US midterms: campaigning intensifies with a week to go – live

Donald Trump’s agenda for today centers around his visit to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where an antisemitic massacre occurred on Saturday.

The first three funerals for those killed at the Tree of Life synagogue take place today, while residents and city leaders are divided on whether the president should visit.

Trump is scheduled to depart the White House at 2.30pm ET and arrive in Pittsburgh at 3.45pm ET. He is scheduled to return to Washington DC tonight.

This morning’s latest news is Donald Trump’s claim he is preparing an executive order to end birthright citizenship in the US, which would require repealing the 14th amendment of the US constitution: not a small task.

The president cannot unilaterally undo constitutional amendments.

It is the second dramatic immigration-related action Trump has raised in the past 24 hours.

Last night, Trump announced he would deploy 5,200 troops to the US border with Mexico – compared to 2,000 US troops fighting Islamic State in Syria.

Together, these dramatic actions appear to be an effort to fire up his base ahead of the midterms.

Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said this of the birthright citizenship claim:

The president cannot erase the constitution with an executive order, and the 14th amendment’s citizenship guarantee is clear. This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms.

Good morning and welcome to the Guardian US’s 2018 midterms live blog.

This time next week, Americans will head to their local polling place to cast ballots in the midterm elections. At stake is control of the two chambers of Congress, the House and the Senate. The party who wins will be able to check, or empower, Donald Trump’s agenda.

As the election draws ever closer, we’ll be blogging updates from our reporters on-the-ground, curated bits of the latest election analysis and news from the campaign trail.

Outside of Congress, there are more than 6,600 state jobs up for grabs and thousands of other local positions. Vying for all these local, state and federal seats are an unprecedented number of women, Latinos and educators.

To get you in the spirit of things, I recommend this superb article on how millennials are leading the fight for the soul of the US in Wisconsin, by Guardian US business editor, Dominic Rushe:

And if you want to start at square one, here’s our excellent guide to the midterms: