Just 24 hours after his party’s midterm drubbing, Vice President JD Vance offered a pointed diagnosis of why MAGA lost: frustration over the Iran war. Despite couching his critique with brief genuflections toward Trump, Vance’s lengthy missive about why Republicans lost, shared yesterday on X, has been taken by some as a deliberate schism point between himself and the administration he ostensibly helps lead. With two years left of the Trump White House and a presumptive presidential run of his own after that, Vance seems set on not allowing this week’s losses to limit his political future.

‘Astonishing, if implicit, rebuke’

Vance’s statement represents a “striking acknowledgment” from a sitting vice president that his own administration’s “handling” of the Iran war has “become a political liability for Republicans,” said Politico, even as Trump himself has “defended the approach.” The “blunt assessment” comes as “speculation mounts over his own political future,” said Fox News. Vance’s remarks signify a “shift in his public assessment of the war’s consequences” after “previously defending aspects of the administration’s military campaign.”

While Vance had “expressed some reluctance” in the early days of Trump’s Iran war plans, the vice president ultimately embraced the “spineless sycophantism we’ve come to expect,” said The New Republic. After the Democrats’ seismic midterm performance, however, Vance “promptly threw the president under the bus.” The veep’s “astonishing, if implicit, rebuke” of a president he has backed “consistently and unequivocally for years” suggests the GOP is entering an era of “competing factions” that “more openly jockey for influence,” said HuffPost.

‘Better late than never’

Trump detractors have “delighted in watching the infighting,” said Mediaite. Some Republicans have already embraced Vance’s pivot, including outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a frequent critic of Trump’s foreign policy. “Better late than never,” said Massie, asserting he had been “right about everything” in response to Vance’s post on X.

When asked about whether the Iran war should be blamed for Republicans’ loss in the midterms, Trump “essentially agreed with Vance,” said HuffPost. Vance’s critique is “largely true” because the war “drove the gasoline up a little,” said Trump to reporters, per The Associated Press. However, he added, “if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again.”

“We will kill Trump,” says a huge new billboard in central Tehran. There is a “good degree of triumphalism” inside Iran at the results of the US midterms, said Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor of The Guardian. But supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has warned those expecting an immediate shift in American policy towards Iran that they are “seriously mistaken”.

Donald Trump will soon face pressure on military spending from a Democrat-controlled Congress. But, in the two months before the new Congress convenes, “he has greater latitude and little accountability”. The president has paid a high “political price” for his war with Iran, and, “having come so far”, he may look to “cement his legacy and finish the job”.

What did the commentators say?

Trump will not “go gentle into the political twilight of his career”, said the BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen. Despite his drubbing at the ballot box, “he retains broad powers to use America’s military might”, and his “determination never to be seen” as a loser might tempt him to “blot out the electoral rout” by taking action abroad.

The new Congress will curb Trump’s “sledgehammer” approach to diplomacy, said Foreign Policy. The Democrats may not “get their way” completely but “the power of the purse will grant them considerable influence and negotiating power”. They could also “use their new oversight authorities” to hold hearings on the Iran war. If these are navigated shrewdly, any mistakes Trump makes in Iran could be weaponised as a “line of political attack” stretching to the 2028 presidential election.

“The president had been planning with Israel a new offensive after the midterm elections,” said Samer Al-Atrush, The Times’ Middle East correspondent. But such is the “historic drop in support for Israel” among US voters, that, even before the elections, Trump suggested he might soon “scale back American aid to Israel”. Key US ally Saudi Arabia will be “alarmed” by the Democrat triumphs and other Gulf nations that “initially opposed the war” will “welcome the moderating influence of an opposition-led Congress”.

But Trump “is peevish”, said Sam Kiley, The Independent’s world affairs editor. “His will has been thwarted, and his administration has been humiliated by Iran’s defiant resilience.” He will blame Iran’s survival, not his own actions, for “the spike in fossil fuel prices”. And if the world sees Iran as some “plucky underdog”, he “will want to shoot that animal”.

What next?

“All of Trump’s options are problematic,” said Axios. He could launch further strikes but going back to war would keep fuel prices high and be “highly unpopular”. Negotiation could be dogged by Iran, “sensing weakness”, refusing to make concessions, meaning Trump will have a “hard time reaching a deal”. He could continue to “strangle” Iran with naval blockades and sanctions but that “could take months to show progress”. The bottom line is: “there’s no tidy way for Trump to ‘finish the job’”.

Americans woke up to a decidedly bluer map this morning, as sweeping Democrat victories in Kansas, Texas and beyond dramatically realigned the country’s electoral makeup. With Congress soon to be under Democratic control, Republicans face a potential end to an era defined — and perhaps doomed — by President Donald Trump.

What did the commentators say?

After imploring voters “not once, not twice, but 47 times this fall” to act as if he himself were on the ballot, Trump got his wish, said Peter Baker at The New York Times. “Just not the way he hoped.” That Democrats won as decisively as they did suggests the country is “signaling the beginning of the end of the Trump era.”

There is “something bigger than the misadventures” of any one Republican candidate at play, said John Kennith White at The Hill. The “stench of political death has repelled even Trump’s most devoted followers,” as voters demand an “end to the anything-goes rhetoric” in favor of “leaders they can admire.”

GOP hopes that Trump’s previous victories were a “political realignment grounded in expanded support” from “working-class minority voters” have been “reduced to rubble,” said Ronald Brownstein at Bloomberg. The electoral “drubbing” also “exposed some cracks in the core MAGA coalition” of white men who did not attend college and rural voters that has “sustained Trump since 2016.”

Trump, “like lots of populists,” forgot the “economic bit of populism,” said Janan Ganesh at the Financial Times. That lapse made it “hard to distinguish him from a laissez-faire Republican of yesteryear.” A “voter rebellion” against Republicans could “force conservatives to rethink their undying allegiance” to the “80-year-old lame-duck leader,” said Steve Peoples at The Associated Press. Before polls closed Tuesday, some GOP candidates had already “begun to distance themselves from him.” These midterms mark the “beginning of a high-stakes fight” over the United States’ “political future in the twilight of the Trump era.”

What next?

How Trump responds to the midterm results will “shape the GOP’s fate,” not only for the remainder of his term but in the 2028 race to succeed him, said Bloomberg. While “Trumpism may be receding,” said the Times, its namesake has the “power of the presidency for two more years.” Trump may do “everything he can to remain a dominant voice for as long as he can.”

The blue tsunami many polls predicted came to pass Tuesday as Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress. Now, Democratic politicians are debating how to handle the upcoming GOP minority. Some want to work together with Republicans, while others say investigating the GOP and stonewalling President Donald Trump should be top of mind.

‘Lawyer up’

Many Democrats seem eager to “fight on nearly every front the president has opened,” said Nik Popli and Julia Terruso at Time. The incoming Democratic leadership is seemingly “preparing a legislative offensive aimed at reversing some of the administration’s most unpopular policies.”

Republicans should “lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement. Democrats may “use their new subpoena power and agenda-setting authority” to investigate alleged corruption among Trump’s family, alongside setting up probes into “Elon Musk’s leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency” and the “Department of Homeland Security’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics,” said Chris Marquette at Politico.

The party is most likely to “achieve lasting gains through sustained oversight investigations directed toward two goals,” Claire Finkelstein said at The Guardian: “providing accountability in the executive branch and strengthening the institution of Congress itself.”

Not after ‘political retribution’

Other Democrats, including some who will be taking up new jobs soon, feel that focusing on Trump is the wrong approach. “They didn’t send us to Washington for political retribution,” Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-Texas) told CNN after his victory. “They sent us to Washington to lower costs, to root out corruption, to get this economy back on track.” While there will be investigations, Democrats are “focused on delivering on the affordability agenda,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told NPR.

More moderate Democrats, including the likely next House speaker, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), are also “expected to be scared of a handful of new members aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America,” said The Washington Post editorial board. While the threat of democratic socialists “might discourage” centrists like Jeffries or Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer from “negotiating in good faith,” there is also a “strong case for unexpected levels of cooperation, or at least compromise, over the next two years.” Americans voted for divided government, but that “doesn’t mean they chose paralysis in the face of an impending fiscal emergency.”

Republicans facing a likely electoral blowout in today’s midterms are looking ahead to a very different election. It is one that will determine who leads the party through a new term as the likely minority in one, if not both, chambers of Congress. While current Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has signaled he intends to stay on as party leader, other Republican aspirants are eyeing the midterms as an opportunity to move up the leadership ladder.

What did the commentators say?

There is a “shadow election battle” now “quietly underway” among Republicans to lead “what is expected to be a diminished House Republican Conference,” said Politico. Speaker Johnson’s “recent hints that he intends to remain GOP leader” have “rattled the party’s leadership outlook,” said The Hill. The prospect of Johnson remaining in party leadership has prompted “fresh new questions” about the GOP’s place in the coming Congress, as most House speakers during the modern era have “stepped out of Congress after losing the gavel.”

“Most” Republicans expect Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Steve Scalise (R-La.) to “make a play for minority leader,” said Semafor. But both lawmakers have “publicly refused to entertain questions” about a potential leadership fight “on the record,” said The Washington Post. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), current GOP caucus whip, has also been “floated as a potential minority leader,” though he said he “plans on running for whip again next Congress.”

Johnson staying on as party leader is “not out of the realm of the possibility,” as members of his caucus “like him,” said one GOP insider to the Post. “Alas,” said Puck. What was once shaping up to be a “clear-cut race between Scalise and Jordan,” Republican leaders with “opposing styles and vastly different strengths and coalitions,” might now become a “three-way battle.”

What next?

The “size and ideological makeup” of the post-midterms GOP conference will be “key factors” in any leadership race, said Puck. “Heavy losses” that “obliterate moderates representing swing districts” would place the GOP in a “smaller but more conservative minority.”

US voters head to the polls today for midterm elections billed as a referendum on Donald Trump, even though the president’s name will not appear on a single ballot.

Up for grabs are all 435 seats in the lower house of Congress – the House of Representatives, where the Democrats expect to secure a majority – as well as 35 out of the 100 seats in the Senate, where the competition is predicted to be far closer.

Democrats would need to win four of seven Senate races deemed to be a “toss-up” by independent elections analyst The Cook Political Report to give them control of Congress, and with it “the power to limit Trump’s ambitions, reject his judicial nominations and investigate his administration”, said the BBC. Here are the races to watch:

Michigan

Probably the most hard-fought and vitriolic Senate race in this election cycle. Republicans have tried to paint Democrat candidate Abdul El-Sayed as a socialist and an Islamic extremist with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Polls have remained neck-and-neck but a late shock endorsement for Republican challenger Mike Rogers by Haley Stevens, who lost the Democratic primary to El-Sayed, could have a decisive impact. Crucially, this is one of the few toss-up Senate seats currently held by the Democrats, and winning it back would be a boost to Republican hopes of clinging on to a majority in Congress.

Alaska

Democrat candidate Mary Peltola, the first Indigenous Alaskan to be elected to the House of Representatives, has campaigned for the Senate on a platform of “fish, family, freedom” to come within touching distance of flipping the Republican seat.

While Alaska’s ranked-choice system has historically made it harder for pollsters to predict the winner, the election campaign has also been marred by controversy and accusations of dirty tricks with the appearance of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot. One is the incumbent Republican senator, the other a retired teacher with no prior political experience, sparking claims he had been induced to run by the senator’s opponents in the hopes of confusing voters.

Texas

The Lone Star state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 40 years, but polls show rising star James Talarico is in with a fighting chance. At more than half a billion dollars and counting, it is the most expensive Senate race in US history, with Republican challenger and arch-Trump loyalist Attorney General Ken Paxton trying to paint his opponent – who once suggested God was non-binary – as far-left on culture issues. But Talarico, a 37-year-old former teacher who studied to be a Christian minister, has nonetheless managed to cut through with voters in the traditionally deep-red Republican stronghold.

Kansas

Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, but rising farming and fuel costs linked to Trump’s war in Iran, as well as the impact of the president’s immigration crackdown on rural businesses, means the state is unexpectedly up for grabs. The Democrats have also benefited from picking charismatic Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton as their candidate in a state with a large evangelical and mainline Protestant population. The latest polls show him narrowly ahead of incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall in what would be a hugely symbolic gain for the Democrats.

