WASHINGTON (AP) — Social Security’s retirement trust fund is projected to face a funding shortfall in 2032, a year earlier than last year’s projections, according to an annual report released Tuesday, while Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits in 2033, which is unchanged from last year’s estimate.
Rising healthcare costs and government spending have contributed to a projected depletion date that is less than 10 years from now.
The looming challenge for the programs is a partial funding gap, not a collapse. Even after trust fund depletion, the system will continue issuing benefits, albeit at reduced amounts.
Last year, Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund go-broke date was pushed to 2033 from 2036 the year before that, according to the report from the programs’ trustees.
Meanwhile, Social Security’s combined trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034, unchanged from the 2025 report. After that, incoming revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits.
Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano said the Trump administration is “committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security” and “eliminating waste, fraud, abuse and ensuring program integrity.”
The trustees, who include the treasury secretary, labor secretary, health and human services secretary and the Social Security commissioner, say the latest findings show the urgency of needed changes to the programs, which have faced dire financial projections for decades. But making changes to the programs has long been politically unpopular, and lawmakers have repeatedly kicked Social Security and Medicare’s troubling math to the next generation.
AARP's CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan said in a statement that the latest numbers “should be a wake-up call. Congress needs to act."
“Americans have worked hard and paid into Social Security their entire lives, and they deserve to count on it when they retire,” she said. “No family should see any cuts to what they’ve earned in Social Security. ”
About 70.1 million people are enrolled in Medicare, the federal government’s health insurance that covers those 65 and older, as well as people with severe disabilities or illnesses.
Social Security benefits were last reformed roughly 40 years ago, when the federal government raised the eligibility age for the program from 65 to 67. The eligibility age of 65 has never changed for Medicare.
The west front of the U.S. Capitol with the Supreme court on the left and the Library of Congress on the right, is seen from the top of the Washington Monument , Saturday, June 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Voters across Maine, Nevada, South Carolina and North Dakota will cast their ballots Tuesday in another day of primary elections in America, but much of the political world will be focused on Maine’s high-stakes U.S. Senate contest.
The results aren't in question. Neither Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins nor Democratic challenger Graham Platner faces serious opposition for their party’s nomination. And yet Tuesday marks an especially significant moment for Platner, the embattled veteran and oyster farmer, who's fighting to rebuild his credibility in a campaign rocked by controversy.
Elsewhere, President Donald Trump’s clout within his party will be tested anew in states like South Carolina and Nevada, where he’s endorsed his favored candidates. Democrats hope to build momentum in Nevada in their broader push to reclaim key governor’s seats.
Here's the latest:
North Dakota’s lone U.S. House member faces a partial rematch of her 2024 nomination race in a state primary Tuesday. Also on the ballot is a proposed amendment to the state constitution, while residents of Fargo will elect a new mayor.
Republican U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak seeks a second term. She faces another primary challenge from former foreign service officer Alex Balazs, who placed fourth in the 2024 contest with 4% of the vote behind her and others. Fedorchak went on to win the general election with 69% of the vote against Democrat Trygve Hammer, who also is running again and will face the winner of this year’s Republican primary.
Voters will also choose nominees for several top statewide offices, although candidates for most of those offices, such as secretary of state, state attorney general and state agriculture commissioner, are running unopposed.
Many of the state’s top elected offices, such governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and both U.S. Senate seats, won’t be up for election until 2028 or later.
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More than a year before filing even opened for this year’s contests, Graham’s campaign said Sen. Tim Scott and Gov. Henry McMaster would chair his 2026 run.
Scott, South Carolina’s junior senator, chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
McMaster is the state’s longest-serving governor, having been elected twice after serving the remaining two years of Nikki Haley’s term after she became Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations.
Democrats and Republicans will pick nominees for governor to replace Mills as the Democrat’s time in office is winding to a close.
It’s a crowded field. Democrats are choosing between Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson; former Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives Hannah Pingree; energy executive Angus King III; and former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Nirav Shah.
Republicans will choose between former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Bobby Charles; healthcare executive Jonathan Bush; former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason; University of Maine System trustee Owen McCarthy; former Paris, Maine, selectman Robert Wessels; and businessmen David Jones and Ben Midgley.
Mills is termed out and will appear on the Democratic ballot for U.S. Senate, although she suspended her campaign weeks ago.
As Nevada voters participate in primary elections Tuesday, the state Democratic Party has launched a website — www.thelombardotrumpway.com/ — to highlight GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo’s connections to the White House.
The site is an effort to connect the governor to the economic fallout from Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war. Lombardo is considered one of the most vulnerable governors in the country.
The Democrats vying to challenge Lombardo include state Attorney General Aaron Ford, who has the backing of the Democratic congressional delegation and former Vice President Kamala Harris. He would be the first Black man elected governor of Nevada. He’s facing Democrat Alexis Hill, a county commissioner in northern Nevada who campaigned as a candidate willing to shake things up.
Republicans have held all statewide-elected positions in South Carolina for more than a decade, but several Democrats are competing in primaries Tuesday for some of the state’s top posts.
Annie Andrews, a Charleston pediatrician who unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace in 2022, is vying for the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham. Also in that contest is Brandon Brown, a former HBCU vice president and owner of funeral homes in Greenville.
In the governor’s race, state Rep. Jermaine Johnson and Greenville businessman Billy Webster are running in the Democratic primary. They’re joined by Mullins McLeod, an attorney who withstood calls from party leaders that he quit the race following an arrest last year for disorderly conduct.
The South Carolina senator’s bid for a fifth term coincides with the war he’s pushed for years. Graham has a close relationship with Trump and they speak regularly about the conflict.
But as voters mull whether to send Graham back to Washington, they’re also reckoning with the ongoing war, which has caused fissures among some of Trump’s most vocal supporters.
