Blanche Is Done Licking Wounds, Okay?

I don’t mean to diminish the threats that Attorney General Todd Blanche has been outlining against Democrats new and old in recent days with this headline, but it does seem as though the venue he’s using for the threat roll-out is intentional during the post-midterms doom vortex Fox News’ viewers may find themselves in.

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

The exuberance about control of Congress is not misplaced. It’s hard earned. And Democratic-led investigations and oversight that pours sunlight on the illegal horrors of this administration will be meaningful. But it won’t cancel the medical debt that burdens 100 million Americans, or raise the minimum wage. Nor will it stop what’s already coming from the “Big Beautiful Bill”, including Medicaid cuts projected to strip coverage from 10 million people. Federal legislation that fundamentally and materially changes our lives is unlikely to be signed into law in the next two years. The president has already vowed to use his veto power aggressively. 

For 48 hours, Stephen Miller did not tweet. His last message — “get to the polls and protect the ones you love” — lingered on top of his timeline, which, on most other days, produces a steady stream of anti-immigrant vitriol.

President Donald Trump since the election has been restrained, almost meek. He has reverted to a kind of pre-presidency state, talking with great affection about construction projects and renovations while occasionally providing color commentary on national politics as if he is not at all involved.

This is the free edition of Where Things Stand

Americans Voted Down Data Centers in Every Single Ballot Measure Except One

I’ve been chronicling the swelling backlash toward data center construction in communities across America — and how we thought it might translate into some losses for some Republicans in the midterms — in this evening newsletter for months, as regular readers will know.

The righteous outrage that Americans across the political spectrum feel toward Big Tech oligarchs coming in and draining crucial water supplies in their communities, polluting their air and driving up the costs of basic necessities — like electricity — was overwhelmingly apparent at the voting booth. Voters rejected data centers both literally and figuratively in dozens of races across the nation.

Let’s start with the literal backlash.

Hello, and Welcome Back to The Franchise

Republicans’ mid-decade gerrymanders did not withstand Tuesday’s bluenami, as Democrats hung on to nearly all of their targeted seats. In some states it actually backfired, delivering Democrats seats exceeding their pre-redistricting total. 

Democrats flipped control of both the Senate and House on Tuesday. Though we’re still waiting on some results from places like Alaska and Mississippi, losses there wouldn’t take much away from the very comfortable margins Dems secured in both chambers until the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

Now comes major shifts in Congress.

Besides the obvious majority-minority flip, we’re already seeing dynamic shifts in caucus leaderships. Outgoing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced he would not be running for Minority Leader in a private call `Wednesday. That job will be up for grabs.

There will, of course, be a new speaker. Likely Hakeem Jeffries, who would make history by becoming the first Black Speaker of the House.

Follow along with us as we enter into GOP’s last chance for passing anything for the foreseeable future — the lame duck session — and some possible internal races for majority and minority leadership positions in both chambers.

Massie Will Launch Hegseth Impeachment as GOP Tries to Figure Out Its Future

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who lost his primary earlier this year amid a Trump-backed campaign to oust him from Congress, says he will trigger a vote to impeach Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth when Congress returns next week. Even with Republicans still in the majority in the House — for now — sources told CNN they expect Massie’s effort to advance.

If the House impeachment effort moves forward, I think it’s extremely unlikely that two-thirds of the members of this current Senate would vote to remove Hegseth. Still, impeachment in the House would be a dramatic rebuke of one of the most absurd Cabinet secretaries, and a sign of where the party is at.

Those Republicans who are trying to make some kind of sense of Tuesday’s loss — and not merely resorting to (very funny) catastrophizing — are blaming it on the Iran War. It’s certainly easier to scapegoat Hegseth, the cartoonish Fox News anchor-turned-defense secretary, than it is to blame Trump himself. Despite takes that we’ve reached the “end of Trumpism,” Republicans (and, probably, many TPM readers) know it won’t be over until it’s really, truly over.

Still, we’ll be tracking the ways in which the MAGA coalition starts to crack in the weeks and months ahead. Already, we can see the signs. Massie going rogue is nothing new, but adequate Republican support to begin his Hegseth-impeachment effort would be. Potential 2028 candidates — most notably, DeSantis and JD Vance — are scrambling to disassociate themselves from the Iran War; America Firsters like Massie claim (not unreasonably) that Trump lost support because he didn’t deliver on a few very important promises.