“I’ve never seen a viler ad,” said David French in The New York Times. Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP candidate for governor of Ohio, confirmed recently that his campaign was behind a truly despicable spot attacking his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton. The ad features Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, who calls her daughter a “liar” and insinuates she has mental health issues. What Arthur doesn’t mention is that she lost custody of her children after their stepfather was indicted in 1978 for raping the 12-year-old Acton; Arthur joined her husband when he fled the jurisdiction rather than face trial. If Ramaswamy had “a molecule of decency,” he’d pull the ad and apologize for “wielding that evil mother as a weapon against her own daughter.” But we learned long ago “that there is no bottom for MAGA,” so Ramaswamy instead defended his smear tactics—saying they were needed because Acton “won’t debate me”— and threw $4 million in funding behind the ad.

“The blowback was instantaneous,” said Paul Waldman in Public Notice. As well as Democrats, “one Republican after another” criticized Ramaswamy for deploying Acton’s “alleged child-rapist-defending mother,” including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Sen. Jon Husted— the latter of whom is locked in a tight midterms race. As the toxic fallout from the ad spread, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved the gubernatorial contest from “toss-up” to “Lean Democrat.” Still, Ramaswamy did secure the support of “the two most powerful Republicans in America.” Vice President JD Vance said he was “disgusted” by Republican “whining,” while President Trump said he wished the mothers of his opponents had been as “brave” as Arthur. That Ramaswamy has ended up in this mess is no surprise. Trump has remade the GOP in his own image: “cruel, vulgar, often hateful.” But most politicians, including Vance and Ramaswamy, lack the “dark power” that Trump possesses and instead come across as “atrocious jerks” when they try to emulate him.

As well as being in terrible taste, this ad was terrible politics, said Erika D. Smith in Bloomberg. Ramaswamy chose to essentially “ally himself with the ally of an alleged pedophile” at a time when 75% of Americans believe the Trump administration has been protecting the wealthy pals of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. We’ll soon see if this ugly gamble pays off for Ramaswamy, said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. The repugnant ad should permanently shatter his political ambitions. But if he wins on election day, the video will likely be framed as a “career-maker.” And “he’ll have confirmed post-liberalism’s central thesis—that the key to political success is unabashed ruthlessness.”

What happened

President Trump escalated his attacks on the midterms voting process in several states recently, as his administration appeared to be setting the stage to cast doubt on the validity of widely anticipated Democratic wins. The Justice Department sued to block Alaskan election officials from declaring a winner in the Senate race unless it was Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, arguing that voters would be confused by the presence of a candidate with a nearly identical name, Dan J. Sullivan. Alaska uses a ranked-choice voting system, and Republicans argued the other Sullivan was planted to siphon votes away from the incumbent in favor of Democrat Mary Peltola. Alaska’s Supreme Court already permitted both Sullivans to remain on the ballot. Trump took personal credit for bringing the suit, telling reporters, “I’m the one who said do it.”

Meanwhile, a judicial panel in California rejected a last-ditch request from the Trump administration to set aside as many as 20,000 mail-in ballots from people it claims could be noncitizens. The panel noted that the timing would interfere with California’s ability to administer elections. The Justice Department also sent a letter demanding the segregation of any ballots submitted by 400 more alleged noncitizens in Washington, one of nine states where the Department of Homeland Security has recently conducted door-to-door searches for illegal voters. District Judge Araceli Martínez- Olguín blocked that effort as well, noting inaccuracies in the Justice Department’s list and the risk of giving U.S. citizens “ objectively reasonable” fears of prosecution.

What the columnists said

The Alaska lawsuit is “genuinely bizarre,” said Harry Litman in The New Republic. The Constitution clearly grants states the power to administer elections. The federal government “has no role” in trying to pre-emptively minimize confusion over “something that hasn’t happened and may never happen.” It’s “positively Looney Tunes.” The presence of same-named candidates may be a “pretty crafty” Democratic ploy, but it’s perfectly legal. Yet now, if Peltola wins, “Team Trump will have its talking point ready.

Trump’s administration has also been making “near-daily announcements” about people charged with noncitizen voting, said Kyle Cheney and Myah Ward in Politico, but the claims of sweeping voter fraud are nonsense. When Los Angeles County officials reviewed a 200-name sample of the 20,000 alleged illegal voters, they found 112 had not been sent ballots, more than 70% never voted in California, and nearly 40% of those with listed birthplaces were born in the U.S. Of course, this may not be about catching criminals, but rather “stoking the fire of distrust.”

These efforts might fizzle if the Democrats “win big,” said Stephen Collinson in CNN.com. But if Republicans lose by tight margins, we could see weeks-long battles over certifying the results. And there’s no Bill Barr equivalent “to debunk potential claims of fraud.” Trump said recently he would accept the results “if they are honest elections.” That ominous caveat is now “impossible to ignore.”

After months of fiercely fought campaigns across the country, the 2026 midterms are finally here. Have Democrats convinced voters to send them to Washington as a bulwark against Donald Trump’s MAGA government? While early election data shows Democrats in a strong position to capture one, if not both, chambers of Congress, nothing is set in stone until polls close tomorrow night.

‘Huge chance’ but ‘still not 100%’

A “wave of new polls” could “point to just that” for Democrats, said anchor John Berman on CNN: “a wave.” If polling from The New York Times and Siena bears out on election day, Democrats will “take the Senate with room to spare.”

Data showing Democrats nine points up on Republicans is “important” because that “easily overcomes GOP redistricting,” said CNN’s Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten on “The Enten Scale.” Although Enten placed odds of the Democrats taking the House at more than 90%, he said Democrats have just 72% odds of flipping the Senate — a “huge chance” but “still not 100%.” The GOP’s 29% likelihood of keeping the Senate “ain’t nothing.”

Democratic advantages have allowed candidates to play in races Republicans “thought were unreachable,” said Fox News. But “only to the point of making them battlegrounds.”

‘Inherently imprecise’ but usually ‘in the ballpark’

The media “just can’t let go of their obsession with polls” in an election “dominated by ‘horse race’ reporting,” said USA Today. “Breathless updates” about single-point shifts in certain races presume “such statistical noise actually matters.” But while polls are “inherently imprecise” and subject to “many sources of error,” you can trust them to “usually be in the ballpark,” said pollster Nate Cohn at The New York Times.

Early voting impact

Democrats are “flexing their early voting strength,” said The Guardian, having cast 43% of early votes compared to Republicans’ 31%. The “overall picture” of early vote trends “offers few positives for Republicans,” said the Times, affording observers “clues about which subgroups are turning out.” Still, the “impact” of the early votes will ultimately “be known only after polls close.”

With Republicans clinging to power against a flurry of polls that predict a blue wave during this week’s elections, an additional foe could spell trouble for the GOP: libertarians. Some believe a roster of Libertarian candidates could ruin Republicans’ best chances during the midterms.

‘Could lead some conservatives to cast protest ballots’

While many analysts say the GOP’s efforts are futile due to nationwide frustration with the Trump administration, there are numerous battleground states in play. But “unhappiness with President Donald Trump could lead some conservatives to cast protest ballots,” said Thomas Beaumont at The Associated Press. Some voters may be swayed to vote Libertarian, a party which runs on a “message of nonintervention and limited centralized authority.” The party “could draw enough votes to affect the outcome in a number of these races,” GOP former Ohio state lawmaker Gene Krebs told the AP.

Three key states include Iowa, Kansas and Texas. Libertarians there are “polling in the low single digits, but their appeal to disaffected Republican voters could prove decisive in races with little separating the major-party contenders,” Sarah Fortinsky said at The Hill. Texas may end up the most prominent example, where Libertarian candidate Ted Brown “offers Republicans wary of Paxton an alternative to both their scandal-ridden Senate nominee and Democrat James Talarico.”

‘Boosting third party spoilers is a bipartisan sport’

Even as Republican strategists are worried, others think the Libertarian Party could hurt Democrats in a similar manner. In U.S. politics, “boosting third party spoilers is a bipartisan sport,” said Isaac Arnsdorf, Mariana Alfaro and Erin Cox at The Washington Post. In “Pennsylvania, Michigan and Virginia battleground races, independents and Green candidates have popped up as left-wing alternatives to Democrats,” even as “social media and voter registration history show them as supporters of President Donald Trump.”

Overall, the “big question is not just how much of the vote Libertarian candidates will win in these contests” but also whether Democratic PACs spent enough money “in support of those Libertarian candidates,” said Lauren Egan at The Bulwark. While it “can be a risky and controversial tactic, promoting third-party spoiler candidates is not without precedent.”

“There’s a decency we should expect out of our public officials,” said former President Barack Obama at a recent campaign rally condemning Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s now-infamous attack ad against Democrat Amy Acton. Ramaswamy’s commercial shows there is “no line he will not cross, no low he will not sink to.” But while Obama’s comments were directed at Ramaswamy specifically, they come as the GOP grapples with a surging strain of Trumpian malice among arguably less adept candidates — to the chagrin of some within their own party.

‘Ethical degradation of Trumpism’

Ramaswamy’s “may be the most disgusting ad in American political history,” said Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times. But it has opened a “kind of proxy debate on the right” about whether the party should “reclaim some baseline morality” or pursue its “current smashmouth course.” The controversy surrounding the ad affords conservatives space to “reckon with the ethical degradation of Trumpism” without “quite admitting that that’s what they’re doing.” With “no ideas to run on” and minimal accomplishments to tout, GOP candidates “seem to have hatched a plan,” said Rex Huppke at USA Today: “Let’s just be the most wretched versions of ourselves” and “see how things shake out.”

It is “undoubtedly the case” that Trump himself enjoys “some special sauce” that makes him a “formidable general election candidate,” said Jamelle Bouie at the Times. But without candidates who enjoy that innate talent, Republicans are struggling to “mimic Trump’s particular style of politics” as successfully.

GOP ‘litmus test’

Trump is “reminding us on a daily basis that cruelty is the point,” said Charlie Sykes on his To the Contrary podcast. “That seems to be spreading.” In American politics, “bullies” do tend to prosper “for a bit,” said Times columnist David French to Sykes. But they then experience a “serious backlash.”

Ramaswamy’s ad has become a “litmus test” for “how deep” into MAGA’s “post-truth nihilism” someone might sink,” said Rolling Stone. Republican discomfort with Trumpian insolence misses the “greater point” of the “political movement” that led to its creation: The “conservative project’s greatest strength is its moral flexibility.” By that metric, the party’s future is “still firmly in Trump’s hands.”

Republicans have dominated Southern politics for more than a generation, but that supremacy is being challenged in this year’s midterms. Democratic candidates are making an unexpectedly strong push for Senate seats in places like South Carolina and Mississippi.

Driven by a ‘backlash’

Democrats’ “stealthy advance into the South” during the midterms “could end up being the story of the year,” said Damian Paletta at The Wall Street Journal. The GOP’s concern can be seen in President Donald Trump’s appearances in states such as South Carolina and Texas to campaign for handpicked candidates like Darline Graham and Ken Paxton, who find themselves in toss-up races. Those are locales that national Republicans usually take for granted. “What. On. Earth. Is. Going. On?”

Republicans may be a victim of their own success. Early voting in Southern states is being driven by a “backlash” against last spring’s Trump-led effort — enabled by April’s Supreme Court decision undermining the Voting Rights Act — to “gerrymander Black voters” into GOP-dominated congressional districts, said Bloomberg.

Florida’s Black voters are casting in-person early ballots in double the numbers they did in 2022. Similar trends have been observed in North Carolina and Georgia. Black voter anger could “fuel a Democratic turnout advantage” that decides races “throughout the South, from North Carolina to Texas,” said Bloomberg.

“America’s new political battleground is the South,” said Carolyn Hugley and Lauren Groh-Wargo at Democracy Docket. The gerrymandering push compelled Democratic organizers to “mobilize quickly” and “force politicians to reconsider what they believed they could get away with.” The fight for “fair representation for Black Americans” is inseparable from efforts to “break the GOP’s stranglehold on the region.”

