DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Big money groups aligned with President Donald Trump are pouring huge sums of cash into midterm races in the final sprint toward Election Day.

The groups have now reserved more than $130 million in advertising, according to AdImpact, which tracks ad buys and media spending.

The flood shows Trump’s willingness to spend part of his own stockpile on Republican candidates who were desperate for his financial support, but its impact remains uncertain. Advertising rates are higher now, meaning the money may not go as far even though some voters are just starting to tune in.

The spending includes $27 million from Safety and Affordability PAC, a new group that is affiliated with Trump’s main political committee, MAGA Inc., according to a person with direct knowledge of the organization who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private plans. The connection was first reported by The New York Times.

The biggest spending, by far, has come from No Going Back, which has reserved more than $98.5 million in advertising. The organization is also connected to MAGA Inc., which had more than $400 million in the bank at the end of July.

MAGA Inc. has reserved $11 million this cycle under its own name.

According to Federal Election Commission records, the Safety and Affordability PAC was formed Sept. 1, the same date as No Going Back PAC. Both list the same treasurer in their filings as MAGA Inc.

A MAGA Inc. spokesperson declined to comment.

The spending comes after Republicans in vulnerable districts had begged the president and his team to come to their aid as the party fights to hold onto the House and Senate in a challenging political environment. The president’s approval ratings remain underwater as voters grapple with higher prices, especially for fuel, during the unpopular war with Iran.

The Safety and Affordability PAC appears focused on House races, while No Going Back has invested most heavily in competitive Senate races.

That includes in Michigan, where No Going Back is now the second-biggest Republican spender in a high-profile Senate race, after the Senate Leadership Fund. Former Rep. Mike Rogers is up against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed as Republicans try to flip the seat being vacated by Sen. Gary Peters.

Combined, the two groups are now the biggest spenders in New York’s 17th congressional district, where the party is trying to defend U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable Republicans. He’s up against Democratic nominee Cait Conley.

There have been costs to waiting. Super PACs like MAGA Inc. and its spinoffs are charged higher rates for television advertising than a candidate’s campaign pays.

The disparity grows in the final 60 days of the campaign, when the individual candidate campaigns qualify by law for a broadcaster’s lowest rates, while super PACs are charged market rates that increase as air time becomes more scarce. That means the spending buys less time than it would have if they had they made the purchases before Sept. 4.

___ Colvin reported from New York.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris plans to campaign with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan next week in the party’s latest push to unify voters in a key battleground state that will help determine control of the Senate.

Harris and El-Sayed have spoken multiple times since she endorsed the progressive Democrat after his primary victory, but this is the first time they’ll appear publicly together.

Harris and El-Sayed will attend a roundtable focused on Black maternal health on Tuesday, according to his campaign spokesperson. El-Sayed is a doctor and the former head of health departments in Detroit and Wayne County.

“Vice President Harris looks forward to returning to Michigan to help turn out the vote in this critical state,” Eduardo Negrón, Harris’ spokesperson, said in a statement. “It is critical we flip the Senate so we can bring down prices and stand up to Donald Trump’s corruption.”

El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative, in November. Republicans have repeatedly attacked El-Sayed, portraying him as the kind of “radical” liberal they say has taken over the Democratic Party.

The seat, currently held by Democrat Gary Peters, is among the must-wins for Democrats as they try to achieve control of the Senate. The party needs to flip four GOP-held seats to take a majority, if Democrats keep the Michigan seat. If Rogers were to flip Michigan to Republicans, the Democrats’ challenge would be even greater.

Some other top-ranking Democrats have thrown their weight behind El-Sayed after a bitter primary against Rep. Haley Stevens that highlighted divisions within their party, notably on U.S. support for Israel. In August, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged a crowd of hundreds in Detroit to unify behind Democratic candidates in the midterms.

Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential race to Trump, is seen as a possible 2028 candidate. Michigan will be the fifth state to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

While in Michigan, Harris will also meet with local elected officials and the Rev. Wendell Anthony, the president of the NAACP’s Detroit branch, according to her spokesperson.

____

GaNun is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Democratic and Republican U.S. senators asked President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday to declassify and release all information about a proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia on civil nuclear energy, including two classified “side letters” reached with Riyadh. 

In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright, which was seen by Reuters, the senators noted that the government has reached dozens of these so-called 123 nuclear agreements with other countries without withholding such information. 

