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Ralph Norman under pressure from fellow South Carolina Republicans to campaign for Darline Graham

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Rep. Russell Fry says fellow South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman should be doing more to help GOP Sen. Darline Graham win election to a full term in the Senate.

“As somebody who carried the conservative banner as long as he has, he should step into the arena,” Fry told reporters at a Monday campaign event in Myrtle Beach. “He didn’t win. I didn’t win either.”

Fry and Norman both competed against Graham in the Republican primary to be on the November ballot. Norman advanced to a runoff with Graham, who was appointed by Gov. Henry McMaster to fill out the remainder her late brother’s term and ultimately endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Now Graham is locked in a closer-than-expected race against Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, prompting national Republicans to flock to defend what is typically considered a safely red seat. Norman, who enjoys deep popularity among conservatives, said he plans to vote for Graham but not campaign with her.

Fry, appearing at an event Monday alongside House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), described Andrews as “a far more dangerous result for the future of this country” and urged Norman to be “more vocal” in the last week before the midterms.

“I hope that he does, in the final eight days, step into the sunlight a little bit and help his Republican nominee,” Fry said.

Trump is expected to hold a rally in Norman’s district Thursday. A spokesperson for Norman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Congress

House Republicans set leadership elections

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October 26, 2026

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House Republicans will choose their leaders for the upcoming Congress on Nov. 10, one week after Election Day, according to a schedule obtained by Blue Light News.

A two-hour candidate forum is scheduled for that morning, with the afternoon reserved for the elections of a leader, whip, conference chair and other junior positions. If Republicans can hold on to their narrow majority, members will also nominate a speaker ahead of the Jan. 3 floor vote.

Members have until noon Nov. 6 to declare their candidacy for a leadership post, according to the schedule.

A forum and session on the GOP conference rules will follow on Nov. 11, with elections on those rules and the makeup of the conference steering committee to follow on the morning of Nov. 12. All of the events are scheduled to take place in the Capitol Visitor Center Auditorium.

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Gallego plans final midterm travel around Latino enclaves

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4 hours ago

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October 26, 2026

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Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego has been banging the drum for Democrats to pay attention to the disenfranchised, working-class moderate Latino voters that helped push him to a statewide win in 2024 — the same bloc that helped boost President Donald Trump back to the White House.

Gallego has carved a lane as one of the party’s loudest voices on the future of the Latino coalition. He hasn’t shied away from carrying that message everywhere — and it’s one that could serve his admitted 2028 ambitions well.

Now Gallego’s kicking off a final push across several key gubernatorial and House battlegrounds, according to details shared exclusively with Blue Light News. And he’s tracing a map of where Latino voters could be most critical for Democrats’ path back to power.

“They’ve been left behind in the past by Democrats,” Gallego said in an interview. “Now they feel they’re left behind by Donald Trump.”

Gallego is heading to Las Vegas on Monday to campaign with Democrat Aaron Ford, one of the party’s top targets to flip a governor’s seat. Nevada’s a state where Latinos make up nearly 1 in 5 voters, with working-class roots and the major influence of groups like the Culinary Union — not to mention a key presidential swing state and an early one on the Democratic nominating calendar.

Gallego’s planning a canvass launch with the Culinary Union, a hit on Spanish radio and a roundtable with Latino veterans. On Tuesday, Gallego will be in Reno alongside Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who’s looking to beat Republican David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd.

On Wednesday, the senator plans to travel to San Antonio to support Katy Padilla Stout in Texas’ vacant 23rd District, the red rural seat formerly occupied by GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, and then to El Paso for his second appearance this cycle with Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa.

Rounding out the critical Latino voter races, Gallego’s final stop Thursday will be in Miami, stumping for Democrat Eliott Rodriguez, who’s taking on GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar.

Gallego wants to build on the momentum from last year’s Miami mayor’s race, which he said showed Democrats could regain ground with Latinos, along with Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial contests. “There was just this knee-jerk reaction that somehow the Latinos were responsible for 2024, and therefore we shouldn’t reward them with any type of investment,” Gallego said. But after those race results came in, “people finally realized like, ‘Oh God, there is something there.’”

Is this a kickstarter for Gallego’s own future?

The senator dodged on whether his final midterms swing is laying the groundwork for a 2028 bid. “We’re only focused on 2026,” he said. But he’s touting the more than half a million dollars he’s put behind Democratic candidates and committees, and Gallego’s visits will directly follow Trump’s rally in south Texas tomorrow and his planned trip to Florida later this week.

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Asian voters are swinging toward Talarico in Texas. Dems still say more outreach is needed.

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6 hours ago

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October 26, 2026

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Some Democrats want their party to focus on winning back Asian American voters after they swung toward President Donald Trump in 2024. A new poll out of Texas may help their case.

The October poll, conducted by a University of California-San Diego pollster and commissioned by the left-leaning Asian Americans Texas Action Fund, found Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico leading GOP nominee Ken Paxton by nearly 17 points with Asian American and Pacific Islander voters. But, in the closing stretch of the midterms, the vast majority of respondents said they hadn’t seen direct engagement from either campaign.

More than 70% of Asian American voters said they hadn’t been directly contacted by the Talarico campaign, and 81% said they hadn’t been contacted by Paxton’s campaign, according to the findings, obtained by Blue Light News.

“After this season in Texas, it’ll be undeniable that Asian Americans are that margin of victory electorate that all campaigns need to pay attention to,” said Stephanie Cho, the executive director of Asian Americans Texas Action Fund.

Texas has been hit particularly hard by the Trump administration’s immigration agenda and the economic turmoil of rising prices. GOP statewide candidate Bo French’s xenophobic post about a group of Asian American students attending a University of Texas football game also thrust racial politics back into the spotlight.

Democrats have focused on making inroads with Hispanic voters that moved right in 2024: Counties that were more than 25 percent Hispanic swung toward Trump by 10 points compared to the previous presidential election, according to a New York Times analysis. But data shows Asian Americans have similarly slipped away from Democrats. Exit polls show Asian American voters swung toward Trump by 12 points, from 2020 to 2024.

Lawmakers, including Democratic Sens. Andy Kim (N.J.) and Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) have hit the campaign trail for various candidates, hoping to energize AAPI communities.

Kim, who appeared with Talarico at an event in September, told POLITICO at the time that AAPI voters “don’t feel like they’re being courted, or being targeted, or being sought after.”

“We started to take the Asian Americans for granted and did not understand some of the divisions that occur within the community,” Duckworth said in an interview. Earlier this month, she was in Atlanta holding a forum about the importance of the Asian American vote with Sen. Jon Ossoff and a fundraiser for AAPI Victory Fund, a PAC that boosts Asian American candidates.

The new poll, which surveyed 1,242 registered AAPI voters from Oct. 4 to 13 and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points, also found that two-thirds of respondents think Talarico needs to do more to earn their vote — that’s virtually unchanged from the percentage who said this back in June. The numbers are worse for Paxton, with nearly 77% of voters saying the Republican needs to do more to earn their vote, a 7-point increase from June.

Talarico’s campaign spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement that Talarico “has fought tirelessly for Texas’ AAPI community in the Texas House, and will build on that record in the U.S. Senate.”

“He has spoken out against anti-Asian and Islamophobic hate, celebrated cultural events and hosted community engagements with AAPI Texans, and is endorsed by AAPI candidates across Texas,” Ennis said.

A spokesperson for Paxton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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