With the midterms less than a month away, the Elitist Media Evening News continue to run their polling DOOM!!11! Play against President Donald Trump and the GOP. Tonight’s edition offers varying approaches.
ABC World News Tonight went the traditional route, if you will: Polling trouble, and “Republicans in Disarray.” Here’s how the Mary Bruce report opened up:
WATCH: @ABCWorldNews continues its midterm laser focus on its polling DOOM and "Republicans in Disarray" angles, playing up the continued drip-drip-drip of Paxton secret tapes. No mention of Talarico, away for 11 days due to the flu, per his campaign pic.twitter.com/HBgygvSYzf
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 8, 2026
DAVID MUIR: The midterm elections tonight. President Trump now making his third campaign trip to Texas in a month. Both the Republican governor and the Republican Senate candidate trailing their Democrat opponents. And tonight, a new audio. The Republican Senate candidate blaming the president's war in Iran and gas prices. Here's Mary Bruce.
MARY BRUCE: President Trump tonight heading to Texas, his third visit in a month as polls show Republicans trailing in the races for both Senate and governor. Trump there to prop up the struggling Senate campaign of Republican Ken Paxton. In recorded conversations with donors, Paxton blames his problems on the president, saying Trump's midterm convention in Dallas hurt his campaign and that the war with Iran is dragging him down.
KEN PAXTON: The war. It’s gas prices. It's diesel. We have a lot of trucks who use a lot- who are feeling the pinch. So that’s a- that's probably the biggest problem. And then that pushes up the food prices and everything else.
ABC continues to run the drip-drip-drip of Paxton’s recorded chat with a donor, highlighting every single point of concern as expressed by the Texas Attorney General. Interestingly enough there is zero mention of the fact that his opponent, James Talarico, has been missing from the campaign trail for 11 days (due to a bout with the flu, per campaign officials).
Mary Bruce’s item did the polling, “Republicans in Disarray” bit and then ran an exchange from the Maine Senate debate. Bruce presented Collins as a Republican distancing herself from Trump in a race that “isn’t supposed to be close.” But this is Susan Collins, who’s ALWAYS distanced herself from Trump. Here again, the coverage of the distancing is selective. The record reflects that there is ZERO mention of Gov. Janet Mills refusing to endorse Troy Jackson. The tilt always tilts one way.
NBC took a different approach. Instead of running the polling playbook, they went with the data center boogeyman. Here is part of Ryan Nobles’ dispatch from Ohio:
WATCH: @NBCNightlyNews takes a different approach to the midterms, playing up data center fears in Ohio. pic.twitter.com/kCWrWpHd2h
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 8, 2026
RYAN NOBLES: Data center campuses like these that are popping up all over Ohio have become a very big political issue. But it's way more complicated than just Republican or Democrat.
SHERROD BROWN: Jon Husted led the charge to bring these data centers to our state.
NOBLES: Democrat and former Ohio senator Sherrod Brown is hammering Husted for past support of data centers, tapping into voter anger.
BROWN: They've seen what Jon Husted has done- more than let them down. He's been the lead guy on this.NOBLES: And in a state President Trump won three times, Brown is leading the race in several recent polls. A leaked memo obtained by NBC News in August from the National Republican Senatorial Committee claimed that “data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted's neck.” Do you regret at all the effort that you made when you did encourage them to come to the state and your other roles that you had in Ohio?
JON HUSTED: Local- local citizens and communities make those decisions, not me. Local decisions decide whether they want data centers in their community, not me.
“Way more complicated than Republican or Democrat", says Ryan Nobles, before pitting Democrat against Republican. The report broadly follows the AI hysteria template, but injected with midterm politics. There is no soundbite of anyone in favor of data centers or AI at all. There are only angry Trump voters and Republicans to take the fall for AI.
Each of the networks took divergent approaches, but the outcome is the same: anti-news in service of Democrats returning to power.
Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective newscasts on Wednesday, October 7th, 2026:
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT10/7/26
6:42 PM
DAVID MUIR:
The midterm elections tonight. President Trump now making his third campaign trip to Texas in a month. Both the Republican governor and the Republican Senate candidate trailing their Democrat opponents. And tonight, a new audio. The Republican Senate candidate blaming the president's war in Iran and gas prices. Here's Mary Bruce.
MARY BRUCE: President Trump tonight heading to Texas, his third visit in a month as polls show Republicans trailing in the races for both Senate and governor. Trump there to prop up the struggling Senate campaign of Republican Ken Paxton. In recorded conversations with donors, Paxton blames his problems on the president, saying Trump's midterm convention in Dallas hurt his campaign and that the war with Iran is dragging him down.