“Access to the full text is required for the Senate and the public to have a clear understanding of the commitments being made on the nation’s behalf and those being made by Saudi Arabia to the United States,” the letter said.

The State and Energy departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The letter was led by Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Ed Markey of Massachusetts and signed by 13 other Democratic senators, one independent who caucuses with Democrats, and two Republicans, Rand Paul of Kentucky and John Kennedy of Louisiana. 

Trump sent the proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress in August, opening a 90-day window for lawmakers’ review and giving them an opportunity to try to pass a resolution of disapproval.

Lawmakers have since been pushing for the declassification of the side letters, which were reached alongside the proposed deal, and also the release of related documents. 

The nuclear agreement has also raised questions about whether Saudi Arabia would get the deal without normalizing relations with Israel. Trump has said it will only go into effect if Riyadh does so, but congressional aides have said there is nothing in the pact addressing that issue.

The letter sent Wednesday did not mention the Israel issue.

The 30-year nuclear deal calls for the construction of AP1000 reactors, a project worth tens of billions of dollars that would benefit Westinghouse, jointly owned by Canada-based Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management.

Some Democratic lawmakers and nonproliferation advocates have criticized the nuclear pact for not barring ​Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium or reprocessing nuclear waste, two potential pathways for making a nuclear weapon. The United Arab Emirates agreed to such measures, known as the gold standard, in its 2009 civil nuclear deal with Washington.

The Trump administration says the deal has nonproliferation measures required by ⁠law.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Jonathan Spicer )

By Jacob Bogage

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. Postal Service has told confidants that he is deeply discouraged by his job and wants to resign, according to four people familiar with his thinking, as the agency comes under scrutiny over financial losses and President Donald Trump’s effort to tighten rules on mail-in voting.

Postmaster General David Steiner, who took office in July 2025 after the White House forced out his predecessor, has expressed frustration over a lack of help from the White House and Congress in addressing the mail service’s long-running financial woes, the people said.

At the same time, the Postal Service was thrust to the center of a debate over the federal government’s role in voting after Trump directed it in March to serve as a clearinghouse for mail ballots. The Supreme Court on Monday blocked the agency from implementing key elements of the plan, dealing the White House a significant setback.

The pressures culminated in a contentious June Senate hearing, where lawmakers from both parties interrogated Steiner over poor delivery service, Trump’s ballot restrictions and his compensation.

The hearing left Steiner furious, the people said.  In conversations afterward, Steiner described the job as thankless, warned that the agency’s finances were increasingly dire without federal aid, and said he wanted out, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The message was, this isn’t what he signed up for, and he didn’t come on board to get beat up like this,” one of the people said.

The Postal Service disputed the information from the sources, saying it had “absolutely zero validity,” but did not comment on specific incidents. The agency did not respond to a request for an interview with Steiner. 

TRUMP ATTEMPTS TO INTERVENE ON MAIL-IN VOTING

The postmaster general, who runs the independent agency of 630,000 employees, is hired and evaluated by a bipartisan board of governors nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The agency’s structure was purposefully designed to insulate the mail service from political tinkering.

Steiner, a former FedEx board member and former chief executive of Waste Management, told board members during the hiring process he planned to serve for roughly two years, the people said.

Since taking office, he has repeatedly told lawmakers that without new funding the Postal Service would be forced to cut delivery days and close unprofitable post offices, mostly in rural, Republican-leaning areas.

Lawmakers largely rejected Steiner’s proposals to reduce services, and mail and package companies chafed at large rate increases designed to ease losses.

Trump, in both of his terms, has been more involved with the Postal Service than his predecessors, pressuring the agency to raise parcel rates, intervening in the selection process for the postmaster general and attempting to implement mail-in voting restrictions.

His involvement has at times made the agency — and its leaders — the object of intense congressional scrutiny.

SENATE HEARING PUTS STEINER IN SPOTLIGHT

At the June hearing, Steiner sparred with Committee Chair Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, over years of agency financial losses, and with Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, who accused Steiner of being a “pawn” in Trump’s plans to restrict voting access.

Steiner defended Trump’s proposal.

“I would think the states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think they’re sending out are the ballots that are actually being sent out,” he said at the hearing.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri also called for Steiner to refuse his bonus because of the agency’s service issues. Steiner earns an annual salary of $346,780, according to postal financial disclosures, and drew a 2025 relocation bonus worth 50% of his salary.

