From coast to coast, Republicans are focusing on public disorder, illegal immigration and violent crime in midterm campaigns as voters sour on their party's handling of the cost of living and the war with Iran.
The messaging reflects a belief that lawlessness is safer political ground in the midterms despite Donald Trump's own criminal record for paying hush money to a porn star, making him the only president to be convicted of a felony. Plus, Arkansas ad sparks conservative backlash, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito weighs in on the emergency docket and a politics team dispatch from covering Indiana's redistricting debate. |
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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a campaign event for Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., background left, in Bakersfield, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) |
Republicans return to tough-on-crime message ahead of difficult midterm elections — By Matt Brown Democrats have tried to counter the GOP attacks by recruiting candidates with law enforcement backgrounds and emphasizing their own anti-crime plans, but Republicans believe it's a rare opportunity to go on the offensive in an otherwise challenging year.
On the campaign trail, both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have recently mentioned crime, which — despite a brief spike during the COVID pandemic — has been trending down since the 1990s.
In Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin, Republican candidates for governor have attacked their Democratic rivals as weak on crime or warned they could cut police funding.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, for instance, has lambasted Democratic nominee and state Rep. Gina Hinojosa for not supporting legislation that would require judges to deny bail to illegal immigrants charged with a violent crime. Hinojosa has campaigned on her tenure as a civil rights lawyer and criticized Abbott's crime policies as violating civil liberties.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive running in Georgia, has repeatedly attacked Democratic opponent Keisha Lance Bottoms over her tenure as Atlanta mayor. Bottoms has emphasized that her administration gave pay raises to police and firefighters, and said she called for increased federal funding for public safety during her time as mayor.
Read more from Brown on Republicans' crime messaging. |
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Black 'welfare queen' trope persists despite data to the contrary |
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders listens as President Donald Trump speaks during an event about healthcare in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday Sept. 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) |
Arkansas campaign ad sparks conservative backlash for portraying lazy welfare recipient as white — By Laura Turbay and Terry Tang A new video from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was standard issue Republican messaging for promoting her state's stricter rules for people on Medicaid. No more could able-bodied people lounge around while receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare, she said — they needed to work.
But the decision to portray an unemployed moocher as a young, white, cheeseball-chomping gamer named Brad upset some conservative commentators last week. Five decades after Ronald Reagan popularized the “welfare queen” trope about people living luxuriously while not working, they wanted to know why the video wasn't featuring a Black woman instead. The debate that streaked across social media was the latest example of how conservatives have recently wrestled with racist views.
Last month, a Texas political candidate named Bo French posted a picture of nonwhite students cheering at a University of Texas football game, saying “the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” Some Republicans denounced French's post, while it was embraced by those who fear the country's changing demographics. Sanders, who is running for reelection this year, “stands by the ad,” said Jordan Powell, her campaign manager.
Read more from Turbay and Tang on the Arkansas ad and backlash. |
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Alito critical of emergency docket surge and Trump's rhetoric |
Associate Justice Samuel Alito stands in his chambers at the Supreme Court during an Associated Press interview, in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) |
Alito says Supreme Court can’t stem emergency appeals and voices concern over Trump’s rhetoric — By Lindsay Whitehurst
In a rare interview, Alito told The Associated Press that the rhetoric about the court from Trump and his administration doesn't sit well with him, and that the escalating volume of emergency appeals before the court isn't a good thing — but that there's little the court can do to change the trajectory.
“I personally am not pleased with that," he said. “Everybody in this country has the right to criticize what we do. The substance of their criticism can be quite harsh. If we deserve it, then that’s fine. But rhetoric is a different story." Alito spoke in connection with his first book, “So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of The Constitution, The Court and Our Country.”
The number of petitions asking the justices to intervene quickly has skyrocketed during Trump's second administration, putting the court at the center of hotly debated issues such as the Republican president's new ballroom construction and his proposed restrictions on mail ballots in the midterm elections. The number of emergency applications now rivals the annual tally of cases the justices consider with full briefing and oral arguments, Alito wrote in a new book released Tuesday.
Read more from Whitehurst's interview with Alito and his new book. |
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AP Elections spotlight: What it's like to cover the 2026 midterms |
Protestors hold signs outside the Indiana Senate chamber before a vote to redistrict the state's congressional map at the Statehouse in Indianapolis, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy) |
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 Des Moines-based reporter Thomas Beaumont had to say about his time in Indiana: "Very few Republicans are willing to say no, at least publicly, to President Donald Trump. But that's what happened in Indiana.
Trump wanted state senators to join his unusual crusade to redraw congressional districts around the country to give Republicans an advantage in the midterms.
Few states are as conservative as Indiana, where Trump easily won in each of his campaigns. However, senators weren't sold on the plan or the president's aggressive lobbying, which included his usual dose of social media insults.
A bit of personal satisfaction came from getting the media-shy Mitch Daniels, a former Republican governor, to talk about the rare defiance. 'Folks in our state don’t react well to being bullied,' he said.
The Republican senators voted down the redistricting, but Trump still found a way to demonstrate his grip on the party. Several of them lost primaries to Trump-backed opponents in May.
Still, it was a rare episode of Republicans zigging when president told them to zag."
Read more from Beaumont's reporting on Indiana's redistricting debate. |
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