Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America. If you’re watching this on Substack right now, help us get these stories in front of the most people by tapping the ❤️ and clicking the restack icon. Those two clicks help immensely.
Tonight, Donald Trump’s Justice Department sent criminal target letters to around 20 prominent Democrats tied to Alaska’s Senate race on Election Day itself. Democrats flipped their first House seat of the night in Guam, a territory whose early results gave the party an encouraging start. Iowa is on track for record-breaking midterm turnout, with Democrats outpacing Republicans in early ballots. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis admitted that Trump’s war in Iran is a “big, big drag” on Republican candidates.
Before the news, an urgent ask: Tens of millions of Americans took to the polls today in a referendum on Donald Trump’s agenda. The outlets owned by pro-Trump billionaires are already trying to downplay Democrats’ gains and urging them to pull their punches if they win back control of one or both chambers of Congress.
But while the oligarchs and their pet newspapers and networks are abdicating their responsibility to relentlessly cover the Trump regime, Raw America isn’t letting off the gas. Our Capitol reporter, Luke De Cresce, and our White House reporter, Brian Karem, are currently working their sources to find out the administration’s plans to challenge election results that will almost certainly be unfavorable to the president and his party.
On Election Day, Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced it’s going after Democrats in Alaska. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the DOJ has sent criminal target letters to approximately 20 leading Democrats connected to the state’s high-profile U.S. Senate race.
Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, whose firm represents Alaska Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola, is one of the people who received a letter. At least one official at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also received one. The letters warn recipients that they could be targeted in a federal investigation into the recruitment of independent Senate candidate Dan J. Sullivan, who shares a name with incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan.
One anonymous source confided to the Times that the DOJ is also contemplating potential donor fraud and conspiracy charges. It remains unclear when exactly the letters were sent out, or whether every intended recipient received one.
Trump has spent multiple days fuming about the Alaska race, accusing Democrats of committing election fraud. He’s repeatedly hurled attacks at both Marc Elias and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. During a Tuesday morning appearance on Fox & Friends, Trump describe Elias as “a bad guy, very bad guy” who “should go to jail, in my opinion.”
Last night, the president posted a flurry of Truth Social posts claiming that Daniel J. Sullivan was “missing in action,” even suggesting he may have been kidnapped. Trump then insisted that “the Dumocrats are trying to steal this Race by putting a FAKE Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr. on the Ballot.”
When looping those posts together with the DOJ’s target letters, the administration may be laying the groundwork for Trump to officially intervene if Peltola emerges as the victor. He’s already floated the idea of a “redo” election if his endorsed candidate loses, even though he has no legal authority to do so. This is especially in Alaska, which uses ranked-choice voting. Trump interfering with the certification of the Senate race would almost certainly sow mass confusion and continue to erode faith in elections not just in Alaska, but across the country.
Over in the Pacific, Democrats got their first good news of election night in the U.S. territory of Guam. Because the island is fourteen hours ahead of New York, its polls close early and can sometimes be seen as a bellwether of overall election results.
With all precincts reporting in Tuesday’s unofficial count, Democrat Alicia Garrido Limtiaco was ahead of incumbent Republican delegate James Moylan — who has no voting power in the House of Representatives — with 51 percent of the vote. The Democrat so far has 15,600 votes for 51 percent of the total vote to Moylan’s 14,900, representing around 48.8 percent of the vote. That would flip Guam’s House delegate seat from red to blue.
That’s a bonafide flip, as Moylan has held the seat since January 2023 and won reelection in 2024 by a margin of approximately six points. If Tuesday’s numbers hold up, that would mean an eight-point leftward shift in the territory in just two years, as voters across the U.S. sour on the Trump administration over persistently high prices and the Iran war.
Democrats only need to flip three Republican-held seats to win back control of the House of Representatives, and multiple forecasts show the odds are highly in their favor.
