By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, July 25 (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Saturday declined to allow U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to implement in 23 states his executive order that aims to tighten rules ‌for mail-in voting ahead of November elections that will decide control of Congress.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration’s request to lift an injunction several Democratic-led states secured on June 25 from a lower-court judge who concluded that key parts of the Republican president’s order were unconstitutional.

In asking the court to pause U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s ruling while it pursues an appeal, the U.S. Department of Justice had argued that because government agencies had yet to finalize actions and policies to implement Trump’s directive, any lawsuit challenging his order was premature.

The appeals court, in a 2-1 ruling, rejected that argument.

“As the district court reasoned, the (executive order) lays out a clear set of rapidly approaching deadlines by which states must coordinate with federal officials and comply with new voting procedures — all while the states must also ensure that their officials and the public understand the evolving set of rules that would govern the upcoming September and November elections,” the judges wrote. “The Plaintiff States have no practical choice but to respond to the (order) now.”

Before Talwani ruled, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., rejected a related effort by Democrats to block Trump’s order on similar grounds. The Justice Department warned that absent a ruling in its favor from the 1st Circuit, it may be forced to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

TRUMP’S MARCH EXECUTIVE ORDER

Trump signed the executive order in March after years of calling for tighter rules on voting by mail and pushing the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud. Under the U.S. Constitution, states are assigned the role of administering federal elections.

That order came on top of other efforts by Trump to overhaul elections. He has made winning approval in Congress of a divisive package of voting restrictions called the SAVE America Act a priority. Judges have blocked an earlier executive order he signed requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and restricting the counting of mail ballots.

The March order directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to compile and transmit to the states a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state, derived from citizenship and naturalization records and other federal databases.

Trump’s order also required the U.S. Postal Service to only deliver ballots to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. USPS recently moved to implement Trump’s directive by issuing new proposed rules requiring states to provide the names and ​barcodes tied to their mail-in ballots.

It also directed the U.S. Department of Justice to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of state and local election officials who issue federal ballots to people deemed “not eligible” to vote.

But Talwani, in siding with a coalition of 23 states and the District of Columbia that was led by California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington state, said the president lacked any authority to direct DHS to compile voter eligibility lists for each state to use and that USPS had no statutory authorization to adopt any binding regulations on mail-in voting.

The judge, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said Trump also could not attempt through his order “to intimidate local election officials to use the necessarily incomplete confirmed citizenship lists as a resource, lest they face criminal prosecution.”

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles and Nate Raymond in Boston;Editing by Deepa Babington, Sergio Non and Matthew Lewis)

WASHINGTON (AP) — House leaders sent lawmakers home for summer campaigning after one of the rockiest sessions in recent memory as voters decide which party to put in power in Congress for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.

For those seeking to stay in office, particularly the newest members, it can be a tough sell.

“I only know a dysfunctional Congress,” said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a freshman from Virginia.

The Democrat said it’s best to campaign on his own record delivering for constituents, rather than on the performance of Congress, as his party tries to wrest control from the Republicans.

“It’s virtually impossible to sell the performance of Congress to the American people because Congress is such an easy punching bag,” he said. “And this particular Congress has been ceding too much of its authority to the executive branch.”

He said, “I tell people to sell yourself and what you’ve tried to do.”

Yet Republican Rep. Brandon Gill, a freshman from Texas who has emerged as one of the party’s rising figures, particularly on Trump’s hard-line immigration enforcement agenda, argued there’s plenty to show to voters back home.

“We’ve gotten a lot done,” he said

“Cutting taxes across the board, over $100 billion for border security, repealing half the Green New Deal, the biggest mandatory spending reform in history — pretty historic stuff,” he said.

“Everybody always wants Congress to move faster than it does, but we’ve been extremely productive.”

Control of Congress is often an afterthought in presidential election years when the White House is at stake. But in the midterms, when lawmakers face voters as they will this fall, the races largely become a referendum on the party in power.

