As voters prepare to cast their ballots in the final push to Midterm Election Day, with 470 House and Senate races across the land, it is easy to lose focus on the big picture. Seats will flip both ways, and the composition of both chambers of Congress will change, but beyond the headlines of which party retains or seizes control of the House and Senate, how different will America look once all the ballots are counted and the dust has settled?
If you are looking for bellwethers of the public mood, allow me to suggest two races in the upper Midwest and one in the South, which we will look at in a bit. In Michigan, Democratic far-left progressive Abdul El-Sayed is attempting to stave off establishment Republican Mike Rogers and hold the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Two states to the west in Minnesota, Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan will similarly try to hold the seat of Sen. Tina Smith, who is not seeking reelection.
If one or both of these Democrats win, it will represent an unmistakable expansion of the so-called Overton Window, the term describing the full range of ideas, policies, and public discourse that the mainstream population finds acceptable at a given time. As an example, gay marriage was always well outside the Overton Window until a Supreme Court ruling made it a constitutional right, and now it has become an acceptable subject of discussion and debate.
A Chasm in America as Wide as the Great Lakes
If ever there were a cultural chasm separating candidates, it would be in Michigan, a certifiably purple state where Democrats have nominated a man who, while denying he is a socialist or Islamist, cleaves to almost all of the same positions as the Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani crowd. While that by itself is relatively unremarkable in 2026, when candidates from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are coming out loud and proud, we are talking here about a race not for a local office or a single congressional district, but for the highest legislative office in the land.
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Michigan is the tenth most populous state in America with over 10 million residents. An affirmation of the radical policies of Abdul El-Sayed in such a major state would signal that voters, broadly speaking, are willing to overlook or ignore the beliefs of a man who recently stated that Israel is as big a threat to the US as Iran. Seriously. After the moderator in a recent debate asked El-Sayed which country represented a greater threat to the US, Israel or Iran, El-Sayed called it “a ridiculous hypothetical.” When the moderator asked again, he called the question ridiculous again and then unmasked himself by saying: “I think both of them have proven dangerous in their own way.”
It’s frightening enough to champion budget-busting Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and taxing productive citizens to the breaking point, but many understandably believe it should be disqualifying when you refuse to even acknowledge Iran for what it is, a rogue nation in the grip of fanatics openly committed to the destruction of the US and Israel. And we now also know, despite his denial on NBC’s Meet the Press last Sunday, that his family was long involved in the infamous Muslim Brotherhood.
Knowing all this, will Michiganders still be willing to send Abdul El-Sayed to represent them in the world’s greatest deliberative body?
The Land of 10,000 Fraudsters
Minnesota has become the poster child for fraud and corruption in America. It has gotten so bad that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz withdrew his candidacy for a third term as staggering allegations and evidence of fraud so wide and deep as to boggle the mind were steadily uncovered over the last several months. With Walz out of the picture, one might think the obvious move for Democrats would have been to nominate someone, anyone, for the Senate not associated with such a massive scandal. Instead, they did the opposite, nominating the official closest to Walz for the entirety of his eight years in office, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
You can hardly follow the scandals that have riven the Land of 10,000 Lakes without a scorecard. First there was Feeding Our Future, a scheme in which fraudsters shamelessly claimed to be feeding the least among us, needy children, through federally funded meal programs, but were pocketing the money for themselves. Investigators put the losses at about $300 million, with 57 defendants convicted in that case alone. The investigation then expanded into Medicaid programs, including housing assistance, autism services, and adult day care, with another 15 people accused of stealing more than $90 million. Federal prosecutors have said losses in Minnesota’s programs could reach a whopping $14 billion. Republican Senate nominee and former renowned national sports reporter Michele Tafoya has scrupulously detailed the extent of the fraud in an impressive campaign.
Will Minnesotans respond? We hear they are outraged and embarrassed by the rampant fraud and corruption in their state, but will they still send to the Senate the woman who bears a significant portion of responsibility for allowing it all to happen?
What About Ken Paxton?
Democrats defending El-Sayed and Flanagan can rightly claim that Republicans have a corruption problem of their own. His name is Ken Paxton, the controversial Attorney General of Texas and GOP nominee for the Senate running against equally controversial leftist James Talarico. Texans could have nominated incumbent John Cornyn to defend his relatively safe seat, but President Trump jumped in at the last minute and endorsed Paxton, who crushed Cornyn and set off a wild spending spree on both sides.
Paxton has been winning elections in Texas for many years despite a trail of troubling allegations. He was indicted on state felony securities fraud charges in 2015 and forced to settle. He was impeached by the GOP-dominated Texas House of Representatives on 20 articles accusing him of bribery, abuse of public office, misapplying state resources, and retaliation against whistleblowers. And there have been several other allegations of campaign finance irregularities, shady dealings, and an extramarital affair, not a good look for the state’s chief law enforcement officer.
The fact that polls are so tight when Paxton is facing an opponent who presents more as a Californian than a Texan, and whom Cornyn would likely have thrashed, indicates many Texans have their doubts about their GOP nominee. But will that be enough for Paxton to lose in a distinctly red state?
The question before us is whether the country has become – or remained – so bitterly, almost mindlessly divided that voters will overlook almost anything if a candidate has the preferred initial, R or D, next to their name. The disgraced Graham Platner was forced to withdraw from the Senate race in Maine, and Eric Swalwell was similarly driven out of the California gubernatorial race because of credible allegations of sexual assault.
Has that become the new standard? Unless you are directly accused of criminal assault or worse, is it acceptable to equate the threat of our long-standing ally Israel to that of our sworn enemy Iran? And we can overlook blatant and unspeakable incompetence at best, corruption at worst, because at least the candidate has expressed sufficient hatred for Donald Trump? Or a candidate may have all manner of troubling baggage but, well, at least he’s not a Democrat. The voters of Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas have a stress test before them, weighing corruption and scandal against ideology. Their response on November 3 will likely encapsulate the state of the nation, for better or worse.
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