WIRED’s Midterms Races to Watch
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PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: RYAN HASKINS; GETTY IMAGES Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story The midterm elections are a month away and the candidate pool has never been more WIRED. Races are being run—and likely decided—on Silicon Valley funding, data center debates, AI regulation, extremism, and more. From the contests that will decide the Senate to less attention-grabbing ones that will decide who controls voting in key swing states in 2028, these are the candidates and races we think are most worth watching closely in the weeks to come, and which we'll be keeping an eye on.
WHAT MAKES THIS A WIRED RACE: DOGE, Musk, America PAC, AI lobby Former America PAC lawyer Chris Gober is running to represent Texas’ newly gerrymandered 10th district. Gober served as counsel for the Texas Republican congressional delegation for the 2025 redistricting effort that saw a new, gerrymandered map created for the 2026 midterms—one that was meant to create five new Republican congressional districts.
In addition to representing Musk’s PAC, Gober’s law firm, Lex Politica, has also represented Elevate New Mexico , a limited liability company that ran an advertising campaign supporting a controversial data center project in the state, as well as the Danube Institute USA , a think tank aligned with Hungary’s former right-wing leader Viktor Orban.
According to reporting from The New York Times, Gober was one of several lawyers who advised on the structure of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the weeks leading up to President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The 10th district also includes Grimes County, where SpaceXAI and Tesla have said they plan to open a 100-million-square-foot “terafab” facility to manufacture semiconductors. In addition to his legal work, Gober’s LinkedIn lists him as general counsel for a lobbying group called Maven Advocacy Partners, the client base of which includes several defense tech startups. (Its name appears to be a reference to the Department of War’s Project Maven, which is supported by tech companies like Palantir and Anduril.) Gober also appears to run another company called Maven Defense Solutions. Both the company and the lobbying group share an address with his law firm, Lex Politica, and his campaign office.
Gober’s campaign has received $747,550 from the American Mission PAC, a right-leaning super PAC that has itself received funding from Leading the Future , a PAC focused on promoting AI-friendly candidates and policies. Leading the Future has raised over $140 million from Silicon Valley billionaires like OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, as well as the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.
This race will be the first in which someone directly involved with Musk and/or DOGE attempts to enter Congress.
A September poll showed Gober leading Rourk 48-41.
WHAT MAKES THIS A WIRED RACE: Extremism, election denial Former Pinal County sheriff Mark Lamb ran on a “God, family, freedom” platform and won the GOP primary in Arizona’s 5th congressional district with Trump’s endorsement. He also has ties to paramilitary groups, anti-immigration organizations, and the far-right constitutional sheriffs movement .
Though he may not self-identify as one, Lamb appeared to, at one time, be a constitutional sheriff who gained national notoriety for his refusal to enforce Covid restrictions. He has worked with the election-denial group True the Vote to get sheriffs to investigate elections and has also boosted the role of private militias. He even authorized the formation of a civilian posse while serving as sheriff of Pinal County, in response to Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. He regularly appears on right-wing podcasts, including those hosted by white nationalists and conspiracy theorists .
While sheriff, he was accused of sexual misconduct and racist remarks , though he has denied the allegations.
Arizona’s 5th District is solidly Republican, meaning Lamb is likely to become the first constitutional sheriff in Congress. Lamb will be the heavy favorite.
WHAT MAKES THIS A WIRED RACE: DOGE Before launching her congressional campaign, Democratic nominee Lauren Reinhold was a human resources administrator in the Social Security Administration. Like thousands of federal employees, she left her job in 2025 when DOGE and the Trump administration fired government workers, cut programs, and encouraged employees to resign en masse.
Now, she’s running for Congress in Kansas’ 1st district, which encompasses the mostly rural, western half of the state, against three-term incumbent Tracey Mann. The district has long been a Republican stronghold, and Reinhold faces an uphill battle. Though several former federal workers have attempted to run for office in the wake of DOGE’s mass firings of federal workers, Reinhold is one of few that have made it through the gauntlet of the Democratic primaries.
Her race may showcase whether the destruction that DOGE wrought in the first year of the Trump administration will be a real, long-term political liability for Republicans.
WHAT MAKES THIS A WIRED RACE: Election denial, looking ahead to 2028 Democratic nominee for Wisconsin governor David Crowley will be facing off against Republican nominee and congressman Tom Tiffany, who has spent the past six years trying to undermine the democratic process in the US.
In December 2020, as a member of Congress, Tiffany signed up for a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. He also voted against certifying the results in Pennsylvania and Arizona after the Capitol riot on January 6 and has suggested he would have overturned Wisconsin’s results . This year, he has warmly welcomed the FBI’s baseless investigation into the state’s elections.
If Tiffany wins, as governor he would have the power to appoint some of the state’s top officials on the Wisconsin Elections…
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