Politics

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — By the time Hasan Piker takes the microphone at two campaign events with a senate candidate in Michigan on Tuesday, the popular but controversial online streamer will have already generated plenty of noise inside the Democratic Party.

Some have pitched him as a gateway to young people — particularly young men — who have drifted to the right in recent years. Others fear he is a sign of the party beholden to its extremes, pointing to inflammatory rhetoric like “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, describing some Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and that “America deserved 9/11.”

Piker’s scheduled appearances with Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, have catalyzed questions of how big a tent the party wants to build as it works to regain power in the midterm elections and win back the White House.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Piker cast the reaction as part of a broader fight for the party’s future.

“There is definitely, I think, a battle right now for who gets to be more representative of the national Democratic Party,” he said.

Piker remains largely unapologetic for his past remarks, although he’s said some were poorly worded. He called the renewed focus on them “totally ridiculous, especially considering that there are far more consequential things happening in the world right now.”

“The super wealthy are picking apart the scraps of the American carcass like a bunch of vultures, and some of the Democrats are talking about their affiliations with a Twitch streamer,” Piker said. “I think Americans understand that this is totally ridiculous.”

The 34-year-old Turkish American streamer has 3.1 million followers on Twitch and 1.8 million on YouTube, making him an influential voice in a shifting media landscape where mainstream outlets are losing clout. Unlike traditional podcasts, his livestreams are often unscripted and interactive. He has hosted prominent Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Piker said he is a “megaphone” for an angry electorate, and he believes the criticism that he faces is less about him personally and more about what he represents — a younger, more populist wing of the party.

“I think they find me to be a more appropriate target than to just actively disparage the voters,” he said.

El-Sayed, who has been backed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, is attempting to channel that appeal in appearances at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan on Tuesday. A physician and former county health official, he is locked in a competitive Senate primary with U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. It’s a critical race for a seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters and the winner of the primary will likely face former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.

El-Sayed has cast himself as an outsider in the race and said he’s finding ways to reach voters across the political spectrum, such as starting the day on Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” and ending it at the University of Michigan with Piker.

“I think the Democratic Party, frankly, has given up on the idea of persuasion,” El-Sayed said in an interview. “If you’re serious about persuading, what you do is you engage with that audience and you engage through that creator to have a conversation about what you actually want to build.”

He added that he doesn’t agree with everything Piker has said, but that he believes the Democratic Party hasn’t learned its lesson when it comes to “cancel culture.”

“Everybody’s sick and tired of trying to toss people out because they said something that we disagree with rather than actually having an adult conversation about what we believe in,” said El-Sayed.

In Michigan, home to large Muslim and Jewish communities, the war in Gaza has become a flashpoint in the Senate primary. Both El-Sayed and McMorrow have described the war as a genocide, but El-Sayed has called for ending U.S. military aid while McMorrow has emphasized a two-state solution. Stevens, meanwhile, calls herself a “proud pro-Israel Democrat.”

McMorrow told Jewish Insider that Piker was someone who “says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers,” and she compared him to white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Trump’s decision to dine with Fuentes between his presidencies ignited a firestorm of controversy over his association with extreme voices on the right. Stevens said El-Sayed is “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric.”

El-Sayed responded to the backlash over Piker by saying, “If we want to have a conversation where we’re actually bringing people together about the things that we need and deserve, we’re gonna have to go to unlikely and uncommon places.”

Not everyone in the party wants to go to those places. Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, who chairs the moderate New Democratic Coalition and co-chairs the Congressional Jewish Caucus, called Piker “an unapologetic antisemite.”

“We are deeply disappointed by the decision to host a speaker at the University of Michigan with a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric,” said Rabbi Davey Rosen, the CEO of Michigan Hillel. “Such invitations normalize hate and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students.”

Piker said he is not antisemitic and describes himself as anti-Zionist. Hostility toward Israel has risen across the political spectrum and has become a fault line within the Democratic Party during the war in Gaza.

Criticism has centered on Piker’s past remarks. After the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Piker argued that whether reports of sexual violence are accurate “doesn’t change the dynamic” of the conflict. He has repeatedly said the core issue is Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

Piker has drawn backlash for a comment in which he said “America deserved 9/11,” made during a 2019 livestream while discussing U.S. foreign policy. Piker has said the remark was poorly worded and added in the AP interview that he “didn’t mean that Americans deserved to die.”