“Tonight’s outcome isn’t about placing faith in Democrats or socialist principles; it’s about holding Republicans accountable for betraying their promises,” Massie wrote on social media.

Meanwhile, Hegseth might get a mercy killing before the impeachment effort gets underway: CBS reports Trump is asking advisors about whether he should replace him.

Big Decision for Alito and Thomas

• “Just think what this means, having 56 senators,” outgoing Florida governor Ron DeSantis mused yesterday. “That means no Supreme Court justice will be confirmed under President Trump’s administration unless something happens in the next six weeks.”
• What might “happen”? Well, the oldest and most right-wing Supreme Court justices — Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas — might retire. Thomas is 78 and Alito is 76.
• Except Alito has repeatedly said he will not. He reiterated that commitment to friends this week, after the midterms, the New York Times reported yesterday, citing “two people close to the justice.”
• Thomas, who for years was famous for saying very little during Supreme Court oral arguments, has said very little.

In Mississippi, the midterms have exposed a contradiction rooted in the country’s most complicated and enduring legacies. 

Democrats had a big night on Election Day. The bluenami was also filled with tons of nationwide firsts, with many candidates breaking the so-called glass ceiling.

Here are some notable ones:

Two years into President Donald Trump’s unruly presidency plagued by endless lawlessness, corruption, self-dealing, executive branch overreach, a lethal immigration enforcement operation and an unauthorized war that has tanked the economy, House Democrats successfully took back control of the House, and, as a result, Congress.

The Associated Press made the call at 1:25 a.m. EST after Democrats officially secured 218 seats and the majority, hours after Democrats’ flip of the Senate became official. 

When President Donald Trump took over for the second time, things looked interminably bleak for Democrats. 

Americans had willingly reelected a man who encouraged a mass of his followers to sack the Capitol and prevent the certification of an election he’d lost. And the first opportunity for a Democratic comeback, in a long two years, was anything but certain: While the Republicans’ House majority was small, the path to Senate control was riddled with states Trump had won three times. 

Then Trump started governing. Some combination of tariffs, ICE brutality, the Iran War and his fixation on construction (and demolition) projects in D.C. created a Pig-Pen-like haze around him so toxic that his approval plunged into the low 30s. Combined with Democrats’ newfound popularity with diehard midterm voters, the Trump miasma was too strong for Republicans to hold the upper chamber, even with a map so friendly they may as well have designed it themselves.  

Long Night Ahead …

But first, something dumb.

All About the Pretext

A few thoughts on Election Day.

First, we’ll have referenda today on both President Donald Trump and on the polling industry. Going into 2024, there were a few outliers, like Iowa’s Selzer poll, that were giving Democrats false hope. Now, nearly everything that is coming out is showing a good night for Democrats. Scarred by a decade of unpleasant surprises, Democrats don’t want to trust that overall impression. They may be right, but, if they are, it’ll be time for the polling industry to take a hard look at how it’s been doing things in a more online, more atomized, more reactionary and more distrustful time.

Second, as David Kurtz writes this morning, the Trump administration has been facing a cascade of defeats in court. Especially notable to me is the Supreme Court’s rejection yesterday, without comment or any noted dissents, of the administration’s appeals in its effort to mess with California’s election, claiming some 20,000 possible noncitizen voters. Here’s what David had to say about that:

The Supreme Court — in a move for which legal experts could not immediately recall a precedent — unceremoniously smacked down a request from Trump Solicitor General D. John Sauer before it even heard from the opposing side. Sauer was seeking a Supreme Court order for California to sequester and not yet count mail-in ballots from a dubious list of 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters. The Trump DOJ had already lost in the same case twice at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and once at the district court.

[…]

Justice Kagan referred the solicitor general’s transparently insufficient application for an injunction pending appeal to the full Supreme Court, which didn’t even ask for a response from the other side before rejecting it, with no dissents. The refusal by the six-justice conservative majority to entertain the latest bad-faith nonsense from the Trump DOJ captured the tone of the day.

(The Supreme Court also sent a clear message in September on Trump’s plan to take over mail-in voting via the Postal Service, continuing to show that, while it will imbue Trump with king-like powers, there are some schemes John Roberts’ conservative majority is not ready to rubber stamp.)