KEN PAXTON: The war. It’s gas prices. It's diesel. We have a lot of trucks who use a lot- who are feeling the pinch. So that’s a- that's probably the biggest problem. And then that pushes up the food prices and everything else.
MARY BRUCE: I asked the president about that.Do you agree with Ken Paxton that the war and gas prices is the biggest challenge for Republicans?
DONALD TRUMP: I think the war is when you go to war, it's a war that's been won from the standpoint of what we have to do. We have to get rid- of no nuclear weapons for, as you know, for Iran. (VIDEO SWIPE) It'll be over very quickly. And when it does and when it does, oil prices will come tumbling down.
BRUCE: But across the country, Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump in many races that weren't supposed to be close. In Maine, Republican Senate candidate Susan Collins debating Democrat Troy Jackson. Collins calling herself a, quote, “outspoken opponent of Trump's trade war with Canada.” As an example, she says she was able to get road salt exempted from the tariffs.
SUSAN COLLINS: Troy mocked it. But I was successful in getting concrete, pulp and road salt removed from the tariff list.
TROY JACKSON: I didn't mock the fact that she got road salt back. I mocked the fact that what about everything else? I mean, we can't eat road salt.
BRUCE: And back to Texas, where the president is tonight. David, it is remarkable that both the races for governor and Senate are so tight. The president today was asked if he regrets endorsing Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Trump says he has no regrets. David.
MUIR: Mary Bruce live at The White House tonight. Mary, thank you.
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
10/7/26
6:46 PM
TOM LLAMAS: We are back now with our series The Data Center Divide. The huge structures needed to power AI are popping over- popping up all over the country, and they've become a political lightning rod. So much so they just might be the issue that determines the balance of power in Congress. Ryan Nobles traveled to Ohio to see how they’re changing the landscape
CITIZEN: They don't care…
RYAN NOBLES: At this town meeting in a Trump stronghold near Cincinnati, the message for politicians was clear.
CITIZEN: I retired out here. Now, all of a sudden, I may not be able to get back what I put into my home. Who wants to live next to a data center? Nobody.
NOBLES: Nobody knows it better than Angel Shelton. Here in rural southwest Ohio, she says there is one thing that will determine her vote in the Senate race between Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Jon Husted. You voted for President Trump. You voted for Republicans in the past.
ANGEL SHELTON: Yes I did.
NOBLES: John Husted is on the ballot. Is that- does this issue take that into account, how you're going to vote?
SHELTON: Absolutely. And he's not getting our vote.
NOBLES: That one issue: data centers. Earlier this year, Angel learned an Amazon data center was being planned here right down the road from her hay farm.
SHELTON: It absolutely kills our dreams.
NOBLES: Now she worries about its impact to her property and quiet way of life.
SHELTON: Who do I blame? I blame Jon Husted, President Trump, along with our local commissioners. They don't care about other people's lives.
NOBLES: Data center campuses like these that are popping up all over Ohio have become a very big political issue. But it's way more complicated than just Republican or Democrat.
SHERROD BROWN: Jon Husted led the charge to bring these data centers to our state.
NOBLES: Democrat and former Ohio senator Sherrod Brown is hammering Husted for past support of data centers, tapping into voter anger.
BROWN: They've seen what Jon Husted has done- more than let them down. He's been the lead guy on this.
NOBLES: And in a state President Trump won three times, Brown is leading the race in several recent polls. A leaked memo obtained by NBC News in August from the National Republican Senatorial Committee claimed that “data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted's neck.” Do you regret at all the effort that you made when you did encourage them to come to the state and your other roles that you had in Ohio?
JON HUSTED: Local- local citizens and communities make those decisions, not me. Local decisions decide whether they want data centers in their community, not me.
JODI WILSON: I'm very patriotic. I put my two big flags right here.
NOBLES: Voters like Jodi Wilson used to make up the MAGA Republican faithful. But now, she says the politicians don't get it.
WILSON: We're frustrated. We're angry. Why would our public officials that we voted in keep this behind our backs? Some of them probably will not be reelected- reelected in.
NOBLES: At 68, she's become an activist to petition against data centers. A three-time Trump voter, she says she can't bring herself to vote for Husted in November. Do you think the people in office realize what's about to hit them in November?
WILSON: No.NOBLES: It could be a wake-up call.
WILSON: I hope it is.NOBLES: Ryan Nobles, NBC News, Williamsburg, Ohio.