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station in Iran on Tuesday, and Iranian officials urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants, as U.S. President Donald Trump warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not meet his latest deadline for the Islamic Republic to agree to a deal that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. also struck military targets on the Iranian oil hub of Kharg Island, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The attack marked the second time the island was targeted. Earlier in the war, American forces struck air defenses, a radar site, an airport and a hovercraft base there, according to satellite analysis by the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.

Trump has extended previous deadlines but suggested the one set for 8 p.m. in Washington was final, and the rhetoric on both sides reached a fever pitch, leaving Iranians on edge. Trump threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants and bridges if Tehran does not allow traffic to fully resume in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil transits in peacetime. Iran’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight.

It was not clear if the latest airstrikes were linked to Trump’s threat to attack bridges. At least two of the targets were connected to Iran’s rail network, which Israel earlier signaled it might attack. Israel has increasingly carried out strikes that it says are aimed at delivering a blow to Iran’s economy.

Iran, meanwhile, fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge.

While Iran cannot match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its chokehold on the strait is causing major damage to the world economy and raising the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing — but Iran has rejected the latest American proposal, and it was unclear if a deal would come in time to head off Trump’s threatened attacks. World leaders and experts warned that strikes as destructive as Trump threatened could constitute a war crime.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, Trump said in a post Tuesday morning, while keeping open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”

Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.

Iranians have formed human chains in the past around nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West. This time though, it was unclear who would heed the call, and one major power plant in Tehran apparently had been closed off for security purposes at the time the demonstration was to start.

President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X that 14 million Iranians had answered state media and text message campaigns urging people to volunteer to fight — and said he would join them — while a general from the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard urged parents to send their children to man checkpoints.

The Guard, meanwhile, warned that Iran would “deprive the U.S. and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” and expand its attacks across the Gulf region if Trump carries out his threat.

In Tehran, the mood was bleak. A young teacher said that many opponents of Iran’s Islamic system had hoped Trump’s attacks would quickly topple it.

Now, as the war drags on, she fears U.S. and Israeli attacks will spread chaos. “If we don’t have the internet, and if we don’t have electricity, water, and gas, we’re really going back to the Stone Age, as Trump said,” she said told The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for her safety.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot joined a growing chorus of international voices and calling for restraint, saying attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure “are barred by the rules of war, international law.”

“They would without doubt trigger a new phase of escalation, of reprisals, that would drag the region and the world economy into a vicious circle,” the minister said on France Info television.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres also warned the U.S. that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international law, according to his spokesperson.

Such cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute, and Trump told reporters he’s “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes.

A series of intense airstrikes pounded Tehran, including in residential neighborhoods. Such strikes in the past have targeted Iranian government and security officials.

Israel’s military said it attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz, the second day in a row it hit such a facility. Israel also issued a Farsi-language warning telling Iranians to avoid trains throughout the day, likely telegraphing intended strikes on the rail network.

Iranian officials later said that a railway bridge, a train station and a highway bridge had been hit in airstrikes. Neither the United States not Israel immediately claimed the attacks.

Another strike hit the Khorramabad International Airport in western Iran, and an attack on an unidentified target in Alborz province, northwest of Tehran, killed 18 people, according to state media. A total of 15 people were killed in other strikes, Iranian media reported.

Early Tuesday, Tehran launched seven ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia, which authorities said rained debris near energy facilities as they were intercepted.

The attacks prompted Saudi Arabia to temporarily close the King Fahd Causeway, the only road connection between Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Iran also fired on Israel, with reports of incoming missiles in Tel Aviv and Eilat.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,400 people have been killed. and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

Iran choked off shipping through the strait after Israel and the U.S. attacked on Feb. 28, starting the war. That stranglehold and Iran’s attacks on the energy infrastructure of its Gulf Arab neighbors have sent oil prices skyrocketing, raising the price of gasoline, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East.

In spot trading Tuesday, Brent crude, the international standard, was above $108 per barrel, up around 50% since the start of the war.

On Monday, Tehran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the war. But as Trump’s deadline neared Tuesday, an official said indirect communications between the United States and Iran remained underway. The official said mediators from Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey “are racing against time” to reach a compromise before the deadline.

He said Iran has linked the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to sanctions relief, and the U.S. was open to easing some sanctions, especially on Iran’s oil sector, in part to stabilize the global oil market.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing diplomacy.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Rising from Bangkok and Magdy from Cairo. John Leicester in Paris, Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia, Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem and Seung Min Kim and Michelle Price in Washington contributed to this report.

