Israel Election; Trump's Red State Midterm Blitz

Israel is holding its first election since the Hamas attacks three years earlier. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking reelection and argues that the military campaigns conducted under his leadership have improved Israel’s security. His opposition is led by former armed-forces chief Gadi Eisenkot, who says Netanyahu himself has become Israel’s greatest threat. Bloomberg reports that unusually high turnout is expected, with tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad flying home to vote. Israel requires 61 parliamentary seats to form a government, but neither bloc has been polling near that threshold. Bloomberg’s Galit Altstein outlined three possible outcomes: one side unexpectedly wins a majority; Eisenkot forms a minority government with outside support from Israeli Arab parties; or the two sides form a less likely unity government involving Eisenkot and Netanyahu’s Likud party. If no coalition can be assembled, Israel could face another election in roughly six months.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been reelected, and Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party formally conceded defeat. The result unsettled financial markets: Brazil’s real suffered its sharpest drop in more than two decades, some Brazilian stocks fell more than 50%, and a benchmark of small-cap shares plunged 27%, the largest decline on record. The market reaction reflected uncertainty over Lula’s spending plans. Bloomberg’s Augusto Saraiva said fiscal stability is not necessarily Lula’s top priority. During the campaign, Lula emphasized delivering for lower-income Brazilians and proposed expensive social programs, leaving investors unsure whether he will restrain spending once his fourth mandate begins. The episode’s description says Flávio Bolsonaro abandoned plans to challenge the election result, but the report also says he would seek to have Lula’s ticket disqualified, alleging false information and the use of public funds for measures announced late in the campaign. Thus, the party accepted the result while Bolsonaro’s side continued pursuing legal and political challenges.

With seven days remaining before the U.S. midterm elections, President Trump campaigned in Corinth, Mississippi, for Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. He urged Republicans to turn out, saying he had never campaigned like this for such a major change and that he could not risk Hyde-Smith losing to Democrat Scott Colom. Hyde-Smith remains favored, but the Cook Political Report moved the race from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican,” while a Democratic Senate political action committee said it would spend $1.2 million on a Colom advertisement. Trump is then scheduled to hold rallies in Corpus Christi and Lubbock, Texas, for Republican Ken Paxton in his close Senate race against Democrat James Talarico. An administration official said Trump would use the Lubbock event to announce a plan to reduce federal requirements intended to cut methane emissions from oil and gas operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to join Trump in Port Arthur to display an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude, part of an effort to address voter concerns about fuel prices linked to the wars in Ukraine and Iran.

Bloomberg’s Amy Morris reports that the Cook Political Report is moving more House seats toward Democratic victories each week. Aaron Covey of Cook says the change is less about a sudden transformation in the political environment than about voters beginning to pay attention as Election Day approaches. As races become more competitive, Trump-aligned super PACs are entering a number of Republican-leaning districts. Republican incumbents are also preparing for the possibility that a Democratic wave could reach districts Trump won by more than 20 points. Covey expects a blue-wave cycle, but cautions that it will not affect every area evenly. The program promoted a full election-night special, “America Decides,” beginning the following week at 6 p.m. Wall Street time, with Bloomberg’s David Gura followed by a special edition of “Balance of Power” featuring Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz. The coverage is intended to combine vote totals with context about what the results mean.

The Trump administration is applying new pressure to former FBI Director James Comey. A federal court in Washington unsealed a criminal filing from the Justice Department accusing Comey of directing the sharing of secret national-defense information. Comey responded in a video posted on Substack, saying, “It would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice,” and warning that people must not become numb to it. Comey’s lawyer said the case concerns a New York Times article from October 2016. Two separate teams of prosecutors investigated the matter during the first Trump administration but brought no charges. The Justice Department said it filed the new document to toll, or pause, the statute of limitations and declined to comment further on the investigation. The report therefore presented the filing as a procedural move that preserves the possibility of prosecution, while Comey’s side characterized it as an abuse of prosecutorial power.

Investors are focused on an expected initial public offering from Anthropic, which Bloomberg says could raise more money than any firm in history and potentially surpass Berkshire Hathaway in market value. Shireen Galvery, who covers artificial intelligence for Bloomberg, described the offering as a “litmus test” for how Wall Street will respond to the economics and business model of generative AI. If the IPO performs well, Galvery said, it could encourage a new generation of AI startups to go public. If it performs poorly, other companies may pause, delay their offerings, or choose a different strategy. Anthropic’s filing reportedly shows billions of dollars in annual sales, but also extreme losses, unpredictable demand, and the need for massive continuing investment to build its technology. Meta is pursuing a related but separate financing effort: it is increasing a planned share sale to nearly $98 billion to fund artificial-intelligence infrastructure. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to building the infrastructure needed for AI models.

Democratic Georgia gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms called for a pause in new data-center construction while state officials examine its effects. Speaking to Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” she said the pause could last one month, six months, or longer. Her questions concerned pressure on the electric grid, the costs ratepayers are carrying, and long-term effects on water supplies. Bottoms is running against Republican Rick Jackson, a healthcare executive and billionaire, to replace term-limited Governor Brian Kemp. A localized Ukraine-Russia ceasefire began at 3 a.m. to allow a humanitarian mission into the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky, but missile attacks resumed in Kyiv. The mission is planned ahead of U.S.-brokered talks expected the following month. The entertainment update said Brooklyn-born rapper Jay-Z will perform at the Super Bowl 61 halftime show; his company Roc Nation has produced the halftime show since 2020. In sports, the Milwaukee Brewers beat Tampa Bay 10–1 after scoring eight runs in the fifth inning and moved ahead 3–0 in the World Series, one win from their first championship. The Eagles-Cowboys game was reported as a 38–21 Dallas victory after the Cowboys scored the final 18 points, while Golden State beat Atlanta 64–55 to take a 3–2 lead in the WNBA Finals.

In a later interview from Tel Aviv, Bloomberg Israel Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner said the Hamas attack of October 7 has “overwhelmingly” dominated Israeli consciousness for more than three years and is controlling the election. He stressed that both Netanyahu and Eisenkot, like most Israelis, have supported the wars Netanyahu has waged. Their disagreement is over what comes next: Netanyahu is seen as favoring a more aggressive approach, including a desire for regime change in Iran, while Eisenkot supports stopping Iran’s nuclear-weapons program but argues that Israel should use more diplomacy rather than pursue regime change. Bronner said voters are roughly evenly divided. Some believe Netanyahu is the only politician with the experience and skills to protect Israel; others believe he has become the country’s greatest source of peril. Early voting participation was the highest in 45 years, and long lines were reported. He estimated that 50,000–70,000 expatriates may have returned to vote, probably favoring Eisenkot’s secular opposition bloc, though the evidence is limited and one or two parliamentary seats could matter. Neither bloc is expected to reach 61 seats, making negotiations with Israeli Arab parties a key wildcard. Bronner added that Donald Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu appeared to have little measurable impact; Trump’s popularity in Israel had fallen after his spring memorandum of understanding with Iran.