Midterm campaign updates: GOP's Cheney endorses Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan for Senate

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic Senate nominee, for the second time this month will skip out on a Biden administration campaign stop in his state.

Barnes will not attend the Democratic Attorneys General Association conference with Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday in Milwaukee, his communications director confirmed to ABC News. That follows his absence at a Milwaukee Labor Day speech delivered by President Joe Biden earlier this month.

"The Lt. Governor doesn’t have plans to attend the Democratic Attorney Generals Association conference. He appreciates the Vice President taking the time to visit Wisconsin,” Barnes' communications director said in a statement to ABC News.

Ahead of Biden’s earlier visit, Barnes told ABC affiliate WISN that he had a "pretty packed schedule" and noted that he was "grateful that the president has shown his support for the labor movement here in Wisconsin."

While she is in Milwaukee, Harris is expected to also meet with local Latino leaders and young Americans as the midterm elections are now just seven weeks away.

Barnes, who according to a Spectrum News/Siena College released on Tuesday is leading his race against incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson by 1%, is one of multiple swing-state Democrats who have been delicately balancing their affiliation with the Biden administration at a time when the White House is consistently polling low in their handling of inflation and the economy.

-- ABC News’ Paulina Tam

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have managed to move immigration and border debates to an island in Massachusetts and to Massachusetts Avenue in Washington -- and also to the middle of the midterm campaign season.

"It's on the ballot," DeSantis said at a weekend rally in Wisconsin, "and we got to make the most of it."

That includes, from DeSantis' perspective, spending up to $12 million in state funds for more efforts like the stunt that involved a plane taking would-be refugees to Martha's Vineyard.

But the current combination of policy goals and future ambitions that manifests itself in this moment is also surfacing intra-party tensions while also playing directly into reelection politics. The Democratic sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, said Monday he is opening a criminal investigation of the operation DeSantis directed, saying there is a “high possibility” that laws were broken. Immigration advocates on Tuesday are also planning a rally in Florida to protest treatment of migrants that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist is calling "cruel" and "heartless."

-- ABC News' Rick Klein

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to send two planes last week filled with Venezuelan migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, has been met with its first law enforcement challenge.

The San Antonio-area sheriff announced Monday that he had opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Republican governor's operation to transport roughly 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

In a news conference on Monday on the migrant flights, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said that his office was investigating whether the migrants were victims of crimes after they were “lured” from the county’s migrant resource center, flown to Florida and then taken to Martha’s Vineyard.

“There’s a high possibility that the laws were broken here in the state of Texas in Bexar County,” Salazar said.

"As we understand it, 48 migrants were lured -- I will use the word 'lured' -- under false pretenses, into staying at a hotel for a couple of days …They were taken by airplane, at a certain point they were shuttled to an airplane where they were flown to Florida and then eventually flown to Martha's Vineyard again under false pretenses,” he said.

His office said in a tweet that they are working with advocacy groups and private attorneys representing the migrants and were “preparing to work with any federal agencies that have concurrent jurisdiction, should the need arise.”

“We’re going to discover what extent the law can hold these people accountable,” Salazar said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis' communications director, Taryn Fenske, responded to the investigation on social media Monday night, contrasting the migrants who went through Florida with others who have traveled in Texas.

"Immigrants are more than willing to leave Bexar County after being enticed to cross the border and ‘to fend for themselves.’ FL provided an opportunity in a sanctuary state w/ resources, as expected - unlike the 53 who died in an abandoned truck in Bexar County in June," Fenske wrote.

-- ABC News’ Miles Cohen

At a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Saturday night on behalf of GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance ahead of the midterms, former President Donald Trump came out defiant against the numerous investigations into him while continuing to rally his base against his political enemies.

And though Trump was in Ohio to rally support for Vance ahead of “the most important midterm election in U.S. history,” he also took a swipe at his candidate while trying to tout the power of his own endorsement.

“J.D. is kissing my a--, he wants my support so bad!” Trump said to laughter from the crowd.

Trump addressed Vance's previous criticism of him, saying that was “before he knew me and then he fell in love”-- which Trump likened to his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

The former president -- who has been teasing an expected 2024 presidential bid -- made a number of influential endorsements in GOP primaries this year, even as some in his party, like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, said Trump's candidates would be weaker in the general election.

Trump has used his popularity with primary voters to target some of his Republican critics, including House members who voted for his impeachment or local lawmakers who didn't back his false 2020 election claims.

Labeling opponents, including those investigating him, as “thugs and tyrants,” Trump said at Saturday’s rally that they “have no idea of the sleeping giant that they have awoken” -- just days after he warned there would be “big problems” if he were to be indicted.

Among the notable probes against him is a federal case over his handling of what the government says was highly classified and sensitive material that Trump took with him after leaving office. He denies wrongdoing.

And just days after Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a bill for a federal 15-week abortion ban, Trump reiterated his support for leaving it up to the states -- and warned that Republicans should “get smart” on the issue.

-- ABC News' Olivia Rubin