Midterms 19 Days Out: Dems Surge as Ukraine Truce Collapses — Thursday, October 15, 202

0:00 You're listening to Alex and Jordan before 9. Get caught up on politics before your day gets going. Good morning. It is Thursday, October 15th, and we are 19 days out from the midterms. The polls keep moving in one direction. The Supreme Court just handed the Trump administration another win on campaign ads. And overseas, the fragile Ukraine energy truce has collapsed. Let us get you caught up. We start with the midterms, because the numbers this morning are striking. A new Fox News poll finds that if the election were held today, 54 percent of voters would back the Democratic candidate in their House district, and 45 percent would back the Republican.

0:38 That is outside the margin of error, and it is wider than last month. The real clear polling average tells a similar story, with Democrats ahead by more than eight points on the generic ballot.

0:56 and one state -by -state look found him in positive territory in just 10 states. In Texas, where no Democrat has won statewide office this century, Democrat James Tallarico leads Republican Ken Paxton by two points in a recent Marist poll. In Kansas, a Democratic challenger leads an incumbent Republican senator by three points. Those are states Republicans used to count as safe. Now, here's the caveat we always give you. Polls are a snapshot, not a result. Turnout decides elections, and early voting is already underway in several states.

1:30 North Carolina opened early voting today, but the trend across pollsters, left, right, and independent, is pointing the same way, and that is what makes this moment notable. Which brings us to the question hanging over this election. Reuters surveyed the major party candidates in the 13 Senate races that could decide control of the chamber and asked a simple question, will you accept the results no matter the outcome? Just over half said yes without conditions. Nine Democrats, one independent, and four Republicans gave an unconditional yes.

2:03 The rest hedged, gave conditional answers, or did not answer at all. That matters because of what has already happened this year. President Trump has pushed to federalize parts of election administration, sought access to state voter rolls, and repeatedly accused Democrats of voter fraud without evidence. Senate Democrats say they will send more than 100 election observers to nine states to document interference, threats against election workers, and disinformation. Meanwhile, the Justice Department threatened to sue California unless officials sideline ballots from people the federal government believes are likely non -citizens, though the department's letters cited no clear legal authority for that demand.

2:44 So the election itself has become a story, not just the campaigns. And the courts are now part of that story, too. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration again in a dispute over campaign advertising rates. Here's the issue. Federal law requires broadcast stations to give candidates their lowest advertising rates. The Federal Communications Commission adopted a policy letting political parties get those same low rates. Democrats challenged it, saying it was a last -minute gift to Republicans, whose party committees have raised considerably more money.

3:16 A lower court had accused the commission of gamesmanship, trying to run out the clock so the policy could not be reviewed before the election. But the Supreme Court blocked that lower court order, saying the law does not require the commission to act on a particular timeline. Two of the court's three liberal justices dissented. In practical terms, this means Republican committees keep the cheaper ad rates through election day, which could help them close resource gaps in key races where Democratic candidates have outraised Republicans.

3:45 Let us go overseas now to Ukraine, where brief pause and attacks on energy infrastructure is over. You will remember that President Trump announced an energy ceasefire on Sunday. Ukraine said it first learned about it from media reports and Russia never publicly committed to it. Kiev paused its strikes on Russian oil refineries for three days. Then, after Russia kept hitting Ukrainian energy sites, President Zelensky said the pause was done. And the fighting escalated fast. Early this morning, Ukrainian drones struck a refinery in Russia's Ryazan region, about 180 miles southeast of Moscow, starting a fire.

4:21 Ukraine's military also said it damaged six Russian fighter bombers in a missile strike on an airfield in the Voronezh region. On the other side, Russia launched around 580 drones at Ukraine overnight, hitting the central region of Kirovorod in what its governor called the largest attack on that region of the entire war. Three people were killed. The deeper story here is the growing strain between Kiev and Washington. Zelensky has accused the United States of withholding warnings about incoming Russian missiles and of restricting Starlink satellite service that Ukrainian forces use to fly drones.

4:56 Elon Musk responded that the military version of Starlink is controlled by the United States government, which decides any limits. A former Ukrainian defense minister later said Starlink speeds were being restored. Trump has denied cutting off intelligence sharing. But Zelensky told reporters he felt betrayed by Trump's announcement of a diesel supply deal with Moscow and said it was painful when Trump chooses one side and not Ukraine's side. The Kremlin, for its part, said Ukraine's refinery strikes run counter to American peace efforts, even though Russia itself had argued the scope of the ceasefire was never settled and had just struck seven Ukrainian energy facilities.

5:33 So the energy truce, such as it was, is effectively dead, and the war is entering the winter with both sides targeting each other's power and fuel. Finally, a look at the wider Middle East, where the Iran war continues to cast a shadow over everything. At a rally in Montana yesterday, President Trump said he was not sure who American officials were even negotiating with to end the war, saying Iran does not have a navy, air force, or army left. Meanwhile, American officials told CNN that the military has drawn up new strike plans that could include using the largest non -nuclear bomb in the American arsenal, the massive ordnance air blast bomb against Iranian energy and nuclear sites if Trump orders combat operations to resume.

6:15 And shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is under pressure. Singapore's Maritime Authority says a Singapore -flagged container ship sank near the Strait after being struck by a projectile, and a second vessel hit last month also sank nearby this week. Reports say Iran is intensifying attacks on shipping ahead of next month's American elections. In Lebanon, a Hezbollah lawmaker acknowledged that hundreds of kilograms of explosives seized by Lebanese security forces last week belonged to his group, saying they were meant to be used against Israeli troops, not inside Lebanon.

6:46 The Lebanese government is trying to bring all weapons in the country under state control, and this seizure shows how hard that will be. The White House's new Artificial Intelligence Task Force holds its first meeting today, as the administration faces growing pressure on AI safety. And Reuters reports that NVIDIA and Apple each committed $25 million toward President Trump's planned White House ballroom, along with the Adelson family and billionaire Charles Ergen. So here is your takeaway for this Thursday.

7:15 Nineteen days out, the polls favor Democrats by a growing margin, but the integrity of the vote itself... who accepts the results, who gets to observe, and who gets cheap ads, is now a central fight. In Ukraine, the energy truce has collapsed and Kiev's rift with Washington is out in the open. And in the Middle East, the Iran war keeps threatening to widen. That is your briefing for Thursday, October 15th. We will be back tomorrow morning with what happens next. Have a good day.