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents scheduled a Tuesday vote to consider firing the system’s president, who refused their offer to quietly resign because he said no reason had been given for the surprise ouster.

Jay Rothman said in two letters sent to regents that he would not resign from leading the 165,000-student system without an explanation of what he had done wrong.

Board of Regents President Amy Bogost said in a statement Monday that Rothman “was not without notice, nor was this process sudden.”

“The Board has engaged with President Rothman in good-faith discussions over the past several months,” she said.

The board scheduled the termination vote for 5 p.m. Tuesday. Rothman did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The vote is scheduled for just five days after The Associated Press first reported that the board asked Rothman to either resign or face being fired.

Rothman has been president of the multicampus university system since 2022. His letters were the first public indication that Rothman’s job was in jeopardy and took university and state government officials by surprise.

The move to quickly and quietly oust Rothman drew fire on Friday from Republican state Rep. David Murphy, chair of the Wisconsin Assembly’s colleges and universities committee.

“This lack of transparency is unacceptable,” Murphy said. “President Rothman deserves to know exactly why the Board has lost confidence in his leadership.”

Bogost said it was a time of “profound change” in higher education and “this decision is about the future.”

“The Universities of Wisconsin must be led with a clear vision that both protects and strengthens our flagship, support our comprehensive universities and ensures we are meeting the evolving needs of our students, workforce and communities across all 72 counties,” she said.

Rothman’s tenure has been marked by his efforts to increase state funding amid federal cuts, debates over free speech on campus amid pro-Palestinian protests, and declining enrollment leading to eight branch campus closures even as enrollment overall held steady.

Rothman can be fired for no stated reason and he has no appeal rights, said Wisconsin employment law attorney Tamara Packard, who reviewed Rothman’s contract at the AP’s request.

Under the contract, Rothman would have to be given six-months’ notice of his termination. In practice, what usually happens is the person is told to focus on transitioning their duties and not actually work in the office any longer, Packard said.

Rothman has had to navigate negotiations with a Republican-controlled Legislature during his tenure and a board of regents with a majority of appointees from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The board was controlled by Evers appointees when Rothman was hired.

Evers is not seeking a third term, meaning there will be a new governor next year with the power to make appointments to the board of regents. The board is in charge of hiring and firing university leaders.

Evers, when asked Monday about the board’s desire to oust Rothman, didn’t take a side.

“It’s their call,” Evers said of the board.

The fight over Rothman’s future also comes as the flagship Madison campus is losing its chancellor. Jennifer Mnookin is leaving at the end of the current academic year in May to take the job as president of Columbia University.

Rothman, the former chair and CEO of the Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner law firm, had no prior experience administering higher education.

His salary as UW president is $600,943.

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ATLANTA (AP) — Republican Clay Fuller will try to close the deal with Georgia voters on Tuesday to succeed Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress, while Democrat Shawn Harris seeks an upset.

Harris led a first round of voting on March 10 with 37% in the district that stretches across 10 counties from suburban Atlanta to Tennessee. While Fuller came in second in the 17-candidate all-party special election with 35%, the Republican candidates combined won nearly 60% of the vote. The 14th District is rated as the most Republican-leaning district in Georgia by the Cook Political Report.

President Donald Trump in February endorsed Fuller, a district attorney who prosecuted crimes in four counties, to succeed Greene in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Greene, once among Trump’s most ardent supporters, resigned in January after falling out with the president.

Fuller has backed Trump to the hilt, finding no issue on which he disagreed with the president when asked in a March 23 debate.

“We need an America First fighter to stand strong for northwest Georgia,” Fuller said March 23. He was a White House fellow in the first Trump administration and is a lieutenant colonel in the Georgia Air National Guard.

Trump reiterated his support for Fuller on Monday night.

“I am asking all Republicans, America First Patriots, and MAGA Warriors, to please GET OUT AND VOTE for a fantastic Candidate, Clay Fuller, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” the president wrote on social media.

Harris, a cattle farmer and retired general who lost to Greene in 2024, has contrasted himself with Greene’s bomb-throwing style. He said he’s a “dirt-road Democrat” with common sense, and practical-minded Republicans should vote for him because he will focus on the district’s interest.

“He has sold his soul to Donald Trump,” Harris said of Fuller on March 23. “The reality of it is he cannot fight for you because he cannot go against the president.”

