Candidates in several states with competitive House and Senate races are beginning the stretch run of election season with Labor Day events at festivals, union halls and parades. This year’s campaigns already have been combative, busy and expensive. They are…
Santa Fe New Mexican · By Patrick Whittle and Bill Barrow The Associated Press · September 8, 2026
Candidates in several states with competitive House and Senate races are beginning the stretch run of election season with Labor Day events at festivals, union halls and parades. This year’s campaigns already have been combative, busy and expensive. They are expected to get even more so as a larger number of voters tune in ahead of the Nov. 3 general election. Some of the busiest states are the handful with competitive Senate races, such as Maine, Ohio, Georgia and Michigan. Republicans control the chamber, but Democrats see a path to taking it back if they can flip four seats and hold on in competitive states where they hold a seat.
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.
PORTLAND, Maine — 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.
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.
Troy Jackson, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks to attendees at the Southern Maine Labor Council breakfast, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, in South Portland, Maine.
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.
Rebecca Cooke, Democratic candidate for Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District, greets people during a Labor Day parade, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026, in Readstown, Wis.
In a 'right to work’ Southern state, Democ rats 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.”
“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.
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.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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