National Politics

By Isabelle Khurshudyan, CNN (CNN) — Before there were two Dan Sullivans, there were three Bob Fergusons. In 2024, Washington’s Democratic state Attorney General Bob Ferguson was joined in the gubernatorial primary race by two other Democratic hopefuls with the same name. Was it a coincidence? More like an age-old election trick that’s come up

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN (CNN) — Elon Musk has plowed nearly half a billion dollars into elections in the 2026 cycle, a spending spree that makes him the single, largest disclosed donor in modern American politics and one of the Republican Party’s largest-ever benefactors. The world’s richest man has contributed more than $445 million to

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, Tierney Sneed, CNN The Justice Department has dramatically accelerated a criminal probe into whether Alaska Democrats sought to confuse voters by recruiting a Senate candidate intended to siphon votes from the Republican, issuing dozens of new grand jury subpoenas and homing in on new potential charges, according to people familiar

By Sean Lyngaas, Priscilla Alvarez, Thomas Bordeaux, CNN (CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security is investigating after hackers claimed to have stolen and leaked the sensitive personal information of tens of thousands of current and former department employees, including some that work on covert and sensitive missions. “DHS is aware of a potential breach

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN (CNN) — The hardware underpinning major AI models can be hacked so that chatbots provide faulty and dangerous answers to questions from users, according to new research shared exclusively with CNN. The researchers were able to subvert answers to sensitive national security and personal health questions. In one instance, they were

By Tierney Sneed, Annette Choi, CNN (CNN) — Never before has the federal government been more focused on finding evidence of mass noncitizen voting. What it’s found is exponentially more modest. Under the orders of President Donald Trump, the administration has launched a far-reaching effort to find evidence that foreigners are tainting elections. Top officials

By Patrick Svitek, David Wright, CNN (CNN) — Candidates are trading accusations of being beholden to big donors, debating who wants to restrict congressional stock trading more and running ads in which they stand in literal swamps. Fighting corruption has emerged as one of the biggest issues of the midterms, shaping battleground races from coast

By Jennifer Agiesta, Ariel Edwards-Levy, Edward Wu, CNN (CNN) — CNN polling across four key Senate races in the final days of the midterm campaign finds Democrats well-positioned in Michigan and Texas, with no clear leader in the races in Maine or Kansas. The four states tell the story of a midterm playing field that

By Zachary Cohen, Brad Lendon, CNN Washington (CNN) — US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Pentagon’s top planning officer as President Donald Trump weighs new strikes against Iran, according to a defense official and another source familiar with the matter. Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, who held the role of director for strategy, plans and

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN (CNN) — The Defense Department’s watchdog has declined a bipartisan request to open an investigation into the slowdown of the SpaceX’s military-grade Starlink system in Ukraine, according to a letter obtained by CNN. Earlier this month, a group of nine bipartisan senators, led by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and Democratic Sen.

By Katelyn Polantz, Tierney Sneed, CNN (CNN) — A federal judge is refusing to allow the Justice Department to intervene in California’s ongoing mail-in ballot counting, warning that the Trump administration’s request to segregate as many as 20,000 ballots to vet voters’ citizenship would “wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway.” Federal

By Tierney Sneed, Patrick Svitek, Tori B. Powell, CNN (CNN) — Alaska officials said new revelations in The New York Times about efforts by Democrats to recruit a Senate candidate with the same name as GOP incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan do not change the state’s opposition to a Trump administration lawsuit seeking to potentially

By Sunlen Serfaty, CNN (CNN) — US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a federal judge that President Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch is a “generational national defense opportunity” in a legal briefing arguing the project is vital to protecting the nation’s capital. Originally proposed as a monument to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday, Trump last

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN (CNN) — US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said the Trump administration is ejecting a Cuban diplomat from the United States amid soaring tensions between Washington and Havana. The ejection comes after a shouting match erupted on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly Hall between Waltz and Cuban

By Eric Bradner (CNN) — A Minnesota county attorney is charging right-wing influencers James O’Keefe and Cameron Higby with felony counts of unlawful voting and identity theft, alleging that the two claimed other voters’ identities while visiting polling places with concealed cameras during the state’s August primary. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said O’Keefe and

By Rachel Siegel (CNN) – The Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep interest rates steady on Wednesday, even as officials weigh another hike this year to tame rising inflation. Central bankers have struggled to tame inflation for years. But gas and energy prices have been on an upward climb since the war in Iran

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN (CNN) — With under a week to go in what many polls are showing as a still tight Senate race in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed hasn’t called his former primary opponent Rep. Haley Stevens in months — and there are no plans for that to change before Election Day. Stevens narrowly lost

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst (CNN) — Religious groups have long urged the Supreme Court to reverse a 1990 decision that diminished free-exercise protection and that was written, paradoxically, by the conservative exemplar Justice Antonin Scalia. That decision, against two members of a Native American church who lost their jobs after engaging in

By Jeff Zeleny, Steve Contorno, Eric Bradner, CNN Atlanta (CNN) — Americans have elected three Black governors in the nation’s 250-year history. By next week, that figure could multiply. From Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia to Byron Donalds in Florida to David Crowley in Wisconsin, Black candidates are vying to lead eight states from the

CNN By Hannah Rabinowitz, Holmes Lybrand, CNN (CNN) — Justice Department prosecutors on Tuesday tried and failed to secure a grand jury indictment of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson over her testimony about President Donald Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot, according to two people familiar with the matter. Hutchison