The four people familiar with Steiner’s thinking said it was unclear how much congressional inquiries about Trump’s ballot rules had contributed to Steiner’s frustration. They noted that Steiner had already contemplated stepping down in late 2025 over the Postal Service’s difficult financial circumstances.

In an effort at that time to bolster Steiner’s morale and enlist White House support for his restructuring plans, Trump donors in the mailing industry organized a December 2025 trip for the postmaster general to golf with the president at one of his Florida resorts, the people said.

(Reporting by Jacob Bogage in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Edmund Klamann)

Sept 16 (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Wednesday he would not support the sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over concerns the munitions would not be used in accordance with international law.

President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to sell to Israel a munitions package worth $2.8 billion and including tens of thousands of highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs, according to a U.S. official familiar with the sale.

The leaders of congressional committees review sales under an informal process, but the objection by Meeks, a New York Democrat, alone is not enough to prevent the president from going ahead with the sale if he declares that an emergency requires an immediate sale

Trump has sidestepped Congressional review before to expedite military sales to Israel, reflecting his close ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government even before the two countries launched the war on Iran on February 28.

In a statement, Meeks said he is committed to Israel’s security. “But the Trump administration’s proposed sale of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs, some of the most destructive munitions in our arsenal, raises grave, unresolved concerns about how these munitions could be used in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon,” he said.

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Ryan Patrick Jones; additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Alistair Bell)

By Daniel Wiessner

Sept 16 (Reuters) – The family of a Texas woman who died from a pregnancy-related condition has sued the state’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, and doctors who treated her, claiming an abortion could have saved her life and the state’s near-total ban on the procedure is unconstitutional. 

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in state court in San Antonio by the family of Tierra Walker claims her doctors refused her requests to perform an abortion even though she was having a medical emergency that qualified for an exception from Texas’ strict abortion laws. 

Walker, who was 37 and 20 weeks pregnant, died in December 2024 two days after her final hospital visit for symptoms of preeclampsia, a potentially fatal complication of pregnancy marked by high blood pressure, according to the lawsuit. 

The treatment for severe preeclampsia is often immediate delivery of the baby, according to the Mayo Clinic, and the lawsuit says Walker qualified for an emergency abortion under Texas law. But instead of receiving one, she was repeatedly told her condition would improve and sent home, according to the complaint. 

The lawsuit says Paxton and other state officials “have imposed a merciless blanket prohibition on abortion that intimidates doctors into inaction and breeds extreme fear among Texas’ medical establishment.”

Along with Paxton, the lawsuit names as defendants the Texas Medical Board, which regulates the practice of medicine in the state and issues guidance to medical professionals, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and several doctors who treated Walker.

A spokesperson for the hospital declined to comment. Paxton’s office and the Texas Medical Board did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. 

Separately, on Wednesday, two Oklahoma women filed a lawsuit claiming they were forced to travel to other states to have abortions after learning their babies would not survive pregnancy. Joined by two doctors and an abortion rights group, they claim that forcing women to keep nonviable pregnancies violates their constitutional rights.

A pair of 2021 Texas laws prohibit performing or inducing an abortion, with an exception for life-threatening medical emergencies, and bar providers from performing abortions if a fetus has detectable cardiac activity. A novel provision of Texas’ abortion ban also allows private citizens to sue providers on behalf of the state. 

The laws took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark ​Roe v. Wade decision that had established a constitutional right to have an abortion.

The lawsuit filed by Walker’s family claims the defendants violated Walker’s right to life under the U.S. Constitution and a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. It further alleges that Texas’ abortion bans violate the state constitution. 

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Aurora Ellis)

By Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate health committee’s Republican chairman on Wednesday blamed the approach toward vaccines taken by President Donald Trump’s administration for recent measles deaths in Pennsylvania and pressed the president’s pick for surgeon general to state plainly that vaccines do not cause autism.

Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana physician who chairs the panel, delivered the critical opening statement as the nation grapples with its worst measles outbreak in more than 35 years. Cassidy said three people in Pennsylvania have died of measles, with a fourth death under review, because of misinformation and misguided policies.

“To suffer from any disease is awful, but to suffer one which is avoidable, that’s even worse,” Cassidy said.

The committee weighed Trump’s nominations of Chris Klomp for deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Nicole Saphier for surgeon general and Dr. Timothy Westlake to lead the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Cassidy said the country needs health leaders “who make decisions based on science, not politics or ideology.”

