Supreme Court rejects request to intervene in California election case
The US supreme court on Monday quickly rejected the Trump administration's request to force California to set aside thousands of mail ballots from people President Donald Trump's administration claims are noncitizens, the Associated Press reports.
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. The decision came just hours after the administration asked the supreme court to intervene.
The ruling was the latest judicial rebuke in the face of a wave of unprecedented efforts from the Trump administration to intervene in the elections process of multiple states. The midterm elections are expected to bring nationwide victories for Democrats and impose more Congressional checks on Trump's power.
In California, the Trump administration had asked the high court to set aside the challenged ballots until the voters' citizenship status could be verified. But officials there said that the list appeared to be filled with errors and that setting the ballots aside could effectively disenfranchise legal voters.
The high court did not detail its reasoning for rejecting the Trump administration's request, as is common in emergency decisions. The justices previously rejected Trump's push to restrict mail ballots around the country in September, even though the justices have sided with his administration in a series of other emergency docket appeals.
at the Hacienda Heights Community Center after voting in the midterm election in City of Industry, California Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Key events
Closing summary
Here's an updated evening summary of US politics news. The US midterm elections, expected to deliver significant if not historic wins for Democrats as voters' rebuke to Donald Trump, are tomorrow. We'll have round-the-clock-coverage for you then. In the meantime:
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Trump's justice department asked the supreme court to force Califronia election officials to set aside 20,000 mail ballots that the administration claims were submitted by non-citizens. Within hours, the supreme court had made its decision: No.
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Elected officials in California celebrated the supreme court decision, which was one of two major court losses for the justice department that day: in a separate, related case, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop demanding that California election officials set aside ballots, writing that “the Executive Branch has likely violated the Constitution's Elections Clause, which commits authority over election rules to the states and Congress alone.â€
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But California governor Gavin Newsom said the state remained vigilant about additional inteference from Trump or his allies with the voting or ballot counting, and promised to prosecute anyone who tried to interfere with the election.
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As Trump faced voter approval ratings of just 32%, close to his historic low, he posted a video reiterating his promise to all adult citizens that “If the Republicans win, you will each have $5,000 in your pocket,†a payout that would cost the government $1.2tn.
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Asked about how soon the war with Iran would end, Trump gave a rambling answer that included his assertion, “this isn't warâ€. And his claim that “there hasn't been shooting for months.†Meanwhile, early news reports suggested that the US had in fact just conducted defensive strikes on some Iranian targets in the strait of Hormuz on the eve of the midterm elections.
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Haley Stevens, the Democratic congresswoman who said she would now back the Republican nominee for US Senate in Michigan, defended her decision in an interview today. The representative who has faced fierce backlash for her eleventh-hour defection, also rejected any notion that she was “forced†into her decision to pull her endorsement and support Mike Rogers, the former GOP congressman.
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Meanwhile, El-Sayed's campaign announced that it received $2.4m in donations on Sunday, the day that Stevens announced she would now support Rogers. El-Sayed's campaign that the amount is a single-day fundraising record for his Senate bid. His staff also noted that more than 26,000 people contributed for the first time on Sunday. The Cook Political Report changed its evaluation of the race from a “toss-up†to “Leans Democratic.†Fox News analysts were left hoping polling was overestimating El-Sayed's lead, as it had during the Democratic primary earlier this year.
David Smith
In Austin, Democratic senate candiate James Talarico is earning enthusiastic cheers from a crowd that seems to believe he is on the verge of a historic Texas win. The Democrat's speech offers a mix of Texas history, music and sporting references. The ghost of Beto O'Rourke is nowhere to be seen.
Like Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidate for governor, Talarico identified tech mogul Elon Musk, who is building datacenters in Texas as a catalyst of corruption.
He said: “Paxton is funded by one dude. Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants our tax dollars. He wants his very own personal United States senator. He is trying to buy Texas. But tomorrow we're going to deliver a crystal clear message to the world's first trillionaire. Texas is not for sale.â€
Talarico said he and his campaign are the underdogs. “We are literally going up against the richest man in the world. We're going up against the most powerful man in the world. This election is a battle between the powers that be and the powers that ought to be… They may have the money but we have the majority.â€
Sara Cook, a longtime CBS News White House reporter, has highlighted one of Trump's comments in his long response tonight to a question from Sean Hannity about what he could tell Americans about how soon the war with Iran will end.
Rather than reassurance, Trump provided something of a to-do list:
Trump told Hannity that “‘we might have to go after' Pickaxe Mountain in Iran, calling it ‘not a big deal' and saying could be done ‘in an hour,'†Cook noted on X.