The winner will serve out the remaining months of Greene’s term. A Republican win would bolster the party’s slim majority in the House, where Republicans control 217 seats to Democrats’ 214, with one independent.

But if the winner wants to remain in Congress beyond January, he will have to run again. Republicans seeking a full two-year term are set for a May 19 party primary, and possibly a June 16 party runoff, before advancing to the general election in November. Harris is the only Democrat running, meaning he faces no primary election.

Greene was one of the most well-known members of Congress until she left in January. She remained loyal to Trump after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, promoting Trump’s falsehoods about a stolen election. When Trump ran again in 2024, she toured the country with him and spoke at his rallies while wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat.

But Greene began clashing with Trump last year after he and other Republicans pushed back against her running for U.S. Senate or governor. Greene criticized Trump’s foreign policy and his reluctance to release documents involving the Jeffrey Epstein case. The president eventually had enough, saying he would support a primary challenge against her. Greene announced a week later that she would resign.

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By Nathan Layne

April 7 (Reuters) – Voters in northwest Georgia go to the polls on Tuesday in a congressional race between a moderate Democrat and a Republican backed by President Donald Trump, in a test of Trump’s sway over his base and a possible barometer for the November midterms.

The two-way race is to fill a U.S. House of Representatives seat vacated in January when conservative Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned after a public break with Trump, exposing divisions within his Make America Great Again movement.

The contest pits Clay Fuller, a Trump-endorsed former district attorney and U.S. Air National Guard veteran, against Shawn Harris, a moderate Democrat who has been trying to win over disaffected Trump voters in one of the state’s most conservative districts. Fuller is favored.

The runoff was triggered after no candidates secured an outright majority in a March 10 special election, with Harris winning 37.3% of the vote and Fuller topping a crowded Republican field of a dozen contenders with 34.9%.

A MEASURE OF TRUMP’S INFLUENCE

The special election has drawn national attention as a measure of Trump’s influence in a district that became synonymous with the MAGA movement through its association with Greene, one of his most vocal defenders before their split.

Even if he loses, Harris’ margin of defeat will be scrutinized as an indicator of whether Democrats can continue to outperform in special elections, and whether high fuel prices and voter unease over the Iran war are shaping the electorate.

Michael Bailey, a political science professor at Berry College, said he expects Fuller to come out on top, citing the district’s history of easy Republican victories, including Greene’s 2024 win with 64.4% of the vote to Harris’ 35.6%.

But Bailey, whose college is in the district, said the margin of victory will be parsed for clues about party strength and Trump’s standing with his MAGA base. One key marker, he said, is whether Harris can approach 45% of the vote.

“If (Harris) gets to 45%, that’s national news, in my opinion, because this is a heavily red district,” Bailey told Reuters, saying such a result could prompt some Republican lawmakers to rethink their allegiance to Trump.

“For Trump, above all, optics matter, and perception matters,” Bailey said. “If he isn’t seen as having a magic touch, there’s enough diversity with the Republican Party that there’s going to be some people breaking away.” 

Georgia’s 14th Congressional District is a mostly blue-collar corridor stretching north from Atlanta’s suburbs to the Tennessee border. Greene won the seat in 2020 and quickly became one of MAGA’s most outspoken national figures.

HARRIS SEEKS DISILLUSIONED REPUBLICANS

Harris, a cattle rancher and retired Army brigadier general, is seeking to appeal to disillusioned Republicans with a campaign focused on inflation and policies aimed at supporting small farmers and veterans. He entered the race with a financial edge, raising about $4.3 million and reporting roughly $290,000 cash on hand as of the February 18 campaign finance filing.

Fuller, who was a White House fellow during Trump’s first term and is a lieutenant colonel in the Georgia Air National Guard, vows to enact Trump’s “America First” agenda. On his campaign website, he describes himself as a “constitutional conservative” with a “tough-on-crime” record. Fuller raised about $787,000 and had $238,000 in the bank as of February 18.

The winner of the runoff will serve through the end of 2026 but must quickly pivot to campaigning for a full two‑year term beginning in January 2027, starting with a party primary in May.

The seat will be on the ballot in November’s general election, when all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one‑third of the Senate will be contested. Democrats are seeking to regain control of the House, while facing steeper hurdles in the Senate.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Cynthia Osterman)

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By Julie Steenhuysen and Nate Raymond

CHICAGO, April 6 (Reuters) – U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is rewriting the rules of membership for a key vaccine advisory panel, according to a document published by his department on Monday, after a judge last month declared most of his prior selections unqualified and put their decisions on hold.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of vaccines, had been a major tool in Kennedy’s efforts to reshape U.S. vaccine policy.