SAPHIER PRESSED ON VACCINE-AUTISM LINK

Cassidy directed his sharpest warning toward Saphier, repeatedly pressing her to say the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine does not cause autism. Saphier initially hedged, saying she had “not seen reputable evidence” that vaccines cause autism.

“That’s a little bit of an equivocation,” Cassidy said, warning that others had used such “wiggle room” to later act against scientific evidence.

Saphier eventually said she did not believe the MMR shot was lethal, calling it “our greatest tool for combating measles,” and said, “I do not believe childhood vaccines cause autism.”

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long pushed a debunked link between vaccines and autism, contrary to scientific evidence, which Trump has also embraced.

Cassidy also pressed Saphier on the long-recommended hepatitis B vaccine at birth, which Kennedy wants to stop. Saphier called universal birth dosing “tried and true” but stopped short of saying it should be recommended.

Cassidy said vaccines are “overwhelmingly safe and effective, and they do not cause autism.” He also criticized a Trump executive order breaking up the childhood vaccine schedule for requiring more shots and making children less safe.

SENATOR GROWS MORE CRITICAL

Cassidy has become more openly critical of Kennedy’s efforts to overhaul U.S. vaccine policy despite casting the deciding vote confirming the health secretary to the post with full knowledge of Kennedy’s history of public anti-vaccine activism.

Cassidy is not up for reelection after losing his Republican primary in May. Trump targeted Cassidy and endorsed a rival over the senator’s 2021 vote to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, making it politically easier for Cassidy to be defiant.

“CDC apparently is working on a definition of death by measles. Someone said we haven’t had to work on that for decades because no one has died from measles, and now we have people dying from measles. That’s going to be a terrible legacy for this administration,” Cassidy said.

HEALTH AGENCIES FACE LEADERSHIP GAP

Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News contributor, is Trump’s third surgeon general pick, after wellness influencer Casey Means stalled in the Senate and Trump withdrew Dr. Janette Nesheiwat’s nomination over questions about her credentials. The United States has had no surgeon general since January 2025.

Klomp, a former health tech executive, has run much of HHS day-to-day, rising from Medicare director to chief counselor for Kennedy at the agency. The Finance Committee held his formal nomination hearing on Tuesday. Wednesday’s session is a courtesy hearing.

He drew the smoothest reception, with even his toughest Democratic questioners framing disagreements as areas for cooperation. Saphier faced the sharpest scrutiny, including from Cassidy over vaccines and Democrats on abortion. Westlake clashed with Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan over fentanyl test strips. 

No Republican signaled a no vote, leaving all three on track to advance.

The hearing addressed the backlog of health vacancies across the administration. The Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on August 5, while the Food and Drug Administration has lacked a permanent leader since May.

(Reporting by Ahmed AbouleneinEditing by Bill Berkrot and Will Dunham)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Two congressional Republicans in battleground Iowa districts, including one who recently campaigned alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, changed their position on an Iran war powers resolution, joining with Democrats and a few other dissident members of their party in an attempt to halt President Donald Trump’s ability to continue military action without lawmakers’ approval.

The shift reflects the political pressure on Republicans before the November elections that will decide control of Congress. The war remains unpopular and has led to soaring fuel prices.

U.S. Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks voted for the resolution on Tuesday after previously voting against it.

“With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization,” Nunn, an Air Force veteran, posted on social media. “I will not support another open-ended war.”

Nunn campaigned with Hegseth last month in Iowa, and the Pentagon chief had lauded Nunn as an ally who didn’t need any last-minute, late-night phone calls from Trump to persuade him to support the president’s agenda.

“Zach Nunn is not a 3 a.m. congressman,” Hegseth said at a fundraiser for Nunn during the Iowa State Fair. “He’s willing to take the tough votes to do the right thing on behalf of our war fighters.”

Nunn is up against Sarah Trone Garriott in November’s election.

Miller-Meeks, an Army veteran, said in a statement the president needs to present a plan to Congress and the public showing how the war ends so “we can focus on bringing our soldiers home and lowering prices.”

“Americans do not want another forever war,” she said. “I will not vote to keep our soldiers in an open-ended war, with Iowans paying too much at the pump.”

She faces a reelection rematch against Christina Bohannan, whom she has defeated twice before.