She wrote that Trump had recently made a similar comment to her: “On Saturday Trump told me ‘we still have to take care of' 1 or 2 sites, naming Pickaxe Mountain. ‘You have to take care of that.'â€
Trump has made repeated public threats about targeting this same Iranian site before. As the Associated Press reported in July, “The site, known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or “Pickaxe Mountain,†lies on the south side of Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment site, which was bombed by the United States during Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025's 12-day war between Iran and Israel. But Pickaxe Mountain has remained untouched as Iran continues to dig at the site.â€
Rachel Leingang
Down in the Des Moines suburbs in the early evening, as rain poured down and the sun set before 6 p.m., Sarah Booz knocked doors for Democratic candidates. On the doors, there were still a lot of undecided voters. Some told her they'd be voting for Sand and the rest of the downballot Dems, while others said they needed to do more research. One man who said he normally votes red said the gubernatorial race would probably be a last-minute decision. Another man and his daughter said they were looking up the candidates online and on ChatGPT.
And in the evening, at a Holiday Inn by the Des Moines airport, much of the Republican ticket rallied, culminating in a pitch from US Senate candidate Ashley Hinson.
Chuck Grassley, the Republican US senator and the oldest sitting US senator, took digs at Democratic gubernatiorial candidate Rob Sand, saying that the state government is well-run and “we don't need Sand in that machineryâ€. He also called Democrats running across the country “outlandish socialists†who want to “transform America†instead of preserve it.
“I hope that you'll do everything you can to make sure that I have a colleague from Iowa that won't neutralize my vote,†he said, advocating for Hinson.
Hinson, taking the stage in front of a bus she's been campaigning in that was signed all over by her supporters, called her opponent, Zach Turek, “Too Liberal Turekâ€.
“We fire liberal phonies, we don't promote them,†she said.
David Smith
In Texas, Democratic senate candidate James Talarico joined Hinojosa on stage and they held hands aloft. The crowd cheered. He began his speech with the analogy of a high school American football game.
Talarico said big money donors and super PACs have spent more money on this Senate race than any other in history. “They are scared. They are terrified. They see what we see: that we're about to win this election tomorrow night.â€
The Democrat went on to lambast his opponent, the Republican Ken Paxton. “We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis, but Austin, we can change that. In this election, in this state, in this race, we are running against the embodiment of this corrupt system.
“We are running against the most corrupt politician in Texas history. Ken Paxton represents everything that's wrong with our politics. He doesn't serve us. He serves himself.â€
Talarico, a state representative, added: “I have a legislative record; Ken Paxton has a criminal record.â€
Rachel Leingang
Across Iowa on Monday, candidates and their supporters made final pitches in a set of toss-up races up and down the ballot, noting just how close these contests are – and just how pivotal the state could be for the nation's politics.
In a standing-room-only town hall in Waverly, Iowa, Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Rob Sand started off by asking people in their crowd which political party they belong to, then having people clap for all of them, followed by directing the crowd to sing “America the Beautiful†together. The bipartisan tone underscores Sand's pitch to Iowa voters, including those who would need to cross party lines to support him: “not redder or bluer, but better and truerâ€.
Wearing shirts that called to “rotate the crops†and vote for Democrats and saying “Iowa needs Sandâ€, about 150 voters turned out to the rally in the Republican-leaning area. Sand told the Guardian that he has seen throughout the hundreds of town halls he's done a “yearning†from people that their politicians work together to solve problems, even as voters are generally angry this year.
“We need to focus that anger and point it at where it ought to be pointed, which is at a broken two-choice political system that is too easily abused to allow elected officials to be corrupt and to be lazy and still hold power,†he said. “A lot of politicians want people to be angry with their neighbors.â€
David Smith
Greetings from a “concert rally†on a warm evening at Stubbs Waller Creek Amphitheater in Austin, an open air venue with wood floor, neon-lit bars and a classic Texan barbecue. Politicians and musicians have been appearing on a stage beneath a curving white canopy. When the crowd was asked who had voted early, many hands went up.
Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, walked on stage to chants of “Gina! Gina!†and told supporters that her election against incumbent Greg Abbott is “neck and neckâ€.
She then took aim at tech titan Elon Musk: “We have the world's only trillionaire right here in our state. Elon Musk does billions of dollars in business with the state of Texas. It is why I fought a lawsuit here in Travis County District Court to demand that Greg Abbott release the emails between him and Elon Musk.â€
Hinojosa added: “The Greg Abbott corruption tax is why data centers have descended upon Texas and we have more than any other state in the union… Greg Abbott is the most corrupt governor in all Texas history.â€
In talking live to Trump tonight, Fox News host Sean Hannity gave Trump the ultimate softball: he asked the president to recap his accomplishments in the past two years, which he did at length.
What Hannity did not do at any point was ask Trump for comment on the high-profile supreme court decision today rejecting the administration's request to have the court intervene in California's election process on the side of Trump's Justice Department.
