivans confusion.
Read more about the investigation here.
President Donald Trump has scrapped plans for weekend rallies in red states Iowa and Kansas. He’s instead planning as many as 20 telerallies in a strategy shift days ahead of the midterm elections.
For now, the only in-person event Trump has planned is a rally in Florida on Friday.
CNN’s Gabe Cohen, Kylie Atwood, Patrick Svitek, Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, Tierney Sneed, Jeff Zeleny, Hannah Rabinowitz, Jeff Zeleny, Isa Mudannayake, Alejandra Jaramillo, Kaitlan Collins, Molly English, Ed Lavandera, Ashley Killough, Taylor Romine and Christian Sierra contributed reporting.
CNN’s Manu Raju reports from Iowa, where polls indicate that the state has shifted to battleground territory.
CNN's Manu Raju reports from Iowa where polls indicate that the reliably red state has shifted to battleground territory. Democratic nominee Josh Turek is looking to defeat Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson in the race for the US Senate, while Democratic nominee Rob Sand and Republican nominee Zach Lahn are vying to be governor of Iowa.
With less than a week before Election Day, Republicans and Democrats are racing to reach voters. Here’s what some high-profile politicians said at their Thursday events:
President Donald Trump rallied in South Carolina.
Vice President JD Vance appeared in a Fox News town hall in Texas.
El-Sayed spoke at a rally in Kalamazoo.
During a campaign rally, Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed addressed comments from his opponents criticizing his faith, saying, “Let me just tell you, I am Muslim.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris was in Atlanta, Georgia for back-to-back events.
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Patrick Svitek, Alejandra Jaramillo, Kaitlan Collins, Molly English, Christian Sierra, Tierney Sneed, Tori B. Powell and Taylor Romine contributed reporting.