As cheering as the Trump administration’s brutal loss record is amid its assault on democracy, it’s worth remembering that during the 2020 election-theft attempt, Trump’s allies filed 60-some lawsuits challenging the results. They won only once, and that win was overturned by a higher court. Still, they built a movement around their claims of mass fraud.

The court filings were key evidence for Trump-aligned conspiracy theorists. The fact that wild claims were touted by lawyers, before a judge, apparently made it all seem official. That judges soon dismissed these lawsuits — for lack of standing, lack of evidence, or other flaws — was little noticed and, when it was, was evidence of the grand conspiracy against Trump. This whole operation to disseminate disinfo via the courts was not accidental; it was an explicit strategy. Emails among Trump’s lawyers reviewed by TPM showed an effort to get as many states contested in court as possible in order to give legislators something to point to on Jan. 6 when they objected to various swing states’ slates of electors.

My message here is not that even when Trump’s opponents win they lose. The media is rife with this kind of doomerism. I’m saying something different: With this administration, we should expect Trump’s fight to continue after Election Day, using lawsuits — even and perhaps especially the ones the administration just lost — as evidence that something has gone awry, something isn’t right. As Mike Rothschild, who writes about conspiracy theories for TPM, recently observed, the Trump fans that still remain in his movement don’t seem very interested these days in boosting his efforts to create new, conspiratorial mythologies. In defeat, that might change. MAGA loves to be the loser and the victim; it has less idea how to use power when it achieves it. So, for better or worse, it’ll be important for us — journalists, and the rest of us too — to remain vigilant in the months ahead, if the polls are right and Democrats bruise the reactionary ego tonight.

As I wrote yesterday, we can already see a kind of Jan. 6 2.0 taking form in an effort not to seat Alaska’s Mary Peltola if she wins. The stakes are lower than 2020’s presidential election, though they’re still quite high. We’ll follow that closely at TPM, and whatever else Trump’s allies manage to cook up.

A Weird Closing Message

• As you no-doubt saw, President Donald Trump delivered his closing message in front of a small audience of what appeared to be government employees at the reflecting pool. He spoke mostly about the mechanics of how the reflecting pool operates, touching on such topics as pipes and algae.
• A representative quote, from Hunter Walker’s write up of the event: “This is a massive piece of — piece of pool. There’s never been anything like — when you look at the side — it’s the biggest anywhere in the world by far and was treated with a lot of love.”
• JD Vance and Don Jr. hit the campaign trail with a series of interesting remarks. In upstate New York, JD Vance called the Democratic candidate, Blake Gendebien, an “asshole” and a “lunatic.” “It is unbecoming for the office, but he can call me whatever he wants to, because I’m focused on what really matters to families in the North Country,” Gendebien told TPM.
• In Ohio, Don Jr. warned, curiously, that Democrats, if they win, will “make Ohio a state.”
• JD Vance offered a too-on-the-nose caricature of the Trump administration’s cynical racism this election cycle, warning Ohio voters that, “there are illegal communities of illegal immigrant Somalis who are coordinating to flood the polls and drown out your vote.” The only way to stop these marauding hordes was for Ohio Republicans to also vote.

The New York Times has a new piece out this morning that focuses on its conversations with Ken Paxton voters who were coaxed to show up and support Paxton during the last few events of his campaign with free food and alcohol and the promise of hearing from more charismatic speakers than the Texas attorney general himself. It’s an entertaining read.

Being a MAGA influencer just isn’t what it used to be.

When the Trump administration returned to power nearly two years ago, the influencers swaggered into Washington, D.C. with unrelenting hubris. The inauguration gave us a window into just how decisive they’d been in the previous election. The late Charlie Kirk “got a better seat than every member of Congress,” according to The Daily Beast. Jake Paul and his brother Logan took selfies with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, one of many Big Tech Trump allies who donated to his inaugural fund to secure access to the administration. Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson mingled with government leaders and titans of industry.

Republican Efforts to Subvert the Vote Zero in on Alaska

A couple of Republican senators are looking ahead to January and suggesting they will refuse to seat Democrat Mary Peltola should she win her Senate race.

“Under no circumstances should Mary Peltola be seated if she wins an election in a fraudulent manner,” Tim Sheehy (R-MT) tweeted on Saturday.