Asked about when Iran war will end, Trump says, ‘This isn't war’
Asked about how soon the war with Iran would end, Donald Trump gave a rambling answer that included his assertion, “This isn't war.â€
“We're not fighting a war. When was the last time we fired? …This is a very soft war,†Trump said, echoing comments he had made previously. He called $30bn spent on the war with Iran “peanuts†and later added, “There hasn't been shooting for months.â€
Fox News host Sean Hannity, who was speaking to the president live, did not ask Trump about the reports emerging this evening that directly contradicted those comments.
The US has conducted defensive strikes on some Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz on the eve of crucial midterm elections, the Associated Press reported, citing an unnamed US official. From the Associated Press:
double quotation mark Iranian state television reported that explosions were heard on Qeshm Island. The official, who wasn't authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said “Iranians using surface to air missiles against US assets†had been targeted.The strikes appeared to be limited as opposed to a return to full hostilities but followed Trump previously saying the US wouldn't launch strikes on Iran before Tuesday's midterms. The strikes were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
As Donald Trump begins to speak live over the phone to Sean Hannity, in what he said would be his last public comment of the day, the Fox News host has asked the president to tout his accomplishments over the past two years.
But a poll released today suggests that Americans are not pleased with the president's current performance. Trump's current approval ​rating of 32% is close to his recent career low of 31%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday.
It's not a new observation, but it continues to be striking how Twitch streamer Hasan Piker is being talked about on the right as if he were a major Democratic leader, or, as Sean Hannity just put it on his show, the spiritual leader of the Democratic Party.
If you're reading this liveblog, you probably have your on thoughts on Piker and the ways the socialist streamer has been invoked by both Democrats and Republicans this cycle. But if you're like many Americans, and don't really know who he is, read my colleague Rachel Leingang's profile of him from September:
On Fox News, as Sean Hannity prepares to speak with Donald Trump about the midterm elections, a Fox analyst is suggesting-slash-hoping that current polls might once again be overestimating El-Sayed's support in the Michigan senate race, as they did in the Democratic primary, which El-Sayed won very narrowly.
Astronauts for America, a nonpartisan group of more than 100 former NASA astronauts, has released a statement calling for free and fair elections in which “every lawful vote is counted.â€
The statement, a clear criticism of the Trump administration's Justice Department and its lawsuits attempting to influence how California, Alaska, and other states conduct their elections, notes that “The states have the central responsibility for conducting elections.â€
This statement is a constitutional point that a federal judge emphasized today in ruling against the Trump administration's attempt to interfere in the midterm elections in California.
This evening, California politicians celebrated the Trump administration's failure to convince the supreme court to interve in their state's election process over allegations of noncitizen voting. But election officials are still bracing for new attempts from the Trump administration to meddle with the election, or interfere with days of ballot-counting that will follow.
California has the largest population of any state in the US, and it's among the slowest when it comes to finalizing election results, a delay that leaves plenty of time for misinformation to spread.
Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has made repeated public warnings that he will respond forcefully to any attempts to interfere with California's vote or its ballot-counting.
Newsom reiterated those warnings in a video posted today, writing, “Let me be clear to anyone thinking about helping Trump interfere with California elections: If you interfere with voters or tamper with ballots, you will be prosecuted with a FELONY. And don't count on a pardon from the President. He can't pardon you out of California justice.â€
In May, Newson signed new election-protection measures into law in anticipation of potentialTrump administration interference during the midterms. The law “prohibits any person – including federal agents – from accessing voter rolls or election technology without a court order†and makes clear that “law enforcement officers are restricted from disrupting election workers, except in public safety emergencies.â€
Joseph Gedeon
Abdul El-Sayed mocked officials in the Trump administration during his final rally of his Michigan senate campaign, an event with the rapper Common at the Majestic Theater downtown Detroit, in front of over a thousand supporters.
On Trump, who make several Islamophobic remarks about El-Sayed today, and who keeps calling him “Mohammed,†he said: “Donald Trump can't seem to remember what my name is, despite his incredibly high score on his cognitive test.â€
He called vice president JD Vance “JV Dance.â€
On health secretary Robert F Kennedy, who recently came to Michigan and disparaged the accomplishments of the Arab world, El-Sayed said: “His only expertise is that he understands what it means to have zero scientific contributions.â€
“I'm like, habibi, listen, at the end of the day, I got two doctorates, you got none.â€
“We beat their 70 million in the primary, they might as well have set their money on fire,†El Sayed said. “And we're going to beat their 250 million in the general. Go ahead and set your money on fire.â€
US envoy Steve Witkoff said the United States will bring together delegations from Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11 to discuss ending Moscow's war against Ukraine, post-war security agreements and de-escalation, Reuters reports.
US negotiators have been seeking a breakthrough in the long-running conflict before the winter sets in. The last US-mediated peace talks took place â in February before the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.
