CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — There's a subplot to No. 1 Miami vs. No. 4 Notre Dame this weekend.
It's Malachi Toney vs. Leonard Moore.
And that matchup might be just as noteworthy to college football fans as the Hurricanes and Fighting Irish squaring off with huge College Football Playoff implications.
Toney is the star wide receiver and dazzling Heisman Trophy candidate for the top-ranked Hurricanes (8-0), the go-to guy for the nation's best offense. Moore is the lockdown cornerback and quite possibly the top defensive player on a Fighting Irish (7-1) team that happens to have the top-ranked defense in the country. The teams meet Saturday night at Notre Dame Stadium.
“I think if you ask both kids, they’re looking forward to playing against elite talent,” Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. “I think guys like that appreciate people that master their craft the way the other one does. I don't know Leonard like I obviously know Mali, but there's a very humble approach to this game. He's an elite player but he also appreciates elite competitiveness. ... You're going to get people's respect when you're that level player."
The mutual admiration from both sides was evident this week.
“He's as good as there is out there,” Dawson said of Moore.
Added Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, when asked about Toney: “He's one of one.”
Toney's college debut came last season against Notre Dame in a 27-24 Miami victory that ultimately decided which team got the last at-large spot in the CFP field three months later. Toney had six catches for 82 yards and a touchdown — the one that opened the scoring.
Freeman didn't know much about Toney going into that game, other than he was still just 17 and should have been going into his senior year of high school. Toney reclassified to enter college a year early.
“Then you see him live, in person, and you go ‘Oh my gosh, he is the real deal,’" Freeman said. "And he wasn’t known on a college level — but after that game he was. He’s athletic, he’s fast, he runs good routes, he is competitive. And as you’ve watched him, he has even improved this year.”
Entering this week, nobody in college football has more catches than Toney's 182 since the start of last season. His next catch will give him outright possession of the No. 2 spot on Miami's all-time list; he's currently tied there with Mike Harvey, 18 catches behind school record-holder Xavier Restrepo's 200.
Toney isn't making much of the potential 1-on-1 matchup.
“It's an opportunity to get better," he said Tuesday. “That's what it is.”
Same goes for Moore, who also didn't get caught up in 1-on-1 hype.
“They’ve got a lot of good receivers over there,” Moore told reporters at Notre Dame on Tuesday evening. “I’m looking forward to us matching up with all of them.”
Toney wears jersey No. 1; Moore wears jersey No. 15. The real story is No. 1 vs. No. 4, but 1 vs. 15 carries plenty of weight.
How much is Miami quarterback Darian Mensah looking forward to the matchup?
“Massively," Mensah said. "It’s a huge opportunity for 1 to go out and put on a show. I think he’s done it all year. Obviously, 15 is a great player and he’s going to win some plays.”
Moore was a unanimous All-American selection last season and has done nothing to suggest he won't be one again in 2026. He has seven interceptions and 23 pass breakups in his career; on the surface, they might not seem like huge numbers, but they become exceptional when considering that teams rarely try to test him.
“He is as gifted in his toolbox as I’ve been around,” Freeman said. “His toolbox is extremely large. He has a skill set to be able to play corner and play nickel, and I truly believe he could play safety. That’s the type of player he is. Mentally he can handle it, and physically. And that’s why he’s considered — if not the top — one of the top players in the country.”
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Miami wide receiver Malachi Toney celebrates after scoring a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Pittsburgh, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
WASHINGTON (AP) — For Donald Trump, Tuesday’s elections will chart the course for the final two years of his presidency.
If his party loses control of Congress in the midterm elections, the rest of his time in office is likely to be consumed by Democratic-led investigations into his administration and his business dealings, and possibly even another impeachment. The political spotlight will also begin its shift to Republicans and Democrats vying to replace him during the 2028 presidential campaign.
Beyond that, if voters deliver a rebuke to Republicans on Tuesday, Trump will be left with dramatically diminished political capital at home and abroad, as he has all but guaranteed the results will be seen as a referendum on himself by repeatedly urging voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”
Placing himself front and center on voters’ minds was a major gamble by the president and his political team, who believed personalizing the midterms would activate “Make America Great Again” supporters who might otherwise be less likely to turn out when Trump was not an official candidate. Democrats were eager to watch the unpopular president insert himself so fully in the campaign, believing it served as an effective reminder of who should be blamed for the state of the economy, which voters said was their top concern.
“Trump’s desire to have everyone think that he’s on the ballot? Like, it’s happening,” said Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., who has campaigned in key battlegrounds this fall, including Iowa, Georgia and Texas. “Everyone is thinking about him and the harm that he has done to them directly.”
Enthusiasm about Trump’s leadership is low, according to The AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of the midterm electorate.
