President Donald Trump says he wants voters to pretend that he's on the ballot in this year's midterm elections.
His rivals are doing their best to help his case. We dive into the ad data. Plus, Trump's second-term investments in drugmakers, Washington bureau chief Anna Johnson's weekly picks and what's on my reading list. |
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President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Majestic Valley Arena, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in Kalispell, Mont. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) |
Trump wants the midterms to be all about himself. Judging by the ads, Democrats are happy to oblige — By Jill Colvin and Aaron Kessler
Democratic candidates and their allies have spent more than $163 million since Sept. 1 on television advertising that mentions the Republican president, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from AdImpact, which charts media spending.
That includes airing ads that reference Trump on broadcast, cable and streaming nearly 180,000 times, the data shows. Republicans, meanwhile, have run ads that talk about the president just 16,000 times, at an estimated cost of $11 million, over the same period.
It's a noticeable silence about the party's dominant yet unpopular leader. Many of the Democrats' ads accuse Republican opponents of siding with the president over voters, particularly on issues like tariffs and the Iran war, which they blame for jacking up costs. Read more from Colvin and Kessler on Democrats' Trump-focused ads. |
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Trump's investments in drugmakers surge in his second term: report |
President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House during an event for first responders, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) |
Trump increased investments in drugmakers that benefited from Medicare exemptions, Democrats say — By Fatima Hussein
Investments in pharmaceutical companies made on Trump's behalf increased significantly after he returned to the White House last year, with his portfolio adding millions of dollars in stock in firms that benefited from a Republican-backed law that shields certain medications from Medicare price negotiations, according to a report from congressional Democrats.
The report, released Friday by the Joint Economic Committee’s minority arm, found that Trump’s pharmaceutical stock holdings grew from a maximum reported value of $1.7 million in 2024 to as much as $56.2 million at the end of 2025. The report said that included up to $39.1 million worth of stock held in companies that benefited from exemptions to Medicare’s drug price negotiation program, which came through a provision in Republicans' 2025 tax and spending law.
Additional analysis of Trump's financial disclosures provided by committee Democrats showed that his investment portfolio bought as much as $2.55 million in shares of pharmaceutical companies benefiting from the exemptions on three dates before he signed the legislation in July 2025.
Read more from Hussein on the report of Trump's investments. |
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President Donald Trump departs a campaign rally at the Laughlin Bullhead International Airport, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in Bullhead City, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher) |
Frustrated with Trump, voters overwhelmingly want change in Washington, an AP-NORC poll finds — By Steve Peoples and Linley Sanders
— The latest AP-NORC poll from this week speaks to the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans as we head into the final couple of weeks before Nov. 3
Midterm campaigns are asking, where’s the beef? And how much does it cost? — By Nicholas Riccardi
— This is a fantastic example of an election and politics trend story by Nick — and a great headline!
Trump’s diesel deal with Putin draws criticism from a frustrated Congress — By Lisa Mascaro
— Lisa puts the latest news about the diesel deal with Russia into context showing how it is the latest example of instances in which Trump has sided with Putin, often at the expense of Ukraine. |
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Political book club: What's on Meg Kinnard's reading list |
Jon Meacham during the New Orleans Book Festival on Friday, March 13, 2026, at Tulane University in New Orleans. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) |
America's divisions are often starkest just ahead of an election, and in this 250th year, that has had me thinking about how we as a nation got here, and how the United States has overcome disunity in the past. So this week I picked up "American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology," by presidential historian Jon Meacham.
Meacham has an eloquent way of synthesizing America's past with its present, but in this book, he allows first-person accounts, from the Founding Fathers to modern political figures, mostly speak for themselves.
The notion of conflict in a country isn't new, and traveling through the centuries via these primary sources gives a sense of how Americans dealt with difficult periods — and lays the structure for how future struggles might be overcome.
Read Hillel Italie's piece from earlier this year on Meacham's reflections. |
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President Donald Trump talks with reporters before switching to the larger Air Force One at Missoula International Airport the trip back to Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in Missoula, Mont. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) |
Washington-based photo journalist Alex Brandon traveled with Trump this week on a campaign swing that sprawled across a broad swat |
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