Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Iowa's upcoming election "the most important" in the country at a Make America Healthy Again rally days before Election Day, endorsing Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn and congressional candidate Joe Mitchell. The event, organized by MAHA PAC, centered on "food freedom" and "medical freedom," with the PAC committing over $1.9 million to Lahn and six House candidates. Lahn backed removing COVID-19 vaccines from the market and regenerative farming to lower food costs. Democratic rivals Rob Sand and Lindsay for Iowa campaigns criticized the candidates' health care stances, citing Iowa's rising cancer rates and opposition to Medicaid and mRNA vaccine access.

Maine's Senate race between five-term Republican incumbent Susan Collins and Democratic state Senate President Troy Jackson has become a referendum on Collins herself, with polls showing a tight contest. Jackson, a logger-turned-legislator who entered the race after primary winner Graham Platner withdrew amid sexual assault allegations he denies, has hammered Collins over economic anxieties, heating costs, and a ProPublica report on a past FBI bribery inquiry she denies wrongdoing in. Collins has leaned on her record steering federal funding to Maine and warns her seniority loss would hurt the state. A debate exchange over road-salt tariff exemptions went viral, encapsulating the race's focus on her decades-long incumbency rather than Jackson's own candidacy.

Utah's Department of Health and Human Services is disputing claims from CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz that the state showed zero overpayments recovered in Medicaid managed care. Utah officials say CMS federal reporting systems failed to accurately reflect data the state had submitted, which included 133 fraud referrals drawn from nearly 200 cases investigated by managed care plans.

Oz had singled out Utah along with Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, questioning how states serving millions of Medicaid beneficiaries could report no recovered overpayments. He gave the states 30 days to verify their numbers, warning the pattern could reflect a data error or a deeper oversight failure. Utah says it will comply with the review and work with CMS to clarify its reporting, while noting it already partners with the Office of Inspector General and the state Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit to pursue fraud cases.

The dispute comes as broader Medicaid eligibility changes under H.R. 1 begin phasing out coverage for several immigrant categories.

The 2026 race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner features Republican Nate Sheets against Democrat Clayton Tucker, along with Libertarian candidate Kelly. Incumbent Sid Miller lost his primary bid to Sheets, a businessman and co-founder of Nature Nate's Honey who is backed by Gov. Greg Abbott and other prominent Texas Republicans. Sheets identifies with the MAHA movement and has focused his platform on clean food production, curbing tax breaks for data centers, rural economic development and stricter employment verification requirements.

Tucker, a rancher and Texas Farmers Union secretary with a background in trade justice advocacy, ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. Her platform emphasizes protecting family farms from data center expansion, lowering food costs, regulating chemicals like PFAS, and expanding hemp farming and agricultural co-ops. Libertarian candidate Kelly, an ecology consultant and lecturer, calls for cutting regulations, auditing the agriculture department and protecting property rights. The office oversees agribusiness regulation, rural economic development and disaster relief for the state's roughly 230,000 farms.

Texas voters will choose a new agriculture commissioner in 2026 after incumbent Sid Miller lost his Republican primary to Nate Sheets, a honey-business owner backed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Sheets faces Democratic nominee Clayton Tucker, a longtime party campaign organizer with no primary opposition, and Libertarian candidate Austin R. Kelly in the general election.

The office oversees the Texas Department of Agriculture, which regulates cattle, grain, pesticides, hemp and organic operations, administers the National School Lunch Program, and supports rural economic development and disaster relief. Sheets has raised significantly more money than Tucker, drawing large donations from Abbott-aligned PACs, the Texas Farm Bureau and individual businessmen. Tucker's funding includes a notable contribution from musician Don Henley. Kelly's campaign has raised minimal funds. With agriculture as Texas' second-largest industry and the state a top national exporter, the race carries stakes for farmers and ranchers navigating climate pressures, labor shortages and supply chain issues.

Sid Miller's primary loss sets up a Sheets-Tucker-Kelly race for Texas agriculture commissioner in 2026.

An AI-manipulated image showing Iowa Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand wearing a large mask and face shield has circulated widely on social media since at least July, amplified in a September 1 Facebook post by Republican nominee Zach Lahn. Lahn shared the image alongside clips from a podcast appearance in which he criticized Sand, Iowa's state auditor, as an "East Coast elitist."

Fact-checkers traced the photo to an unaltered original published by the Iowa Capital Dispatch in July, showing Sand without any mask or face shield while meeting cancer-advocacy group representatives in Des Moines. OpenAI's image-verification tool detected a SynthID watermark in the altered version, confirming AI manipulation. Sand's campaign called the image fake.

Lahn, who has aligned with vaccine-skeptic rhetoric and attacked Sand over past pandemic-era mask support, is locked in a tight race to succeed term-limited Republican Governor Kim Reynolds in the reliably red state.

Montana has enacted the nation's most expansive "right-to-try" law, letting any resident—not just terminally ill patients—access experimental drugs that have only completed Phase I trials showing basic safety, without proven effectiveness. This breaks sharply from federal right-to-try rules, including those signed during Trump's first term, which require patients to have exhausted approved treatments.

Biotech startups see Montana as a workaround to the FDA's costly approval process. Infinita, a company tied to a deregulated zone in Honduras and led by CEO Niklas Anzinger, runs the only review board approving treatments so far, charging companies a application fee; it approved its first treatment last month. Critics, including patient advocates, warn of conflicts of interest and unproven claims reaching vulnerable patients. The program's future depends on whether the FDA intervenes—an open question, especially with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has touted his own use of unapproved treatments, expressing support for expanded access. FDA officials met with industry and patient groups in June but gave no commitment on enforcement.

Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden is running for reelection in Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District by embracing President Trump rather than distancing himself, betting that energizing the conservative base outweighs risks from Trump's sagging approval ratings, the Iran war, and economic worries. He faces a rematch with Democrat Rebecca Cooke, whom he beat by less than 3 points in 2022. The historically bellwether district, carried by both Obama and Trump in past elections, is a top Democratic pickup target this cycle.

Van Orden has voted with Trump nearly 100% of the time, hosted top administration officials in his district, and drawn Elon Musk-linked PAC spending on his behalf. Cooke, backed by both moderate and progressive Democrats including Bernie Sanders, argues Van Orden's close alignment with an unpopular president is a liability, while Van Orden has also faced criticism for AI-generated videos attacking Cooke. Both candidates are courting independents and frustrated voters as the race is seen as pivotal to control of the House.