Relatively few voters have positive things to say about Trump’s performance on the economy, according to the survey. About two-thirds of voters nationally say Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the U.S., while only about 3 in 10 said they’ve improved economic conditions. Similarly, about two-thirds of voters say Trump’s tariff policies have “hurt” the national economy, or the economy in their local area.
Views of Trump’s priorities more broadly — and his capabilities as a leader — were also mostly negative. More than half of voters say Trump is not a strong leader, does not fight for people like them, does not have the right priorities and does not have the mental capability to serve effectively as president. About 6 in 10 voters say Trump places a higher priority on his own personal interests than he does the country’s interests, while about 4 in 10 said he puts more weight on the country’s interests.
But if Trump defies the political odds and retains GOP majorities, then he will undoubtedly emerge more powerful and with a stronger grip on his party, which would owe much of its success to the president's monthlong barnstorming of primarily conservative states where he remains very popular with voters. Trump spent Tuesday at the White House and planned to watch election results in a private reception there.
The president — who faced a Democratic-led House for the latter half of his first term — campaigned aggressively in the final weeks to keep the Republican majorities on Capitol Hill because he knows what the consequences would be if Democrats seize power.
But the president at times shrugged off the prospect of a Republican loss of power in Congress, and even told a crowd in Oklahoma that Democrats, if they take power, could impeach him again. “I’ve become very good at beating them in impeachment," Trump said.
The president is also keenly aware of the political power he draws from having a foil leveraging opposition to consolidate support in his party and boost fundraising.
Senior Democrats, as they anticipate a majority in at least one chamber of Congress, have been telegraphing what their top investigative targets would be. Their list is vast, with ambitions to go after the Trump administration’s policies, the conduct of its personnel, and interactions between government officials and private corporations who’ve tried to wield influence with the White House.
For instance, California Rep. Robert Garcia, who is set to lead the powerful House Oversight Committee if Democrats win the House, in recent days has made it clear he plans to dig into the administration’s immigration and detention policies, making an unannounced visit to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in southern California and holding a news conference outlining his agenda to “demand accountability” for ICE’s tactics.
Among his other priorities are the Trump family’s business dealings, the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and broader allegations of corporate corruption.
A Democratic majority would be armed with control of committees, bigger budgets and staff, and subpoena powers that could compel the administration to be responsive to Congress. In response, the White House could reprise its strategy from the first Trump administration, when it slow-walked congressional requests for documents and testimony and asserted executive privilege over certain information.
The president is also bracing for major legislative fights, saying he has a “strong veto."
“I hope that that won’t be the case, but if it is, that’s happened before with many presidents,” Trump told reporters last week. “And you have strong veto and you end up working out deals.”
A potential House speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, would also be confronted with whether to pursue an unprecedented third impeachment against Trump, who was impeached twice in his first term in office but acquitted by the Senate both times. Democratic lawmakers have signaled that, instead, they may go after top Cabinet members, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, one of Trump’s most stridently loyal administration officials who has played a key role in the Iran war that Democrats have decried.
“I'm here to say, one of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town,” Jeffries said at an October rally.
Trump’s personal pitch involved a flurry of campaign rallies across the U.S. in the final weeks, increasingly in deeply Republican areas where the apparent need to shore up his party’s candidates was seen as a warning sign.
In an attempt to buck historical trends that have seen the president's party typically lose seats in midterm elections, Trump also tried some novel tactics. He staged a two-day Trump-focused Republican convention in Dallas, and issued a dubious promise that he'd send $5,000 to every adult if his party wins in November.
But his closing message has been disjointed.
On the campaign trail, his lengthy winding remarks typically included some promotion of the local Republican nominees, but plenty of free association that drifted away from the issues voters care about. He's been fixated on the muscular builds of some Republican candidates, regaling crowds in North Carolina, Michigan and Kentucky with descriptions of the impressive backside of Ohio Sen. Jon Husted.
He's also embraced positions at odds with a broad swath of voter concerns, claiming communities that reject data centers will end up “backwards and poor” and claiming affordability is a “hoax” and a word “made up by the Democrats.”
Befitting his unusual strategy, Trump set his closing argument ahead of Tuesday at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and spent much of his hourlong speech bragging about his beautification of Washington, D.C.
“So, we have a lot of great things planned for Washington, and I could get into the nation,” Trump said. “But for that, you don’t have enough time.”
Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, left, stands with President Donald Trump on stage during a campaign rally at the Five Flags Event Center, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Dubuque, Iowa. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at the Salina Regional Airport, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Salina Kan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump boards Air Force One after speaking at a campaign rally at the Salina Regional Airport, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Salina Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Salina Regional Airport, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Salina Kan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Five Flags Event Center, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Dubuque, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
President Donald Trump walks from the podium after speaking at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
