Judge bars DoJ from threats to election workers as Trump to hold tele-rallies three days before elections – live

Millions of Americans will head to the polls on 3 November in elections that will determine control of the Republican-held House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the governorships of 36 states.

The midterms come amid mounting public frustration over issues ranging from the rising cost of living and immigration to the climate crisis, artificial intelligence, big tech and the US’s overseas wars. Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 36%, according to a New York Times/Siena poll conducted this month.

Voters across the US described to the Guardian their concerns and disillusionment with the current political climate, with one characterizing the country under the Trump administration as a “rogue nation, ungoverned by the rule of law”. (Some respondents only shared their first name or declined to share their name for privacy reasons.)

For many, the cost of living is a central concern ahead of the midterms, particularly as inflation reaches 3.7%.

Kathryn Warren, a retired staff member from Dare county schools who lives on Hatteras Island, North Carolina, said she and her husband had already voted early.

“We are dying on the vine in this economy. We live in a remote area and the cost of gas is taking a big chunk of our social security. Groceries and medicine are outrageous. The medicine that keeps me alive costs $7,000 a month before insurance. In what world is that reasonable?” Warren said.

My colleague Maya Yang has the full story:

It’s a good time to be a coal plant in the US. The Trump administration has given support to almost half of the nation’s coal plants, helping them to continue operating despite economic and regulatory headwinds, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The analysis, which looked at the 184 operating coal plants that are connected to the grid, found that 90 received support from the Trump administration through “cash handouts, free passes to pollute, and requirements to stay online past their retirement dates”.

The administration provided $950m in taxpayer dollars to 24 coal plants and handed Clean Air Act exemptions from toxic pollution limits to 70 coal plants, according to the EDF analysis.

“It’s extending the life of these coal plants,” said Surbhi Sarang, director and senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund. “The administration has leveraged a multitude of tools to prop up coal plants, and ultimately all of that is harming Americans even more by increasing electricity costs, by increasing pollution – it’s like Americans are getting hit twice.”

My colleague Hilary Beaumont has the full story here:

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump is tele-rallying from Mar-a-Lago with just three days to go before the midterm elections. On Sunday, he will make appearances at rallies in Iowa in Kansas in a reversal after he initially backed out.

With control of the US Congress on the line, next week’s midterm elections amount to a referendum on Trump, who has repeatedly urged voters to pretend he is himself on the ballot, as his approval ratings continue to decline.

Late on Friday, a federal judge barred Trump’s justice department from threatening or coercing election workers to stop processing ballots, the Associated Press reported. The decision also bars the department from demanding local election officials segregate or not count ballots that the federal government deems may have been cast by ineligible voters.

It marked another blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to assert control over local elections, after a federal appeals court on Friday rejected the Department of Justice’s request for California to sequester 20,000 disputed ballots.

In other developments:

• The top federal prosecutor in Alaska confirmed on Friday the existence of a criminal and a civil investigation into an alleged scheme by Mary Peltola’s campaign and national Democrats to confuse voters in the closely watched Senate race by recruiting a spoiler candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent, Dan Sullivan.

• Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed resisted a demand from his defeated primary rival, congresswoman Haley Stevens, that he apologize for criticism of US military aid to Israel on Friday – two days before they were scheduled to campaign together in Detroit.

• Early voting this cycle has set ‌a record. More than 49 million Americans have already cast ballots, either in person or by mail, the Associated Press reported.

Stick with us for more updates throughout the day.