‘Barely enough’

Some leaders worry Democrats were unprepared for this opportunity. The party “made mistakes in not investing earlier” in races across the South, said Gov. Wes Moore (D-Md.) on ABC’s “This Week.” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) agrees. Democrats have done “barely enough” to win the region, he said to MS NOW. The party cannot afford to write off voters south of the Mason-Dixon Line. “As goes the South, so goes the nation.”

Buoyed by polls showing historic winds at their backs ahead of next week’s midterms, Democrats are wasting little time preparing for the day they capture one, or both, chambers of Congress. For all the speculation about how the party might use a congressional majority to rein in the Trump administration, Democrats have also set their sights beyond the beltway on tech billionaire Elon Musk.

The party is threatening investigations during the new legislative term into the GOP megafunder’s businesses and previous government work. Musk, unsurprisingly, has threatened Democrats back, setting up a potential clash that could reverberate through Washington.

What did the commentators say?

Having “long eyed investigating the world’s richest man,” senior Democrats are “mulling how a range of panels could target Musk and a huge swath of his businesses,” said Politico. Even Democrats on committees with “less obvious ties to the tech mogul” are “eyeing targets.”

Musk’s recent interference in Ukrainian military operations is one of a “glut” of alleged conflicts of interest that the Democrats see as “ripe for oversight,” said Politico. But “above all else,” Democrats appear eager to “delve into the disaster” of his DOGE project, said Talking Points Memo.

Democrats should be wary of targeting a man whose three private companies are “almost single-handedly driving American power and influence and our military edge in the next century,” said Fox News host Jesse Watters on “The Five.” “You are gonna destroy that edge.”

In response to increased Democratic interest, Musk threatened to “find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets,” he said on X. “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Musk’s “wartime posture” shows he’s “bracing for a fight,” said The Washington Post. And with days to go before polls close, he “continues to signal he’s readying a counteroffensive.”

What next?

Some Democrats are “not waiting for election results to get started” investigating Musk, said Politico. Members of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security in September demanded Musk testify on reports that his DOGE project “overstated its savings,” while the Ways and Means Committee in January called for probes into “alleged DOGE-related data theft” from programs like Social Security.

Corporate chiefs embraced President Donald Trump when he returned to the White House last year. Some wanted to avoid a crackdown, while others wanted to curry favor with the administration. Now, they are increasingly worried about consequences if Democrats take back control of Congress in November.

‘Holding Trump accountable’

Leading executives “fear a reckoning” after the midterms, said The Washington Post. Silicon Valley firms such as Meta, OpenAI and Palantir that “ingratiated themselves with Trump’s Washington” now anticipate a Democratic Congress that will scrutinize their dealings with the president. Companies tied to Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk are also expected to get a close look. Trump-aligned businesses have a “very rough couple years ahead,” said Democratic strategist Cooper Teboe to the outlet.

Corporate investigations could be Democrats’ “secret weapon for holding Trump accountable,” said Molly Claflin at MS NOW. For example, Chevron “gained the rights to vast oil reserves in Venezuela” after making “multimillion-dollar contributions” to presidential projects, while R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company made similar donations before the government lifted vaping restrictions. Democrats would be continuing a “long tradition” of delving into big businesses to “investigate government corruption.”

Democrats are “coming for the CEOs,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Private-sector officials “may not have liked writing checks for the inaugural or White House ballroom” but also had little choice “given how much leverage” Trump had over their businesses. Regardless, corporate America should “lawyer up.”

‘Perils of plutopopulism’

Democrats in Congress are split over “how hard to go after companies that courted the White House,” said Politico. “The corruption is everywhere,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to the outlet. Others would prefer to focus on affordability issues instead of “weaponizing the federal government,” said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto to Politico.

CEOs are now discovering the “perils of plutopopulism,” said Chrystia Freeland at the Financial Times. Businesses embraced Trump believing he would “deliver tax cuts and deregulation.” That bet is “starting to go wrong” now that the president’s “political star is shining less brightly.”

The midterm elections don’t take place solely on Nov. 3, said Chris Brennan in USA Today. With about 8 million votes cast early or by mail, they’re “already underway”— and so are President Trump’s “attempts to disrupt the process.” Insisting without evidence that voter fraud is widespread, his administration sued California recently to keep the state from counting the ballots of 20,000 voters it alleged are noncitizens. His Department of Homeland Security already tried claiming that 15,000 noncitizens were registered in Nevada; DHS later narrowed the list to 185—and Nevada then found all 185 were citizens. Trump has publicly stated elections were rigged or fraudulent on more than 70% of days since his return to office, and his claims are growing more desperate, with Democrats “poised to take control of Congress and bring oversight and accountability to his second term.

Local and state officials are now bracing “to defend their elections against what used to be a reliable ally”: the federal government, said Zolan Kanno-Youngs in The New York Times. Trump is falsely claiming voting machines can be rigged or hacked by foreign governments; earlier this year, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and seized voting records from the 2020 election. The president’s most rabid supporters are “urging him to consider drastic actions,” such as declaring martial law. Motivated by “a growing sense of alarm,” about 10 current and former national security officials are “discreetly advising” states on how to prepare for election interference, said Noah Robertson in The Washington Post. Among the possible threats: deployment of troops or ICE to polling sites to scare away voters, the seizure of ballots or election machines, and threats to arrest and prosecute election officials.

But so far, “Trump’s election meddling lies mostly in ruins,” said David Ignatius, also in The Washington Post. He’s “failed in nearly every phase of his assault,” thanks to “determined legal resistance.” The Supreme Court blocked him from using the Postal Service to limit mail-in ballots. States keep refusing demands to hand over voter rolls. If Trump “were a batter in a baseball game, he would have struck out, over and over.” Hundreds of lawyers are working with Democrats “to prevent election sabotage,” but the best defense “is an anti-Trump turnout at the polls so large that even he can’t challenge it.”

Elon Musk has “learned to love political spending again,” said Chad de Guzman in Time. After splashing at least $250 million on getting President Trump back in the White House, the world’s richest man announced last year that he’d spend “a lot less” on future campaigns because “I’ve done enough.” Instead, he’s become the biggest single donor this midterm cycle. Since July, Musk has given at least $276 million to various Republican groups—$158 million of which went to the GOP’s main Senate super PAC, “one of the largest known political donations in history.” That infusion of cash allowed the super PAC to launch a $149 million ad campaign for Ken Paxton, the GOP’s struggling candidate in the Texas U.S. Senate race. Musk’s huge spend “isn’t surprising, given what’s at stake for him if Republicans lose.” Democrats have vowed to investigate the multibillion- dollar government contracts held by SpaceX, Tesla, and other Musk companies if they win the House—and to subpoena Musk over his role leading DOGE, which slashed hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and gutted foreign aid.

Musk has learned that candidates “want his money but not him,” said Jim Newell in Slate. Back in 2024 and 2025, he was everywhere: “prancing about onstage with Trump,” living at Mar-a-Lago, and handing out million- dollar checks to Wisconsin voters. This time, he’s confined himself to insulting Democrats on his social media platform X and making donations that, while eye- poppingly large, are “effectively less than couch change” for a man worth about $1 trillion. “That’s some intimidating profligacy,” said Noah Rothman in The Boston Globe. But Musk’s money will make a difference on Election Day only if his beneficiaries can pair it with a compelling message. As voters keep telling pollsters, “that’s the missing part of the GOP’s 2026 strategy.”

As “a prominent and powerful white supremacist,” Musk has his own message, said Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times. On X, he traffics in extremist conspiracy theories about brown and Black “invaders” destroying “‘Western,’ meaning white, civilization.” He “heavily promoted” the movie Citizen Vigilante, in which the hero kills Arab and African immigrants. He supports “remigration,” the forced deportation of nonwhite citizens to their supposed countries of origin. Yet Republicans are allowed to pretend such rhetoric from the party’s “most important donor” is irrelevant to them, even while Democrats are often asked to denounce Hasan Piker, a popular but niche far-left streamer. “I think Republicans should have to answer” for Musk’s ugly views. And if Democrats win Congress this November, they should work to ensure that no one man will ever again “have all this power.”

With polls looking dire for Republicans ahead of next month’s highly anticipated midterm elections, President Donald Trump and his allies are reportedly wasting little time on the most pressing question of this election cycle: Who will take the blame for the likely, if still theoretical, electoral drubbing? Cue the MAGA infighting, as various White House operators and GOP power brokers jockey to avoid, and in some cases direct, the president’s guaranteed post-midterm scapegoating.

‘Knives are now fully out’

Although Trump has “proven largely incapable of getting out of his own way,” he’s “keenly aware of the grumbling within his party” over the GOP’s midterm prospects and has “begun looking for someone else to take the fall,” said Puck. “Currently at the top of the list” is former White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, who “crafted the party’s midterm strategy.” Days away from a potentially “dire midterm reckoning,” Republicans are “turning their cannons” toward Blair and consulting partner Chris LaCivita, the two men tasked with the “herculean job of maintaining control of Congress,” said Politico.

The hostility toward Blair and LaCivita follows their recent trip to the Balkans to “advise a Russia-friendly regime’s reelection effort” even as GOP prospects “dwindle back home,” said Politico. That excursion “opened the floodgates,” said one source to the outlet. The “knives are now fully out for these two.”

‘Ice maiden is melting’

“These days,” Trump has also been looking to place blame on Susie Wiles, his “once-unassailable White House chief of staff,” for the midterms, said Politico. The president is “musing about replacements for his top aide” while getting “plenty of encouragement from rivals” to Wiles and those settling scores.

Trump’s “ice maiden is melting,” said The New Republic of Wiles. She’s in “some deep sh-t,” said one Trump adviser to Zeteo. At the same time, the president has “tried to pour cold water” on rumors of her fate by “releasing effusively supportive statements” and characteristically condemning the media as “fake news.”

With the midterms two weeks away, there’s a good chance Republicans will lose control of the House of Representatives, according to polls. And some believe Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will face a battle among fellow GOP members for the role of House minority leader in the new Congress.

‘Delicate dance’

With many seemingly resigned to a midterm loss, Republicans are “jockeying behind the scenes over who could lead their party in the minority,” said Annie Grayer at CNN. One of the top contenders is Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is undergoing a “delicate dance” to position himself for the leadership role. Though Jordan has publicly supported Johnson, he may be “laying the groundwork to run for the top leadership spot if they lose the chamber.”

Some GOP members are more likely to “seek a leader who is willing to serve as a check on the Trump administration if Democrats flip the House,” said Sudiksha Kochi at The Hill. “I hear it all the time in the District. We want a check and balance. We don’t want a rubber stamp,” said one GOP lawmaker to the outlet. There will be a “potential push to support someone else as leader besides Johnson if the party suffers major losses in the midterms,” said Kochi.

‘Stay and serve’

Johnson rejects the possibility of a leadership change should the GOP majority fall. In the “unlikely scenario where we lost the majority, I would expect my colleagues would ask me to continue leading this conference, even if we have divided government,” he said to CBS News amid a push for Republican fundraising. “My intention is to stay and serve, and that’s what I have been doing, as best I can.”

Some Republicans have “insisted that Johnson has enough support in the party to continue running the conference even if they lose the majority,” said Mariana Alfaro at The Washington Post. These officials feel it would “not be Johnson but Trump who will be blamed if the party loses the House,” especially given Trump’s “unpopularity and that his policies have led to high prices.”

Democrats don’t know whether to trust the numbers or their guts. Polls suggest a blue wave is coming in the November midterms. But the party faithful are not so sure, fearful of a GOP October surprise — or maybe just a math error — that could upend their hopes.

Not a ‘sure thing’

“Welcome to the Wile E. Coyote moment,” said Daniel W. Drezner on Substack. President Donald Trump’s “historic unpopularity” is hurting GOP candidates, and “all of the signs point to a big blue wave.” Democrats and their supporters, though, are going to “keep their powder dry out of fear that Trump pulls off another comeback.”

A blue wave “isn’t a sure thing,” said The Daily Beast. The polls are depicting a “disastrous picture for Republicans,” but they could be distorted by “inaccurate sample groups, skewed data sampling and unknowable voter behavior.” Trump certainly thinks so. “My REAL polling numbers” are the “best they have ever been,” he said on Truth Social. It is unlikely, however, that an “unrecorded mass of Trump voters” will save Republican candidates in November, said The Daily Beast.

