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As costumed leopards and jungle birds paraded by and guests feasted on a buffet of delicacies in a ballroom swirling with dry ice, President Donald Trump hosted Halloween at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.
Dressed in his usual suit and red tie, he told reporters that he “came as Donald Trump.”
“I didn’t have time to get — people spend a lot of time and money, rich people, they spend nine hours getting ready,” he said. “I had 10 minutes, so I came as Donald Trump.”
The event had a jungle theme, and reporters spotted guests in sequined leotards, face paint, and cheetah, leopard and tiger-print dinner jackets. Circus performers hung from the ceiling.
Guests included House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who was seated next to the president at dinner later in the evening. Across the table was U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, who traveled from Washington with the president on Friday, could also be seen by his side. Also seen mingling with guests was Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The lavish event came three days before voting ends in the midterm elections, which have been dominated by voter concerns about the cost of living.
Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R-Alaska) said he will accept the results of Tuesday’s Senate race in his state even if he does not prevail.
The race in Alaska has been the subject of in controversy over the presence on the ballot of another man with a similar name, Dan J. Sullivan Jr. The New York Times has reported that the campaign of Democratic nominee Mary Peltola was involved in recruiting Dan J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher, to run in a bid to dilute support for the incumbent. Peltola’s campaign denied the allegations.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit to potentially block the results from being certified if the incumbent senator loses by a margin less than the number of votes for his challenger with the similar name.
But asked Sunday on CNN whether he would accept the election results only if he wins, Sullivan replied: “No. I’m going to accept the election results.”
On Saturday, Alaska’s Republican-led government urged a federal judge to dismiss the Justice Department’s bid to block the certification of the Senate race if Sen. Sullivan loses, writing in a filing that the demands were “inappropriate and not even possible given Alaskan voters’ vital right to ballot secrecy.”
SEARSMONT, Maine — Democratic congressional candidate Matt Dunlap visited volunteer wood choppers Saturday morning to highlight the economic hardship many Mainers are feeling over a basic, but critical fuel for many who live here.
The Waldo County Wood Shed has been providing free firewood to people who need it to stay warm during the winters for more than a decade.
President and founder Bob MacGregor said he is expecting more demand this year because of the rising cost of heating oil in Maine. His organization relies on donations to buy logs and hands out about 200 cords per year.
“The only thing we can do is give out wood until we run out,” he said.
Dunlap said affordability has been the theme of the election. Last year, he largely heard from voters concerned about the rising cost of health care, but since the war in Iran, it’s the cost of everything. He said his own property taxes are going up 8 percent this year so his community can pay for the diesel used by its snowplows.
That experience has allowed him to connect with disappointed Trump supporters in this conservative-leaning district.
“They’re paying the same prices everybody else is paying and I think it’s left them feeling kind of demoralized,” Dunlap said. “What I hear from folks is they’re just tired.”
Rep. Haley Stevens (D) released a statement late Saturday urging Michigan to ‘go vote!’ in the critical Senate race that’s been overshadowed by her criticism of the party’s nominee, Abdul El-Sayed.
Her statement is a departure from days of intraparty Democratic warring.
Her public challenges to El-Sayed, who narrowly beat her in the primary, infuriated Democrats on the eve of a contest that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Stevens had pressed El-Sayed to more forcefully condemn an ad from Rebellion PAC, a liberal outside group, that blames Israel for the high price of U.S. groceries. She conditioned her future support on him doing so.
Her fiancé, Jason Turkish, said he would vote for Republican Mike Rogers over it and insinuated Stevens may too.
El-Sayed had said the ad did not speak for him and on Saturday afternoon told reporters explicitly he did not support the contents of the ad.
Stevens then released a statement that did not name El-Sayed saying, “I was glad to see our senate nominee say he does not agree with the content of the vile Rebellion PAC ad.” She added that constituents deserved that leadership.
“Whenever anyone tries to set us against each other, we have an obligation to stand up and fight back,” she said.
Alaska’s Republican-led government urged a federal judge Saturday to dismiss the Trump administration’s bid to block the certification of the state’s U.S. Senate race if Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R) loses by a margin less than the number of votes for his challenger with the same name.
With the midterm elections set for Tuesday, the state attorney general’s office wrote in a filing that the demands in the Justice Department’s lawsuit were “inappropriate and not even possible given Alaskan voters’ vital right to ballot secrecy.”
The DOJ filed the lawsuit on Oct. 22. On Friday, it added a request for a federal judge to order the segregation of ballots “that may be impacted by voter confusion.”
The request came after The New York Times reported Wednesday that Democratic nominee Mary Peltola’s campaign was involved in recruiting retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan onto the ballot in a bid to dilute support for the incumbent. Peltola’s campaign denied the allegations.
In its filing Saturday, Alaska said state officials had “carefully designed the ballot to minimize voter confusion.”
The idea of physically separating ballots listing Dan J. Sullivan “makes no sense,” it wrote, adding that the proposal is “both disturbing and impossible.”
The Washington Post data team has been examining how much parties are spending on ads in the midterms and what they focus on.
Republicans have outspent Democrats in competitive Senate, House and governor’s races every week since Labor Day.
Here’s what we found for the week of Oct. 23-29 when we crunched spending numbers on those races. The data comes from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising.
To learn more about campaign advertising overall in the midterms, here’s what we foundin early October when we studied $1.6 billion in ads.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s 2023 impeachment on bribery and corruption charges has been a major liability during his U.S. Senate race this year. But one lawmaker extolled a supposed bright side.
Speaking at a rally for Paxton on Saturday, state Rep. Andy Hopper cast Paxton’s impeachment as a partisan witch hunt that helped reveal and root out Republican lawmakers who were insufficiently committed to the movement.
After he was acquitted by the state Senate of all charges, Paxton went to political war with the House Republicans who voted to impeach him. He endorsed primary challengers and stumped against incumbent state House Republicans. Nine incumbents lost their primaries that year, and eight more were forced into runoffs. Six of those incumbents lost their runoffs.
“Our state legislature tried to impeach the greatest attorney general, just like they impeached Donald Trump,” Hopper said, who was elected to office amid the purge. “And because of the hard work of Ken Paxton, who honestly was the most significant just force in my race and in so many other races, like Shelley Luther, like Mike Olcott, like Brent Money, like Katrina Pierson, to make sure that conservatives were elected in the body that impeached this man, we have now a — just a force of conservatives.”
Paxton supporters at this rally were not bothered by the impeachment, saying they were satisfied with the state Senate’s acquittal.
“I’ve been in Texas all my life, so I know a lot about things he’s done. You know, some of it’s good. Some of it, I really don’t have much to say about because he was proven innocent,” said Steve Curtis, an attendee from Runaway Bay. “He’s just a better choice than our other choice.”
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