In a Sunday Meet the Press interview, Tim Scott (R-SC), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, also refused to commit to accepting the results, even if they are certified by Alaska, pointing to the DOJ investigation into the dueling Dan Sullivans on the ballot.

Later that day, a federal district court judge rejected the Department of Justice’s preemptive effort to halt Alaska’s certification of the election. The DOJ wants the state to not certify until an investigation is completed into whether voters who intended to vote for incumbent senator Dan Sullivan actually cast ballots for the other Dan Sullivan, who, a New York Times investigation suggested, may have been encouraged by Democratic operatives to run. Such an investigation would be impossible, because voters’ identities are not linked to their ballots, the judge noted.

“Those cast ballots have been commingled and cannot now be segregated or the identity of the person who cast each ballot ascertained,” Judge Sharon Gleason wrote.

The DOJ appealed Sunday’s decision. That litigation is separate from DOJ efforts to investigate the non-senator Sullivan.

As the Times’ story noted, nothing it reported is “fraud,” or a violation of election law; in a world where the DOJ and congressional Republicans were not beholden to Trump, there would not be much to investigate. As many experts have pointed out, Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system is designed to ensure that, in a close election, senator Dan Sullivan will in fact win any voters who intended to vote for him, since it eliminates minor candidates.

Each state is in charge of certifying its own elections and sending the winners to Congress. The Senate, however, plays a role in determining which members to seat; contested races, have, historically, been investigated by the Senate Rules Committee.

These scenarios are rare, however, and the Senate procedures around disputed elections have often been determined by the body itself, not any law. The vagueness opens the door to a huge range of options, including opportunities for Republicans to attempt to block Peltola, and opportunities for Democrats to fight back.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY), who is also conducting an investigation into Alaska’s election, said Sunday that the Senate might refuse to seat Peltola.

One Republican who said he would accept the results is the senator Dan Sullivan.

“Are you only going to accept the election results if you win?” Jake Tapper asked him Sunday on CNN.

“No, I’m going to accept the election results,” Sullivan replied.

Haley Stevens’ Very Weird Sunday

• In the hours following Stevens’ dramatic switch, from supporting Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to supporting Republican Mike Rogers — a man who in August she described as “another rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda” — journalists and Michigan Democrats searched for some clue as to what prompted such a sudden reversal.
• Stevens’ differences with El-Sayed were well known. But, as TPM and other outlets reported, she had the previous night assured Democrats she would not do the very thing she did. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a respected Michigan Democrat, said Stevens told her at “midnight” that the possibility she would endorse Rogers was “all a rumor and it was not true.” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also described Stevens telling him one thing Saturday before doing the opposite Sunday.
• During an Anderson Cooper interview yesterday evening, the host repeatedly pressed her to explain why the switch happened when it did. Cooper noted that while Stevens had strongly critiqued El-Sayed — saying that he had not adequately distanced himself from streamer Hasan Piker or from a super PAC ad that suggested inflation was caused by U.S. arms sales to Israel — nothing had changed on those topics between the time she assured her party members she would not endorse Rogers, on Saturday, and the time, the next day, when she did.
• Stevens did hint that El-Sayed’s decision to uninvite her from a unity event, scheduled for Sunday morning, in the face of her mounting critiques, prompted her to switch allegiance. “Abdul made very clear that I was not welcome in his campaign, that he didn’t need me there, that he didn’t want me there,” she said at a press conference with Rogers.
• Speculation within Democratic circles also narrowed in on Stevens’ fiancé, the political donor Jason Turkish, who endorsed Rogers last week. Journalist Zach Gorchow reported a story told by former Democratic governor James Blanchard, who was in office from 1983 to 1991 and who said he had recently had dinner with the couple. Blanchard described Turkish “working her over,” telling her fiancé that “everyone is disappointed” in her. Blanchard said he intervened to defend Stevens as a “team player.”
• “I’ve known Haley for a long time. I don’t know her fiancé,” Mallory McMorrow, one of Stevens’ and El-Sayed’s primary opponents, said during a local news interview yesterday. “I don’t. But to see him out there so publicly — I can only speak for myself, but my husband and I talked about this, and my husband said if he ever tried to speak for me the way we see happening now, he was like, ‘you would leave me.’ It’s hard to watch.” Dingell, also part of the interview, added, “it’s very hard.”
• Stevens chief of staff of eight years, and other staffers in her office, resigned yesterday.