Graham frequently pushes Trump to take even more aggressive action, at one point suggesting that the U.S. military seize Kharg Island, which is critical for Iran’s oil industry.
Rep. Nancy Mace says one of her supporters was assaulted at a Monday event with Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, one of her rivals in South Carolina’s governor’s race.
The man was escorted from Evette’s rally, then walked the sidewalk speaking into a megaphone. Then another man wearing an Evette campaign hat is seen on video grabbing the device from his hands.
Court records show the Evette supporter, Blake Garrison Kirsch, was charged with third-degree assault and battery Tuesday. No attorney was listed. Evette’s campaign said Kirsch was not a staffer and had been removed from the campaign’s finance committee since the altercation.
Asked about the incident Tuesday, Evette told reporters after voting in Taylors she was “saddened” by the situation and doesn’t “tolerate violence on any level.”
Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill faces state Attorney General Aaron Ford, whose fundraising has dwarfed hers —$2.3 million compared to Hill’s $100,000. He also has the support of the entire Democratic congressional delegation and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Hill, a local official in the county that includes Reno, has run a grassroots campaign, promising to shake up the status quo in the Democratic Party. Ford has largely ignored her, fixing his sights on the November election.
The winner will most likely face Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, who's running for reelection.
Brenda Wood said she voted for Republicans in the primary because she doesn’t believe Platner’s campaign promises and expressed dissatisfaction with his party generally.
“I think the Democrats have been a disgrace to Maine for years,” she said.
Annette Babcock, also from Sullivan, said she supported Platner, whom she said she’s met a few times and likes because he’s not an established politician.
She did not sound concerned over recent controversies surrounding his campaign.
“The Republicans don’t have much moral high ground to stand on when they’re criticizing him for what he’s done when Trump is a convicted felon,” she said.
The road for the Democrats to take back the U.S. Senate goes through Maine. That road starts today.
The Democratic Party needs to net four seats to retake the Senate majority, and thinks some of its best chances are in states like Maine, North Carolina, Alaska and Ohio. The party is set to officially pick its nominee in Maine on Tuesday.
Oyster farmer and combat veteran Graham Platner is the party’s presumptive nominee because his main rival, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her campaign weeks ago. Mills remains on the ballot. David Costello, who hasn't campaigned aggressively, is also on the ballot.
After voting at her precinct in Taylors on Tuesday, South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette said she was confident about how her campaign for governor had gone.
But if she doesn’t win the primary outright and has to campaign for two more weeks in a runoff, the Republican said she’d work hard to win over voters who didn’t initially support her.
President Donald Trump is backing Evette’s bid and the candidate said that, while she thinks that will help her in this “proud Trump state,” she’ll focus primarily on her own stances, like cutting taxes and regulations.
Platner’s campaign has spent months navigating controversies about a tattoo of a Nazi symbol that he had covered up and his history of inflammatory online postings.
Platner has said he was drunk on leave with some fellow Marines many years ago when he got a skull and crossbones tattoo on his chest. He had it covered up last year after saying he learned that it was a Nazi image.
There has also been much attention on his former social media and Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults, insulting of police and rural residents and used homophobic slurs, for which he's apologized.
Nevada’s primary will give an indication of the influence the president maintains in the battleground state.
In 2024, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate in 20 years to win Nevada. For Tuesday’s primary, he's backed candidates in three of the state’s four congressional races:
Trump has a string of victories for his endorsed candidates so far this primary season. That includes those he endorsed in an effort to take down Republicans he deemed insufficiently loyal.
The GOP primary for the 2nd District appears to be the most contentious. Trump’s endorsed candidate faces James Settelmeyer, a rancher with a long political resume who has the backing of Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and the retiring incumbent.
Trump’s endorsement is a powerful factor in a state where Republicans dominate politics.
U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, state Attorney General Alan Wilson and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette all showcased their proximity to the president. Mace worked for his 2016 campaign, Norman votes with him in the House, Wilson traveled to New York City when Trump was on trial, and Evette hired one of his advisers for her campaign.
In the end, Trump endorsed Evette in the primary’s closing days, also saying on social media that “A BIG added plus” was that Henry McMaster Jr. — the sitting governor’s son — could be Evette’s running mate.
McMaster is close to Trump, backing him in 2016 when much of the Republican establishment was hesitant to embrace the New York businessman and reality television star. So when McMaster endorsed Evette in February, it was a sign that Trump’s support could be on the way.
Many Maine Democrats are voting to pick a candidate for the 2nd District, which Republicans see as a key chance to pick up a seat in the narrowly divided chamber.
Incumbent Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, is not seeking reelection. The 2nd District includes much of rural Maine and Trump has had great success there at the top of the ticket in the last three presidential elections.
The Republicans’ presumptive nominee is former Gov. Paul LePage. Democrats will choose between former Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap; state Sen. Joe Baldacci; former U.S. Senate candidate Jordan Wood; and social worker Paige Loud.
The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office has launched a website designed to provide transparency around mail ballots.
The website shows how many were mailed, returned and accepted. It also notes the number requiring fixes by voters. Nevada mails a ballot to every registered voter unless a voter opts out.
It’s one of several swing states where Trump disputed his loss in 2020 with false claims of fraud. The secretary of state at the time, a Republican, investigated various claims and found no evidence of any widespread fraud. Trump also has repeatedly attacked the use of mail ballots generally.
Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, said he created the website to increase transparency around Nevada’s elections and provide a way for voters to see in real-time how many ballots are outstanding.
Lindsay Robinson, with daughter Scottie, walks to cast her ballots in the Maine Primary, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Augusta, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Mary Saunders looks over her choices one last time before casting her ballots in the Maine Primary, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Augusta, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
