Bernie Sanders

California's Proposition 40 would create the first U.S. tax on billionaires' net worth, but two rival measures, Propositions 41 and 42, contain "poison pill" language that could nullify it even if it wins a majority. Polling shows all three measures drawing majority support, pointing to voter confusion over the ballot language. A billionaire-backed coalition, including Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt, has bankrolled the opposition, with spending topping $350 million against roughly $34 million raised by supporters, including labor unions like SEIU-UHW. Democrats are split: Bernie Sanders backs Prop. 40 while Gavin Newsom opposes it, favoring a national wealth tax instead. If competing measures both pass, the outcome would likely be settled in court.

With under two weeks until Election Day, Florida has drawn heavy national attention, with surrogates from both parties campaigning across the state. President Trump is set to rally with Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, whose campaign faced scrutiny after briefly removing Trump references from its website, which Donalds called routine updates. Vice President JD Vance has framed the election as a choice between continuing current GOP policies or returning to Biden-era priorities. Democrats, hoping to flip seats, deployed Bernie Sanders for Senate candidate Angie Nixon against incumbent Ashley Moody, while Bill Clinton campaigned with gubernatorial candidate David Jolly. Competitive U.S. House races in Florida's 13th and 14th districts are also drawing close attention.

Democrat Angie Nixon, who upset Alex Vindman in Florida's Senate primary by nearly 12 points, is now challenging Republican Senator Ashley Moody in a race most analysts consider a longshot for Democrats. Florida has 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats, and polls show Moody leading, though margins vary. Nixon faces a severe funding gap, having raised under $1 million to Moody's more than $11 million as of late July, limiting her ability to counter attack ads tying her to the Democratic Socialists of America.

National Democrats have been slow to invest in the race, but Senators Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders are campaigning with Nixon this week, with Sanders contributing $250,000. Nixon is running on universal health care, child care, and affordable housing, and is working to mobilize Black voters and women while courting GOP-leaning communities. She has embraced an unapologetically progressive, grassroots-driven campaign, drawing comparisons to gubernatorial nominee David Jolly's more moderate crossover strategy, with both races seen as tests of competing Democratic approaches ahead of 2028. Analysts say Trump's unpopularity and cost-of-living concerns give her an opening, but she would need exceptionally high Democratic turnout combined with Republican voters staying home to overcome the state's structural disadvantages.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is seeking to become Minnesota's next governor, casting herself as a moderate Democrat who can repair the state's reputation and address pandemic-era welfare fraud scandals that Republicans have used to paint Minnesota as a cautionary tale of liberal governance. Klobuchar, who built a national profile during her 2020 presidential run and has served in the U.S. Senate, is widely seen as the favorite in the race.

Her campaign comes as Minnesota Democrats face scrutiny over fraud tied to pandemic relief programs, along with lingering political fallout from the 2020 murder of George Floyd and subsequent unrest in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Klobuchar is positioning herself against more progressive currents within her party, emphasizing pragmatic governance over ideological approaches associated with democratic socialism. The race is being watched as a test of whether centrist Democrats can reclaim ground in a state Republicans have targeted as emblematic of government mismanagement, with implications for broader 2026 gubernatorial and midterm dynamics.

Sen. Bernie Sanders campaigned across Maine this weekend for Democrat Troy Jackson, who is running a dead-heat race against five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins. At stops in Bangor, Lewiston and Biddeford, Sanders and Jackson tied high living costs, gas and heating prices, and health care expenses to Republican control of Congress, while Sanders called President Trump "the most dangerous president in the history of America."

Jackson, a fifth-generation logger and state legislator, pitched himself as a working-class candidate who has struggled with his own mortgage and medical bills, and pointed to his record expanding free school lunches and gun background checks. Both candidates backed Sanders-style proposals including universal health care, taxing billionaires, and funding affordable housing and child care. Collins, 73, has previously outperformed polling but faces headwinds from inflation, an unpopular war in the Middle East and Trump-related voter fatigue, even among traditionally moderate Mainers. Polls currently show the race tied ahead of the November 3 election.

California's 2026 race for insurance commissioner has become a proxy battle within the Democratic Party, as progressives push to claim a regulatory post with outsized influence over the nation's largest insurance market. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaigned across California over the weekend, rallying support for Jane Kim, a former San Francisco official and progressive candidate, alongside a renewed push for a billionaire tax.

The insurance commissioner role, though less visible than governor or senator, carries significant power to regulate rates and policy in a state grappling with an insurance affordability crisis tied to wildfire risk. For progressives, the race offers an alternative path to influence after Tom Steyer's billionaire-backed run for governor collapsed in the primary. The contest highlights growing tension between the party's establishment wing and a progressive bloc energized by anti-billionaire messaging ahead of the 2026 midterms.

A new Washington Post-Schar School poll finds Democrat Troy Jackson leading Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) 50 percent to 46 percent, with less than a month until Election Day. The race is among the most closely watched of the midterms, as Collins is the only Senate Republican defending her seat this cycle in a state that backed Kamala Harris in 2024, and the outcome could help determine control of the chamber, where Republicans hold a narrow majority.

The survey, conducted Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, shows Collins struggling with President Trump's unpopularity in Maine, with a majority of voters saying she has been too supportive of him. Jackson, a former Maine Senate president who entered the race after Graham Platner's campaign collapsed amid scandal, leads on affordability, health care, abortion and corruption, while Collins holds a wide edge on securing federal funding and bipartisan dealmaking. Collins has cast Jackson as too liberal for Maine, citing his past support for Medicare for All, while highlighting his earlier opposition to abortion rights.