Guam’s results weren’t all blue, however. Republican gubernatorial candidate Tony Ada and his running mate, E.J. Calvo, are currently leading Democrat Therese Terlaje and her running mate, Sabina Perez, by just over 1,000 votes. Current Democratic Governor Lou Leon Guerrero is term-limited and leaving office in January.
Trump celebrated the gubernatorial race in a Truth Social post, writing that Guam had “an early call for a REPUBLICAN Victory in the top spot” and giving hios congratulations to Ada. Notably, he didn’t acknowledge the likely Democratic victor in the race for Guam’s House delegate seat.
Meanwhile, Iowa could be headed for a historic midterm if turnout numbers hold up. Early voting turnout was up about 25 percent compared to the 2022 midterms, and voters have been steadily streaming to the polls all day.
Nearly 500,000 Iowans voted early in the 2026 cycle according to data released by the Iowa Secretary of State’s office Tuesday morning. Democrats cast 46 percent of those early ballots, while Republicans cast 34 percent (the remainder of those ballots were cast by independent and unaffiliated voters).
Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State, Paul Pate, predicted the election in the Hawkeye State is “going to be a record-maker for sure.” Pate said that in-person voting has been higher than mail-in voting across Iowa, and he cautioned that some tight races may take some time to call once polls close at approximately 8 PM local time.
In Polk County, which houses Des Moines, election workers reported turnout that was brisk to heavy, with lines at some polling places already starting to fill up at 6:30 in the morning. County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald, who is a Democrat, said that roughly 70,000 voters had already turned in absentee ballots. He told the Des Moines Register that he expects turnout to match 2018 levels, which hit around 200,000 voters, despite Iowa voters having nine fewer days to vote early in the 2026 cycle.
Voters in Des Moines told reporters they’re primarily motivated by the rising cost of living, and water quality (which is an issue adjacent to data center development). The Department of Justice has also deployed election monitors to polling places across Iowa, including in Polk County, which is the state’s most populous.
Tell Democrats: investigate EVERY member of the Trump family for corruption!
Our last story tonight: one of Trump’s staunchest allies is now admitting what a lot of Republicans still won’t say out loud. Outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose second term ends in January 2027, told sports commentator Stephen A. Smith on SiriusXM last night that the president’s war in Iran is a “big, big drag” on Republican candidates across the country.
DeSantis — who unsuccessfully ran against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — said voters are feeling the cost of the war at the gas pump, saying fuels costs are “higher because of this conflict. That’s just a fact.”
He’s not wrong: gas prices hit a record high average on Election Day of $4.11 per gallon on Tuesday. This is largely due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is a choke point for roughly 20 percent of the global oil supply. More oil is moving through the strait now in comparison to when the war began in February, but prices are still much higher than they were before the first strikes earlier this year.
DeSantis warned Republicans against downplaying and dismissing voters’ concerns about gas prices, saying Republicans who won’t admit the economic impact of the war are “gaslighting” voters. He also pointed out that the president was elected to a second term by promising no new wars, and that some Republicans have simply checked out over Trump’s broken promises. DeSantis went on to say that if the war continues to drag on through the remainder of Trump’s presidency, it would be “devastating” to the MAGA agenda and make the 2028 campaign “very, very difficult” for the GOP.
When Smith asked DeSantis how Republicans can adjust if they lose big tonight, the Florida governor said AI, data centers and Big Tech were the crucial sticking points with voters. He warned that Democrats are already favorted to win over conservative-leaning voters on those issues, and said the GOP will bleed voters if it continues to embrace “corporatism.”
Think about why you wouldn’t see any of these stories above the fold in Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, or in the lead block of David Ellison’s CBS Evening News. The answer is simple: the MAGA billionaires who own most of the media want to be the sole deciders of what you get to know. But they won’t win, and you reading this newsletter right now is proof.
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I’m British Chris, with Raw America. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent journalism. If you haven’t already, hit the ❤️ and click restack so we can get these stories in front of the people who really need them.