“You should believe the polls this time,” said Bill Scher at Washington Monthly. While it is true that pollsters in this summer’s Michigan’s Senate primary and Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary “struggled to reach certain demographics,” there is still “lots of other data,” including Trump’s “abysmal job approval,” pointing to big Democratic gains in the midterms. But Democrats should try “not to be complacent” about those signs.

Polling mirage?

Pollsters “can’t keep up” with the “sharply increased demand for polling” created by a larger-than-usual number of competitive races in the midterms, said The Washington Post. This signifies “more opportunity” for Democrats and “more defense” for Republicans, said Cygnal CEO Brent Buchanan to the outlet. Such demand affects the results. Voters are “tired of being surveyed and increasingly reluctant to pick up the phone,” said the Post.

Some GOP candidates “see a polling mirage” in the results, said Axios. Even with questions about polling accuracy, though, “most pollsters believe Democrats have the edge” in the midterms.

James Talarico is not the only Democrat with a shot at winning an election in Texas. Polls show challenger Gina Hinojosa, spurred on by Latino voters and the data center backlash, is running neck and neck with longtime GOP incumbent Greg Abbott in the governor’s race.

What did the commentators say?

Polls have the Hinojosa-Abbott race “statistically tied” heading into the final weeks, said The Center Square. It is a startling turn for Abbott, who is seeking a fourth term. He has never lost a statewide election “by less than 11 points,” said Slate. But some rural voters are defecting over Abbott’s “past support for data centers,” and Lone Star Latino voters are turning against the GOP because of the “president’s handling of the economy and mass deportations,” said NBC News.

Hinojosa is “perhaps the most serious electoral challenger” Abbott has faced, said the Houston Chronicle. The Democrat has sharpened a “populist message” that asks voters to “set aside the culture wars” in favor of policies and politicians that help them “make ends meet.” It is a message that arrives amid voter anger over “rising prices and seemingly unchecked growth of Big Tech.”

Democrats have long dreamed of a “blue Texas,” said Nicole Russell at USA Today. Nonetheless, the Lone Star state is “one of the top places Americans move” because it has no income tax and is affordable. All that is made possible by “embracing conservative values.” Voters will not want to “upend that way of life” by electing a Democrat.

What next?

Polls in previous elections have given Texas Democrats “reason to hope for an upset” only to end in disappointment, said The Washington Post. Hinojosa still faces an uphill climb. A Democrat has “not been elected to the governor's mansion in Texas since Ann Richards in 1990,” said CBS News. Still, national Democrats are “stepping up” their support for Hinojosa. The Democratic Governors Association and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker are both putting “at least $1 million” toward her election.

For the past decade, the Republican Party under President Donald Trump has been overtly dedicated to accentuating traditional gender roles. This administration has gone out of its way to celebrate “masculine” virtues including high testosterone levels, strenuous physical fitness regimens and a dedication to male-focused video gaming. In 2024, that strategy seemed to work, with young men helping to propel Trump back into political power. But now, as Republicans stare down a daunting final leg of the 2026 midterm race, polling shows this once-reliable MAGA voting bloc may be decidedly less reliable.

‘Evaporated’ gains and ‘instant ramifications’

Trump may have “won young men outright” in 2024, but a Cygnal poll from September shows Democrats now leading among men between the ages of 18 to 30 by 17 points, said USA Today. Among Republican voters, men under 40 represent the “group that is most at risk” of peeling off, given their “concerns about the economy and prices,” said The Washington Post. This bloc “proved pivotal” to Trump’s 2024 “sweep of some of the same battleground states holding critical elections this year.”

Republicans were previously able to “capitalize on an environment” in which young men felt “either ignored or actively disliked by the Democratic Party,” said the National Review. But the “cultural factors” that pushed men toward the GOP two years ago “may be outweighed by economic factors this time around.”

The GOP’s 2024 inroads among young men have “evaporated” in a shift that could have “instant ramifications this November,” said Politico. While “young men alone likely won’t determine control of Congress,” their “lack of enthusiasm itself” is a “warning sign for Republicans.”

A football-based strategy

The GOP is making a “massive bet on football” as it scrambles for “midterm momentum,” said Axios. The party is “pouring millions into advertising” at NFL and college games in an attempt to “hold onto male voters — football’s core audience.”

Despite these efforts, Democrats “appear to be gaining ground with young men,” said The Hill. The Cygnal poll showed the demographic has a “negative view of the Republican Party overall.” Democrats “fared slightly better,” though the party “still had a net-negative favorability rating among these voters.”

What happened?

The U.S. election map appeared to shift in favor of Democrats recently, heightening Republicans’ fears that voters angry over the Iran war and the rising cost of living are poised to deliver the GOP a midterm drubbing. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved three key Senate races toward Democrats, who must pick up four GOP seats to win control of the chamber. New Hampshire went from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat”; North Carolina from “lean Democrat” to “likely Democrat”; and Kansas, where megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton is neck and neck with Republican incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall, from “lean Republican” to “toss-up.” Seemingly giving up on North Carolina, where former Democratic governor Roy Cooper has a comfortable lead over Republican Michael Whatley, the top GOP Senate super PAC canceled its ads there and shifted funding to South Carolina—which Trump carried by 18 percentage points in 2024— and Kansas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932. A New York Times/Siena poll found Democratic Senate candidates leading in reliably Republican Ohio, Alaska, and Texas, and one point behind in Iowa. With Democrats favored to take the House, a GOP strategist drew lines to the blue wave of 2006. “If the bottom continues falling out,” he told Politico, “this will be worse.”

President Trump floated suspending the federal gas tax to ease anger over pump prices averaging $4.50 a gallon, a move that would require congressional action. Trump, whose approval rating hit a record-low 32% in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, held rallies in Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas. The dire polls are “fake,” Trump said in Mobile, Ala., and “don’t account for the fact that Trump is out campaigning.”

What the columnists said

A huge cash advantage was “supposed to be the GOP’s ace,” said Isaac Arnsdorf in The Washington Post. Since Labor Day, Republicans have poured half a billion dollars into competitive House and Senate races. But Democrats’ advantage on a generic congressional ballot has only widened since then, from about 6 points to 9, according to one polling average. Over $190 million in attack ads aimed at Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan hasn’t moved the needle—El-Sayed’s favorability is up 5 points since August, according to Fox News surveys.

Democrats are gaining ground with several key groups, said Ruth Igielnik in The New York Times. They include voters under 30, who in the Times/Siena poll favored Democrats by 30 points, and Latinos, who favored Democrats by 24 points in a recent NBC News/Telemundo poll, up from 12 points before the 2024 election. And in nearly every state the Times polled, Democrats are winning among independents, “the bloc of swing voters that typically decides elections.” The polls could be wrong, said Jim Newell in Slate. They’ve previously “underestimated Republican energy in the Trump era,” by failing to reach enough white, noncollege voters. Since those abound in red states like Kansas and Iowa, “the error there will be greater if pollsters are missing this cohort again.”

If the polls are right, Republicans see a potential “lifeline” in left-leaning New Hampshire, said Ken Thomas in The Wall Street Journal. John Sununu—a moderate former one-term senator— is narrowly trailing Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, who has for months “been urging the national party to avoid complacency in the battleground state.” Maine, where longtime Sen. Susan Collins is in a tight race with Democrat Troy Jackson, could give Republicans another swing-state win.

But it’s a marker of Republicans’ vulnerability that Democrats have “found an opening in one of America’s reddest states,” said Lauren Egan in The Bulwark. Trump won Kansas by 21 points in 2016, and 16 points in 2024. But Democratic Senate challenger Hamilton has “run a masterful race” pitched to the center—and he’s been aided by Trump policies. Medicaid cuts are squeezing rural health care providers in the state. Its farm industry, already hit hard by tariffs that shrunk exports, is now struggling with the soaring price of diesel for tractors and combines. And ICE raids at meat- processing plants have “enraged” those in the livestock industry.

That Kansas is in play beggars belief, said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. “This stubborn, spiritually rhomboid state” has voted GOP in every federal statewide race “since an aberrational blip at the dawn of the Roosevelt administration.” But such is the effect of Trump’s agenda on “otherwise deep-red, agribusiness heartlands.” I believe Marshall will pull it out, but with rough weather ahead for the GOP, the state is “officially on tornado watch.” The “conditions for a freak event are now fully in place.”

With polls suggesting a potentially historic showing for Democratic candidates in next month’s midterm elections, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has a message for some in his party’s most enthusiastic base: slow down. Should the Democrats take control of one, if not both, chambers of Congress next term, the party should not expend energy impeaching President Donald Trump. Instead, they should focus on a “comprehensive ethics package” that can be used for future accountability. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Emanuel’s message of temperance has not been fully embraced by a party whose base is champing at the bit for change.

Impeachment is ‘going to be a food fight’

If Democrats take the House majority in November as they’re widely expected to do, they should “pass an ethics package” rather than jumping straight into an impeachment effort — “because it’s not going anywhere,” said Emanuel on “Meet the Press” this week. An impeachment push would simply “be a food fight,” signaling a “return to the politics of fighting.”

Polling last month showed government corruption “emerged as the second-highest-rated issue voters were concerned about,” said NBC News. “On the airwaves,” ads about “tackling government corruption and banning congressional stock trading” have “been a top issue” from both parties.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has not thrown his weight behind nascent impeachment efforts, and this “appeared to suggest this summer that it would not be a top priority,” said Fox News. Despite having impeached Trump “twice during his first term,” Democrats this time around “haven’t made much of an effort to impeach the president again,” said The Hill.

‘Wised-up disciplinarian figure’

Moderate Democrats like Emanuel are “laying the groundwork” for ineffective governance by advancing “‘don’t impeach anymore & just get back to work’ messaging,” said Mark Copelovitch, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on Bluesky. Rather than strictly running for office now, Emanuel is “using the midterms to build his base among future Democratic office-holders” ahead of a likely 2028 presidential campaign, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Substack. By framing himself as a “wised-up disciplinarian figure,” Emanuel offers the “same hoary consultant-brewed panacea” he introduced “as one of the initial class of New Democrats in the early 1990s.”

“For decades, conservative evangelicals have controlled the image of the politically active Christian,” said Jia Lynn Yang in The New York Times. The religious right turned tens of millions of Christians who rejected America’s “rapidly liberalizing culture” into a durable voting bloc, enabling Donald Trump’s rise and achieving “once- unthinkable” goals, such as overturning the right to abortion. But as Americans reject the Trump administration’s “litany of moral outrages,” including mass deportation and the withdrawal of food aid and health care, a new coalition may be quietly emerging: the Christian left. The movement’s most prominent spokesman is James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian surging in the polls in his U.S. Senate race in Texas with rhetoric “drawn straight from the Gospels.” At least 12 pastors, seminarians, and former clergy have run for federal office as Democrats this year—a number “ unheard-of in recent memory.” In many red states, these Christian Democrats are gaining ground with voters who see religion as “a moral compass rather than a political agenda.”

Talarico’s progressivism is a “cheap misuse” of Christian teaching, said Rich Lowry in National Review. His rhetoric “waters down the Scriptures” to make it sound like God has endorsed “his version of Medicare for All.” Jesus preached personal charity toward the poor and the sick, but he said nothing about universal health care, food stamps, or government redistribution of wealth. As he tries to win over right- leaning Texans, Talarico has also conveniently backed away from the “extremely woke” views he espoused a few years ago, including his claim that God is “nonbinary.”

The Christian right created this opening, said Moira Donegan in The Guardian. Those hypocrites lost the moral high ground when they embraced the “ostentatious lasciviousness” of Trump and his Epstein- adjacent allies. In Trump’s GOP, “the preachers have retreated, and the perverts have taken over.” It’s no wonder Republicans are panicking, said Amanda Marcotte in Salon. Talarico represents “an existential threat to the Right’s long- standing myth that to be Christian must necessarily mean voting Republican.” The Democratic Party really is “a better fit for people who claim allegiance to Jesus Christ, who called on followers to feed the hungry and welcome the stranger.” One prominent Texas pastor recently preached that there can be only two types of Christians: Christian conservatives and conservative Christians. “They do not want their followers peeking behind door No. 3.”

