Did Trump Do Enough to Help Republicans?

Americans head to the polls with control of Congress in the balance, plus the U.S. strikes Iran even as President Trump plays down the possibility of a return to war after the midterms. From everything we can tell, those negotiations have yet to really bear fruit, and we have heard from multiple officials saying that they had fears that if the war resumed it would be potentially even worse than what we saw earlier this year. So there's a lot of concerns in the region, and Apple stocks slides after the world's most valuable company reveals that its growth machine is slowing. It's Tuesday, November 3rd. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. OK, campers, rise and shine, because it's election day. Campers in Vermont got the action started right and early at 5 a.m., and polling places are now open or opening up in several key battleground states. And also up and ready is our Washington coverage chief Damian Paletta. Damian, good morning to you. You were up late. I'm sure watching all these various campaigns sort of come to a close, speeches, you know, from coast to coast, and we also saw President Trump yesterday evening make his closing argument speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Did this long, expensive, combative campaign wind down in the way you expected? I would say it was pretty chaotic, which was consistent with the way we've seen this midterm election. It wasn't like this is playing out in three states. This is playing out in a dozen states, different candidates with different messages. This is kind of the book end of the President Trump political era. So there's a lot of things happening at once. You have a new generation of Republicans and Democrats fighting it out to define with the next era of American politics will look like. And so really this is going to play out in a number of states. And that's what's going to make an election night so interesting. Just on Trump, there have been various voices chiming in on sort of, did he do enough down the home stretch to help individual Republicans or in races or was he making it all about himself? Is that just the normal kind of squabbling that occurs in that 11th hour before the results come in everyone just sort of wondering if they played this the right way or not? He did do quite a number of rallies across the country, especially in states like Kansas and Iowa and Texas. But towards the end, it almost felt like his heart wasn't in it. And it was hard for him to go and fight over these kind of parochial things when he thinks the whole thing is about him. Because that's what he's hearing. This election is about me at the Republican convention in September and Dallas. He said, pretend I'm on about, make it about me. And so that's what he did on the Monday before the midterms. He gave a big speech almost an hour at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Poll and made it all about him. He talked about the things he's done to watch in DC to try to beautify it. He talked about his agenda and he said, essentially, I'm the one who's changing things. I'm the one who's going to continue to change things and so make the focus on me. Now, I'm not sure how that played quite frankly. I mean, spending half of an hour long speech talking about the pipes and the grass and the plumbing at the Reflecting Poll, that might not be the message that Americans want to hear when they're thinking about affordability, when they're wondering about how they're going to get out of the Iran war and things like that. But he was holding up pictures. There was a little bit of show until I was a little bit shocked that this is how much time he wanted to spend on this one issue given that Americans were probably paying attention for the first time. In the long time, though, what he was talking about, but that's how he wanted to end it. The kind of the way he started it, focusing on himself and his agenda and that's what Americans are going to be thinking about as they go to the polls. Though, I guess, Jamie, it's an open question whether the closing argument really even matters like it used to anymore, though. We saw an associated press analysis a few days ago that put early voting rates above those from the most recent midterms. How are Democrats and Republicans processing what to make of early vote totals this year? You know, it's a great question. Just in the past week, we've had quite a lot of drama in Alaska and Michigan. One of the questions is how much will things like that matter when millions and millions of Americans vote early? I think seven and a half million people voted in Texas before Election Day. Things have changed. The 2018 election, that midterm, which was during the first Trump administration, was the high watermark for midterm voting. Trump does turn out the vote. Not just for him, though. It turns out the vote for Democrats, too. And so when you have that many people voting early, they all kind of make up their minds maybe a month ahead of time. And so maybe these closing messages don't matter as much as they used to, but Americans do seem motivated to vote based on what we're seeing so far. Meanwhile, you sort of alluded to it a moment ago. Away from the campaign trail, we've been seeing lots of action as well. We got a big legal update from the Supreme Court overnight, rejecting a bid by the Trump administration to force California to set aside ballots from thousands of people that it claimed to be non-citizens. That may be aiming the final word in that particular case, but I imagine our legal affairs reporters are expecting it to be a busy day in other respects. Yeah, we're watching for a bunch of different things. Obviously, the White House has tried to get involved in the election in Alaska. Obviously, the White House has been very aggressive when it comes to challenging the way states are executing these elections. