The campaign enters its final weekend with a record 51 million early votes cast, and the Justice Department says the California ballot fight is probably headed to the Supreme Court

Three days before the vote, the election is already half held. More than 51 million Americans had cast ballots in person or by mail by Saturday, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab, up from nearly 46 million early votes at the last midterms in 2022. Voters decide 35 Senate races and all 435 House seats on Tuesday. Republicans hold the Senate 53 to 47 and a narrow edge in the House, and the result decides whether President Trump keeps a friendly Congress for his final two years in office.

The court fights did not pause for the weekend. In California, a federal appeals court ruled this week, 2 to 1, that the Justice Department had failed to justify forcing the state to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters the department says are likely noncitizens. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told Fox News on Saturday that the department is not done. "I hesitate to give a final answer, but I think probably the Supreme Court's next on this one," he said, adding that any request would come before Tuesday's election. Governor Gavin Newsom wrote to California's top federal judges on Saturday warning that the department may seek warrants to seize ballots before results are certified. Newsom said he knew of no pending request, and he said the only reason to seize ballots "would be to interfere" in the count.

In Alaska, the criminal investigation into the Senate race there grew heavier. United States Attorney Michael Heyman said at a Friday press conference that the New York Times account of an effort to recruit retired teacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. as a namesake candidate had driven a "surge" of FBI resources onto the case, and that he had assigned several prosecutors to it. Democrat Mary Peltola and her party's campaign committee deny any part in recruiting the second Sullivan, and the teacher denies coordinating with them. On the ground in Anchorage, Reuters found voters unmoved in both directions. "I knew which Dan Sullivan was which Dan Sullivan, you know? It's very clear on the ballot," one voter, Mickey Buster, said outside a polling place on Saturday. Another, Carol Riggs, said the situation disappointed her and could muddy the water for some voters.

Michigan gave the Democrats their own weekend problem. In the Senate race between Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers, El-Sayed's feud with Haley Stevens, the congresswoman he beat in the primary, flared again. His campaign asked Stevens to skip his events through Election Day so as not to distract from the campaign, a person familiar with the matter said. Stevens has endorsed El-Sayed but wants him to condemn an outside group's ad blaming Israel for high grocery prices and to apologize for past remarks about Israel. A Michigan State political scientist, Matt Grossmann, called the visible division unhelpful this close to the vote, while noting that polls show El-Sayed has largely brought Democratic voters behind him.

Trump spent Saturday at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach after a month of campaign stops, and he goes back out on Sunday in Kansas and Iowa. The administration has also sued roughly 30 states and the District of Columbia for unredacted voter rolls, and on Friday a federal judge in California ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening to prosecute election officials who refuse its directives. For all the noise, most voters still trust the count itself. A Reuters and Ipsos poll conducted from September 30 to October 5 found 76 percent of voters confident their ballots will be counted accurately, with confidence about as high among Republicans as among Democrats, as of October 31.