What was the key factor that propelled Donald Trump back into the White House for a second term? If you’d asked him that a couple of years ago, said Virginia Heffernan in The New Republic, his answer would almost certainly have been the cost of living.

“The beautiful but simple word ‘groceries’,” he once rhapsodised. “I won on that word.” Well, we now know the word on which he’ll likely lose: diesel.

Supply disruptions caused by the Iran and Ukraine wars have had a particularly severe impact on diesel prices: they hit a record high of $6.52 a gallon in the US last week, up from an average of $3.63 at the start of 2025. The price hikes “aim a missile squarely at the voters Trump can least afford to alienate”, such as pickup truck owners, lorry drivers, and farmers in states such as Iowa. By upsetting the “diesel class, Trump may have bitten the final hand that feeds him”.

‘Cheap appeal’

To fix this problem, Trump is toying with the idea of banning US diesel exports, said National Review. The policy has “cheap appeal” ahead of the midterm elections on 3 November, but it would only bring down prices for a short while, and only in some areas. While America makes more diesel than it consumes, pipeline constraints mean that most of it remains relatively close to refining hubs on the Gulf Coast.

Other areas of the US, such the Northeast and the West Coast, largely rely on diesel imports, so would end up paying even higher prices if the US further reduced global supplies of the fuel. What’s more, if Gulf Coast refineries were unable to export diesel, they’d soon run out of storage space for it and have to slash their output. Result? Not just less diesel, but also a reduced volume of other refined products such as petrol and jet fuel.

‘Fake fix’

A diesel export ban wouldn’t help America, agreed Catherine Rampell on The Bulwark. And it would cause major problems for countries that rely on these exports, such as Mexico, the UK and the Netherlands, which trade with the US in other oil-based products, and could well decide to retaliate in some form.

Still, this is the Trump White House we’re talking about – a team of people with “zero policy expertise” and “zero patience”, who care “only about what talking points will get them through the next news cycle, tomorrow’s consequences be damned”. The worse the opinion polls get ahead of the midterms, the more tempted Trump will be to reach for this “fake fix”.

President Donald Trump was impeached twice during his first term. As the midterm elections inch closer, there is impeachment talk in the air again, but this time with a twist. Democrats are now talking about impeaching members of Trump’s Cabinet, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could be first on the list.

What did the commentators say?

Democrats “stumbled” onto the Cabinet-impeachment strategy thanks to Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said MS NOW. Massie, who lost his primary election to a Trump-endorsed opponent, introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth last month. This is a “highly underrated” strategy for forcing accountability on the administration, Massie said to the outlet.

Some party leaders are mum about the idea for now. Democrats “haven’t ruled anything out” if they win the midterms, said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to MS NOW. “And we haven’t ruled anything in.”

Impeaching members of Trump’s Cabinet would be an “effective accountability measure,” said David A. Graham at The Atlantic. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has “done serious damage to American public health,” Hegseth “waged an unauthorized war against Iran” and Attorney General Todd Blanche turned the Justice Department into a “partisan tool for persecuting Trump’s political adversaries.” Cabinet impeachments would focus on “actual administration actions and policy” and avoid a presidential impeachment likely to prove a “dead end.”

An impeachment push could “derail” Democrats’ affordability messaging in the midterms campaign, said Chad Pergram at Fox News. While the party’s “hard left” may demand impeachment “for someone,” this could prove “politically toxic” for scandal-weary voters.

What next?

Hegseth might be particularly vulnerable to an impeachment push, with even GOP members expressing “doubts about his leadership” amid a stalemated war in Iran, said The New York Times. The defense secretary has not “developed any productive relationships, even with Republican members,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to the outlet.

Impeachment is “not a fetish” for Democrats, said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to NBC’s “Meet the Press.” It is a “critical tool.” But the party’s higher priorities after November are “getting healthcare to the American people and ending the lawlessness.”

The price of diesel has hit £2 per litre – the most expensive it has ever been – at a third of UK petrol stations, said The Sun.

This is “uncharted territory”, financial analyst Kathleen Brooks told City A.M. Donald Trump has already sent markets into a “frenzy” by threatening to ban diesel exports from the US, said the same paper. Weakened infrastructure for refining diesel and lower reserves than European counterparts mean the UK could be uniquely “exposed” to any further “ripple effects”, including more price rises.

What did the commentators say?

President Trump is trying to bring diesel prices down for US consumers ahead of the midterm elections in November. If he does decide to ban exports of US diesel, it would “hurt the countries which heavily depend” on it, said the BBC, including the UK. But it might also have “unintended effects that could hurt US production” in the longer term.

Trump’s threats have “highlighted Britain’s over-reliance on the goodwill of other countries” for its diesel needs, said an editorial in The Times. Last year, the UK imported more than 50% of its diesel supply, around a sixth of that from the US.

Our infrastructure depends on it: around 10 million cars, a quarter of the country’s trains, 70% of buses, virtually all tractors and “almost 99% of HGVs” run on diesel. Yet the UK has enough reserves to last for only around six weeks, according to International Energy Forum data, compared to around six months for France, Italy, Spain and Germany.

Breaking the £2 threshold for a litre of diesel should “set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street”, said The Telegraph in an editorial. The government’s response so far has been to remove VAT from energy bills in an attempt to cushion the blow to consumers, but this “hardly addresses the fundamental issues”. As a nation, we have “failed to prepare”, allowing our refining capacity to “wither away” to leave us “dangerously exposed” to market fluctuations beyond our control.

The diesel crisis could “deepen” after the UK’s largest refinery shut down production for up to 10 weeks, said energy editor Jonathan Leake in The Telegraph. The Fawley refinery in Hampshire – which produces “one fifth of the fuel used on UK roads” – has closed for planned maintenance, a move that “will add to fears about another diesel price spike hurting drivers at the pumps”.

In the 1980s, the UK had 18 refineries, but that has dropped to just four. Two closures last year – in Grangemouth, Scotland and Lindsey in Lincolnshire – “slashed UK refinery output by about a third”. Now, any closures, planned or unplanned, temporary or permanent, have a “rapid impact on supplies”.

What next?

“Rising diesel costs aren’t just a problem for drivers generally but a wider inflation threat,” said Sky News. Diesel is the “engine of the UK economy” and shortages would heavily disrupt supply chains and lead to costs being passed on to consumers, particularly in the run-up to Christmas. This is the type of inflation that “worries” the Bank of England, which is “widely tipped” to raise interest rates in November.

Taxes on fuel – which account for “just over half of the cost of a litre” – are also set to rise. Hikes planned by former chancellor Rachel Reeves are set to come into effect in January, but her successor, John Healey, should “question the wisdom of raising prices at the pump at a time when they are clearly inflationary in nature”. As such, they are likely to be “scrapped or further delayed” at the upcoming Budget.

It is a bad year for U.S. farmers. President Donald Trump’s trade wars were already taking a toll, but the Iran war compounded problems by raising fuel and fertilizer costs. Rural regions reliably vote Republican, but Democrats hope for a midterm backlash.

‘Farmers voted for this’

The farm crisis that “threatens to wreck the agricultural heart” of Iowa also threatens to “hurt the fortunes” of Hawkeye State GOP candidates, said Axios. Trump’s policies have “caused such severe financial problems” for corn growers that a state Trump won by 13 points in 2024 now has toss-up races for governor and U.S. Senate. Iowa Republicans “should brace for losing everything," said a GOP consultant to the outlet.

“Farmers voted for this,” Kevin D. Williamson said at The Dispatch. U.S. farmers “rely on imports” for “fertilizer, chemicals, machinery” but they also “keep voting roughly two-to-one” for Trump and his trade wars. The pressing issue: “How much pain it is going to take” for them to change course.

Trump has gone to “surprising” lengths to “infuriate his backers,” Matt K. Lewis said at The Washington Sun. Farmers are an “integral part of his coalition.” His tariffs and stalemated war have created the possibility that voters in solidly red “heartland” states such as Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas “will vote blue this year.” It is “difficult to explain” why the president has gone this route.

‘Formula for revolt’

Democrats are trying to “make a play” for the farm vote, said MS NOW. Trump won 69% of rural voters during his last campaign. Now, 57% of those same voters “disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.”

“The Midwest is a trouble spot” for Republicans in the midterms because of Trump’s tariffs, Rich Lowry said at the National Review. Agricultural exports to China “fell by 66%,” as Beijing “cut its purchases of U.S. farm products in retaliation” for the president’s trade war. Add war-driven increases in fuel and fertilizer prices, and “it’s a formula for a revolt.”

The midterm elections are looming as a milestone in the Iran war. President Donald Trump declined a ceasefire proposal from Tehran last week, reportedly because he expects to restart U.S. attacks after the vote. And Iran’s leaders may be betting that election pressure can force the White House to make concessions.

‘Midterm election problem’

The president expects to start a new round of bombing “after the November midterms,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump on Friday rejected a proposed ceasefire that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

Iranian leaders, however, say they want to make a deal “before Americans head to the polls this November,” said NBC News. “We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said to reporters at last week’s United Nations assembly, per NBC.

It is “highly unusual” for U.S. elections to “affect a war,” David Shribman said at The Globe and Mail. The “only precedent” for electoral considerations influencing war strategy so directly came in 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson halted bombing in North Vietnam “to help his vice-president, Hubert Humphrey,” in the presidential election. Humphrey lost.

Trump has a “midterm election problem” with the war, said Al Jazeera. Voters who were “promised easy victory” appear poised to punish Republicans in November, which affects strategic considerations. Iran “faces no such countdown,” given that it is “ruled by an unelected Supreme Leader.”

‘Potentially endless’ war

If the elections are affecting war strategy, the war is also affecting elections. U.S. voters are “angry” at the president and his party, Stephen Collinson said at CNN. Just 26% of voters “approve of his handling of the war.” Trump’s “odd” strategy is to give them the “opposite of what they want,” as he refuses to “listen to their fears.”

This is “hardly a recipe for success” in elections, said Collinson. A “potentially endless” war against Iran might be a mistake that gets the GOP’s most devoted voters to “finally ditch Trump,” David Wallace-Wells said at The New York Times.

President Donald Trump has dominated the GOP for a decade. But that hold may be slipping, as Republicans prepare for an anticipated “blue wave” in the midterm elections driven by his unpopularity. Conservative candidates are starting to break with Trump, and the right’s pundits are rooting them on.

‘Trumpism is exhausted’

Trump has “become a real liability” for GOP candidates, said The Boston Globe. Senate candidates Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Mike Rogers of Michigan called for an end to the war with Iran, as did incumbent Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio. (Husted voted Thursday against a measure to withdraw troops, however.) The break “isn’t about just one issue,” either. Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) last week criticized the president’s immigration policy, while Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) called for an investigation into the Russian oligarch who paid for Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding reception. There may be nothing “stopping a full-on revolt” against Trump’s brand.

MAGA acolytes could once argue that Trump’s agenda is “what Americans voted for in 2024,” Jim Geraghty said at The Washington Post. But polls now suggest that the electorate is “sick and tired of this version of Trump” and that “Trumpism is exhausted.” The mood was especially apparent in Vice President JD Vance’s recent plea to voters to “give us another chance.” That is not a “particularly inspiring rallying cry,” Geraghty said. Republicans have to decide if they still want to be the party of tariffs, enmity toward Canada and mass deportations to remove every “agricultural worker, hotel maid and restaurant busboy.” Vance, if he wants to save his own ambitions, will need to lead the way. “The clock is ticking.”

The GOP under Trump has “blown one of the great opportunities in political history,” Gerard Baker said at The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s election in 2024 was a “real chance to establish a new governing order” favorable to conservatives, and the president could have succeeded by controlling the border, reining in prices and keeping the U.S. out of “costly, ineffective” foreign wars. Trump instead has “widened the deficit,” levied tariffs and set off on a “reckless military adventure” that is damaging the U.S. economy. All due to “hubris, vanity, recklessness” and the GOP’s “abdication of accountability.”