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see more of that today. They haven't won much, they haven't had much success in the courts so far, and that obviously goes back to the 2020 election when President Trump credit challenged those results, too. But I don't think they will be shy. I don't think they'll hesitate if they see something they don't like to jump in and intervene. The question, though, obviously, is if this is a wave election, if the results are kind of undeniable in terms of Democrats really turning out to vote whether these sorts of legal challenges will really matter or not. But I think that's something we're going to have to wait and see how election night comes together. So we will, I guess, see if it's a wave election or not. But I mean, we've already been looking at scenarios in which Democrats could retake varying degrees of control of Congress, but do so without agreeing all that much on their priorities. Democrats clearly have a lot of energy. One of the questions, though, is how much unity they're going to come out of this election with? The intro party fighting they had in Michigan on the week and before, between Hailey Stevens and Abdul Al-Sayed. I think that foreshadows kind of attention within the party that's going to happen after this election. So maybe they can turn out the vote. Maybe there is a big unification when it comes to opposition to President Trump, but they're not all on the same page when it comes to how to govern when it comes to what the parties should look like in the future. They mostly kept that under wraps during the election, but it's something that potential speaker, Akim Jeffrey is in potential. Some majority leader Chuck Schumer, if Democrats win the Senate, they're going to have their hands full trying to get this party on the same page heading into 2028. That's something I'm going to be watching closely in the weeks to come. Damian Paleta is the journal's Washington coverage chief. Thanks so much, Damian. My pleasure. Thank you. And for election updates throughout the day, stay with WSJ.com. Switching gears, the US attacked an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz overnight. And what we are exclusively reporting is the latest in a series of limited strikes that Washington has secretly carried out against the country in recent weeks. The assault follows comments by President Trump touting the possibility of a diplomatic deal and playing down the odds of a return to war after the midterms. I spoke to journal Deputy Middle East bureau chief John Gambral about the attack earlier this morning. Over night, we have a US official telling the journal that the Americans did carry out a strike on Keshem Island, which is a big island. Just right on the Strait of Hormuz, it's one of the main points that the Iranians have. Military bases with both its regular navy, its army, as well as its paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Now, we don't know what the targets were. Iranian state media has acknowledged that there were explosions on the island, but haven't really said anything. And during the war back in February and March, the Americans did conduct multiple strikes there on what they described as radar positions, outlook posts, and that sort of thing. So this may have been the similar kind of target trying to suppress that Iranian attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. And John, we should note that US officials have described these as being smaller-scale strikes against Iran and being defensive in nature, basically to prevent Tehran from having the freedom to attack commercial ships. And yet given our reporting that President Trump has been leaning toward a larger attack on Iran after the midterms, I mean, how should we interpret what it's just a card here? Over the last couple of weeks, we've seen a series of Iranian attacks on these vessels that are getting crude oil out through the Persian Gulf. These tankers have been key in getting the oil production levels back up to around pre-war levels, but the Iranians have continued to strike at these vessels. In the last couple of days, they've even gone as far as to put mines from boats directly onto these tankers. For the last week, plus we have heard from officials across the wider region that there was a concern that there would be a return to war. We've heard from President Trump saying that really the mid-term election was what was holding him back. We do know that there have been negotiations, Qatar, Egypt, other Middle East powers are trying to negotiate, serve as intermediaries between the Americans and the Iranians. But so far, from everything we can tell, those negotiations have yet to really bear fruit. And we have heard from multiple officials saying that they had fears that if the war resumed, it would be potentially even worse than what we saw earlier this year. So there's a lot of concerns in the region, particularly as the U.S. votes today and what may come in the days and hours afterwards. And the ongoing war is squeezing global gas markets, with liquefied natural gas output set for a 3% drop this year. The steepest annual decline on record, according to the International Energy Agency. Iran's attacks on key infrastructure have choked off exports from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates through the Strait of Hormuz, which used to carry around 20% of the world's LNG flows. The IEA says that trade through