Midterm elections head into the home stretch as candidates hit Labor Day
events
[September 08, 2026]
By PATRICK WHITTLE and BILL BARROW
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Troy Jackson was a longtime labor activist and
logger before he unexpectedly became the Democratic nominee for U.S.
Senate in Maine. On Monday, he returned to a union hall to tell workers
they need to go to the polls this fall — to raise the minimum wage,
expand family medical leave and show support for one another.
“Labor Day has never been just another holiday,” Jackson told several
hundred union members at a Southern Maine Labor Council event Monday in
Portland. “Today, here with the people I’ve fought alongside for years,
I want to make a pledge about exactly what I’m going to do in the United
States Senate.”
Jackson, who became the nominee in a special convention in July, is
trying to whip up support in a short period of time as he attempts to
unseat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a race Democrats view
as critical to winning Senate control.
He was among the candidates in key November races who spent Labor Day
weekend stumping at festivals, union halls and parades as the midterms
enter the final weeks with control of the House and Senate on the line.
Labor Day marks the beginning of the busy stretch of campaign season
This year's campaigns already have been combative, busy and expensive,
and they are expected to get even more so as a larger number of voters
tune in ahead of the Nov. 3 general election. The first statewide mail
ballots already went out, in North Carolina, on Friday.
Outside the Jackson event in Portland, Doug Born, a 64-year-old union
stagehand from Westbrook, said Jackson's background as a logger and his
longtime support of organized labor are reasons to support him.
“I think he'd be the most working-class guy in the Senate. That appeals
to me,” Born said. “We need more union members in seats of power.”
Collins had no events scheduled for Labor Day, but she visited
shipbuilder Bath Iron Works early in the morning on Sept. 1 to greet
employees and promise to continue “leveraging her seniority to secure
billions in destroyer contracts, infrastructure modernization, and wage
enhancements,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Trump hopes to whip up support later this week with midterm
convention
President Donald Trump is also stepping up his own efforts for
Republicans in the coming days. His party is set to gather this week in
Dallas for an atypical midterm convention, a two-day event that Trump
and other Republicans hope will generate enthusiasm for the GOP, which
currently controls the White House and Congress.
Typically, the party in power in Washington loses seats in Congress
during the midterm elections.
Trump has vowed to campaign for Republicans in dozens of races, saying
he plans to spend the 30 days before Nov. 3 stumping in House and Senate
battlegrounds.
In a ‘right to work’ Southern state, Democrats still push for labor
votes
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and Democrats’ nominee for governor, Keisha
Lance Bottoms, both visited an AFL-CIO picnic in metro Atlanta.
Ossoff, the only Democratic senator seeking reelection in a state Trump
won in 2024, praised current and former labor leaders and activists,
while lamenting workers’ economic circumstances under a billionaire
president who has grown wealthier while in office.
“We are dealing with the most absurd and obscene corruption in the
modern history of our republic,” Ossoff said, hammering Trump for the
war in Iran and inflation while “building monuments to himself.”
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Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., a candidate for Wisconsin's 3rd
Congressional district, rides a motorcycle with his grandson in a
Labor Day parade, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, in Readstown, Wis. (AP
Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
“All of this, when for working families in Georgia, life just gets
tougher and tougher,” Ossoff said.
Ossoff is facing Republican Rep. Mike Collins, who owns a trucking
company but has pitched himself as a working-class advocate.
Collins’ campaign did not respond to an inquiry about his Labor Day
plans.
Bottoms, who faces wealthy healthcare CEO Rick Jackson, urged union
members to use their personal influence and networks to help her
counter the Republican nominee’s vast personal spending on Georgia
airwaves. She noted that Georgia, like other Southern states, is
historically anti-union and has so-called “right to work” laws that
make it harder to organize unions and easier for companies to fire
workers at will.
Jackson had no public events Monday.
Candidates made stops across House, Senate battlegrounds
In Wisconsin, both major-party candidates in one of the country's
most competitive House districts — Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden
and Democrat Rebecca Cooke — joined a parade in the western part of
the state. Cooke walked the parade route before it started, talking
with voters and handing out literature, and then did it again in the
parade. Van Orden drove his 2001 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, with
two of his grandchildren along for the ride, along the parade route.
Maureen Hilton, a 74-year-old retired insurance underwriter who
lives just outside of the village of Readstown where the parade took
place, said she’s disgusted with both political parties.
“Just do what’s right,” she said. “Get food prices down. Get gas
prices down.”
But Jerry Ray, a 75-year-old semi-retired appliance repairman, said
“it’s time for a change.” He’s voting for the Democrat Cooke in
November.
“Trump’s had a chance and he’s just screwed it up royally,” Ray said
as parade participants tossed candy to children along the route.
Van Orden said he gave Cooke credit for attending the parade in the
Republican-leaning village with a population under 500.
At a fair Sunday in Ohio, an armed assailant charged toward
Democratic candidate for Ohio governor Amy Acton and injured several
people before he was stopped by troopers, authorities said. A
spokesperson for Acton’s opponent, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, said
candidates “should be able to meet with voters without having to
worry about threats or violence.”
___
Barrow reported from Hapeville, Georgia. Associated Press writers
Joey Cappelletti in Washington, Jacqueline GaNun in Lansing,
Michigan, and Scott Bauer in Readstown, Wisconsin, contributed to
this story.
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