‘Wide open’ GOP future

Polling shows that Trump is “slipping significantly with his own party,” pollster G. Elliott Morris said at Strength in Numbers. His approval rating with Republican and GOP-leaning independent voters remains high at 71%. But that is still an “11-point drop and the lowest we have recorded.” Those GOP defections have helped drive the president’s overall voter approval ratings to new lows.

This could be the beginning of a longer process for the Republican Party. The GOP candidates breaking with one or two Trump policies today “might be repudiating parts of his legacy tomorrow,” Andrew Prokop said at Vox. If Republicans truly start to believe that Trump is a “failure,” then a full-on reassessment could occur. The party’s future “will be wide open.”

The music was loud, the flags were everywhere, and the “sense of panic” was inescapable, said Nikki McCann Ramirez in Rolling Stone. With Election Day less than two months away, and polls showing Republicans in danger of losing both the House and Senate, the GOP earlier this month held its first-ever midterm convention in Dallas. The MAGA luminaries addressing “Trumpapalooza” barely mentioned soaring gas prices or the quagmire in Iran, the related catastrophes that have dragged Trump’s approval rating down into the mid-30s. Instead, they gushed over Trump’s leadership; warned of an America overrun by Islamists, “killer migrants,” and trans athletes if “evil” Democrats win, and left it to Trump himself, addressing both nights of the event, to rally the MAGA faithful. But “the cult of Trump is waning,” said Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times. Speaking to thousands of unfilled seats—many left empty by swing-state candidates who skipped the event—Trump had attendees pledge allegiance to him personally, “the greatest president in the history of the United States,” and promise to “cheat like hell” in November. In what is surely one of our Republic’s lowest moments, Trump promised a $5,000 “dividend check” to every American, if Republicans win the midterms. “Far from juicing turnout” for the GOP, Trumpapalooza may have just “reminded the voting public” of why they need to elect Democrats.

Trump did make some questionable choices, said David M. Drucker in Bloomberg. He mocked voters’ affordability anxieties. He ridiculed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, now trailing Democrat James Talarico in the race for Texas’ open Senate seat, saying, “I don’t really like the way he looks.” But Trump may have accomplished his main goal: to have his die-hard supporters “pretend that I’m on the ballot.” Still, Republicans’ bigger problem is the president’s “evaporating support among GOP regulars who have never been Trump’s biggest fans.” Perhaps the promise of a “$5,000 payoff” will motivate some, but the fact that “Trump was compelled to resort to this sort of dubious measure is revealing.”

“No one is falling” for Trump’s dividend “gimmick,” said The Washington Post in an editorial. Congress would need to approve the payout, and not even the GOP’s Trumpified House delegation wants any part of a vote-buying scheme that would turbocharge inflation and add another $1.2 trillion to the $40 trillion national debt. Trump’s “$5,000-check promise may be the moment he finally underestimated his audience,” said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Does he really think voters have forgotten the DOGE “refund” checks that were supposedly in the mail? Or the “tariff rebate” checks he also promised? Trump’s free-money “ruse,” like the rest of his shtick, has “worn thin.”

“Republicans’ best hope,” said Dana Milbank in The Washington Sun, is that most voters weren’t paying attention. The convention’s first night coincided with the NFL’s season opener, and while 25 million Americans tuned in to see the Seahawks beat the Patriots, only 3 million chose to watch Trump rhapsodize about his gilded ballroom. Viewership didn’t improve on night two, when Vice President JD Vance delighted the crowd by telling a protester with a Mexican flag to “get your ass” to Mexico. Vance’s Trumpy zinger underscored the predicament for a party that renounced all ideological commitments to become a “cult of personality.” When Trump leaves the scene, and a midterm drubbing would mark the beginning of his end, there may be nothing left but a “hollow shell.”

President Donald Trump won the White House in 2024 while making inroads among Latino voters despite his ardent promise of an immigration crackdown. Two years later, the reality of that crackdown is producing a backlash that could cost Republicans control of the House and Senate.

What did the commentators say?

There is “mounting political worry” among Republican candidates that the president’s “heavy-handed” immigration policies will “cost the GOP” in November, said Axios. The clearest sign of that backlash: Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) unveiled a new ad warning Trump that his policies have gone too far for Latino voters. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” she said in the advertisement.

The 900,000 Cuban-American voters who live in Salazar’s Miami-Dade County district have long proven “reliably Republican,” said Al Jazeera, but last year’s election of Miami’s first Democratic mayor in three decades “fueled speculation of a political shift under way.” One reason for that shift: The Trump administration has deported Cubans “who have lived in the country for decades,” often to “third-party countries, where they have no ties.”

Latino Americans are “losing faith in the American Dream,” American University’s Diana Orcés said at The Conversation. Two years ago, surveys showed that 52% of those voters believed that “if you work hard, you’ll get ahead” in the United States. The number has slipped to 40%. They now feel “less safe, less welcome and more like strangers in their own country” no matter whether they are Republican, Democrat or independent.

The 2024 vote was trumpeted as the beginning of a “permanent political realignment in the GOP’s favor,” Ed Kilgore said at New York magazine. But the president has since “alienated a lot of the voters” he won in that election. A poll for The Cook Political Report and TelevisaUnivision found Democratic candidates leading among Texas Latinos by a two-to-one margin. Another survey by Hart Research and Univision found Democrats leading among Florida Latinos by 13 percentage points. A Democratic victory in November “will owe a lot to Trump’s actions alienating Latinos.”

“It’s all about dignity,” León Krauze said at The Washington Post. Democrats will have to tread carefully. Latino voters broadly have “nuanced” views on immigration and will need to be courted not just on migration issues but also with “promises of economic renewal.”

What next?

Latino voters have the “most voting power” in the districts where “Congress will be decided,” Juan Wulff said at VoteHub. Those voters could be a “defining force, especially in deciding the makeup of the House.”

But Latinos are “not necessarily turning Democrat,” said American Community Media. The demographic appears to be “swingy,” Equis Research’s María Isabel Di Franco Quiñonez said to the outlet. This, said the outlet, makes those voters “one of the most consequential and unpredictable electorates in the 2026 midterms.”

Longtime GOP official and current nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner Bo French forced state Republicans into a defensive crouch this week after he published a racist social media post targeting nonwhite students at the University of Texas. While far from French’s first instance of online bigotry, the post garnered heavy pushback from high-profile GOP figures — and conspicuous hesitation to do so from others.

As Texas Republicans brace for what has become a particularly daunting midterm cycle, French’s outburst highlights a deepening schism. Lone Star State conservatives are waffling over how much prejudice the party can — and should — tolerate.

‘Scorched with scorn’

Republicans in Texas were “already fretting about slipping support with voters of color” before French “posted a photo of a crowd of University of Texas football fans, most of them people of color, saying, ‘the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,’” said Politico. French’s comments, which “appeared to target South Asian students,” sent state Republicans “into a frenzy” over the potential “impact the rhetoric could have on GOP candidates up and down the ballot.”

“Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism or look the other way while it becomes normalized?” said outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on X. “This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.” French’s post “has crossed the line” between opposing immigration policy and “demeaning people because of their race or ethnicity,” said Republican State House Speaker Dustin Burrows on the same platform.

Burrows is also leading a “coordinated effort called the ‘One Party, One Mission’ tour” to “unify the Texas Republican ticket,” said South Plains College Associate Professor of Government Drew Landry at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Despite French having been “scorched with scorn” by some of his fellow Republicans, “one must question” Burrows’ campaign and ask whether a candidate like French can “fit within the Speaker’s unity message?” If those who condemned him ultimately vote for him as the Republican candidate, “then their condemnation holds no water.”

‘Anti-Bo is anti-America’

Although a “handful of high-profile Republicans” have called on French to delete his offending posts, the candidate has so far “duly ignored them and instead leaned in,” said HuffPost. French’s latest comments have “exposed a growing divide among Texas Republicans,” said the Houston Chronicle’s Chron.com.

While many GOP figures have condemned the nominee, others “have defended him or declined to criticize him,” said Chron.com. French’s post is “not my message,” said Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in a statement to The New York Times. Abbott, however, did “not explicitly condemn” French’s post, said Times reporter Bayliss Wagner on X. The Texas Oil & Gas Association “unequivocally and without reservation condemns” French’s post, said the group in a statement. But the association “has not withdrawn its endorsement” for French to head the agency that “regulates the Texas oil and gas industry,” said The Texan.

Most of the Republicans denouncing French are “just trying to feign relevancy” ahead of their own electoral losses, said Julie McCarty, an influential Republican activist and CEO of the conservative True Texas Project, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Anyone anti-Bo is anti-America.”

When French “unleashed a string of inflammatory social media posts” last year, multiple GOP officials called on him to resign as chair of the Tarrant County GOP, said Politico. Republicans today are hesitant to demand the same “because that might mean that there would be a Democrat elected statewide,” said B. Glen Whitley, a Republican former Tarrant County judge, to the outlet. “That’s the bottom line.”

President Donald Trump last week promised to send a $5,000 check to every U.S. adult — but only if Republicans win the midterm elections. Polls prove voters are skeptical, Trump’s GOP allies in Congress are leery and experts say a mass payout might add to the growing national debt. The president, meanwhile, says the payments will “happen 100%.”

What did the commentators say?

Polls show people “narrowly oppose” the checks and “don’t expect them to materialize,” said Axios. Sixty-one percent of likely voters doubt Trump will keep his word and feel it’s unclear “whether Republicans have the will to make” the checks a “reality.” The pledge looks like a “publicity stunt, and I don’t think that it’s ever gonna happen,” one voter said to Fox News. The president made previous vows to send out big checks — $5,000 from DOGE savings, $2,000 tariff rebates — that never came. “This isn’t America’s first rodeo with Trump’s check promises,” said Axios.

The $1 trillion-plus cost of Trump’s financial guarantee “would be enormously expensive to fulfill,” and there is little sense of where the money would come from, said The New York Times. The “conceit” of the aborted DOGE and tariff check pitches was that “money to pay for them was already available,” but the “envisioned funding sources proved illusory.” The president did deliver big tax cuts last year in the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” but that was provided by “reducing federal spending on healthcare and food assistance for poor Americans.”

Funds for $5,000 checks would not come “from taxpayer money,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said to NBC News. Cash could come from sources like the administration’s new stake in chipmaker Nvidia or the “Trump Platinum Card” that lets wealthy foreigners pay $5 million to extend their U.S. visas. “We’re going to pay that money to the Americans.”

There are “reasons to be skeptical” of Trump’s claims, Larry Persily said at the Anchorage Daily News. The federal government is already $40 trillion in debt, and the president “lacks the legal authority to issue a dividend on a whim, whether it’s $5 or $5,000.” There are more honest options on the ballot than to “vote Republican and wait for the $5,000 check that will never arrive.”

What next?

Trump doubled down on his commitment this week. The U.S. government is “taking in tremendous amounts of money,” he said to reporters, per USA Today. He will not press to send out checks before the election because “our country will be in shambles” if Democrats win the midterms. But the “$5,000 is going to happen” if Republicans win.

Republicans have usually claimed the faith mantle in U.S. politics. This year’s midterm elections are developing along a different path, with Democrats like James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas highlighting their religious bona fides on the campaign trail.

What did the commentators say?

“Faith is back in Democratic politics,” Jim Wallis said at Religion News Service. Democrats have often chosen to “ignore, dismiss or even discredit religion” because they did not know how to talk about such values without sounding as though they were “imposing their religion upon a pluralistic society.” But a new generation of “faith-forward” candidates is “reclaiming religion” as a “moral framework for public service.” They talk of faith “with authenticity instead of apology.” There could be broad benefits. “Faith may be our last line of defense in saving, and then restoring, our democracy.”

Democratic Socialists have received a lot of attention this campaign cycle, “but Democratic Christians may prove more influential this November,” Bill McKibben said at The New Yorker. Candidates like Talarico and Hamilton are leading a “resurgence of the once dominant and long-dormant mainline Protestant tradition” in Democratic politics. Their prominence can be seen as a response to the “right-wing evangelical hijacking of the Gospel message” and evangelicals’ embrace of Donald Trump. “Everyone should welcome a new depth to the debate.”

