Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, is heading to Texas, where Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico are locked in a highly competitive race.
Trump declined to explicitly say whether Republicans would refuse to seat Peltola if she wins the Alaska Senate race.
Asked by a reporter whether he thinks Republicans should refuse to seat Peltola if she wins, Trump said, “you’re going to have to see what happens.”
“It’s hard to believe that she couldn’t be allowed to run,” he added.
Trump has previously called for criminal charges to be pressed against Peltola following yesterday’s explosive report from The New York Times.
Speaking to reporters ahead of his trip to South Carolina, Trump called Democrats’ alleged recruitment of a challenger Dan Sullivan to face off against incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan “a fraud.” He called the situation “terrible” and a “very bad thing.”
Early this morning, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he was ordering an investigation following the Times report.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris will hit the campaign trail again today in Georgia, where Democrats are defending a Senate seat.
She will hold a canvassing launch with Georgia Democrats and a separate rally with Sen. Jon Ossoff before participating in an NAACP town hall tonight.
Ossoff is running for re-election against GOP Rep. Mike Collins in the battleground state, which Joe Biden won in 2020 and Trump won in 2024.
Harris is one of many potential 2028 candidates traveling across the country ahead of the midterm elections in what has become a shadow primary. Earlier this year, Harris confirmed she was thinking about running for president again.
Harris has traveled to several states this cycle, including New Hampshire, Nevada, Wisconsin and Mississippi.
Vance stopped short this morning of calling for criminal charges against Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola in Alaska, but said she should be investigated for election fraud.
His comments came after after The New York Times reported yesterday that she and other Democrats worked to recruit a Senate candidate with the same name as Sen. Dan Sullivan. Trump called yesterday for criminal charges against Peltola.
“I think we should certainly look into whether she committed election fraud,” Vance told reporters at Joint Base Andrews when asked if she should be criminally prosecuted.
U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola. Nathaniel Wilder / Bloomberg via Getty
“She is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person — a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters on the ballot,” he said, referring to Dan J. Sullivan, the candidate whose name is nearly identical to that of Sen. Sullivan.
“She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it’s disgraceful,” the vice president added. “So, whether it’s criminal or not, she certainly has committed, I think, a great moral failing, and hopefully the voters of Alaska punish her.”
Trump said in a Truth Social post last night that the East Potomac Golf Links course “should be closed immediately for safety reasons.”
“Golf balls soar through the holes at high speed and hit unexpecting Golfers — including a White House staffer who was, sadly, hit violently in the chest,” Trump said in the post.
“The driving range building itself is falling apart, and its structural stability is terrible. It should be closed immediately for safety reasons!” he said.
Golfers play at East Potomac Golf Course on Tuesday. Mehmet Eser / Anadolu via Getty
Last night, the Justice Department acknowledged to a federal judge that there is a plan to close and renovate the golf course after having insisted the course would not be shuttered for the work. The DOJ also gave the specific date of closure — Nov. 15, which Trump has previously noted on Truth Social.
Trump said in yesterday’s post that he would hold U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes “fully responsible for anybody who is hurt, or killed, on this very dangerous, dilapidated, and unsightly Golf Course.” The administration and Reyes have been at odds over the removal of trees at the course.
Trump’s efforts to renovate the D.C. golf course is the latest in a string of renovation projects, including the White House ballroom, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and the proposed “Triumphal Arch” near Arlington National Cemetery.
The head of the Justice Department’s voting section within the civil rights division says that no FBI or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will serve as election monitors at polling places on Election Day on Tuesday.
Eric Neff, the voting section’s acting chief, conveyed that message in a sworn declaration to a federal judge. Except for one Customs and Border Protection employee detailed to the DOJ, Neff said he is “not aware” of any other Department of Homeland Security employee participating in the civil rights division’s monitoring of the 2026 midterm elections.
Instead, federal election monitors will be employees from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Drug Enforcement Administration, Neff said.
The monitors will be observing polling places and taking notes, he said.
