Eleven days before an election, candidates, pollsters and the media all ask the same two questions: Who has not made up their mind? And what will move them? Plenty of people on television already know the answers, usually the ones their side prefers. Their crystal balls must be built differently than mine, because I always thought voters decided elections, not pundits.

This edition looks at what is competing for those last undecided voters’ attention: a White House affordability push, an investigation of a sitting member of Congress and controversial campaign ads.

Teddy Brosevelt

What’s Loud: In the campaign’s final weeks, the White House has stacked up actions aimed at household and business costs. On October 19 and 22, the Agriculture Department announced $8 billion in one-time payments for farmers facing higher fuel and other costs, with payment rates due in November, and selected eight fertilizer plants for about $573 million in proposed funding. On October 22, President Trump signed a housing order aimed at mortgage costs and authorized Defense Production Act support for oil production, and a White House release promoting the relief during his Iowa visit that day said “Iowans now face a choice.”

What’s Missing: The actions follow a promise of direct payments. On September 9, the president promised $5,000 to every adult “if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate,” and he repeated it October 3. Congress, which controls federal spending, has not authorized it. Smaller relief has been announced or sent: $90 Medicare payments scheduled for early October, $500 refunds announced September 10 for nearly 1 million health insurance customers and diesel tax deferrals ordered October 5.

What Matters: As the election arguments took shape, affordability was at the center. The White House has answered those questions with action. The real question is whether voters will believe the actions, support them or let them sway their votes.

What’s Loud: Federal agents searched the Washington home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on October 12, and Omar called it “an outrageous abuse of power.” On October 21, the Justice Department asked the court for more time before answering news organizations that want the sealed warrant records, saying agents have not finished carrying out the warrant. The filing names her as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar,” a name at the center of the public dispute over her identity records.

What’s Missing: A search warrant requires a federal judge, not the administration, to find probable cause that evidence of a crime will be found. The inquiry did not begin with the search: White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed an investigation involving Omar on September 13. Knowingly making a material false statement to the federal government is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and unlawfully obtaining citizenship carries up to 10 years for a first offense.

What Matters: If prosecutors do bring charges, history favors them: 91.1 percent of federal defendants whose cases were resolved in fiscal 2023 were convicted, most by guilty plea. A court can revoke citizenship obtained through concealment or willful misrepresentation, including citizenship a child received through a parent whose own citizenship is revoked on those grounds. Deportation would not follow automatically, because citizenship would have to end first and an immigration judge would then have to find a legal ground for removal.

A satellite backup for emergency alerts. President Trump signed the Mystic Alerts Act on October 22, directing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to write technical rules within a year for carriers that choose to deliver emergency alerts by satellite when a phone cannot reach a cell tower. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) has tied the effort to communication failures during the 2025 Texas floods. Participation is voluntary, so whether a given phone gets satellite alerts depends on whether its carrier opts in.

DeepSeek comes off federal computers. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) order published October 20 bars civilian agencies from buying products from DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company. Agencies must also remove DeepSeek products already in use, including other companies’ software built on DeepSeek technology. Contractors must check what their own products are built on, but personal use by Americans is not restricted.

New Hampshire voter guidance stays as written. On October 22, the Supreme Court paused lower-court orders that required New Hampshire officials to change public guidance about the state’s voter identification rules, keeping the state’s own guidance in place for November 3 (docket). The majority relied on the principle that federal courts should not change election procedures close to an election. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing the lower court was correcting misleading instructions without changing the law.

A little more than a week before the election, all three leading race raters call Maine, Ohio and Texas Senate toss-ups: the Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Inside Elections. Cook also rates Alaska and Michigan toss-ups; the Crystal Ball leans both to Dems, while Inside Elections calls Alaska a toss-up and tilts Michigan to Dems. Cook and the Crystal Ball call Iowa and Kansas toss-ups, while Inside Elections favors the GOP in both. To win the Senate, where the GOP holds 53 seats and the vice president breaks ties, Dems need a net gain of four. In the House, where the GOP holds 218 seats to the Dems’ 214 and a majority takes 218, Dems need a net gain of four for control, which all three handicappers project, though they differ on the margin.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP nominee for governor, confirmed his campaign made an ad in which Dem nominee Amy Acton’s estranged mother says her daughter has lied about her past. Acton has said she has not spoken to her mother since she was 12. Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) called the ad “deeply, deeply troubling” and said it should come down; Vice President JD Vance told fellow GOP members to “stop whining about an advertisement” and win the race. Cook rates the race a toss-up and the Crystal Ball leans it Dem, so the fight plays out in a competitive race.

More than 98 percent of election jurisdictions used equipment that produced a paper ballot or an auditable paper record in the 2024 general election, according to the Election Assistance Commission.

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