In a March 16 decision, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy concluded that ACIP had been unlawfully reconstituted after Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, last year removed and replaced all 17 independent experts who previously served on the panel, adding several members who share his controversial vaccine views.

In his decision, Murphy concluded that Kennedy’s ACIP panel violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act and repeatedly pointed to the panel’s charter, which required that its members have expertise in the use and research of vaccines and immunization practices.

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services led by Kennedy published a renewal of the charter that broadens the list of expertise for individuals who could serve on that panel, which makes recommendations impacting the use of vaccines, including the U.S. childhood immunization schedule.

A previous version of the charter signed by Kennedy in December stipulated that panel members should be knowledgeable about immunization practices and public health, and have expertise using vaccines in clinical practice or preventive medicine or have expertise in vaccine research, or in vaccine efficacy and safety.

Two former ACIP members appointed by previous administrations said the new charter appears to broaden the requirements for membership, listing examples of specialists in biostatistics and toxicology.

In his decision, Murphy said the members Kennedy appointed were “distinctly unqualified,” with only six of the 15 members having any meaningful experience in vaccines.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon downplayed the significance of the changes, saying the ACIP charter renewal and publication “are routine statutory requirements and do not signal any broader policy shift.”

The revamped charter followed a letter sent to Kennedy on March 25 by attorney Aaron Siri representing Informed Consent Action Network, a group critical of vaccine safety and mandates, recommending changes to the ACIP charter.

According to a press release on the ICAN website promoting the letter, the group called on Kennedy to “clarify committee member criteria” and argued that all 13 of the ACIP members whose qualifications were challenged in Murphy’s decision “do have the requisite experience.”

So far, the Trump administration has not appealed Murphy’s ruling, but still has time to do so under a 60-day window.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Three months after Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from Congress following a public rift with President Donald Trump, voters in the northwest Georgia congressional district she once represented will pick a replacement to serve out the remainder of her term.

Tuesday’s special congressional runoff marks the second time in less than a month that voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District cast ballots for their representative in Washington. None of the 17 contenders in a March 10 special election received a majority of the vote, triggering Tuesday’s contest between the top two vote-getters.

The outcome will almost immediately affect the fragile balance of power in the closely divided U.S. House, where Republicans cling to a 217-214 majority. An additional seat is held by a former Republican who became an independent in March, while twoseats remain vacant.

Democrat Shawn Harris received the most votes in the Georgia special election, where all candidates ran on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. Harris edged Republican Clay Fuller by about 2 percentage points, aided in part by the fact that the district’s sizable Republican vote was split among a dozen Republican candidates.

Harris is a retired Army brigadier general who lost to Greene in the 2024 general election. Fuller is a district attorney who has Trump’s endorsement. Both are also seeking their parties’ nominations for a full term in the May 19 primary ahead of the November midterm elections.

The district has a history of heavily favoring Republican candidates in general elections. Trump carried the district in 2024 with 68% of the vote. The 37% Harris received in March was slightly better than the roughly 36% of the vote he notched in his head-to-head matchup with Greene in 2024.

Harris modestly improved his vote share in nine of the district’s 10 counties since 2024. He also outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential vote share in all 10 counties. But to win the seat, he needs to far surpass the overall mid-30% range that Democrats have received in the district in recent general elections.

His best performances in the special election were in Cobb and Paulding counties, two metro Atlanta counties that are the two most populous in the northwest Georgia district. But Greene still carried every county in the election that year.

Harris, who did not face major Democratic opposition in the special election, raised a total of $6.4 million for his campaign, compared to about $1.3 million for Fuller. As of March 18, Harris had about $745,000 in the bank, while Fuller had about $53,000.

Trump’s endorsement should be a boost for Fuller, considering the president outperformed Greene districtwide. But turnout in special elections is typically much lower than in presidential elections, and turnout for runoffs tends to be even lower.

Elsewhere in Georgia on Tuesday, runoffs will also be held in state Senate District 53 and state House District 94. Republicans control both chambers of the General Assembly, and the outcome of the two special runoffs will not threaten their majorities.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

There is no automatic recount provision in Georgia, but a losing candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the special runoff elections for the 14th Congressional District, state Senate District 53 and state House District 94.

