Political tensions have intensified in the United States as congressional candidates and President Donald Trump made their final appeals to voters on Monday, ahead of the midterm elections, with control of Congress hanging in the balance.
The elections, scheduled for Tuesday, have heightened political disputes in Michigan, where Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed is seeking to become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.
California also witnessed a legal battle after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s bid to interfere with the counting of ballots from voters suspected of being non-US citizens.
Trump, who faces the prospect of losing control of Congress for the final two years of his presidency, used his last major address before election day to highlight renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington.
He later appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” programme, urging Republicans to turn out in large numbers.
“We have to vote. If our people vote, we win in a landslide,” Trump said.
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are being contested.
Democrats are widely expected to reclaim the House, although their chances of securing a Senate majority remain more uncertain.
Losing either chamber would limit Trump’s ability to advance his agenda and give Democrats greater powers to investigate his administration and block judicial appointments.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the administration’s attempt to stop California from counting mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters whom federal officials alleged were likely non-US citizens.
California argued that the lawsuit could disenfranchise voters based on uncertain claims and an error-prone identification process.
A federal judge also ordered the administration to stop demanding that the state separate ballots cast by individuals listed as suspected noncitizens.
Trump has campaigned extensively for Republican candidates, holding events in 20 states over the past 32 days, according to the White House.
His final in-person campaign appearance was at the reopening of the Washington reflecting pool, where he spent considerable time discussing renovation details, including pipes, granite resurfacing, leaks and algae.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday showed Democrats leading Republicans by eight percentage points, with 46 per cent of registered voters favouring Democrats and 38 per cent supporting Republicans.
Early voting had also reached a record 57 million ballots by Monday afternoon, surpassing the 45 million votes cast during the 2022 midterm elections.
In Michigan, El-Sayed, a physician and former public health official, is facing Republican Mike Rogers in a closely contested Senate race.
The contest became more heated after Democratic Representative Haley Stevens, who lost the party’s primary to El-Sayed, crossed party lines to endorse Rogers.
El-Sayed’s campaign subsequently announced that it raised $2.4m on Sunday, its highest single-day fundraising total, driven by small-dollar donations.
El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American Muslim born in Michigan, has faced attacks from Trump and other Republicans, who questioned his loyalty to the United States and accused him of being a terrorist sympathiser without evidence.
He described the allegations as “shameful.” Rogers, speaking on Fox News’ “Hannity” programme, described El-Sayed as “just too extreme.”
At a rally, Rogers said, “This election was never about how someone prayed. It was always about how you think, what your philosophy and what your ideology is.” El-Sayed, however, called for unity, saying, “I believe that we have the opportunity to breach those divides, divides of geography, of race, of sexual orientation, gender identity, of faith, to build together what we only can have together.”
The Trump administration has also sought to intervene in election disputes in Alaska, where a federal judge on Sunday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to prevent the certification of results if Republican incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan narrowly loses.
The department argued that voters could be confused by the presence of another candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with a similar name on the ballot.
The controversy intensified after reports that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign was involved in recruiting Sullivan Jr. as a spoiler candidate.
Peltola denied involvement, while Sullivan Jr. also rejected claims of coordination with her campaign.
Senator Sullivan said on Sunday that he would accept the outcome of Tuesday’s election, despite the administration’s ongoing criminal investigation into the matter.
At a rally in Alaska on Monday, where he was introduced as “the real Dan Sullivan,” he said Democrats considered the state crucial to gaining control of the Senate. “It’s not just about Alaska,” he said.
“We are the firewall for freedom for America right now.”
Meanwhile, a supporter of Sullivan Jr. said FBI agents questioned him on Friday over a $500 donation to the challenger.
Barry Bracken, a retired fisheries biologist from Petersburg, Alaska, said he told the agents he had deliberately donated to Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s campaign, after which they left.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
