Spoiler candidate, Cheesecake Factory and sibling rivalry: Recounting the many late 2026 midterm sideshows

The 2026 midterm elections mostly revolve around deeply serious business. There’s a war going on. Polls show Americans are worried about the economy and affordability, like they’ve rarely ever been. And the results will determine whether and how much Democrats can provide a check on President Donald Trump’s attempted consolidation of power.

But as is often the case, the final stages of the campaign have been chock full of things that have nothing to do with all of that — and some of it has been rather silly and even corrosive.

One of the most substantial is, of course, a New York Times report on Democratic Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign’s role in recruiting the other Dan Sullivan to apparently try to confuse Alaska voters intending to vote for Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Peltola maintains that she “ knew nothing about any other candidates on the ballot ” and that she is “not interested in tricking voters.” She also labeled the story “another distraction” and “another diversion” from real issues like affordability.

“Every day it’s some new, you know, ‘Look over here’ moment,” Peltola said.

Unfortunately for Peltola, it appears that her own campaign gave people good reason to look over there. While Democrats will point to other political dirty tricks in both the distant and recent past, it’s rare that such a trick is tied so directly to a candidate’s campaign.

But what’s perhaps most remarkable about all of it is how silly the gambit appears to have been in the first place. There is very little chance that that other Dan Sullivan will actually make the difference in the race.

And this is only the latest sideshow.

The Ohio governor’s race was already known as somewhat nasty, but then GOP nominee Vivek Ramaswamy decided to up the ante when he featured Democrat Amy Acton’s mother criticizing her in an ad. This despite Acton having said she has had no contact with her mother since she was 12-years-old, around the time the man her mother married was indicted for allegedly sexually abusing Acton .

The ad seemed desperate, at best. And despite initially defending his decision to run it, Ramaswamy’s campaign has discontinued it after reportedly spending only a fraction of what was initially announced.

Meanwhile, Republicans have strained to make a culture-war issue of a quip from former President Barack Obama that Trump has “got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory .” It’s their new attempted “ cling to guns and religion .”

Republicans have suggested this amounts to Obama talking down to people who enjoy the chain restaurant. Never mind that the Cheesecake Factory’s decor is intentionally over-the-top (or the whole Saddam Hussein aspect). And never mind the Trump is out there talking about how his supporters probably can’t afford to eat at Mar-a-Lago .

Trump also continues to mention candidates’ physiques , mostly repeating references to the quality of GOP Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s “ass.” This is, of course, after Trump repeatedly insulted Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s appearance for unknown reasons.

When Vice President JD Vance got a serious question about affordability during a Fox News town hall on Thursday night, he quipped that he was surprised more people weren’t asking him about Husted’s derriere — before proceeding to answer the question.

On an uglier level, the GOP’s Islamophobic attacks on Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed took a downright bizarre turn this week. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. espoused a bunch of untrue claims about the lack of achievements by the world’s 500 million Arabs .

Then there’s a whole other category of sideshows: intra-party and intra-family squabbling.

In the South Carolina Senate race, GOP Rep. Ralph Norman can’t seem to let go of his loss to appointed GOP Sen. Darline Graham, repeatedly saying that voters “ deserve better ” and feeding into Graham’s major liability: her lack of experience .

In the New Hampshire Senate race, we’ve had some Sununu-on-Sununu rhetorical violence. Amid some questions about whether voters know that it’s former GOP Sen. John E. Sununu running rather than his brother, the popular recent former Gov. Chris Sununu, Chris Sununu joked that if voters thought it was him, Republicans would be “up by 30 points.”

John E. Sununu didn’t seem to appreciate that idea, responding: “ I love my brother, but he’s totally wrong .”

And in the Michigan Senate race, Rep. Haley Stevens’ fiancé — Jewish Democrat Jason Turkish — publicly backed Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers over El-Sayed. Stevens has assured voters that she still backs El-Sayed and soon planned an event with him, but she’s made pretty clear that she’s lukewarm. And on Friday she even urged El-Sayed to more forcefully condemn an outside group’s ad that criticizes US aid to Israel.

By late Friday, El-Sayed’s campaign told Stevens to stay away from its campaign events .

The person Stevens’ fiancé is voting for probably doesn’t matter much to your average voter. But it does point to potential problems that El-Sayed seems to have with Jewish Democrats. And there are clearly hard feelings here that aren’t going away — even at a time when the party wants to project unity.

Still, it’s unlikely that most or any of these things will actually make a difference in the end. Many people have already voted, and the vast majority of Americans are likely set in their opinions.

But people tend to get quite squirrely and desperate towards the end of campaigns. And 2026 is surely no exception.

