2026 Midterms, 12 Days Out: Ohio GOP Rift, Iowa in Play, and Russian Disinfo Hit Texas Race

With 12 days until the 2026 midterm elections, a sharp Republican civil war has broken out in Ohio over a Vivek Ramaswamy attack ad targeting Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton using her estranged mother. Ohio's Republican governor Mike DeWine publicly called on Ramaswamy to pull the ad — only to be swatted down hours later by President Trump, who posted on social media insulting both DeWine and Acton while calling the ad 'hitting pay dirt.' The intraparty fracture is particularly damaging in a state seen as central to determining which party controls Congress.

Iowa, long reliably Republican, has emerged as a genuine battleground as farmers reel from Iran war-driven fuel costs — diesel nearly double earlier-year prices — and ongoing trade fights with China, Canada, and Mexico battering corn and soybean markets. Trump flew to Sioux City to prop up Senate nominee Ashley Hinson and gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, both locked in tight races. A 3,000-acre farmer who voted Trump in 2016 and 2020 told reporters he's now splitting his ticket, backing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand. The generic congressional ballot shows Democrats ahead by 9 points in a UMass Lowell/YouGov poll.

In Texas, a covert Russian influence operation — Storm-1516, the same group that spread disinformation against Tim Walz in 2024 — has injected a fabricated misconduct claim against Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. The operation surfaced even as Trump pursued diplomatic outreach toward Moscow this week, highlighting the contradiction at the heart of the administration's foreign policy posture heading into the election.

Campaign finance filings revealed aggressive spending and manipulation: Fairshake, the crypto industry's super PAC, is now slated to spend $113 million total in Ohio's Senate race against Democrat Sherrod Brown, the largest outlay of any interest group this cycle. Meanwhile, a Republican-linked PAC called Enough Promises Ohio injected $2.5 million to boost a socialist third-party candidate specifically to siphon left-wing votes from Brown in what is already a razor-thin contest. A separate crypto-tied super PAC, Fellowship PAC, claimed over $100 million in commitments but has raised only $11 million in a year, with $0 raised in early October.

On the youth vote front, a new Times/Siena poll shows 70% of 18-to-29-year-old likely voters identifying as Democrats or leaning that way — a 15-point swing from the 2024 presidential election and a level not seen since Obama's 2008 wave. In Maine, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stumped for Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson against incumbent Susan Collins, hammering Collins for her Kavanaugh confirmation vote. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is launching a final battleground sprint, starting in New York's lower Hudson Valley with combat veteran Cait Conley, who is challenging two-term Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.