Both Parties Beg for Your Vote; Same Power Stays Put

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in September that immigration agents could go to polling places in certain circumstances. That's the backdrop for Tuesday's midterm elections, four days out from today: a vote, we're told, that decides the country's future, held under the possible watch of armed federal enforcement.

Who Has the Power

President Donald Trump, 80, is facing what the wire reports call "the prospect of a voter rebellion." He's a lame duck, yet he'll be in office two more years regardless of what happens Tuesday. Republican strategist David Urban put it plainly: "Until the day Donald Trump draws his last breath, he will still loom large like the Colossus of Rhodes over the Republican Party. Nobody is going to be more influential, regardless of what happens in this election."

Read that again. A party operative, speaking about an election, says the election won't change who holds the leash.

Still, the managers of the show are already repositioning. Some Republican candidates have begun distancing themselves from the man who remade their party a decade ago. Former Sen. John E. Sununu, running for the New Hampshire Senate seat he lost in 2008, is telling voters he has never even met the leader of his party. Trump has steered clear of New Hampshire, a state he lost in all three presidential contests. Sununu's pitch: "I think it's important that people see what kind of a strong, independent voice I'll be for the state." Loyalty is a coat they take off when the weather turns.

The 2028 jockeying is already underway. Vice President JD Vance, 42, a former Trump critic turned acolyte, is the buzz pick; Secretary of State Marco Rubio's stock could take a hit too. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, 64, who is weighing a comeback, wait in the wings. Urban's worry isn't the people who might stay home, disaffected over "the economy, or the war, or pick your exit polling issue." It's "who's going to be the next standard-bearer for the party."

What They're Calling "Choice"

Democrats, who the reporting admits "remain unpopular despite midterm momentum," are headed for a tug-of-war between establishment leaders and progressives demanding transformative change. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is poised to become the nation's first Black House speaker if Democrats win the majority. The establishment is cheering. Frustrated progressives think Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer are part of the problem.

Corbin Trent, a former adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said: "This election is rejection of the status quo. The fact is, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and the bulk of Democratic leadership has proven it's incapable to meet this moment."

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democratic presidential prospect facing reelection, wouldn't say he welcomed the Democratic Socialists of America into his party. He told AP he wanted "commonsense leaders that are prepared to disrupt the status quo and know how to move fast in order to get things done." Then the slogan: "I don't want to be a party of no and slow. I want to be a party of yes and now." Yes to what, now, he didn't say. Just two DSA-backed members serve in the House now; that's expected to grow to at least seven. Seven, out of 435, inside the machine they say they'll change.

Theater, Stage Left and Right

The spectacle runs on a schedule. Trump held a rally Friday evening in Daytona Beach, Florida, around 7 p.m. ET, for Republican nominees Rep. Bryon Donalds, Sen. Ashley Moody and Rep. Randy Fine. He had promised a blitz of 35 places. He canceled planned Kansas and Iowa rallies in favor of tele-rallies, saying he didn't "feel I have to go to Kansas" and that Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, in a tight race with Democrat Adam Hamilton, "is doing well." The White House later said the Sunday rallies were rescheduled, plus conference-call-style events. The voters in a tight race got a phone line.

Then there's the sanctified touch. Pope Leo XIV, birth name Robert Francis Prevost, voted by mail-in ballot in Chicago, the Holy See Press Office announced, the first head of the Catholic Church to vote in a U.S. election. He requested the ballot Oct. 3. And Faiths United to Save Democracy is sending more than 1,000 faith leaders to polling places in nine states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

So here's the picture. A president who stays regardless. Candidates who run from him. An opposition split between leaders accused of failing and newcomers promising speed. A pope's ballot, a thousand clergy at the polls, and federal immigration agents who might be there too. Everyone's invited to the ritual. The question of who actually decides stays off the ballot.