Republicans have history against running against them, as the president’s party often encounters losses during the midterm elections — a “thumping,” as George W. Bush put it, a “shellacking” as Barack Obama said — and a pendulum nation swings.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is about to embark on a cross-country trek to raise millions of dollars for his party and visit lawmakers’ home districts, remains bullish that Republicans will not only keep their House majority control — but grow their numbers.

“This week we continued to deliver for the people, and we’re going to continue that straight through the end of this year,” Johnson said after a flurry of legislating before sending lawmakers home for summer.

Republicans in a single day adopted a budget resolution seeking $95 billion for the Iran war and other priorities; advanced a $1 trillion Pentagon bill renaming it the Department of War; and approved legislation to clamp down on stock trading in Congress, all over Democratic objections.

“We’re going to run through the tape,” Johnson said.

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if his party wins control, will launch “100 Days of Action” on Sunday as he works to take the majority and impose a check on Trump’s White House.

“It’s not going to be easy, right?” Jeffries told reporters. “No one’s going to give it to us. We have to take it in a way that is consistent with the values of the American people.”

With its 435 seats being contested, control of the House often narrows to the tiniest slice of the country.

Fewer than 20 seats are considered genuine toss-ups, according to analysts. The rest are considered safer seats, drawn with map lines designed to favor one party over the other — including new maps still being drawn to eliminate Black majority districts largely in the Deep South after a landmark Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act.

Millions of dollars are being spent that will make the difference between a return of the GOP majority eyeing more budget cuts or a new Democratic agenda that is expected to launch vast oversight and investigations into the Trump administration.

Even as he openly pines for a normal Congress, Johnson believes the country needs a steady hand at the wheel as he partners with the White House on Trump’s priorities — and fend off Democratic investigations and the threat of impeachment.

“We are increasingly confident that we will hold and grow this majority in the House — and we must,” he said.

Democrats under Jeffries make the case that Trump and the Republicans in charge have done nothing for Americans struggling with high costs of living. Instead, they say Trump waged war against Iran that sent gas prices soaring, slapped tariffs on goods that are spiking prices, deported longtime immigrants and slashed health care and food aid as part of Trump’s big tax cuts bill last summer.

“They’re flailing all over the place,” Jeffries said.

Jeffries vowed that Democrats “will hold the crooks accountable” on a number of issues, including the Trump family’s business dealings.

Johnson raises the specter of a mid-20th-century-style communist threat if Democrats win control with a new generation of far-left progressive candidates, some backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

“We have been saying that this is an election that’s shaping up as a contest between common sense and crazy,” he said. Now, he said, it’s “common sense versus communism.”

Jeffries brushes past such warnings as unserious. “House Democrats aren’t a cult,” he said, a criticism his party often lobs at Trump’s backers in Congress. “We’re a coalition of people, public servants, who are committed to getting things done.”

One of the newest lawmakers, Rep. James Gallagher, R-Calif., said he’s just trying to focus on the issues important to constituents back home.

“We’re in a time where there’s a lot of division, unfortunately,” he said. “And I think one key is like, Hey, trying to bring people together to solve problems for Americans, right?”

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Former state lawmaker and logger Troy Jackson secured the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Maine on Saturday and will face longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November in a race that could decide which party controls the chamber.

Jackson replaces Graham Platner, who won the Democratic primary in June but withdrew from the race earlier this month following an allegation of sexual assault that Platner has denied. Maine Democrats met Saturday to choose a new Senate nominee to face Collins.

Support coalesced around Jackson, a former Maine Senate president and fifth-generation logger from rural northern Maine who campaigned alongside Platner during a failed bid for governor and was a favorite among progressives to replace him.

“When the people in power refuse to listen, you have to organize, you have to stand in solidarity, together. And you have to make them listen,” Jackson said during a speech at the last-minute nominating convention.

