Three Senate debates in Georgia, Maine and Michigan on Thursday night kept circling back to President Trump. Democrats pressed their Republican opponents on his tariffs, domestic policy bill and the war in Iran. The New York Times reported that Trump's approval rating was near 37 percent.
In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff asked Republican Rep. Mike Collins at least eight times how Trump's tariffs had helped Georgians. Ossoff also challenged Collins over his vote for Trump's domestic policy bill, which included cuts to Medicaid and health insurance premiums. “Whatever Donald Trump says,” Ossoff said, “Mike Collins does.”
Costs Voters Feel
The economic argument ran through all three contests. In Maine, Democratic challenger Troy Jackson said the state's economy was one “Donald Trump and Susan Collins have created.” Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent, said she had voted against Trump's signature domestic policy bill and the war. “Nobody has been more outspoken against the Canadian tariffs than I have,” she said. Jackson called her “not being truthful” about her record.
Jackson also accused Collins and her husband of making money from the Iran war. His campaign pointed to the husband's disclosed stockholdings in two aerospace companies with Pentagon contracts; both companies' stock prices had fallen since the war began. Collins called the accusation “absolutely outrageous” and demanded an apology. She has voted to end the war since April and is running for a sixth term in a race polls show as neck-and-neck.
The Times reported that the war was driving up gas prices, while tariffs were causing economic pain, particularly for farmers and people along the Canadian border. In upstate New York, Rep. John Mannion said in a television ad that Trump was “making everything more expensive — health insurance, housing, gas and groceries.”
Race, Religion and Rights
The Michigan debate turned personal fast. Democratic nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is of Egyptian descent and would become the country's first Muslim senator, has faced racist and Islamophobic attacks on the trail. Republican Mike Rogers repeatedly invoked Al Qaeda and Hamas, suggesting El-Sayed had support from people who backed those groups. El-Sayed's campaign denied the claims and cited articles it said showed they were false or misleading. When Rogers insinuated that El-Sayed's mother had ties to groups working in the Middle East, El-Sayed replied, “You going after my mom?” Moderator Rick Albin said he had never seen a debate continue during a commercial break in 30 years. “But it did.”
In Georgia, Ossoff cited a history of Collins aides expressing white nationalist and antisemitic views. He also criticized Collins for reposting a 2024 video of white male students taunting a Black student with racist and profane remarks. The Washington Post reported that a former intern and contractor for Collins's leadership PAC posted a picture of himself in Ku Klux Klan robes over the summer. The Daily Beast reported that two people who worked with Collins's campaign belonged to a group founded by a former Klan member. A Collins spokesman said the two were unpaid volunteers and the campaign didn't know about their past associations. Collins didn't directly deny the allegations, saying he had “condemned racism, antisemitism, hate.”
On abortion, Jackson attacked Collins for her 2018 vote to confirm Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who later helped overturn Roe v. Wade. Collins said Kavanaugh had convinced her he wouldn't vote to overturn Roe. She also noted that Jackson, a former Republican, had opposed abortion protections in earlier years.
Who Controls the Technology
El-Sayed and Rogers also split on artificial intelligence and data centers. Rogers said local governments should decide whether to allow data centers and voiced hesitation about federal rules. El-Sayed supports strong federal guardrails and defended a proposal for public control of AI companies: more than half the board members at leading firms, he said, should be publicly appointed or democratically elected rather than chosen by shareholders. “If the corporations and their C.E.O.s are right that this is going to take nearly 50 percent of our white-collar jobs, I think it's important for the public to have a real stake,” he said.
The Map Ahead
The Times said that, as in 2006 and 2018, Democrats were on offense while Republicans defended an unpopular president from their party. Redistricting had reduced the number of competitive House districts. Democrats already held 215 seats and needed to flip three for a majority. In the Senate, they needed to keep all their seats and flip at least four Republican-held ones. At a Senate Democrats fundraiser, former President Obama warned that races showing a two- or three-point lead “could end up losing all of them by two points. It's within the margin of error.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Republicans were privately and publicly warning of a poor showing next month. Far-right activist Laura Loomer, who flew with Trump to a rally in Mobile, Alabama, said many candidates were “not very dynamic people.” She called the rallies “a last-ditch effort to bring them across the finish line.”
Meanwhile, a 2028 “shadow primary” is taking shape, the Associated Press reported. California Gov. Gavin Newsom campaigned across the South and backed Proposition 50, which could help Democrats gain as many as five House seats. Gov. JB Pritzker said he had donated $38 million to the party's midterm efforts. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backed El-Sayed, saying, “If Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere.” Vice President JD Vance said he was “trying to help elect Republicans.”
Why This Matters: The debates put real stakes on the table: health coverage, grocery and gas prices, abortion rights, and how candidates answer racist and Islamophobic attacks. Control of the Senate could turn on races decided within the margin of error, as Obama warned. With the party in power carrying a president near 37 percent approval, voters are weighing whether tariffs, an Iran war and Medicaid cuts have made life harder. The proposal for public seats on AI company boards raises another question: who gets a say as technology reshapes jobs? Election Day on Nov. 3 will show how much of that argument reached voters.