The national polling has not moved in a month, and Cook's seat count did not move either. Missouri's congressional map changed three times in 48 hours, its secretary of state was found in civil contempt by his own supreme court, and $85m of Senate advertising has no disclosed donor. A federal ballot deadline that no court can move arrives on Saturday.
A fixed federal ballot deadline and elastic state processes keep colliding, and this week Missouri and Nevada both show the collision.
Missouri's Supreme Court held Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in civil contempt on 10 September for breaching its own suspension of the state's new congressional map, then purged the finding without a fine.
The Missouri Supreme Court held Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in civil contempt on Thursday 10 September, for breaching its order suspending HB 1. Hoskins reversed course again before judgment, so the Court purged the finding and imposed no fine.
Purged means the finding lifts once defiance stops, with no lasting penalty attached. Hoskins can test the Court's patience again with a clean record.
Chief Judge Stephen R. Clark ordered Missouri to run the 3 November election on its suspended congressional map, hours after the US Supreme Court had declined to lift that suspension.
Chief Judge Stephen R. Clark ordered Missouri onto the HB 1 map in a Tuesday 8 September restraining order, sought by Robert Onder and three other Republican plaintiffs.
The next day Clark refused Hoskins's own attempt to use that order against Missouri's Supreme Court. Clark and the state's top court now ordered opposite maps for the same election.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied Missouri's emergency stay application on 8 September without sending it to his eight colleagues, ending the state's route to the US Supreme Court in a single line.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied Missouri's emergency stay application alone on Tuesday 8 September, as the Eighth Circuit's supervising justice. He never referred it to the full Supreme Court.
One justice can end a state's emergency appeal without the other eight ever weighing in. Missouri's state-track HB 1 challenge died there, with no ruling from the full Court.
All nine justices were needed to undo a single district judge's order, two days after one justice alone had been enough to leave a state court's injunction standing.
the Supreme Court stayed Judge Clark's temporary restraining order (TRO) in Onder v. State of Missouri on Thursday 10 September, after Kavanaugh referred the application to the full Court. No dissent was noted on the order.
Unsigned shadow-docket orders rarely record how each justice voted. Silence on dissent here leaves the real vote count unknown, possibly unanimous, possibly not.
Two committees registered in the past three weeks have reported more than $85 million of advertising in the Texas Senate race, and neither has filed a document that names a single donor.
TEXAS PAC and NO GOING BACK PAC INC. reported more than $85 million spent on the Texas Senate race between 8 and 15 September, filing only Statements of Organization and 48-hour notices.
Neither committee has filed a Schedule A naming a donor. Voters can see the ads and the dollar figure well before they learn who paid for either.
Missouri certified its general-election candidates on 25 August by the district numbers of a map the courts have since discarded, and no public document matches them to the boundaries that will actually be used.
Missouri certified its general-election candidates on Tuesday 25 August under HB 1's district numbers, but the state's governing map is now the 2022 map, unreconciled on the public record.
That leaves a real gap: which numbered district does each certified candidate actually contest under the map voters will use on 3 November? Missouri has not said.
Cook Political Report published a dated House ratings snapshot on 11 September and changed no seat, while Silver Bulletin's generic-ballot average read D+6.6 at three separate captures this month.
Cook Political Report's Friday 11 September snapshot changed no House seat, holding 206 Democratic to 208 Republican with 21 tossups, the same total as its 3 September batch.
The generic ballot has not moved either. Democrats hold roughly a 6.6-point national lead, yet Republicans still lead on House seats, a split neither number resolves.
Georgia began transmitting ballots to military and overseas voters on 15 September, four days ahead of a federal deadline that does not move for weekends, courts or printers.
Georgia transmitted its first military and overseas ballots on Tuesday 15 September, four days inside the deadline set by UOCAVA (the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) of Saturday 19 September.
That 1986 law guarantees military and overseas citizens, mostly service members, the right to vote absentee, with ballots due out at least 45 days before a federal election.
Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said publicly on 12 September that he will not yield to the Justice Department, eight days after a letter told him he is personally under investigation.
Nevada's Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar publicly rejected Justice Department pressure on Saturday 12 September, after a Friday 4 September letter notified him he is under investigation.
That letter, from Voting Section acting chief Eric Neff, does two things at once: demands Nevada preserve records, and opens a personal investigation into Aguilar.
Sideways for now. The next fixed trigger is Saturday 19 September's UOCAVA floor, the same 2009 MOVE Act deadline Missouri cleared by nine days: any state that misses it turns an administrative dispute into a Justice Department enforcement matter, the path South Carolina's Civil Rights Division used in July. Missouri cleared the floor only because its supreme court threatened its own secretary of state with contempt; a state without that leverage would test whether the department intervenes on schedule or after the fact.