Ramaswamy Is Very Disappointed That Everyone is Talking About His Ad and Not ‘Policy’

Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has stopped running the ad featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s estranged mother denouncing her as a liar.

The ad repulsed voters, especially after they learned the backstory: Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, had not been in touch with her daughter since her husband, Acton’s stepfather, was accused of raping Acton in the 1970s, when Acton was 12 years old. Arthur and her husband then fled to avoid a trial.

One internal poll, described by Axios, found that voters who were aware of the ad disapproved of it 2-to-1 and found Ramaswamy falling behind in the polls as a result of it.

Earlier this week, Trump continued to defend Ramaswamy.”Vivek was treated very unfairly,” he said. “He had the mother of his opponent say that her daughter was a liar. I said, ‘why can’t I have an opponent like that?’ She said worse than that. Horrible things about her own daughter. And the press — the fake news — criticized him.”

Ramaswamy tried to claim his campaign had not pulled the ad.

“It ran to completion, and we put up four other ads,” he claimed, speaking to the press yesterday.

The campaign had set aside $4 million for it, according to the Columbus Dispatch, but only spent $1 million.

Ramaswamy then tried to shame a reporter for asking about it. “For all of the discussion around 30 second ads, I would love, even for this final close, for this campaign to really be about policy.”

Black Workers Flee Government; Administration Tries to Replace Them With Young Right-Wingers

• More than a year ago, TPM’s Layla A. Jones was flagging troubling numbers in federal jobs data, showing the impact that DOGE and other Trump efforts to remake the federal government were having on Black workers. Black Americans are overrepresented among the federal workforce.
• A Washington Post report yesterday followed up on this story, finding that about one in five black workers has left the federal government during Trump’s second term.
• Between late 2024 and September 2025, “the estimated number of Black people working for the government fell by 30 percent,” The Post reported. “By comparison, reported federal employment declined by 4 percent among all other races included in the survey.”
• On Thursday, TPM published a story by Bex Heimbrock on the Trump administration’s recruiting efforts. Office of Personnel Management head Scott Kupor has been touring the country with Turning Point USA aligned influencers, including Benny Johnson, seeking to recruit young — and presumably deeply conservative — college graduates. “What I really want to see is more people like ‘Big Balls,’ or Ed,” said Kupor, referring to former DOGE staffer Edward Coristine.

‘I Give It Better Than a 50% Chance Of Passing’

President Trump is warning House Democrats of supposed consequences to come if they vote on articles of impeachment against the bombastic and shameless Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the new Congress, should they win control of the House in a few short days.

“I think it’s terrible,” Trump told the Washington Examiner on Thursday morning before heading out to another rally for Republican candidates in South Carolina who probably do not want him there. “All they do is they talk about impeaching everybody.”

“I mean, honestly, if we wanted to play that game, we could play it just as well,” Trump said. “But they’re talking about Pete Hegseth. He’s doing a great job. He’s a great warrior. I think he’s the best at his job in many, many years, and a lot of people agree with him.”

It’s not clear what Trump means by “we could play it just as well,” but he is likely referring to his intention to veto anything that comes his way should Democrats pull off an upper and lower chamber sweep. No one would expect any different.

The fault in Trump’s logic is intertwined with a problem that has plagued House Republican leadership throughout the entire 119th Congress — a problem of their own making, too: Thomas Massie.

Hello, and Welcome Back to The Franchise

The Trump Justice Department has, after a month’s delay, revived its attempt to bully states into changing how they administer elections under threat of withheld FEMA funds. It’s just one of many efforts by Trump’s DOJ to try to exert federal control over election administration. 

Washington State Describes DOJ’s Supposed Noncitizen Voter List as ‘Not Reliable’

Washington State late Wednesday responded to the DOJ’s demand that it segregate 400 ballots from supposed noncitizen voters. Washington, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs wrote in a letter to the state’s two U.S. attorneys, would not be doing as the DOJ asked.

“This list includes United States citizens and is not reliable,” he wrote. “Without individualized proof of ineligibility, it would be both irresponsible and illegal for election officials to decline to process a registered voter’s ballot. If you have individualized proof, I invite you to provide it so election officials can take appropriate steps that are consistent with federal and state law.”

Hobbs also described the timing of the letter as “profoundly disappointing,” noting that Washington had mailed out ballots weeks ago.

