Author: rpnadmin

Campaigns spent billions of dollars on ads this year. Some worked. Some didn’t. Some were stirring. Some were cringe.Most will be quickly forgotten. A few will be remembered.Here are some of the most memorable, influential and sometimes incoherent spots of a 2026 midterm election that resulted in one of the biggest Democratic landslides in modern history:“Pick another protein?” The affordability ad that defined a Senate race.Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, wasn’t supposed to even be in a competitive race. But in the closing stretch, national Republicans redirected money and President Trump made a trip for a rally to try…

Campaigns spent billions of dollars on ads this year. Some worked. Some didn’t. Some were stirring. Some were cringe.Most will be quickly forgotten. A few will be remembered.Here are some of the most memorable, influential and sometimes incoherent spots of a 2026 midterm election that resulted in one of the biggest Democratic landslides in modern history:“Pick another protein?” The affordability ad that defined a Senate race.Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, wasn’t supposed to even be in a competitive race. But in the closing stretch, national Republicans redirected money and President Trump made a trip for a rally to try…

Calley Means, who resigned as a top federal health official two weeks ago after clashing with the White House, on Friday accused President Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, of bowing to “unrelenting” pressure from industry lobbyists while prioritizing political fund-raising over Americans’ health.In a two-hour interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan, Mr. Means said that Ms. Wiles withheld support from his efforts to make children’s diets healthier, citing the need for sugar industry money. He said her team demanded more approvals of flavored e-cigarettes, a top priority for major tobacco companies that donated at least $20 million to the…

Fewer than 2,000 votes separated the candidates for Senate in Mississippi on Thursday, causing a raft of lawyers, campaign operatives and legal observers to descend on county election offices to watch officials count ballots in the contest between Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and her challenger, Scott Colom.If he prevails, Mr. Colom, a Democratic district attorney, would be the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction. As of Thursday afternoon, he held a lead of 1,813 votes over Ms. Hyde-Smith, a Republican serving her first term.In an election when Democrats broke through conservative strongholds to gain majorities in the House and Senate, Mississippi…

As Susan Collins campaigned in York County, Maine, recently, a woman approached to inform the Republican senator that she had always supported her and “absolutely” loved her. But she wasn’t going to vote for her this time.“She said it was the only way she could send a message to Trump,” Ms. Collins recounted in an interview on Wednesday, a day after she lost to the Democrat Troy Jackson in her attempt to win a sixth term.That was the story of the election for Ms. Collins, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee and a force in the Senate for three decades.“I…

The Democratic surge on Tuesday netted at least 330 state legislative seats, from New Hampshire to Arizona, giving the Democrats full control of 22 state governments and making them the majority in a dozen statehouse chambers where they had been the minority party.And while Washington remains divided, Democrats will have the power to make policy on health care, voting and taxation in state capitals that for years have been far beyond their control, such as Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.In Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada, Democrats will hold both statehouse chambers as well as the governorship. The party was…

Democrats marched to a landslide victory in the midterm elections on Tuesday as voters across the country raged at President Trump’s party, dealing Republicans stunning defeats from the Deep South to the prairie lands.For the first time this century, Democrats won statewide in Texas, taking not just a Senate seat but also the governor’s mansion. They won a Senate seat in Kansas, which had not happened in nearly 100 years. They flipped a Senate seat in South Carolina, a state that had barely been on the battleground map. And they seized House seats in such deep-red territory that Democrats are…

Democrats seized control of the Senate on Tuesday, according to New York Times projections, capturing a powerful platform to counter President Trump as voters in Republican-leaning states repudiated the president and his allies in a midterm thrashing.Democrats clinched the Senate majority with a win in Iowa and were picking up competitive House seats around the country that pointed to a lopsided margin of control in that chamber.The results promised a new era of divided government in Washington and a freshly assertive Congress after two years in which Republicans generally ceded power to Mr. Trump and reduced the legislative branch’s role…

Rebecca Bennett, a Democrat who stressed her experience as a Navy helicopter pilot, has unseated Representative Thomas Kean Jr., the scion of a prominent New Jersey Republican family, according to The Associated Press.As in other competitive swing districts across the country, Mr. Kean’s record as a reliable vote for the House’s Republican majority and his strong support for an unpopular president overshadowed much of the campaign. But questions over Mr. Kean’s health and his fitness for office also influenced the race after he vanished from the public eye this spring with little explanation.When he returned to Capitol Hill at the…

It’s Election Day, an exercise in democracy that seemingly never fails to leave Americans hanging on every last ballot to be counted.Gather your patience, and some caffeine, as experts say it may take several days, if not longer, for complete results to emerge, introducing an element of uncertainty to races that could decide control the Senate, House and governorships.The waiting game is expected to raise a recurring question in U.S. elections: Why are some states much slower to report results than others?“Slow is in the eye of the beholder,” said David Scott, vice president of elections for The Associated Press.…