Democrats view Maine as the party’s best opportunity to flip a Senate seat this year because it’s a competitive race in a state President Donald Trump lost in 2024. But defeating Collins won’t be easy. The five-term incumbent holds a fundraising advantage, while Jackson will have less than four months to sell himself to voters.

Republicans immediately launched an ad campaign against Jackson, accusing him of having a volatile temper and linking him to Platner. The Senate Leadership Fund, Republicans’ super PAC, said it is committed to spending over $42 million against Jackson.

Jackson, 58, will need to convince the state’s large independent voting bloc that it’s time to replace Collins, 73. Republicans have called Jackson too extreme for Maine voters, and Collins said earlier this week that she knows Jackson well and that his positions are “clearly” in line with socialism.

“Troy Jackson will attempt to sell Mainers a multi-trillion dollar bill of goods based on rhetoric that will make everything sound free, but in reality would be paid for by middle and lower income workers,” said Collins’ campaign spokesperson, Shawn Roderick.

Both Jackson and Collins are from northern Maine, where traditional industries such as potato farming and timber harvesting are vital parts of the economy. Both will make the case over the next few months that they are the right leader to protect those industries, along with lobster fishing and tourism.

Collins noted that Jackson ran U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ first presidential campaign in Maine, adding “He’s a Bernie Bro.”

Asked by reporters about that description, Jackson said, “I don’t really care. What I am is a guy from northern Maine that’s a logger.”

He said he would attack Collins on what he described as her record of supporting tax cuts for the wealthy and failing to protect health care.

Jackson needs to scramble to make up a fundraising gulf against the incumbent, who has been raising money for months. Federal filings show she has raised more than $16 million so far. Jackson’s campaign this week said he raised more than $1 million since jumping into the Senate race.

Democrats have a narrow path to take back the Senate in November and it’s highly unlikely they can do it without a win in Maine. In addition, they need victories in competitive races in North Carolina, Alaska and Ohio, and they need to hang on to the seats they already have. That includes open Senate seats in Michigan and Minnesota, where Democratic incumbents are retiring.

Maine’s Democratic primary was one of the early contests where progressives took on establishment-backed Democrats. While Platner faced several controversies during his campaign, he easily outlasted Gov. Janet Mills, who was backed by Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer but dropped out before the June 9 primary.

Platner had backing from Sanders as well as Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. That support disintegrated after the sexual assault allegation early this month.

Republicans began making the case Saturday that Jackson is too close to Platner. Jackson is “a Platner apologist, a radical Bernie Bro, and a walking red flag displaying all the warning signs of the early days of the Platner campaign,” RNC spokesperson Kristen Cianci said in a statement.

Jackson told reporters Saturday that he has not been in touch with Platner and is building a new movement. He didn’t mention Platner from the stage during his two addresses to Democratic delegates on Saturday, but said the campaign was “bigger than any one person.”

The Maine Democratic Party scrambled to choose a new nominee after Platner, who sailed to victory in the Democratic primary in June, was accused by a former girlfriend of sexually assaulting her in 2021. Platner denies the allegation, but quit the race after key supporters called on him to withdraw.

Maine law gave the state party authority to choose a replacement and required a new nominee to be named by Monday — 101 days before the Nov. 3 election.

Maine Democrats’ never-before-used process of voting on a new nominee involved hundreds of Democratic delegates gathering in Bangor, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) north of Portland. The delegates were elected at county party meetings last weekend, and Jackson scored an easy victory over just one opponent.

He first ran for office as a Republican in 2000 when he sought a seat inside Maine’s House of Representatives. He lost, but won two years later when he ran as an independent. He switched to the Democratic Party in 2004, and eventually became the Maine Senate president before leaving the statehouse in 2024.

He came in third while running for governor in this year’s Democratic primary, but had the backing of Platner and Our Revolution, the political organization founded by Sanders. Once Platner dropped out on July 10, a flood of former governor candidates — including Jackson — jumped to try to take his place. But by July 19, most had abandoned their bids, with Jackson emerging as the clear favorite.