the Strait will be disrupted at least until the end of the year. Coming up, the pressure is on for Apple's new CEO, John Ternas, as his first set of quarterly results reveal a company's The profit machine is wavering, and we'll take a look at a wine that's ready for redemption. That and more after the break. Shares of Apple are pulling back after new CEO John Ternis warned that the company's margins may weaken in future quarters as a result of high-memory costs. Apple had stockpiled cheaper components, but those inventories are now dwindling. Another challenge for the company is keeping up in the AI race. Investors initially bid up shares of Apple, as it largely sat out the pricey race to develop frontier AI models and instead poured its cash into buybacks and dividends. But some analysts now question if Apple is giving customers enough reasons to buy new and pricey devices. And even Ternis acknowledged that a revamped, Siri AI chatbot rolled out in the last quarter remains mostly tethered to basic commands instead of acting as an autonomous agent. It's primarily request-based today, but as we talked about at WDC, it's built on a modern orchestrated-driven architecture that gives us real room to expand its capabilities over time. As far as agente capabilities, you know, we think these are promising tools for users. We just want to make sure that users are aware of what they're giving access to. One bright spot for Apple is its new iPhone Duo, which customers are scooping up despite its mixed reviews and nearly $2,000 price tag. Apple said it currently can't keep up with demand. Meanwhile, Palantir has reported a surge in revenue with the data analysis company seeing an almost doubling in the value of its U.S. government business and 150% gains in its U.S. commercial business. Palantir in recent years has emerged as a defense power player with its technology underpinning key military programs, including the Pentagon's AI targeting system, which the Marine Corps recently said it was expanding access to across its units. Those gains weren't enough though to stop Palantir stock from dropping more than 3% off hours on investor anxiety about the company's ability to sustain its growth and justify evaluation north of $400 billion. Some analysts have also pegged the growth of large AI companies as a threat to Palantir, but CEO Alex Karp said its customers were coming to it so that they can hold on to their data and not share it with AI labs. I think really what happened on Wall Street is everybody invested in these firms early bless you guys. It's hard to see the reality when you're getting rich on something that's not actually working the way you think it is. And the reality is that when industry people realize when it gets real, you need us and that market is much larger than we can serve us. And the Reserve Bank of Australia has raised interest rates to their highest level in almost two decades, citing the war in the Middle East and the investment surge surrounding the AI build out as driving up prices and fueling demand pressures. Recent data showed Australia's consumer inflation running at 4%, considerably above 2.5% target. In a statement the bank's board said that higher fuel prices are being passed through to prices of other goods and services, and it warned that higher inflation expectations could become embedded in the economy. The RBA has now raised interest rates five times since the start of the year. And finally, as the midterm results roll in this evening, I wouldn't blame you for wanting to sit back and pour a big glass of wine after months spent digesting American politics. And among those who do so, there's a good chance that the bottle you own cork won't be a merlot, thanks to the decades-long aftertaste of the Oscar-winning film Sideways. Back in the 1990s, Merlot replaced Chardonnay in the cycle of American wine fads, prompting a boom in production in California. That success pushed producers to plant and then overplant merlot grapes in less than ideal locations, making it ripe for a cinematic disruption. When the movie Sideways came out, Merlot absolutely tanked. It had become the top-selling red wine ride on the US, but within two years it was already running second to Cabernet. Now, for this story, two different California wine producers told me about how thousands of acres of Merlot were torn out in the aftermath of the film. It's Journal Connist Adam Chandler, who says that while a segment of the wine industry was uprooted, that quip in the film by wine snob miles in the long run actually helped Merlot, which is now grown by fewer producers, but at a higher quality. Merlot is now enjoying some redemption, even as the wine industry broadly struggles. Drinkers are discovering, or perhaps rediscovering, how it's easy drinking qualities and how it generally pairs well with food. Younger drinkers in particular, who may not have seen the movie Sideways, are learning about Merlot, in part because it's affordable, and it's also an easy bottle to share at the table. And yet, the Sideways effect still plays a role with one Napa Valley producer telling Adam that people come to her winery, adamant on drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, but enlisting the attributes of wine they like are actually describing Merlot. I could probably make a joke here about voting against your interests, but that's best left to another day. And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Hattie Moyer, a supervising producer, his Sandra Killhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas with The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a news show, and until then, thanks for listening.