“Despite that, you sent your letter well after that date and barely one week before Election Day,” it continued. “As you know, my office holds regular consultations with your office in the months leading up to elections. If you had valid concerns about voter registrations, the time to raise them was months ago. Your decision to wait until the eve of an election and announce those concerns at a press conference instead of timely providing the list and any corroborating evidence to my office is not a sign of good faith to ensure a free, fair, and accurate election.”

The DOJ sent similar lists to various counties in California, ordering officials there to segregate ballots from people on the lists. But those lists had similar problems to Washington’s. One county election official received a list of people who did not live in her county; another received a list of people who had not voted, according to the New York Times.

In a statement that I first saw reported by CalMatters, Butte County, California’s Clerk-Recorder said the list he received was “a print screen of a poorly formatted excel spreadsheet with missing and jumbled information.” He said of the 47 people on the list the DOJ sent to him, 32 were not on the active voter rolls and were not sent ballots; seven others “did not have sufficient information … to match to our voter list with confidence”; and six entries seemed to describe people who may not have been eligible to vote, but the DOJ did not provide evidence on why it believed that to be the case.

“Given the overall inaccuracy of the list provided and its lack of specificity, I believe the Department of Justice has not met that burden,” the clerk-recorder, Keaton Denlay, said. “There will be no further action taken at this time.”

“Happy voting,” he signed off.

Late Wednesday, a federal district court declined to order Los Angeles to carry out the scheme in a case that’s become the primary vehicle for deciding the legality of what the DOJ is trying to do.

“Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred,” judge David O. Carter wrote. “If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger.

“This Court declines to be a party to such process,” he concluded.

Flávio Bolsonaro Says He Is the True Leader of Brazil

• I’ve been writing about the saga of Flávio Bolsonaro here over the last few days in part because his movement has overlap with right-wing nationalism in the U.S. in ways that go deeper than the superficial similarities. Yes, his father Jair Bolsonaro in 2022 attempted a coup that looked extremely similar to January 6. Yes, the Bolsonaro family has drawn on support from the same influencers and operatives who push Trump, including Steve Bannon and Nick Shirley.
• But Bolsonaro and Trump’s movement is hyper-connected in more nuanced ways, and often motivated by the same very-online culture war greivances — a description that also applies to Argentina’s Javier Milei and various right-wing actors in Europe. Its a relationship that sees the Latin American leaders and their allies repeatedly turn up at places like CPAC, while Trump’s biggest supporters also travel the globe, trying to build something that draws on but extends beyond America’s unique strain of right-wing nationalism. There’s also the cross-pollination of ideas: DOGE was inspired in part by Milei; the State Department’s Office of Remigration takes its name from European ultra-nationalists.
• So anyway, the latest with Flávio: In a letter posted to X (where else) Wednesday, he described himself as Brazil’s leader, and thanked Milei and Trump for assisting with his covert flight to the U.S.
• His allies, however, described to the Washington Post a fractured movement unsure of its next steps.
• The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, has a fascinatingly detailed story on his escape, including the use of decoys to confound authorities, describing his journey by car from Brazil into Argentina, then to Ecuador, and on to Miami.

Tabs

• Jason Turkish, fiancé to former Michigan candidate for Senate Haley Stevens (D), says he will vote for Republican Mike Rogers. Though Michigan Democrats were praised for coming together to back voters’ candidate of choice after a nasty, three-way primary, Turkish, a prolific political donor who has supported both parties, is undercutting that just a bit, explaining in detail to the Detroit News why he cannot vote for Abdul El-Sayed. “We have never seen a candidate for U.S. Senate act so recklessly toward the safety of Jews in the community as we have seen from Abdul,” he says. Theirs is “a household divided,” Stevens offered to CNN.
• Google’s Gemini will not give a straight answer on who won the 2020 election, Mediaite reported yesterday, encouraging users who asked the question to “review the documents provided by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the records maintained by the National Archives.” The company told Business Insider it was trying to fix the issue.

Man of the Hour

It’s James O’Keefe, the notorious conservative influencer known for highly misleading hidden-camera stings. In an attempt to show how easy it is to commit voter fraud in Minnesota, O’Keefe and a fellow influencer dressed in “Muslim” clothes and visited polling sites. On Wednesday, they were hit with state charges for allegedly committing the very crimes they tried to document themselves getting away with.