Jackson received early support from progressives who had backed Platner before he dropped out. Our Revolution initially backed Jackson for governor and Platner for Senate. When Platner left the race, the group rallied behind Jackson.

He has supported progressive positions such as Medicare for All. He also has called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose presence in Maine has been hotly debated since an agent killed a driver in the state earlier this month.

Jackson acknowledged the disappointment of Platner’s supporters and the need to win them over for the general election.

“I agree there are people that are still very frustrated and angry what happened. I understand that,” he said to reporters. “All I’m trying to do is explain to them that his campaign was about the issues.”

___

Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti and video journalist Nathan Ellgren in Washington contributed to this report.

(AP) – President Donald Trump addressed a huge roomful of journalists Friday night at a correspondents’ dinner rescheduled from April after a shooting upended the first edition. Said the president: “As I said three months ago, the show must go on.”

Trump entered the ballroom to polite applause, and was thanked for his support by White House Correspondents’ Association president Weijia Jiang of CBS News. After dinner, he then sat through more than an hour of awards presentations — including many for journalists who had done pointed stories about him and his administration during the previous year.

“Let’s try this again,” Jiang quipped, welcoming the crowd. The White House press corps, she noted, “always has a follow-up.” Turning serious, she referred back to the trauma and confusion of the original dinner in April.

“Tonight our message is this: We are back,” she said. “We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.”

The rescheduled dinner was taking place in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, a smaller venue that held only about 700 people. Guests entered via a single entrance, through two ID checks and past a detection dog, armed officers and security guards. There was no red carpet and no separate cocktail receptions preceding the dinner.

He was widely expected to bring the fighting words — “rather nasty,” he said — against the press that he’d planned to deliver in April before the event descended into chaos when a gunman stormed a security checkpoint, forcing an evacuation of the room. But early in his speech, Trump signaled that he had scrapped his planned remarks and was going to deliver a mix of things.

“This is really the largest group of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ people put together at one time,” the president said.

PHOTO- President Donald Trump speaks at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC, Friday, July 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has acknowledged in court documents that it canceled $7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state” — in this case, 16 states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The statement contradicts repeated assertions by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials that the projects were canceled because they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or had other problems that made them a poor investment of taxpayer dollars.

Democrats and environmental groups seized on the court filing Friday, saying the administration had “weaponized” the federal government to kill good jobs and punish working families because of their political views.

“This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state. Both are high-ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, respectively.

“Weaponizing the federal government like this is outright un-American, and it’s hardworking families already struggling with sky-high costs who are suffering the consequences of this corrupt abuse of power,” Kaptur and Murray said.

They called on congressional Republicans to join them in holding the Trump administration “accountable for the President’s failure to look out for all Americans.”

The Energy Department announced last October that 321 funding awards across 223 projects were terminated, saying that after review, they “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable.”

The cuts, part of broader attacks from President Donald Trump on climate programs and clean energy funding, slashed federal support for projects to build battery plants, develop hydrogen technology, upgrade the electric grid and capture carbon dioxide emissions.

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, highlighted the cutbacks in a social media post, saying money “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Projects that were cut were located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. All 16 targeted states supported Harris, but Wright said the cuts were “business decisions” based on whether the projects were a good use of taxpayer money or not.

The cuts were immediately challenged in court, and more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, led by California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, wrote a letter to the Energy Department’s acting inspector general requesting a formal investigation. The department’s internal watchdog launched an investigation in December.

Government lawyers had p reviously confirmed in a court filing late last year that the selection of grants in fact “was influenced by whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect … Democratic candidates in state and national elections (so-called “Blue States”).”

That filing came in a separate suit filed by clean energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, over the canceled funding. The most recent admission came in a case called Thakur v. Trump that’s been ongoing since last spring. Federal lawyers acknowledged that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration’s priorities.

Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, said the latest court filing shows “the Trump administration is brazenly admitting to a vindictive approach to cancelling much-needed energy infrastructure that ignores the job losses, air pollution and increasing bills that people are experiencing everywhere.”