Other faith-centric Democrats in this year’s midterm elections include Iowa’s Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister, and Arkansas’ Robb Ryerse, an evangelical pastor. Iowa’s Rob Sand is not a pastor, but his campaign has featured messaging about “how his faith is deeply woven into his public service,” Vote Common Good’s Doug Pagitt said at The Hill.

A “sense of belonging” is important in “both religion and politics,” said Pagitt, but Republicans are “narrowing their definition of who belongs and which faith matters” with conservative Christian Nationalist rhetoric. Democrats have an opportunity to “welcome those Trump is denying.”

Democratic efforts to “reclaim God” are “unlikely to succeed” unless the party moves toward the center, Eric Teetsel said at The Washington Post. Barack Obama embraced religious rhetoric during his rise to the presidency, but once in the White House he advanced causes — abortion access, LGBT rights — that were “at odds with evangelical priorities.” Today’s progressive Christians are “not reaching out to religious voters by taking a more moderate stance” on transgender rights or euthanasia. Trump is problematic, but he has been able to “achieve reasonable policy wins consistent with a Christian understanding of the good.”

What next?

Republicans are pushing back. Democratic candidates “don’t profess the true gospel of Jesus Christ,” Iowa congressional candidate Joe Mitchell said at July’s Family Leadership Summit, per Religion News Service. Democrats also have to figure out how to speak the language of faith without alienating the large number of secular voters who make up their base, said ABC News. Achieving that balance is a “tricky road,” the University of Notre Dame’s David Campbell said to the outlet. Some candidates “do it better than others.”

President Donald Trump last week promised to send $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans win the midterm elections. But he is seemingly intent on making the election a referendum on his increasingly unpopular presidency, doubling down on policies — data centers, tariffs, war with Iran — disfavored by voters. That leads some observers to wonder if he really cares about GOP victories in November.

What did the commentators say?

Trump is “not spending a ton of his mind share on the races,” White House reporter Maggie Haberman said to The New York Times. The president believes GOP candidates “should be doing more to defend what he sees as his many accomplishments,” and he is committing the bulk of his time to “legacy projects” like the “triumphal arch, the ballroom on the White House complex, his goldification of the Oval Office” instead of policy and governance.

Trump has reportedly told advisers that he is “proud” that Republican candidates “don’t do as well when he’s not on the ballot,” said Haberman. His administration’s efforts to exert control over the elections process, however, remains a “significant X-factor” in the midterm election outcome.

House and Senate candidates usually try to “detach themselves from the national brand” when their party’s president is down in the polls, Jonathan Chait said at The Atlantic. Trump is making that “impossible,” launching a national ad campaign “focused on himself” and holding last week’s GOP convention highlighting the “synonymity of the party and its leader” to voters. The president “probably” cares about the midterms outcome “but not enough to permit Republicans to acknowledge his lack of popularity.” All of this makes sense if it is understood that “Trump’s interest in politics is purely egocentric.” But it leaves Republican candidates in a tough spot.

The president’s ideological allies are also perplexed. Trump “often sounds as if he’s campaigning against the Republican Senate,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. GOP seats in “at least six races are in serious jeopardy,” and even traditional red states like Kansas and Nebraska are looking shaky for Republicans. But Trump has made it difficult for his party by launching a “tariff brawl” with Canada and working to oust GOP incumbents like Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. If Republicans lose their majority in the Senate, Trump will be the “main reason” why.

What next?

The president is “signaling that he might not accept the outcome” if Republicans lose in November, Bruce Stokes said at Chatham House. A Democratic win in the House or Senate would likely lead to two years of investigations into Trump’s “corporate donors and alleged ‘pay-to-play’ arrangements, and investments by foreign sovereign wealth funds in Trump family-linked businesses.” That provides a “powerful incentive” for Trump to “undermine the outcome of the election.” American democracy “may never be quite the same again” if the president tries once again to reject an election loss.

With the 2026 midterm elections two months away, Republicans have been ratcheting up their verbal assaults on Democratic candidates of Muslim faith. While these attacks have most notably come against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, they may be emblematic of a larger GOP campaign against Muslims.

What are Republicans saying about Muslims?

El-Sayed has become a lightning rod for a host of anti-Muslim sentiment, including from the Trump administration. The Senate candidate is part of something “very, very evil” that is “on the rise in the United States,” Vice President JD Vance said during a speech in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights. President Donald Trump has referred to Democratic candidates as “jihadists” and also called El-Sayed a “communist who hates Jews and Israel.” El-Sayed has disavowed accusations of antisemitism.

Republicans in Congress have recently been pumping up similar attacks against Islam as a whole. “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse” and a “threat to both national security and our republic,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said on X. A similar sentiment was echoed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “The enemy is at the gates,” Tuberville said on X in response to a photograph of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is also Muslim. In Tuberville’s own state of Alabama, Muslims “make ‌up less than half a percent of the population,” said Reuters.

Why is this the new GOP tactic?

Anti-Muslim rhetoric has “quickly become a central aspect” of the Republicans’ strategy to win the midterms, as “Muslim and Arab American political power is growing across the country,” said The New York Times. The “number of Muslim Americans running for — and winning — local, state and federal elections has steadily increased over the past decade.” There are currently 255 Muslim elected officials across 26 states, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

There has been an “escalation of messaging designed to raise alarm about Muslim Americans and Muslim candidates,” said NBC News. The Islamophobia in politics is nothing new, as it “began cropping up more pointedly 25 years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11, and it hardened as Trump began his rise.” Since then, the “undercurrent of concern and fears raised by politicians around Muslim Americans has remained steady.”

Critics say the “rhetoric unfairly targets Muslims, while Republicans say they are raising legitimate concerns about security, extremism and the role of religion in public life,” said Reuters. “If you can wrap yourself in the flag ​and you can criticize Muslims and Islam, that means you don’t ​really have to deal with the issues,” Aaron Hughes, a religious studies professor at the University of Rochester, said to Reuters. These attacks come even though many Muslims have beliefs that “dovetail with Republican orthodoxy, such as opposition to some abortion procedures and same-sex marriage.”

Others feel that Republicans “may have trouble with anti-Islam messaging heading into the midterms,” said Spectrum News. If any “candidate in the midterms wants to engage in questionable campaign behavior and make outlandish statements, this may not be something that voters are going to go for, even in a relatively conservative area,” Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, a professor of political science at the University of North Texas, told the outlet. Voters “care about core issues like cost of living, and social wars probably aren’t going to fly in a 2026 midterm election with a Republican president in office.”

Polls show data centers are broadly unpopular with both Democratic and Republican voters. President Donald Trump is championing the tech facilities anyway, raising concerns among his GOP allies that he is hitching the party to a losing issue ahead of the midterm elections.

What did the commentators say?

Communities will only reject data centers “if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. The president “knows the polling on data centers is bad,” said Politico, but sees them as one of the country’s “few investment engines humming in an otherwise sputtering economy.” His outspoken defense of the centers puts him at odds with GOP Senate candidates Mike Rogers in Michigan and Ken Paxton in Texas who have worked to “distance themselves” from the Big Tech companies building the facilities. Tech companies have “overplayed their hand and overstayed their welcome,” former White House strategist Steve Bannon said to the outlet.

“Has Mr. Trump lost his populist touch?” Matthew Continetti said at The Wall Street Journal. Not exactly. The president’s populism has “always had a pro-growth streak,” and his support of data centers reflects his belief that “national economic development” is the key to winning the United States’ “strategic competition” with China. AI is “supercharging investment and GDP” and is one area where the U.S. has a “qualitative edge” over its rivals. Republicans should not go down an “antigrowth, antidevelopment rabbit hole” but instead work to address “reasonable” concerns about data centers “without sacrificing economic prosperity and American prestige.”

The president is “losing touch with the public,” David A. Graham said at The Atlantic. Polls show that three-fourths of Americans “oppose a data center being built near where they live.” Politicians as disparate as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have critiqued the centers and put themselves on the side of voters. Trump’s defense of data centers puts him in the “unusual position of misreading, and opposing, a populist groundswell.”

Why the misstep? The president has surrounded himself with Big Tech figures like David Sacks and Larry Ellison, and “his financial disclosures show he’s become more of a tech investor,” said Graham. He is also spending less time giving speeches and hosting rallies where he can directly gauge voter sentiment. Trump is “not hearing from voters who might alert him to how unpopular data centers are.”

What next?

Democrats see Trump’s embrace of data centers as a “gift” ahead of the midterm elections, said The Hill. They are also reminding voters that nearly every Republican in Congress voted for the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that “encourages the construction of new data centers by providing generous tax credits” for their construction. GOP candidates “are taking their cues from the public backlash, rather than the president.” But the president’s fierce advocacy “does cause some challenges for members,” a GOP operative said to the outlet.

What happened

President Donald Trump capped off the first night of an unusual Republican midterm convention on Wednesday with a movie-length speech in which he defended his Iran war and tariffs while also saying he would send all U.S. adults a $5,000 “Trump dividend” if Republicans retain both houses of Congress in the November elections. “Please pretend that I am running,” he told the partially full arena in Dallas. Trump was preceded by a string of Republican candidates and Cabinet members, many of whom attacked Democrats as “communists,” and a surprise video appearance by Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).

Who said what

Trump “reveled in making the upcoming elections all about himself,” The Associated Press said. But his “financially and politically implausible” dividend pledge reflects his “apparent calculation that he needs bold moves to revive Republicans’ chances” amid “his low approval ratings.” The payouts would cost about $1.2 trillion, Politico said, which “would dwarf the amount distributed during the Covid pandemic and likely explode the deficit” and “worsen inflation.”

Trump’s “DOGE divided” and tariff rebate checks “never panned out,” The New York Times said. And “there’s reason to think that Republicans in Congress, like they did with his two previous promises of quick cash, could shrug off the president’s suggestion.” The “Trump dividend” is a “last-ditch bid to prevent an electoral shellacking,” The Wall Street Journal said. But the GOP’s “all-Trump-all-the-time strategy” could also “drive away independent voters.”

What next?

Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to give Thursday’s keynote address, but Trump is closing out the convention’s second and final night.

What happened

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday rejected an emergency appeal from Missouri Republican officials to pause last week’s unanimous state Supreme Court ruling that a new congressional map is void and can’t be used in the upcoming midterm elections. But shortly after Kavanaugh’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark ruled in a separate case that Missouri can’t use any map other than the new one, designed to net Republicans one House seat as part of President Donald Trump’s mid-decade redistricting push.

Who said what

“Taken together, the dueling court orders left Missouri where it began,” The New York Times said, with “no agreement about which congressional map should be in effect in November and no immediate route to resolving that question.” Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) said on X that the state is “prepared to follow and comply with” the ruling from Clark, a Trump appointee. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) on Tuesday night instructed local election officials to use the new map, which was also used in last month’s primaries at his direction.

What next?

People Not Politicians, the group fighting the GOP gerrymander, asked Clark to stay his ruling, appealed it to the U.S. 8th Circuit Court and asked the Missouri Supreme Court to hold Hoskins in contempt for violating its order to use the 2022 maps. Missouri must start sending out absentee ballots Sept. 19.

This week’s midterm GOP convention in Dallas will be a “rally like none other” and a “truly Historic Event,” President Donald Trump said on Truth Social in June when he first announced his unexpected plans for an off-season conservative confab. Despite Trump’s enthusiasm, not everyone in the GOP is making the trek to Texas — especially during a brutal campaign cycle that has pushed many battleground Republicans into an electoral crouch.

What did the commentators say?

Republicans are “privately questioning” whether Trump’s midterm convention “strikes the right tone amid the electorate’s tightening budgets,” all while “diverting candidates from their districts just weeks out from Election Day,” said CNN. The “overarching fear,” though, is that an event “once dubbed ‘Trumpapalooza’” will end up being “far more about promoting the president than the candidates who are actually on the ballot.”

Republicans are staring down a “bleak political environment” in which Trump’s approval is at a “record low,” said The New York Times. GOP candidates in battleground races may therefore be “keeping their distance” from Trump’s Dallas rally, “choosing to stay home and campaign instead.” Republicans face “growing hesitation” about associating themselves with the “polarizing president so close to the election,” said Politico. “More than 70 GOP candidates and members” polled by the outlet revealed that “most either do not plan to attend or are still weighing whether to go.”