Both Republicans have advocated for Trump’s actions in Iran as a deterrent against that country’s nuclear capabilities. But their hesitation to see the prolonged conflict continue suggests the impacts are increasingly wearing on Americans, and particularly on Iowans. Eighteen U.S. service members have died in the war with Iran. Two are from Iowa, and one used to live in Iowa.

In addition to rising prices for gasoline, the price of diesel is reaching new highs just as U.S. farmers are ready to take their diesel-fueled equipment to the fields for harvest.

National polling indicates that the Iran war remains unpopular with Americans overall. Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of Iran in a July AP-NORC poll, and a September New York Times/Siena poll found that most likely voters, about 6 in 10, think Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran was the wrong one.

Tuesday’s House vote was the third time lawmakers voted to end the war in Iran. The margin was similar to earlier efforts, with a few more Republicans joining all Democrats in voting to bring an end to the conflict.

In addition to Nunn and Miller-Meeks, retiring U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina also shifted her position on the resolution. They joined Republican U.S. Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who had already been voting in favor.

Barrett and Fitzpatrick are seeking reelection in battleground districts, while Davidson represents a seat Trump won handily in 2024.

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who represents northeast Iowa but is running to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, voted against the resolution. Endorsed by Trump, Hinson faces Democrat Josh Turek for the seat, which Republicans are spending millions of dollars to defend.

Hinson acknowledged that she and other Americans want to see the war end. That means delivering a “decisive and immediate victory,” she said.

“I believe President Trump should immediately bring this war to a successful end in a way that keeps Americans safe from the threat of a nuclear armed Iran,” Hinson said in a statement.

For months, Democrats targeting House and Senate seats in Iowa have criticized the Republican incumbents for their votes on the war in Iran as a rubber stamp for Trump.

Republicans say that Iowa, where Trump won overwhelmingly in the last three presidential elections, remains a red state that will help keep Republican majorities in both chambers.

Still, the competitive races have gotten attention even from the White House. Trump visited suburbs of Des Moines for a rally in January and dispatched Vice President JD Vance in May to campaign for Nunn.

Republicans continue to outnumber Democrats in both Nunn’s and Miller-Meeks’ districts, but they have been among the closest races in the country.

Miller-Meeks of southeastern Iowa was reelected in 2024 with less than a percentage point advantage, fewer than 1,000 votes, over Bohannan.

Nunn, who represents Des Moines and its surrounding suburban and rural counties, won in 2022 by unseating a Democrat who was elected during Trump’s first midterms.

After Hegseth campaigned with Nunn, a group of over 400 former national security officials filed a complaint asking for an investigation into whether the secretary violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activities by federal officials.

Hegseth’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

___

Catalini reported from Morrisville, Pa.

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation on Wednesday to bar government officials from pressuring private companies to censor speech, citing threats from the Trump administration against late-night talk shows as evidence of efforts to stifle free expression. 

The measure would allow citizens to sue federal employees who pressure private companies into suppressing speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees free expression. Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee said the bill was needed to curb government overreach.

The committee approved the bill 18-10. It must still pass the full Senate, where it is unclear when it may be taken up, and the U.S. House of Representatives to become law. 

Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the panel, said the bill, if it had been in effect, would have allowed Disney-owned ABC’s late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel to file suit after Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr last year pressured station owners to stop airing Kimmel’s show following remarks about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz cited actions by the administration of then-President Joe Biden that he said were intended to pressure private companies to censor speech protected by the First Amendment. He said the Biden administration sought to pressure Big Tech firms into “canceling Americans who spoke out against vaccine mandates and election fraud.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said the bill would have prevented Carr “from threatening the broadcast licenses of television stations that continued to air Jimmy Kimmel’s show after he made remarks the White House did not like.”

U.S. President ⁠Donald Trump has called repeatedly for ABC to lose its licenses over programming he dislikes. The reviews were ordered in April a day after Trump ​urged ABC to fire Kimmel.

Trump this month called for the FCC to rebuke or punish Comcast-owned NBC’s journalist Kristen Welker after she noted that the Republican president’s success in endorsing political candidates has ​been mixed.

Last year, Cruz  sharply criticized Carr days after he threatened the licenses of Disney and local broadcasters, saying Carr’s comments were “dangerous as hell.”

“I got to say that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas’,” Cruz said, evoking the Martin Scorsese gangster movie. “That’s right out of a Mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.'”

Disney and a spokesperson for Carr did not immediately comment.