Instead of “building the energy projects we desperately need,” billions of American taxpayer dollars are “going to line the pockets of a small handful of fossil fuel company CEOs,” Bender said, citing nearly $3 billion pledged by the Trump administration to cancel offshore wind projects in favor of fossil fuel projects such as natural gas and coal.

DETROIT (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Friday, in a race with Abdul El-Sayed that has become a focal point for the party’s fight between its moderate establishment and progressive wings.

Whitmer remains popular in the battleground state, where she has twice won by substantial margins, and her endorsement gives Stevens a significant boost a day before early in-person voting begins. Whitmer also has history with El-Sayed, whom she defeated in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor.

The second-term governor appeared with Stevens and South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn in Detroit on Friday, repeating her endorsement in front of more than 100 people at a Teamsters hall. She said Steven has “what it takes to win.”

“Michiganders need a fighter in Washington and there are few leaders with more fight in ’em than Haley Stevens,” Whitmer said, who left the event without taking questions from reporters.

Stevens has pitched herself as a Democrat who has won tough elections, including flipping a Republican-held House seat. She has been backed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, a two-term Democrat who is retiring from the seat.

She’s in a tight race for the Democratic nomination against El-Sayed, a progressive whose supporters include Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

“The corporate establishment has closed ranks and made their pick – now, Michigan voters will get to make theirs,” said Roxie Richner, a spokesperson for El-Sayed.

The winner of the Aug. 4 primary will face Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in November for a critical, battleground Senate seat. Democrats are hoping to flip the Senate in November, and Michigan remains a key part of their plan.

Stevens is a four-term congresswoman from the Detroit area. Her candidacy has benefited from tens of millions in spending by outside political groups, including nearly $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supports pro-Israel candidates.

El-Sayed, who accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, has criticized Stevens for taking money from AIPAC.

Whitmer is a term-limited governor who isn’t on the ballot this fall, though she has been mentioned as a possible 2028 presidential candidate. She is the best-known politician in Michigan.

Whitmer had long weighed the decision. Stevens’ success winning in a competitive district, including converting the GOP-held seat for Democrats in 2018, was among the factors in the endorsement, according to a person who was familiar with the governor’s deliberations but was not authorized to discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that the United States and Iran were in talks to negotiate an end to their conflict, but repeated that Tehran was not yet ready for a deal.

“We are talking to them. I think they’re being serious. I think … they are being by far the most serious that we’ve seen them, but that doesn’t mean we get there. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said in remarks to reporters at the White House.

(Reporting by Bo Erickson, Bhargav Acharya and Ismail Shakil;Editing by David Ljunggren)

OTHER IRAN WAR NEWS

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — The U.S. military says it has fired on a merchant vessel attempting to breach its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran targeted American strongholds around the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia struck the port city of Hodeida in Yemen. The conflict shows no signs of easing after 13 nights of strikes. U.S. embassies in the Middle East have warned Americans that options to leave could become limited. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard advised residents of neighboring countries to avoid bases with U.S. troops. The Strait of Hormuz remains a focal point, with its closure causing economic turmoil. Diplomatic efforts appear stalled, with no signs of progress in negotiations.

By Tim Reid

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) – South Carolina is poised to remain the Democrats’ first presidential primary state over Nevada after a vote by a powerful party committee on Friday, a racially fraught decision that pitted Black and Latino state leaders against each other.

After two days of sometimes acrimonious debate, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules & Bylaws Committee backed the bid by South Carolina – which has a large Black voter base – to remain the first state to vote on the party’s choice for its 2028 White House nominee. Nevada, which has a significant Latino electorate, had pushed for the top spot.

The DNC is likely to approve Friday’s decision at a full party meeting in August. The initial vote on Friday was close, with South Carolina receiving 26 votes to Nevada’s 19.

The decision is consequential because the first state to vote in a presidential nominating contest often helps to shape the field of candidates, drawing campaign spending and media attention.

