Tuesday, October 20, 2026 · Evening Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. Billionaires are writing the midterms. Michael Bloomberg is dropping $80 million to boost Democratic candidates, a last-minute entry into what Semafor calls a donor-dominated cycle already ruled by Elon Musk, who has spent over $360 million to help Republicans. The Guardian reports Trump is moving $400m to Republican candidates while Bloomberg concentrates his money on House races to help Democrats retake the majority. Whoever wins, the ballot has already been priced by capital.

The favors that money buys are getting less subtle. The New York Times reports that Julio Herrera Velutini, a prominent Venezuelan, was seeking clemency and got it not long after his daughter handed Alina Habba, a lawyer close to Trump, a $50 million deal. For the rich, clemency is a transaction.

For everyone else the bill only grows. The same administration pouring money into Republican campaigns is holding back an additional $1.2 billion in California Medicaid reimbursements, and mortgage rates are skyrocketing as fuel prices rise weeks before the vote. In Mississippi, the family of Kohen Wiley say they never heard from the investigators who ruled the cops did no wrong; the state still offers no support for its claim that a “thorough and impartial” review showed the shooting was “justified.”

Abroad, Zelenskyy met U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and European officials in Norway to avoid a further diplomatic rupture with Trump, who claims Zelenskyy has the power to end the war. And Republicans are preparing to unleash AI robocalls on voters as several states sue OpenAI — the machinery of persuasion automated and aimed at the same electorate the donors are buying.