Any registered voter may participate in the special runoff election in their district, regardless of whether they voted in the March 10 special election.

As of Friday, there were about 571,000 total registered voters in the 14th Congressional District, including about 524,000 active voters. Georgia voters do not register by party.

About 116,000 votes were cast in the March 10 U.S. House special election, roughly 52% of which was cast before Election Day.

Nearly 47,000 ballots had already been cast in the U.S. House special runoff election as of Friday.

In the March 10 special election, the AP first reported results in the 14th Congressional District at 7:05 p.m. ET, or five minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was from Paulding County at 9:51 p.m. ET with about 99.9% of total votes counted.

All 10 counties in the 14th Congressional District tend to release some or all of their absentee voting results in the first vote update of the night. Four counties, including the two largest, Paulding and Cobb, also tend to include all of their results from early voting in the first vote update. Since the 2020 election, Democrats have been more likely to cast their votes early or by mail. In jurisdictions that release mail and early vote results at the start of the night, this could result in the Democratic candidate taking an initial lead in the vote count until votes from in-person Election Day ballots are tallied.

As of Tuesday, there will be 210 days until this seat is up again in the 2026 midterm elections.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Wisconsin voters will choose a new state Supreme Court justice in a Tuesday election that will either maintain or expand the court’s liberal majority. Meanwhile, the city of Waukesha will hold its first open-seat mayoral race in 20 years.

The contests are among the notable highlights of Wisconsin’s spring election, where races for judicial, municipal, educational and other traditionally nonpartisan offices will be decided beyond the din of the more explicitly partisan November elections.

In the race for the high court, state Appeals Court judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar are running to replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley from the court’s conservative bloc. Taylor is a former Democratic state representative who has endorsements from the court’s four sitting liberal justices. Lazar served as assistant state attorney general under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. She is endorsed by conservative Justice Annette Ziegler, who announced in March she will not seek a third term in 2027.

This year’s contest has not generated the same level of attention as recent Wisconsin Supreme Court races, since the ideological balance of the bench is not at stake. But the winner will be a part of a panel that could be at the center of a political firestorm if there are any disputes related to either the 2028 presidential election or the next round of congressional redistricting in the early 2030s. Justices are elected to 10-year terms.

Liberals are looking for their fourth consecutive state Supreme Court victory. Liberal justices gained a 4-3 majority on the court in 2023 for the first time in 15 years after Justice Janet Protasiewicz won a seat previously held by a conservative. In 2025, Justice Susan Crawford joined the court and preserved the liberal majority after a campaign where Elon Musk and groups associated with him spent millions in support of a conservative candidate.

In any statewide election in Wisconsin, Democrats tend to win by large margins in the populous counties of Milwaukee and Dane (home to Madison), while Republicans win by wide margins in the smaller, more rural counties that stretch across most of the state. Republican candidates also tend to rely on strong showings in the “WOW” counties — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington in suburban Milwaukee — which help counter Democratic advantages in urban areas. Victory is determined by how big those margins are in the respective party strongholds, as well as which side can win over the more competitive swing areas.

In the 2024 presidential election, then-Vice President Kamala Harris won Milwaukee County with 68% of the vote and Dane County with 75%, while narrowly losing statewide. In comparison, Protasiewicz and Crawford in their successful state Supreme Court races received 73% and 75% of the vote in Milwaukee County and 82% of the vote in Dane County. They both won statewide with double-digit margins of victory.

Protasiewicz and Crawford each also won more than 10 swing counties that voted for Trump in 2024, most notably in Brown County, home to Green Bay, which Trump carried in all three of his White House campaigns.

In the race for Waukesha mayor, Common Council President Alicia Halvensleben and state Rep. Scott Allen are running to replace Mayor Shawn Reilly, who is not seeking a fourth term. Allen has been one of the most conservative Republicans in the Legislature since his election in 2014. Halvensleben is the preferred candidate of the Waukesha County Democratic Party.

Reilly is an independent who left the Republican Party after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He has endorsed Halvensleben.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Recounts are not automatic in Wisconsin, but a trailing candidate may request one if the winning vote margin is less than a percentage point. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

Polls close at 8 p.m. local time, which is 9 p.m. ET.

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the races for state Supreme Court and Waukesha mayor.

Any registered voter in Wisconsin may participate in the spring election.

As of April 1, there were about 3.6 million active registered voters in Wisconsin out of about 4.5 million eligible voting-age adults. Voters in the state do not register by party.

