Midterm elections roundup: Biden in a battleground

President Joe Biden has mainly campaigned in blue states in the weeks leading up to Election Day, but that changed on Tuesday when he traveled to Florida.

“This election is not a referendum. It’s a choice. It’s a choice between two vastly different visions for America,” Biden said at a rally with Senate nominee Val Demings and gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist, per NBC News’ Liz Brown-Kaiser. 

Biden will also head to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a rally in Philadelphia with former President Barack Obama, Senate hopeful John Fetterman and gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro, per a press release from the Democratic National Committee. 

Some vulnerable Democrats, though, are still trying to distance themselves from the president. New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan doubled down on that strategy, telling NBC News’ Ryan Nobles and Julia Jester, “I’m always going to look out for New Hampshire first, which means I will criticize the president when I think he’s wrong.” 

Her GOP opponent, retired Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, launched his closing TV ad of the race Wednesday, tying Hassan to “career politicians in Washington, D.C.,” and adding, “We need an outsider.” A new St. Anselm poll showed the Senate race in a dead heat. 

Elsewhere on the campaign trail:

Arizona Senate: A Fox News poll released Tuesday showed a close race between Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters, with 47% of registered voters backing Kelly and 45% backing Masters.

North Carolina Senate: Former Vice President Mike Pence is hitting the campaign trail with GOP Rep. Ted Budd on Wednesday, joining Budd for a “fireside chat” at the state GOP headquarters, per the Budd campaign. 

Ohio Senate: Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance participated in a Fox News town hall Tuesday night, where they discussed a range of issues. Also on Wednesday, Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney endorsed Ryan, saying at an event in Cleveland that she would vote for Ryan if she was an Ohio voter. 

Pennsylvania Senate: In a ruling that could affect this race and others on the ballot, NBC News’ Tom Winter and Maura Barrett report that the state Supreme Court told election officials to separate out and not count mail-in ballots received with incorrect or missing dated outer envelopes, even as the justices deadlocked over whether not counting those ballots would violate federal law. 

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For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts

FOR SUBSCRIBERSDecades-old march dispute reignites in Northern Ireland, threatening political crisis

Utah Senate: Independent Evan McMullin is up with a new ad, in which he tries to push back at the attacks against him, saying “I’m not a Democrat, or a liberal, or woke, or financed by the Democratic Party,” and featuring two former colleagues at the CIA. 

Wisconsin Senate: The race between GOP Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has centered on personal attacks in the final stretch, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Arizona Governor: The Republican Accountability PAC has launched a TV ad in Tucson featuring Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard reports. “My son died because of people like Kari Lake,” Gladys Sicknick says in the ad. 

New York Governor: Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin is up with a new, minute-long ad featuring the family members of an elderly woman who was brutally murdered in 2021 by a woman who had been arrested weeks before on a robbery charge and released without bail. 

Pennsylvania Governor: Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro had a 14-point lead over GOP state Sen. Doug Mastriano in the Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll, which was outside the survey’s 6-point margin of error. NBC News’ Allan Smith reports from Clarion, Pa., that Shapiro is framing the race as a contest about democracy and “our fundamental freedoms.”

Illinois-06/New York-04: Politico reports that the GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund is making last-minute ad buys of $1.8 million and $1.5 respectively in these two blue seats. 

Tennessee-06/07: Some early voters in Nashville cast their ballots in the wrong congressional district, the Associated Press reports.