2026年中期选举的核心议题十分严肃。战争仍在进行。民调显示，美国民众对经济和生活成本的担忧程度前所未有。选举结果将决定民主党能否以及在多大程度上制约特朗普总统巩固权力的企图。

但正如常有的情况一样，竞选的最后阶段充斥着与这一切毫无关系的事情——其中一些事情相当愚蠢，甚至具有腐蚀性。

当然，其中最重大的报道之一是《纽约时报》关于民主党阿拉斯加州参议员候选人玛丽·佩尔托拉竞选团队招募另一个丹·沙利文，显然是为了迷惑打算投票给参议员丹·沙利文的阿拉斯加选民的报道。

佩尔托拉坚称她“对选票上的其他候选人一无所知”，并且“无意欺骗选民”。她还称这篇报道是“又一次转移视线”和“又一次转移人们对住房负担能力等真正问题的注意力”。

“每天都会有一些新的、让你眼前一亮的时刻，”佩尔托拉说。

对佩尔托拉来说不幸的是，她自己的竞选活动似乎给了人们充分的理由去关注其他候选人。虽然民主党人会指出过去和近期其他一些政治肮脏手段，但像这样与候选人竞选活动直接相关的伎俩却十分罕见。

但最令人惊讶的或许是，当初这个策略看起来多么愚蠢。另一个丹·沙利文几乎不可能真正左右选情。

而这仅仅是最新的一场闹剧。

俄亥俄州州长竞选早已以激烈著称，但共和党候选人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米（Vivek Ramaswamy）却火上浇油，在一则广告中播放了民主党候选人艾米·阿克顿（Amy Acton）母亲批评她的内容。而阿克顿本人曾表示，自她12岁起就与母亲断绝了联系，而就在她12岁左右，她母亲的丈夫因涉嫌性侵阿克顿而被起诉。

这则广告充其量也只能说是孤注一掷。尽管拉马斯瓦米的竞选团队最初为投放这则广告的决定辩护，但据报道，在实际花费仅为最初宣布预算的一小部分之后，他们就停止了投放。

与此同时，共和党人竭力将前总统奥巴马的一句玩笑话——“特朗普把白宫弄得像萨达姆·侯赛因开了家芝士蛋糕工厂”——渲染成一场文化战争。这是他们新一轮的“紧抓枪支和宗教不放”的尝试。

共和党人认为，这相当于奥巴马在贬低那些喜欢这家连锁餐厅的人。他们全然不顾芝士蛋糕工厂的装潢刻意追求极致奢华（以及它与萨达姆·侯赛因的关联）。他们也全然不顾特朗普还在公开谈论他的支持者可能负担不起在海湖庄园用餐的费用。

特朗普还继续提及候选人的身材，尤其反复提及俄亥俄州共和党参议员乔恩·赫斯特的“臀部”。当然，此前特朗普曾多次无故侮辱德克萨斯州参议员候选人肯·帕克斯顿的外貌。

周四晚上，在福克斯新闻的市政厅会议上，当副总统 JD Vance 被问及住房负担能力的严肃问题时，他打趣说，他很惊讶没有更多人问他关于 Husted 的臀部的问题——然后才开始回答这个问题。

更令人作呕的是，共和党对密歇根州民主党参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德的仇视伊斯兰教攻击本周出现了极其怪异的转变。卫生与公众服务部部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪发表了一系列关于世界5亿阿拉伯人缺乏成就的不实言论。

此外，还有另一类次要现象：党内和家族内部的争吵。

在南卡罗来纳州参议员竞选中，共和党众议员拉尔夫·诺曼似乎无法释怀输给共和党参议员达琳·格雷厄姆的失败，他反复表示选民“应该得到更好的”，这反而加剧了格雷厄姆的主要弱点：缺乏经验。

在新罕布什尔州参议员竞选中，我们看到了苏努努兄弟之间的激烈言辞交锋。有人质疑选民是否知道参选的是前共和党参议员约翰·E·苏努努，而不是他颇受欢迎的弟弟、前州长克里斯·苏努努。对此，克里斯·苏努努开玩笑说，如果选民以为是他参选，共和党的支持率就会“领先30个百分点”。

约翰·E·苏努努似乎并不认同这种观点，他回应道：“我爱我的兄弟，但他完全错了。”

在密歇根州参议员竞选中，众议员海莉·史蒂文斯的未婚夫——犹太裔民主党人杰森·图尔基——公开支持共和党前众议员迈克·罗杰斯，而非埃尔-赛义德。史蒂文斯向选民保证她仍然支持埃尔-赛义德，并计划很快与他共同出席活动，但她也明确表示自己态度冷淡。周五，她甚至敦促埃尔-赛义德更强烈地谴责一个外部团体批评美国对以色列援助的广告。

到周五晚些时候，埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队告诉史蒂文斯，让他远离竞选活动。

对普通选民来说，史蒂文斯的未婚妻投票给谁可能并不重要。但这确实表明，埃尔-赛义德似乎与犹太裔民主党人之间存在一些潜在的矛盾。而且，即便在民主党试图展现团结的当下，这种矛盾显然也难以消除。

然而，这些措施最终不太可能产生任何实际影响。许多人已经投票，绝大多数美国人的意见可能已经确定。

但到了竞选后期，人们往往会变得相当焦躁不安，甚至有些绝望。2026年大选当然也不例外。