Trump Vows to Campaign in 35 Races as Democrats Hold 8-Point Midterm Lead — Federal Judge Blocks Birthright Citizenship Order

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President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to hit the campaign trail for Republican candidates in 35 races this fall, vowing to spend the final 30 days before the midterm elections crisscrossing the country to help the GOP maintain control of Congress.

“It’s all about 35 races,” Trump told Republican lawmakers at a Rose Garden dinner. “I’m going to go to every one of those 35 places and we’re going to see if we can get everyone elected.”

The push comes as Republicans face an increasingly difficult political landscape. Democrats head into the 2026 midterms with an 8-point lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, as anger over the cost of living and Trump’s handling of the Iran war weighs on voters.

Trump’s Midterm Strategy: “The Final 30 Days”

At a White House Rose Garden dinner with Republican lawmakers, Trump laid out his aggressive travel schedule, recalling his own campaign schedule from two years ago.

“We’re going to take that final 30 days, you don’t want to go too much before that because people forget,” Trump said.

He specifically mentioned Senate races in Alaska, where Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan faces Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola, and Texas, where Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton is running against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. The Cook Political Report currently rates six Senate contests as “Toss Ups” — Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas — five of which are held by Republicans.

Trump also noted that he would ask House Speaker Mike Johnson to direct him to races where Republicans are “tied, losing or the race is close”.

“If you’re leading by 40 points and you’ve been there for 25 years … Please don’t ask me to come to your area and make a speech,” Trump joked.

Elon Musk’s America PAC has also begun spending heavily in key races, disclosing roughly $800,000 in independent expenditures across battleground House and Senate contests. The PAC has reported roughly $50 million in receipts through the latest available filings.

Democrats Hold 8-Point Lead as Voters Blame Trump on Economy

An exclusive August Daily Mail/JL Partners survey found that 50 percent of likely voters would back the Democratic candidate for Congress if the election were held today, compared with 42 percent for the Republican.

The economic warning lights are flashing red for Republicans:

37 percent of voters say they are financially worse off than a year ago
51 percent have cut back on eating out, 42 percent on groceries, and more than a quarter say they are driving less
63 percent say Trump is not doing enough to bring down the cost of living
49 percent believe launching military action against Iran was the wrong decision

The findings come as the conflict with Iran has once again erupted into open confrontation, with the U.S. launching fresh strikes against Iranian targets on Tuesday after Washington accused Tehran of attacking commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz.

Democrats hold a 9-point advantage over Republicans when voters are asked which party they trust to lower household costs. The economy remains the clearest warning light for Republicans as the midterms approach.

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Latest Birthright Citizenship Order

A federal judge reinforced the constitutional right to birthright citizenship Wednesday, blocking President Donald Trump’s latest executive order to limit it.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction, writing in a 35-page ruling that Trump’s August order seeking to limit which people born in the U.S. can become American citizens “is almost certainly unconstitutional”.

“Since his second term in office began on January 20, 2025, the President has tried, through Executive Order, to upend our country’s longstanding tradition of birthright citizenship and eliminate, for large swaths of Americans, the right to citizenship by birth, a right enshrined in the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
— Judge Deborah Boardman

Boardman cited the Supreme Court’s June ruling that blocked Trump’s earlier executive order seeking to limit citizenship by birth.

“This Court must, once again, preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the President’s most recent attempt to strip the right to citizenship from them,” Boardman wrote.

The injunction applies to major federal bodies, including the State, Justice and Homeland Security departments. The 2026 executive order sought to expand categories of those ineligible for automatic citizenship and targeted “birth tourism”.

Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News Wednesday evening that the ruling “is not something that is a surprise to us” and that the administration would “continue to fight” and “if we have to go back to the Supreme Court, we will”.

House Curtails September Schedule as Lawmakers Hit the Trail

House Republican leaders announced Thursday that the final two weeks of their September session are canceled, cutting the legislative calendar short ahead of the November midterm elections.

Lawmakers are expected to reconvene on Sept. 14 and remain in session through Sept. 17. They will then be expected to leave Washington and remain out of session until mid-November. The House had previously been scheduled to remain in session through the end of September.

The schedule change comes after the House voted Tuesday to send a short-term extension of government funding until December to President Trump’s desk, avoiding a politically risky shutdown before the midterm elections.

Adding to the already planned October recess, that will give lawmakers six-and-a-half weeks to campaign in their districts before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

House Democrats Reject Constitutional Amendment to Cap Supreme Court at Nine Justices

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives defeated a Republican-backed constitutional amendment that would have permanently capped the Supreme Court at nine justices.

The amendment failed 212-206, falling well short of the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment to clear the House. Representative Don Davis of North Carolina was the only Democrat to vote in support of the amendment.

The Republican campaign arm wasted no time spinning the vote into midterm messaging, with a spokesperson writing that Democrats voted against the amendment “so they can follow through on a radical socialist agenda”.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar dismissed the resolution as a campaign stunt:

“This is such a fake issue that Republicans are putting on. I understand why they’re putting it on, [but] the American public aren’t asking about this. Nowhere ever are people saying, ‘You know what we should do? We should cap the number of Supreme Court justices.’”
— Rep. Pete Aguilar

The Bottom Line

With less than 65 days until the midterms, the political landscape is shifting. Trump is vowing to campaign aggressively in 35 races, but Democrats hold an 8-point lead on the generic ballot as voters blame the president for the cost of living and the Iran war.

A federal judge has blocked Trump’s latest birthright citizenship order, while the House has curtailed its September schedule to give lawmakers more time to campaign. Democrats rejected a Republican bid to cap the Supreme Court at nine justices, setting up a sharp contrast heading into November.

For working families, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The cost of living, the Iran war, and the future of the Supreme Court are all on the ballot — and voters are paying attention.

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