Nearly 2.4 million votes were cast in the 2025 spring election for state Supreme Court, which was about 62% of registered voters. About 29% of voters cast their ballots before election day.

As of Friday, nearly 281,000 ballots had already been cast.

In the 2025 spring election, the AP first reported results in the race for state Supreme Court at 9:09 p.m. ET, or nine minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2:12 a.m. ET with about 99% of total votes counted. The race was called at 10:16 p.m. ET.

In previous Wisconsin elections, counties varied in terms of when and how they released results from early and absentee voting. In the 2024 general election, roughly a third of the counties released all or most of their early and absentee voting results in the first vote update, while the rest released them throughout the night along with results from in-person Election Day voting.

As of Tuesday, there will be 210 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

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By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday the Tuesday deadline he has set for Iran to make a deal is final and unlikely to be extended, calling Iran’s peace proposal significant but not good enough.

Trump has warned U.S. forces will unleash broad attacks on Iranian infrastructure if his Tuesday night deadline for a deal is not met. 

“They made a proposal, and it’s a significant proposal. It’s a significant step. It’s not good enough,” Trump told reporters during an Easter egg event for children on the White House South Lawn.

Critics have said Trump would be committing war crimes if the U.S. attacked civilian power plants, a point that Trump dismissed on Monday.

“I’m not worried about it. You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

Trump said the five-week conflict could end quickly if Iran does “what they have to do.”

“They have to do certain things. They know that, they’ve been negotiating I think in good faith,” he said.

Trump, who had extended his initial deadline, gave no indication he would do so again.

“Highly unlikely. They’ve had plenty of time. In fact, they asked for seven days. I said, I’m going to give you 10. But at the end of 10, all hell’s going to break out if you don’t get there,” he said.

Trump’s senior aides have been negotiating with Iran indirectly through Pakistan, attempting to get a deal in which Iran will forswear nuclear weapons and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the oil transit waterway. Iran said it wanted a permanent end to the war, not just a temporary ceasefire.

Trump said it appeared the latest team representing the Iranian government is “not as radicalized” as others who have been killed in airstrikes.

“We think they’re actually smarter,” he said.

Trump said if it were up to him, the United States would take control of Iran’s oil, but he said the American people would probably not understand such a move.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose, Steve Holland, Susan Heavey and Bhargav AcharyaEditing by David Ljunggren and Michelle Nichols)

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By David Hood-Nuño

MIAMI, April 6 (Reuters) – Republicans’ longstanding support among voters of Cuban and Venezuelan descent in South Florida, a cornerstone of the party’s regional success over the past decade, is showing signs of strain ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

A sluggish economy and high living costs, as well as President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda, complicate the party’s appeal to many Latino voters, creating a potential opening for Democrats in one of the GOP’s most reliable strongholds, according to about 50 business leaders, politicians of both parties and voters who spoke to Reuters. 

The 2026 midterm could show Republican support is flagging among South Florida’s Latino electorate, whose rightward shift helped the party sweep Miami‑Dade County in the 2024 presidential election for the first time in more than three decades. And if Democrats are successful in building coalitions among Latinos — which doesn’t necessarily mean flipping House seats in November — it could last and pay off well beyond 2026, Democratic voters and party insiders say.

“I think there is a tremendous opportunity for the Democratic Party to make inroads,” said Marta Arnold, 80, who fled the Cuban Revolution with her family the night Fidel Castro took power on January 1, 1959, and who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 as an independent.

Democrats have been encouraged by a few recent votes: Emily Gregory flipped a Florida House district for them in March in an area that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, a district he won by 11 points in 2024. And in December, Democrat Eileen Higgins defeated Trump-backed candidate Emilio Gonzalez by 19 points for the Miami mayoral race.

Though early signs point to positive prospects for Democrats, they still have a hill to climb to convince staunch, skeptical Republican supporters to change their votes, according to more than a dozen interviews with Republican voters, party insiders and leaders in Miami.

 “There’s a 50-50 chance now,” said Juan “Big Papa” Cardona, operator of D’Asis Guayaberas, on Calle Ocho in the heart of Little Havana in Miami. Cardona, who’s Puerto Rican, has heckled and joked with tourists outside the quaint but vibrant store selling traditional Latin American men’s shirts for more than 20 years.

