The Stateside Beat — Morning Audio Brief · October 29, 2026

Morning audio brief for October 29, 2026 — tap play above to listen with slides and subtitles. Here's what happened overnight and what to watch today: five days to the midterms, the Fed's final pre-election decision, a massive DHS data breach, and a rough premarket open for Alphabet.

US midterms: Five days to go — What the polls say as Trump, Harris campaign

Election day is now five days away, and the closing stretch is in full swing. President Trump and former President Obama are holding dueling campaign events, with Kamala Harris also on the trail for Democrats. National polling shows Democrats ahead, but several Senate races remain within the margin of error — meaning control of Congress could hinge on a handful of states. The New York Times laid out four distinct scenarios for how Tuesday could break, from split government to a one-sided wave.

Alaska Governor Orders Criminal Investigation Into Peltola Senate Campaign

Alaska's governor said Wednesday night he is ordering a criminal investigation into whether Democrat Mary Peltola's Senate campaign should face charges, after a New York Times report described an elaborate effort to place a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the midterm ballot — mimicking the Republican incumbent's name. President Trump has called for Peltola to be prosecuted and removed from the ballot. The Alaska seat is one of the races that could decide the Senate majority, and the probe now shadows the contest's final days.

Judge Denies Federal Request to Segregate California Ballots

A federal judge has rejected a Trump administration request to stop California from processing the ballots of up to 20,000 voters flagged in a dispute over citizenship checks. The judge ruled that segregating the mail ballots this close to election day would "wreak havoc" on voting. The ballots will be counted as the underlying litigation continues — a significant pre-election loss for the administration's voting-crackdown push in the nation's largest state.

Hackers Expose Identities of More Than 41,000 DHS Employees

An activist group published a searchable database Wednesday exposing the personal information of more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees and contractors — including ICE and Border Patrol agents. DHS says it is investigating the breach, which officials warn poses real safety risks for officers whose identities were dumped online. The episode is one of the largest known exposures of federal law-enforcement personnel data and lands amid a heated national fight over immigration enforcement.

Fed Holds Interest Rates Steady in Split Vote Before Midterms

The Federal Reserve voted 10–2 to keep interest rates unchanged at its final meeting before election day. Chair Kevin Warsh pushed back on any suggestion of political calculation, saying politics played "no role" in the decision. With inflation still running hot, the central bank signaled it is in no rush to cut — a "judicious pre-election pause," as the Wall Street Journal put it, that leaves borrowing costs exactly where they were.

Alphabet Selloff Drags Nasdaq Futures Lower

Wall Street is bracing for a rough open: Nasdaq-100 futures shed 1.06% early Thursday as Alphabet shares sold off after quarterly revenue missed expectations — on track for a record post-earnings loss for the stock. Bloomberg reported the sales miss is reviving fears that the AI spending boom isn't paying off fast enough. Watch tech at the opening bell: it could set the tone for markets heading into the election week.

Sources

1. US midterms: Five days to go – What the polls say as Trump, Harris campaign — Al Jazeera
2. Alaska Governor Orders Criminal Investigation Into Peltola Campaign — The New York Times
3. Judge denies federal request to segregate California ballots, says it would 'wreak havoc' on voting — AP News
4. Hackers identify thousands of DHS employees in massive data breach — The Washington Post
5. Fed meeting live updates: Interest rates held steady in split vote — Yahoo Finance
6. Nasdaq-100 futures fall 1% as Alphabet shares sell off after earnings: Live updates — CNBC

The Stateside Beat Audio · October 29, 2026 · Morning Brief · Narrated edition, compiled from Al Jazeera, The New York Times, AP News, The Washington Post, Yahoo Finance, and CNBC.