During debate, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Christale Spain, who is Black, said it was crucial for Democrats to make America’s South and its Black voters the start of its nominating process.

Black voters, especially Black women, have been the party’s most reliable voters for decades. But they have faced setbacks in battles over political representation this year after a U.S. Supreme court decision hollowed out civil rights legislation, and state legislatures in the South redrew maps that voting rights groups say diluted Black voter power.

In an interview with Reuters after the vote, Spain welcomed the decision.

“It says that the DNC is committed to showing the party’s base that we see you and we appreciate all your loyalty,” she said.

Senior Democrats from Nevada sent a letter to the DNC making their case, saying, “Nevada is a small, affordable, competitive battleground where candidates must build the broad, multiracial, working-class coalition that Democrats need to win nationally.”

The Nevada State Democratic Party did not respond to a request for comment.

The competition between the two states became a proxy battle between the party’s Black and Latino bases that exposed early internal divisions ahead of the battle to decide who will become the party’s 2028 White House standard bearer.

South Carolina’s pitch to go first centered on its large Black electorate, a crucial national voting bloc for Democrats that President Donald Trump and Republicans have drawn voters from in recent years.

Nevada countered that unlike Republican-led South Carolina, it is a key presidential battleground state with a large Hispanic population and a strong blue-collar union presence, two constituencies that Democrats must work harder to win over in future elections.

In 2022, former Democratic President Joe Biden persuaded Democrats to overhaul their 2024 nominating calendar, ending Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status and putting South Carolina first. Nevada was put in second place.

Friday’s vote by the party committee came after late-night lobbying by both states’ party leaders on Thursday.

(Reporting by Tim Reid in Washington, editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine Democrats who have been scrambling to tap a new nominee for a pivotal U.S. Senate race against Republican Susan Collins are expected to nominate Troy Jackson at a last-minute convention this weekend.

Jackson, a progressive Democrat, is a former president of the state’s Democratic-controlled Senate who has been a fixture in Maine politics for many years. He’s also a fifth-generation logger from a rural, heavily Republican northern part of the state.

Jackson is expected to secure the nomination Saturday at a special nominating convention in Bangor that Democrats are holding after the implosion of primary winner Graham Platner’s campaign. Jackson would then have less than four months to campaign about Collins, who has been in the Senate for 30 years.

Here are some things to know about Jackson:

Jackson is well known in Maine politics, and his political affiliations and positions have evolved over the years. Most recently, he ran for the Democratic nomination for Maine governor this year but lost in the primary.

He made his first run for office more than 25 years ago as a Republican, and was first elected to the Maine House of Representatives as an independent in 2002. He then switched to the Democrats in 2004 and served a total of three terms in the House.

Jackson was later elected to the Maine Senate and rose to become the president of the chamber from 2018 to 2024.

He comes from a labor background and first entered politics after leading a weeklong loggers’ blockade along Maine’s border with Quebec in the late 1990s. The loggers were protesting the hiring of Canadian loggers who were coming into Maine and driving down pay rates.

The standoff ended with Jackson being escorted away by police. He went on to fight for better logger and wood hauler protections as a state lawmaker.

Early in his political career, Jackson opposed abortion and same-sex marriage — positions he has since reversed. He is now one of the state’s leading progressives.

He led independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in the state in 2016 and helped Sanders win the state’s caucus. A decade later, Jackson remains an ally of Sanders.

Like Sanders, Jackson is a champion of “Medicare for All.” He has also called for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has come under heavy criticism in Maine recently following the killing of a driver in Biddeford.

Jackson is also a longtime supporter of unions and workers’ rights, and made that a central focus of his run for governor.

Jackson and Collins are both from Aroostook County, the farthest north county in Maine which is known for its potato crop and sparse population. Aroostook, known to Mainers as “the County,” is far more Republican than most of Maine. Its voters have overwhelmingly supported Trump in the last three presidential elections.