It’s still early in the campaign season, but Democrats in the race have ramped up outreach to voters through town halls, door-knocking and rally events. The Florida primary is August 18, but in the meantime, Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin has committed resources for get-out-the-vote campaigns and voter registration events, according to Millie Herrera, a Florida DNC member.

A ‘MISTAKE’ ON IMMIGRATION AND DEPORTATIONS

The administration’s hardline immigration enforcement policy may be the greatest factor weighing on Republicans, Arnold said, because in an area where more than 250,000 Venezuelans and 1.2 million Cubans live, according to the Pew Research Center, everyone knows someone who has been “torn away” from the community.

In 2025, the Trump administration removed at least 1,379 Cubans from the U.S. to Cuba via deportation flights and at least 3,753 Cubans to Mexico across the land border, according to a recent report by Human Rights First, a nonpartisan human rights advocacy group that monitors U.S. immigration enforcement.

“That’s a very big mistake,” said U.S. Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Republican whose district includes most of Miami-Dade County. 

Rounding up undocumented immigrants the way the administration has done could cost Republicans the midterm elections if it doesn’t “course correct,” she said, which party leaders have acknowledged.

It could cost Salazar her seat, too, according to Dario Moreno, an associate professor of politics at Florida International University. Of all the congressional races in the area, Salazar could be the “most vulnerable,” he said.

Salazar took Florida’s 27th Congressional District seat in 2020 by defeating Democratic Representative Donna Shalala, who had won it two years earlier when longtime Republican incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retired. In 2024, Salazar won by about 20 percentage points over her opponent.

Salazar is leaning on her signature legislation, the DIGNIDAD Act, a comprehensive immigration-reform bill that has amassed nearly 40 bipartisan co-sponsors, to clear the path to her reelection.

But the bill faces political headwinds and a rocky path to passage, according to an analysis by Greenberg Traurig’s Immigration and Compliance Practice.

National Republicans say they aren’t worried about South Florida. “Republicans have earned and will continue to earn Latino voters’ support by focusing on what matters most to working families in Florida: lowering the cost of living, safe neighborhoods, good schools, and a secure border,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Christian Martinez said in a statement to Reuters.

Still, with one of the narrowest congressional majorities in recent history, a handful of competitive races could determine control of Washington.

TRUMP IMPACT AT HOME AND ABROAD

Many Cuban American voters remain loyal to Trump, who has stepped up pressure on the island’s communist government and talked openly about regime change. Luis Medina, 78, a member of the historic Domino Park club in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, said he will always support Trump.

Medina moved to the United States 26 years ago and became a citizen shortly after. He voted for Trump all three times. While dominoes clacked and fell on the dozen or so tables around him, many players looked over and nodded in approval as he spoke.

Trump’s actions in Venezuela have also cheered many exiles. When President Nicolas Maduro was captured by U.S. forces in January, the Venezuelan diaspora all over the world cheered, danced and partied, hopeful that authoritarianism went with Maduro to jail.

But when Trump said publicly that his interest in the country wasn’t regime change, but the country’s vast oil supply, some doubts crept in for Venezuelan Americans like Gustavo Grossmann, a former HBO executive and longtime Miami resident.

For Grossmann, who voted for Trump in the last two elections, Maduro’s capture felt like a relief, that political change was on the horizon. But with the rest of Maduro’s government still in place, that hope has been dashed, as the “comprehensive” changes he was expecting have yet to materialize, he said.

For many, Trump’s policies at home are more important. In the first year of Trump’s second term, more than two in three Latinos said their situation had worsened in the past year and about 80% said Trump’s policies did more harm to Latinos than helped them, according to a November Pew Research Center survey. 

Manuel Carranque, 56, a Venezuelan American living in South Florida, views Trump’s immigration crackdown as a moral failure, especially with the deaths of two American citizens at the hands of immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis. “I think Republicans are going to lose the midterms,” said Carranque, vice president of international markets for vegetable oils for StoneX, a global financial services company.

Martha Arias hears the same refrain every week from Cuban American families at her immigration law office: “I never thought this would happen to me,” most of them tell her, referring to a family member detained and deported by immigration authorities. 

Last year was the busiest year for Arias, a partner at her small firm, Arias Villa Law PLLC, in the nearly 30 years she’s practiced immigration law in Miami.

Arias said Cuban Americans seeking her help for a family member in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention keep telling her the same thing: “I regret my vote.”

(Reporting by David Hood-Nuño; Editing by Kat Stafford and Claudia Parsons)

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