PARTY ON: A federal judge in Alaska dismissed the Trump administration lawsuit that pre-emptively challenged the results in the state’s US Senate contest that has two Republican candidates with the same name differentiated only by a middle initial.

  In Michigan, Haley Stevens, the loser of the state’s Democratic primary for Senator endorsed Republican Mike Rogers because fellow Democrat Abdul El-Sayed had “made it clear that I was not welcome in his campaign”

WATCHLIST: More than 52 million Americans have already voted with the turnout heavily Democrat. The Democrats are likely to take control of the US House but need to squeeze out four big wins to take the Senate.

  The Polymarket odds have the Democrats picking up six seats in the Senate.

  Democrats in Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Georgia are polling like sure winners. Polling ahead but close to or within the margin for error are the Democrats in Maine, Texas, Michigan, Alaska, and Ohio.

  In Michigan, American-born El-Sayed has weathered attacks on his Muslim faith to be polling an average of 3.5 points over Rogers. CNN and CBS have El-Sayed up by 7.

  In Texas, Democrat James Talarico has a 1.4 percent edge over Ken Paxton. CNN has Talarico up by 6. 

  Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is in danger of losing her seat to Troy Jackson, who has an average 1.7 percent lead in the polls. Again, CNN’s polling is generous, giving Jackson a 4 point lead.

  Ohio’s former Sen. Sherrod Brown, defeated in 2024, is in the running for a comeback to beat Republican Jon Husted. Brown leads in the polls by a 2.6 percent average, but Fox News of all pollsters has him up by 5. 

  And finally in Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola leads but she’s denying that she had anything to do with planting that second Dan Sullivan on the ballot. 

  Where is Claude Rains when you need him to express his shock that there’s dirty politics going on here?

THE WEAVE: President Trump is making less sense in his public speeches. After performing an AI assisted analysis of his speeches since 2015, The NY Times reports that Trump is more forgetful, repetitive, long-winded, and profane than when he ran for president 10 years ago. 

  The paper reports that: 

  “The Times review from 2015 through Thursday found that the president in his second term has used 19 percent more all-or-nothing words like “always,” “never,” “everything” and “totally” at rallies than he did a decade ago and 5 percent more than in 2024, a sign of black-and-white thinking that experts say often accompanies advancing age or cognitive decline. He is cruder than he used to be, using nearly 15 swear words per 10,000 words compared with 14 two years ago and six a decade ago, a change consistent with age-related disinhibition.”

  Trump has claimed that his wandering speeches are really a brilliant technique he calls “the weave” in which he mixes subjects but ultimately produces rational thought. The Times printed a sample from Trump’s recent speech in Pendleton, South Carolina:

  “Abraham Lincoln — I met a young man from Israel. I said, ‘Who’s your favorite president?’ He said, ‘Abraham Lincoln.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ I said, ‘That’s nice.’ We love Abraham Lincoln. But you’re going to see something later, because they have a poll — they took a poll recently. You’re going to see it. But I also declared a national emergency on energy and terminated the Green New Scam, one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of our country.”

INFINITE SCROLL:

— A Federal Judge in Washington on Saturday threw out President Trump’s defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal in which he claimed that their reporting about his relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had maligned his “character and integrity.” The judge said Trump had not met the standard of “actual malice,” the legal standard for a public figure to recover damages.

  The Journal had reported in 2025 on what appeared to be a somewhat lewd hand-drawn birthday greeting Trump sent to Epstein 20 years earlier.

— Costs will rise again sharply for Americans who depend upon Obamacare for their health insurance. It’s up 13 percent for next year after spiking 26 percent for this year. The cheapest plan with a high deductible would cost a 50-year-old single person $8400 a year.

— Days before the midterm elections, the head of the Social Security Administration joined the political fight sending out an email to the public praising President Trump and the performance of Social Security under his leadership. “Under President Donald J. Trump, the Social Security Administration (SSA) is transforming into a model of excellence, one that meets and exceeds customer expectations for fast, accurate, and secure service,” Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano wrote. 

THE OBIT PAGE: The German blonde bombshell Elke Sommer who starred in Hollywood with the likes of Peter Sellers, Paul Newman, and Bob Hope, died in Los Angeles at age 85. — Rosalind Ashford, a founding member of Martha and the Vandellas who was the soprano in the 1960s hits l “Nowhere to Run” and “Jimmy Mack,” has died at 83. — Patrick Stewart, the British Shakespearian actor whose fame was in playing Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek spinoff series “The Next Generation,” died at age 86.

THE SPIN RACK: All nine people on board died yesterday when a Learjet crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida. — Crypto exchange Binance says it recovered 90 percent of the $6.3 billion in digital currency stolen by what are believed to be North Korean hackers. — After only two years on the boards, the Golden State Valkyries won the WNBA championship beating the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in the seventh game.  

BELOW THE FOLD: UNC’s 74-year-old  football coach Bill Belichick is reported to have broken up with his 25-year-old girlfriend Jordan Hudson last year but maintained the illusion of togetherness. How do we say this? Given the coach’s age the romance didn’t have a big future.