With Jackson close to securing the nomination, he and Collins are already in campaign mode.

Collins told The Associated Press this week that she has witnessed Jackson’s evolution into what she called “a Bernie bro.” She noted Jackson’s “lengthy record” in politics and described his positions as “clearly” in line with socialism.

Collins has a significant fundraising advantage, as federal filings state that she has raised more than $16 million. Jackson’s campaign has said it has raised more than $1 million.

Jackson has begun his campaign by tying Collins to Trump and his unpopular war in Iran.

“When the stakes are at the absolute highest, too often she stood with Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the other big corporations that already have all the power,” Jackson said at a recent campaign event.

Maine Republicans are also already setting their sights on Jackson.

“While promising a fair nomination process and rejecting any notion that Graham Platner would influence it, Maine Democrats still managed to pick the candidate Platner endorsed in the gubernatorial race, who is also a well-established Augusta insider,” said Jim Deyermond, chair of the Maine GOP.

Democrats were thrown into crisis mode when Platner withdrew as their nominee earlier this month. Jackson had campaigned alongside Platner when he was running for the governor nomination.

Platner announced he would drop out of the race after a former girlfriend accused him of sexual assault, which he has denied.

Maine Democrats are implementing a never-before-used process of voting on a new nominee that will involve more than 600 Democratic delegates gathering in Bangor. The delegates were elected at county party meetings last weekend.

Jackson’s campaign says more than 480 of the 601 delegates who will be voting at Saturday’s convention are committed to supporting him.

Democrats have a narrow path to take back the Senate in November and it’s highly unlikely they can do it without a win in Maine. In addition, they need victories in competitive races in North Carolina, Alaska and Ohio, and they need to hang on to the seats they already have. That includes open Senate seats in Michigan and Minnesota, where Democratic incumbents are retiring.

___

Associated Press journalist Nathan Ellgren in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Voters in swing state Wisconsin whose absentee ballots don’t arrive by Election Day should be allowed to cast provisional ballots at the polls to ensure their votes are counted, a lawsuit filed Friday argues.

The lawsuit comes amid growing concerns about how quickly the United States Postal Service will be able to deliver ballots ahead of the November midterms. Control of Congress is at stake, and Wisconsin voters will be electing a new governor as well as determining control of the Legislature.

The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission warned the U.S. postmaster general in May that any delay could deprive citizens of their fundamental right to vote. In January, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators also wrote the postal service, raising concerns that a change in how it postmarks mail could invalidate many mail-in ballots.

The lawsuit comes after the mail-in ballots of nearly 150,000 California voters were rejected, the vast majority of them because of late postmarks, despite the state’s efforts to count every valid vote in the June primary.

In Wisconsin, at least hundreds of ballots were not counted in the April election because they arrived late, based on an elections commission survey of election clerks. More than 300 ballots in Milwaukee and more than 100 in Fond du Lac were rejected for arriving too late.

The lawsuit was filed in Dane County circuit court by the liberal Madison-based Law Forward firm and Washington, D.C.-based Fair Elections Center on behalf of a voter and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.

A spokesperson for the elections commission had no immediate comment.

“Every voter in Wisconsin that puts an accurately requested absentee ballot in the mail on time expects their vote will be counted,” said Debra Cronmiller, executive director of League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, in a statement. “Delays in mail delivery prevent that. It is time to have a remedy for these eligible voters.”

Currently in Wisconsin, voters are prohibited from casting a provisional ballot in person on Election Day. The lawsuit is asking a judge to rule that if a voter’s absentee ballot has not arrived, they can then cast a provisional ballot. Absentee voters in the state can track the status of their ballots, so they would know on Election Day whether it has been received.

Provisional ballots are set aside by election officials and only counted if a voter’s absentee ballot is not delivered on time. If the absentee ballot does arrive on time, the provisional ballot would not be counted.

In Wisconsin, ballots must arrive at the clerk’s office by the end of voting on Election Day in order to be counted.