Supreme Court throws election curveball

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White House Headlines - August 25, 2026

White House Headlines - August 25, 2026

It’s Tuesday,  the last one in the month of August. 🎵 Queue Noah Kahan’s “End of August”🎵 

Supreme Court’s mail-in voting ruling

Supreme Court’s mail-in voting ruling

South Carolina, Oklahoma runoffs

USS Lincoln finally heads to port

Programming note: We’re Joshua Feldstein and Claire Leibowitz, filling in for Cate today. Please send us your tips, comments and story ideas to jfeldstein@thehill.com and cleibowitz@thehill.com. 

🏛️ IN THE SUPREME COURT

We’re kinda running out of time for this: 

Mariam Zuhaib, Associated Press

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a block that was preventing President Trump’s mail voting executive order from going into effect ahead of November’s midterms. 

That doesn’t mean the order – which would direct the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to only send ballots to verified citizens – is moving ahead.  

First of all, there’s a second injunction on the directive in a related case before the U.S. district court in Boston. Secondly, the Supreme Court did not decide on the constitutional merits of the order, it just said the lawsuit was premature because the order had not been finalized.  

That’s about to change: The USPS is set to publish a finalized rule tomorrow and states are already moving to block it — again.  

All eyes are now on U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of former President Obama, who imposed both injunctions.  

The administration says it will ask the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause Talwani’s other injunction if she doesn’t lift it by 5:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday. 

She has previously found the administration overstepped its constitutional authority with the order, as states have the express power to oversee elections.  

Sound like a “Kafkaesque nightmare”? Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks so.  

The Supreme Court’s junior liberal justice wrote 23 pages of her own, saying the lift “lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating for certain plaintiffs who seek to bring election-related challenges.” 

She wrote that it “needlessly injects chaos” into upcoming elections and that her conservative colleagues had a “lack of situational awareness.” 

💬 Follow today’s live blog 

⏱️ ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL 

These could be the last big tests of Trump’s primary power:

GOP runoff elections for senator in South Carolina and governor in Oklahoma Tuesday night will test the power of Trump’s endorsement. 

And it’s honestly not looking great for his candidates.  

Palmetto State primary:........

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