Carr in April ordered early review of licenses for the entertainment giant’s eight company-owned ABC stations ​even though they were not scheduled to be considered before October 2028. The FCC had not ordered an early review in more than 50 years before April.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

By Hannah Lang and Michelle Price

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate’s vote against advancing a major crypto bill amid persistent opposition from Democrats and a handful of Republicans marks one of the most significant setbacks for the industry, showing the limits of its muscle in Washington.

Senators on Tuesday voted 49-50 against advancing the Clarity Act, which would establish a regulatory framework for the $2 trillion cryptocurrency market, putting the industry on a firmer legal footing, with four Republicans voting against. Crypto companies say the bill is crucial to their future in the U.S.

The defeat came even after the industry spent more than $300 million combined on the 2024 and 2026 elections to push crypto policy into the political mainstream by getting dozens of crypto-friendly candidates into office and through national advocacy campaigns.

Tuesday’s defeat showed that even the crypto political machine can stumble when faced with enough political challenges, although with a roughly $130 million war chest remaining it’s unlikely to be down for long, said analysts, executives and academics.

In this case, U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal crypto dealings became a flashpoint for Democrats just as their prospects improved ahead of the November midterms, while fierce opposition from the influential banking lobby dragged talks deeper into election season and also succeeded in peeling off some Republicans, they said. Democrats are likely to win the House in November, although the race for Senate control is too close to call.

“The politics here changed slightly in a way that made it less difficult for the Democrats to vote against it,” said Ian Katz, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners. “I think they feel like maybe they don’t need to fear the crypto lobby and campaign money as much as they have.”

While Tuesday’s vote was procedural, it was widely seen as a litmus test that would determine the bill’s fate. The crypto industry vowed to keep fighting to revive it.

“The industry is going to continue to advocate for pro-crypto policy. That means supporting pro-crypto candidates, whether they’re on the left, right, in the center,” said Kevin Wysocki, head of policy at crypto platform Anchorage Digital.

TRUMP DEALINGS STIFFENED DEMOCRATS’ RESOLVE

The bill aims to fix what the industry says is legal ambiguity by determining which cryptocurrencies fall under securities or commodities laws.

The sector has argued, often successfully, that such legislation would safeguard American innovation and jobs, while protecting consumers. Its 2024 spending helped usher in a crypto-friendly White House and a Congress willing to champion its legislative agenda, leading to last year’s GENIUS Act paving the way for greater adoption of dollar-backed tokens.

That law was bipartisan and many Democrats also supported a Clarity-style bill in principle, provided it had sufficient safeguards, including restrictions on officeholders profiting off digital assets. But the crypto industry struggled to build bipartisan consensus around Clarity as the profitability of Trump’s own crypto ventures became clearer, analysts and lobbyists said.

In June, Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures, stiffening Democrats’ resolve to push for tougher language on officeholder restrictions, said the people. The White House ultimately agreed to several restrictions but Democrats said they didn’t go far enough.

“The challenge for the industry is that this has become a partisan issue,” said Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at Stifel. “For the political left, crypto has almost become… very tied to Trump personally, and that makes it too hot to touch for many Democrats.”

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BANK LOBBY FIGHT DRAGGED OUT TALKS

The crypto industry also met its match in the seasoned banking lobby, which argued a provision in the bill could create competition for deposits, hurting lending. The sector mobilized its established national network of thousands of community bankers to fight that language, helping to drag out talks. Banks on Tuesday said they will continue working for targeted policy changes.

Stand With Crypto, an advocacy group backed by Coinbase, has been trying to build its own national movement.

Speaking to Reuters in August, its director Mason Lynaugh said crypto is an emerging voting bloc. In a Tuesday statement, he said it was now clear which lawmakers “are against us,” and that its members would vote accordingly.

Still, some polls suggest crypto policy is not a priority for most voters and that the industry’s Washington influence may actually be a turnoff. An April Politico poll found just 18% of respondents said they want lawmakers to prioritize crypto rules — far behind other hot-button issues, such as affordable housing at nearly 50%.

In some Democratic primaries, progressive candidates have successfully attacked opponents over their ties to the crypto industry.

“Candidates who had a lot of crypto money still didn’t make it,” said Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, when asked by Reuters about crypto spending during a media call ahead of the vote.

“The American people like to hear from a candidate who says, ‘I can’t be bought.'”

(Reporting by Michelle Price and Hannah Lang;Editing by Nick Zieminski)