Federal election monitoring has gone on for years under both Democratic and Republican presidencies, and is separate from the voter integrity units of political parties that are expected to send election monitors to polling locations.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the DOJ’s civil rights division, announced earlier this year that about 1,000 monitors would be deployed across the country in what she called “ the largest monitoring effort” in the department’s history.
Democrats have voiced concerns about the Trump administration’s deployment of election monitors, warning about efforts about possible voter intimidation. Democrats have also blasted the administration’s efforts to obtain state voter lists to look for noncitizen voters and to restrict mail-in ballots. only to those whom states determine are eligible to vote.
Crowds at dueling rallies headlined by Trump and former President Barack Obama in two battleground states last night both repurposed Trump’s 2016 chant to “lock her up,” originally in reference to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In Chillicothe, Ohio, the crowd chanted “lock her up” about Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., whom Trump has accused of committing immigration fraud while calling for her to resign from Congress. Federal agents searched Omar’s Washington home this month amid a probe. Omar has denied allegations of wrongdoing.
Supporters cheer for Trump yesterday in Chillicothe, Ohio. Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty
In Atlanta, meanwhile, rallygoers chanted “lock him up,” referring to Trump, as Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., accused him and his allies of corruption.
An NBC News poll found that a majority of Americans view Trump’s administration as uniquely corrupt.
Veteran Justice Department workers have raised concerns about the timing of the search on Omar’s home because of its proximity to the midterm elections. Alumni told NBC News that they view the search targeting a member of Congress up for re-election, along with a flurry of other activity close to the elections, as a pattern of the administration’s misusing the Justice Department’s power to affect the election.
The “lock her up” chant had its origins in the 2016 presidential election, when Trump accused Clinton of being “crooked,” vowing to have her investigated if he was elected over accusations of corruption, including scrutiny of her use of a private email server for government business.
Former FBI Director James Comey, now a target of Trump’s ire, called Clinton’s use of a private email service “careless” but did not bring charges. Despite a series of inquiries into Clinton over Trump’s two terms, no criminal charges have ever been brought against her.
A federal judge in California has refused a request by the Trump administration to segregate 20,000 mail-in ballots from people it alleges are noncitizens.
“This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections,” U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote in yesterday’s decision. “If Plaintiff’s last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process.”
Carter, as he did during a hearing Tuesday, said there is a “clear remedy” available to the federal government: its prosecutorial tools. Carter also noted that California has established procedures to cancel the voter registration of any person proved ineligible.
“The Executive’s requested relief, however, would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens,” he wrote.
Read the full story here.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, said in an overnight post to X that he was directing the state’s Department of Public Safety to investigate the Dan Sullivan saga following yesterday’s report from The New York Times.
The investigation would seek to determine “whether this scheme violated Alaska’s laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted,” Dunleavy said. “The evidence will determine what happens next.”
The governor referred to yesterday’s report as having “disturbing new evidence” and said that “deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections.”
Dan J. Sullivan and Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, R-Alaska. AP; Getty
The New York Times reported yesterday that Democrats worked to recruit a candidate with the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is running for reelection in a highly competitive race. Following the report, Trump said on Truth Social that Mary Peltola, the Democratic Senate candidate, “should suffer the Legal and Political consequences.”
Legal experts told NBC News that the Democrats who reportedly recruited challenger Dan Sullivan to run against incumbent Dan Sullivan did not necessarily break the law, although the alleged actions might be seen as underhanded.
Trump will travel to solidly red South Carolina today to rally for Republican Sen. Darline Graham, who is seeking a full term in an unexpectedly tight race against Democrat Annie Andrews.
The rally will take place in the congressional district of Rep. Ralph Norman, whom Graham defeated in a special primary runoff earlier this year. Trump had endorsed Graham in the primary against Norman, which came after her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, died in office.
A new New York Times/Siena poll found that Graham and Andrews were locked in a neck-and-neck race. Trump was previously in South Carolina last week.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance will rally in Texas, where Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico are running in another highly competitive race for an open Senate seat that Democrats are hoping to flip.
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