Monday, November 2, 2026 · Morning Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. Voters go to the polls today in a midterm that will turn on whether working people feel better off than they were two years ago. The maps are close: Democrats edge out Republicans in seven heated Senate races, though most sit in statistical ties, and Trump spent the final weekend rallying in states Republicans previously won—a tell of how tight it has become. In Texas, the stakes are sharper: voting rights advocates warn that publicizing the threat of ICE at the polls could itself depress turnout, a self-fulfilling intimidation. In the Rio Grande Valley, a contest between pop star Bobby Pulido and MAGA die-hard Monica De La Cruz measures whether the Trump converts of 2024 are jumping off the train.

The Democratic leadership, meanwhile, is sabotaging itself. In Michigan, Representative Haley Stevens, who lost the Senate primary, endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, breaking with nominee Abdul El-Sayed and deepening the split between the party's moderates and its progressives. The betrayal has handed Rogers fresh hope in a race Democrats had felt increasingly confident about. The real energy is elsewhere—2026 could send the first Muslim, first Native woman, and first openly gay man to the Senate.

The administration's cruelty keeps surfacing. New policies at the [Office of Refugee Resettlement are stranding migrant children who arrived alone in shelters and undermining their mental health](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/migrant-children-stranded-us-shelters). At Organ Pipe, tribal leaders' warnings that border wall construction would disturb Native American remains proved right.

And capital runs riot. Naomi Klein and Ilana Glazer argue it is time to block reckless AI IPOs and tax billionaires while millions struggle to find and keep jobs. The Wall Street Journal reported that [Elon Musk personally ordered a deadly slowdown of internet access to Ukraine, after which Trump called and begged him to restore it](https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/elon-musk-starlink). Pressed on his cancelled rallies, Trump snapped at the reporter, “You are disgusting” and “You look like hell.”