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By Meg Kinnard

October 13, 2026

It’s a long way from Washington, has a small population and hasn't backed a Democrat for Senate in nearly 20 years.

Yet today President Donald Trump devotes a big chunk of his dwindling time ahead of crucial midterm elections to head all the way to Alaska — attempting to bolster a Republican incumbent senator in another sign of GOP fears about retaining control of Congress after Election Day on Nov. 3.

Plus, Americans assess Trump's focus on his own wealth, the facts on James Talarico's campaign trail absence and a politics team dispatch from the North Carolina Senate race.

The Headline

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright applaud. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump is heading all the way to Alaska in a sign of just how close its Senate race may be — By Will Weissert and Becky Bohrer

Trump is headlining a rally for Sen. Dan Sullivan in Wasilla, about 45 miles north of Anchorage — famous for being the hometown of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and the headquarters of the Iditarod sled dog race across the state.

Trump's stop is part of a western swing also taking him to rallies in Arizona and Montana on Wednesday.

Democrats last won a Senate seat in Alaska in 2008, and the state hasn't elected a governor from that party since 1998. The only time Alaska didn’t vote Republican for president was during Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide 1964 reelection.

Yet high gasoline prices from the Iran war and persistently elevated inflation have damaged Trump's approval ratings enough to leave Democrats dreaming of Alaska upsets.

Dive deeper ➤

AP Elections spotlight: What it's like to cover the 2026 midterms

Evan Duke, a 30-year-old bartender who lives in Raleigh, N.C., works at the Pearl & Peril, March 10, 2026, in the city's Glenwood South bar district. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow)

We asked our political reporters across the country who have been covering the midterm elections to pick their favorite story they've worked on this year and take stock of what made it memorable.

Here's what Atlanta-based national politics reporter Bill Barrow had to say about covering the North Carolina Senate race:

"In the spring, I spent several days in North Carolina. The initial goal was to assess the crucial Senate contest between Republican Michael Whatley, Trump’s handpicked candidate, and Democrat Roy Cooper, the former governor who’s never lost an election.

Although I saw both candidates in action, I found my conversations with voters even more illuminating. Most notable was Evan Duke, a bartender in Raleigh who said he was glad to have his tips exempted from federal income taxes and knew that was part of Republicans’ 2025 tax law. But he also noted inflation’s rippling effects, like higher prices for gas and other goods because of the Iran war and tariffs. Health care and housing costs also continued to outpace wage increases.

In short, he wasn't buying Trump's rhetoric about his tax legislation or the booming economy, yet he wasn’t quite ready to say he’d vote for Cooper. Evan and others helped me document the national fault lines, and they foreshadowed how hard it has been for Republicans – with control of the White House, House and Senate – to convince voters that tax cuts define their overall economic circumstances."

The latest AP-NORC Polls

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin Conference, July 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Trump says he cares for Americans. They think he's more focused on his wealth, an AP-NORC poll finds — By Bernard Condon and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux

Most Americans think Trump is profiting off the presidency in unethical or illegal ways and is focused more on his wealth than helping people like them, a new AP-NORC poll finds.

As Trump's family business pulls in record money from new ventures helped by his policies, the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that when it comes to allegations that Trump is profiting from the presidency, about 6 in 10 U.S. adults believe he is either illegally profiting or doing something unethical but not illegal.

Only about 2 in 10 think the Republican president is doing nothing wrong, while a similar share say they don't know enough to say.

At the same time, just over half of Americans say Trump has prioritized his personal financial interests “a lot” since returning to the White House, while only about one-quarter say he puts the same emphasis on the country as a whole. Few U.S. adults, about 1 in 10, say he's focused “a lot” on people like them.

View the AP-NORC Polling tracker.

FACT FOCUS: False claims that Talarico was treated at mental health facility spread

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Texas state Rep. James Talarico speaks during a television interview at a food drive at the Frederick Douglass Human Services and Justice Center, Sept. 9, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Claim: Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, was being treated in an Ohio mental health facility last week.

Fact: This is false. The facility where he was said to have been treated has denied he was ever a patient there. Both he and his campaign have said he was recovering from the flu.

Analysis: Republicans highlighted Talarico's subsequent absence from the campaign trail from Oct. 1 to Oct. 9, noting it came at a critical time at the end of a competitive race.

His opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, described Talarico as “missing” in a series of social posts and said his campaign had requested “proof of life.” Trump called Talarico “MISSING IN ACTION!" in a Truth Social post and asked: “Where is he? What is wrong with him?”

Among the chatter was a rumor that Talarico had suffered a mental health breakdown. Conservative social media influencer Nick Sorter on Sunday posted a 47-second audio clip on X that he said proved that Talarico had been discharged earlier in the week from Lindner Center of Hope, a mental health treatment center in Mason, Ohio. In the clip, a woman who Sorter claimed was an employee there says it looked like Talarico “was just discharged this evening.”

But the timeline doesn’t hold up. Rhein Amacher, who describes himself on social media as a “right-wing provocateur,” said he made the call on Saturday evening. Talarico was seen at the Austin City Limits music festival on Friday. On Saturday, he made an appearance at a Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas.