New York Times: “The Alaska Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Dan J. Sullivan could appear on the ballot this year, seemingly bringing to a close a bizarre political saga hanging over the race for Senate in Alaska, a potentially consequential battleground as Democrats fight to regain control of Congress.”

“The court’s decision appeared to be good news for Democrats.”

“Republicans fear that their party’s incumbent, Senator Dan S. Sullivan, could be imperiled by the presence of Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot, arguing that voters could be confused and cast their ballot for the wrong Sullivan. They accused Democrats and former Representative Mary Peltola, who is vying to oust the incumbent senator, of being behind Dan. J Sullivan’s campaign and orchestrating an underhanded scheme to trick voters.”

“An influential conservative nonprofit covertly funded a series of super PACs with names suggesting liberal provenance as the groups injected hundreds of thousands of dollars into key nominating Democratic contests across the country,” CNN reports.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) lost his primary last week to the Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein — a loss he attributed in part to “boomers” who were tricked by AI generated videos and a $25 million MAGA campaign against him, The Wrap reports,

Punchbowl News: “A mysterious new super PAC is roiling Democratic contests in crucial battleground seats in Nebraska and Pennsylvania just days before the states hold their primaries.”

“This is a complicated but fascinating development. Plenty of Democrats involved in these races suspect the group is backed by Republicans trying to tip the scales toward their preferred general-election opponent. We can’t prove that yet. But the group, Lead Left PAC, has WinRed, the GOP fundraising platform, in the metadata of its website.“

“Muslims in Michigan began seeing pro-Israel ads this fall praising Vice President Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing the Jewish state. Jews in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, saw ads from the same group with the opposite message: Harris wanted to stop U.S. arms shipments to Israel,” the Washington Post reports.

“Another group promoted ‘Kamala’s bold progressive agenda’ to conservative-leaning Donald Trump voters, while a third filled the phones of young liberals with videos about how Harris had abandoned the progressive dream. Black voters in North Carolina were told Democrats wanted to take away their menthol cigarettes, while working-class White men in the Midwest were warned that Harris would support quotas for minorities and deny them Zyn nicotine pouches.”

“What voters had no way of knowing at the time was that all of the ads were part of a single $45 million effort created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk who had previously worked on the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).”

“A video purporting to depict voter fraud in Georgia is fake and the work of ‘Russian influence actors’ determined to undermine faith in the integrity of next week’s presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials said Friday,” the AP reports.

“The announcement that the video was fake represented an effort by the FBI and other federal agencies, four days before Tuesday’s election, to combat foreign disinformation by calling it out rather than letting it spread for days unchecked.”

“Thousands of Pennsylvania voters received a text message this weekend that falsely claimed that they had already voted in the Nov. 5 election,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

“The Bucks County Board of Elections has asked state and federal law enforcement to investigate a fake video that circulated on social media Wednesday afternoon falsely suggesting county election workers were destroying ballots,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Said the board in a joint statement: “This video is fake.”

“A Republican organization with ties to Elon Musk has produced an apparently fake manifesto meant to look like Vice President Kamala Harris’ version of the conservative policy initiative Project 2025,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

“The document, called Progress 2028, contains contradictions and distortions of Harris’ positions on issues such as gun control, fracking, and immigration.”

New York Times: “Smears, lies and dirty tricks — what we call disinformation today — have long been a feature of American presidential election campaigns. Two weeks before this year’s vote, however, the torrent of half-truths, lies and fabrications, both foreign and homegrown, has exceeded anything that came before, according to officials and researchers who document disinformation.”

“The effect on the outcome on Nov. 5 remains to be seen, but it has already debased what passes for political debate about the two major party candidates, Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It has also corroded the foundations of the country’s democracy, undermining what was once a shared confidence that the country’s elections, regardless of who won, have been free and fair.”

“Federal officials battling foreign interference in the coming election say they are entering what may be the most perilous period of the campaign: October, when the prospect for mischief runs high and the time to react runs short,” the New York Times reports.

“While the Russians make little attempt to hide their support for former President Donald Trump, the Iranians — among Moscow’s most important suppliers in the war in Ukraine — desperately want to stop him from returning to office, and are busy hacking into his campaign and dumping whatever they find, as well as plotting to assassinate him.”