“I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention,” Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), who faces a “tough campaign to keep his central Michigan seat,” said to Politico. “But I can control where I’m at, what I’m doing.”

Still, party officials see the convention as their “best opportunity to rally voters behind Trump’s agenda,” said Reuters, even as some “remain skeptical” that the event can “meaningfully shift voter sentiment.” For organizers, the convention is “expected to serve a familiar purpose as a fundraising and networking hub for candidates and donors.” Many will feel “obliged ​to attend” in order to “court donors and raise their profiles through media appearances,” said RNC member Oscar Brock to the outlet.

Although traditionally “major party conventions” orient themselves around a “specific item of business” such as “formally nominating” candidates, the Dallas convention has “no such line items,” said The New Republic. Steep attendance costs reflect that the event has been “billed as a big Republican party” for which House members are asked to pay a “minimum of $25,000 to get in the door with a guest,” with “better packages” fetching “closer to $100,000.” The event also features multiple “corporate sponsors” whose funds are “being dumped into a nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors.”

Given the peculiar funding and “poor planning,” many GOP campaign strategists are “seething” that the convention is “little more than a fundraiser for an unnecessary Trump production,” said Puck. And then “there are the optics” of an event scheduled days after the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “Imperfect timing, perhaps,” for officials to be “photographed carousing in elephant hats with the party’s wealthy elite.”

Compounding those optics concerns is the convention being scheduled for the “same nights as the first two games of the NFL season,” said CNN. Primetime speakers, presumably the GOP’s heaviest-hitting figures, will be forced to compete with the “most-watched sport in the country.”

What next?

The convention is scheduled to last two days, said Texas Republican consultant Brendan Steinhauser to The Hill. “Not two weeks.” The short time frame won’t be “taking away from anything else,” and so long as the event is a “net positive financially” and makes use of the time to “deliver a message,” then “it’s a good thing.”

What happened

A man armed with two handguns and a Taser charged toward Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dr. Amy Acton on Sunday as she addressed a crowd at the Canfield Fair, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said. The man, Patrick Havas, knocked down at least two elderly people but was stopped before he reached Acton and did not draw his weapons, police said.

Who said what

The apparent attack attempt came as the “unofficial start of the campaign sprint” kicked off on Labor Day weekend, Reuters said, and President Donald Trump’s “deep unpopularity is imperiling Republican chances” of keeping control of Congress and state offices. Acton’s “closer-than-expected race” against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy “has become extraordinarily toxic,” The Washington Post said. Ohio politicians from both parties condemned Sunday’s political violence, which a Ramaswamy spokesperson called “completely unacceptable.”

What next?

Havas, 38, was booked in the Mahoning County ​Jail for disorderly conduct and two counts of assault. Even before the Labor Day kickoff, this year’s “campaigns already have been combative, busy and expensive,” The Associated Press said, and “they are expected to get even more so” as “voters tune in ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.”

“Now is the twilight of Donald Trump’s supremacy,” said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. The US is “still the richest and most heavily armed nation on Earth”, and the president – indulged by a “supine” Congress – still has far-reaching powers. Nevertheless, with more than two years of his second term still to run, Trump looks “thwarted and impotent”.

‘Deranged demands’

History will record that the disastrous war against Iran was a “turning point”. But evidence of his policy failures can be seen all around the world. Canada, citing unreasonable last-minute demands from US negotiators, has promised all-out trade war. The Ukraine conflict is as bloody as ever, despite Trump’s promise to end it. Europe, horrified by his indulgence of Vladimir Putin and his “deranged demands” for Greenland, has turned away. In the Middle East, America’s allies are furious that they’re bearing the brunt of Iran’s attacks. And at home, fuel prices are rising, and electoral disaster is looming: November’s midterms are set to flip the House of Representatives, and maybe the Senate too, against the Republicans.

In a matter of months, Trump has “burned through decades of accumulated goodwill” across the democratic world, said Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph. “He has created a sense that it is better to be America’s enemy than its friend, for it buys its enemies and sells its friends.” Never once has Trump spoken about Putin in the way he talks about Canadians, Danes, South Koreans and other partners.

‘Erratic behaviour’

A couple of years ago, it would have seemed impossible, said The Spectator. Now it’s quite normal for Washington, in its dealings with its allies, to threaten economic coercion, the withdrawal of military support, and even outright annexation. When Russia behaves like this, it is sanctioned. But in the case of the US, we sit back and do nothing.

There are still some who believe that “Trump’s erratic behaviour is part of a cunning plan to discombobulate opponents and get his way”, said Sam Freedman on Substack. The truth, as his lack of success makes clear, is simpler: “this guy is in obvious cognitive decline, ill-informed, and doesn’t know what he’s doing”.

Worse may be to come, said The Economist. Many would be delighted if “a fuming, friendless Mr Trump, so weakened by his own blunders and by plunging approval ratings” were to retreat to the White House to “tinker with plans for his ballroom”. Alas, that is not in his character. He’ll be less a “lame duck”, and more an ageing “silverback gorilla” – lashing out ever more viciously at anyone within his reach. “Now that his dominance is threatened, the world will find him more disruptive than ever.”

What happened

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Thursday canceled all House business for the final two weeks of September, leaving just four days for voting and other legislative activity before the Nov. 3 midterms. That’s a reversal from just days ago. “Republicans are here to work,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “We are going to work all the way through September.”

Who said what

Johnson’s decision to shrink the calendar “comes as candidates agitate to get back on the campaign trail,” Politico said. It also “severely” curtails “what had been a full legislative calendar for September,” though “GOP leaders continue to struggle to maintain control of the House floor.”

The government is now funded through December. But among other consequences, the canceled workdays are “threatening to delay a bipartisan push to crack down on sexual misconduct in Congress,” Axios said. The reforms are “something that everybody wants,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (N.M.), the top Democrat on a task force set up to address the issue, told Axios.

What next?

After the House wraps up its next four-day workweek on Sept. 17, lawmakers “will return again for a lame duck session on Nov. 9,” kicking off five final weeks of scheduled “legislative business before the end of the 119th Congress,” said ABC News.

Democrats are broadcasting cautious optimism as they head into the final stretch ahead of the 2026 midterms. As the party out of power, they are traditionally favored to make major gains when polls close in November. Republicans are meanwhile scrambling to defend their congressional majorities in the face of historic headwinds and flagging popularity.

While each of the hundreds of midterm races is a unique contest shaped by the variety of candidates and communities therein, there are certain issues that have emerged as electoral inflection points. Rising costs of living, increasingly heavy-handed immigration actions and a raging debate over transgender inclusion are just some of the factors that will likely determine who controls Congress — and to what end — come January.

Cost of living

Democrats have “gained a significant edge” over Republicans on “voter perceptions” about which party is better suited to address the rising cost of living, said Reuters. For the past year, voters have “signaled the cost of living will be the most important factor” in their midterm choices. Trump, however, has “mostly dismissed concerns about the high cost of living during his second term,” said Roll Call, “including the price of gasoline” since “joining Israel in an armed conflict with Iran.” Although it was the “financial frustration of a pandemic-weary electorate” that helped push Trump back into office in 2024, the president’s “actions in office have complicated, if not undermined,” many of his promises for financial relief, said The New York Times.

Data centers

The ongoing debate over data centers is “suddenly at the epicenter of the midterm elections,” said The New York Times. Politicians of all stripes are “racing to tap into the backlash — or inoculate themselves” — from what has become an “unusually fast-moving force that is already reshaping races for the House, the Senate and governor’s mansions.” $31 million has been spent this year on data center-focused political ads, “spiking” in July when “more than 8% of all campaign spending on broadcast TV went to data center or AI-related spots,” said CNN. This is “up significantly” from “less than 1% of ads last year.”

Because of the “huge tracts of land” needed to accommodate mammoth computing warehouses, tech companies have “been exploring deeper into rural America,” said PBS News. That has, in turn, “united conservative ranching and farming communities” with “left-leaning environmental advocacy groups” over their “combined concern.”

Donald Trump

Despite being the “most potent force in Republican primary elections,” Trump himself “may soon be something entirely different for Republican candidates,” said The New York Times: a “liability.” Trump’s approval is “well underwater” thanks to “rising prices and an unpopular war.” Accordingly, Democrats have moved to target battleground Republican candidates by “tying them” to the president in the hopes they can “ride voter anger with his administration to congressional majorities.”

Trump may be “on a mission to burnish his legacy,” said The Wall Street Journal, but some GOP insiders “privately worry that Trump’s focus on himself is backfiring with voters.” For his part, the president has reportedly decided to “lean into the Democratic strategy of focusing on himself,” said The Atlantic. To that end, Trump has commissioned a “series of television advertisements about his own record” that will “serve as a backdrop to the hundreds of individual House and Senate contests.”

Gas prices

Republicans may have “hammered Democrats on gas prices” during the 2024 national elections, said Politico. But with prices “soaring” again amid ongoing hostilities with Iran, “this time, the roles are reversed.” This year already, approximately “two-thirds of ads mentioning gas prices” are from Democratic candidates and groups.

Rising gas prices are “becoming a major concern” for voters and “GOP lawmakers trying to hold onto their seats” alike, said MS NOW. Historical electoral analysis holds that incumbents “tend to pay a more significant electoral price” in midterm races “when costs at the pump are higher.” In March, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee purchased a suite of social media ads about rising fuel costs that targeted “about four dozen battleground districts” the party “believes can be flipped,” said USA Today.

Immigration

Republican lawmakers and candidates are hoping to “reverse the damage” that Trump’s deportations and immigration policies have done to voters, said Politico. Although immigration “was a reliable winner for Republicans” in elections past, the party is now “struggling not only to convince persuadable voters” but also to “hold together their own coalition as it splinters over deportations.”

With Immigration and Customs Enforcement “revving up its operations across the country,” the White House is making a move “fraught with political risk as the midterm elections draw closer,” said NBC News. “Moderate and progressive Democrats alike,” meanwhile, have “figured out how to talk about the border,” said Politico. But “with less than three months until Election Day,” they “still aren’t on the same page” when it comes to dealing with ICE.

“Some high-profile” Democratic candidates have campaigned by pushing ICE “reforms,” while others are “calling to dissolve the agency altogether,” said Politico. Although “many in the party see an opening” given how unpopular Trump’s anti-immigration policies have been overall, some Democrats “worry that going too far on ICE could again kneecap their electoral chances in key battlegrounds.”

Iran war

Six months after President Trump declared war on Iran, the conflict between Washington and Tehran has “reshaped the rapidly approaching midterm election,” said The Associated Press. Not only have the months of violence undermined Trump’s campaign pledge to “steer clear of foreign conflicts,” the war is “challenging Republicans who would rather focus on their tax cuts” to defend their “narrow majorities in Congress.”

Republicans have urged the White House to “wrap up the conflict,” said The Atlantic, in the hopes of reducing the war’s “drag on the nation’s economy — and their reelection chances.” Although “poll after poll” has shown how unpopular the war is domestically, said CNN, Republicans remain “reluctant to publicly break with a president” who remains “popular inside their party.”

Israel

“Growing schisms” among Democrats over Israel have become a “contentious issue for the party,” said NPR, “particularly as it heads into the midterm election.” While some party insiders claim that the “divide” among lawmakers is “limited to military aid,” others say the “biggest gap” is “between the party’s elected officials and voters” who have “moved against Israel faster than their representatives” in the wake of Israeli military action in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

The pivot on historical support for Israel has been “clearest on the Democratic left,” where candidates frame the powerful Israel lobbying group AIPAC as “emblematic of big-money interests overwhelming ordinary voters,” said France 24. But criticism has “spread to the populist right” as well. Some “America First” conservatives have “attacked Washington’s support for Israel and blamed pro-Israel lobbying for drawing the United States deeper into foreign conflicts.” Approaching the midterms, a “once-prized endorsement” from groups supporting Israel “can now, in some races, be something candidates would rather their opponents talked less about.”

Transgender rights

“Across the country,” Republican-run ads attacking Democrats over “transgender athletes’ sports participation and gender-affirming medical care for minors” have “become commonplace,” said PBS News. The nationwide push is part of an “effort to tap into a strategy that was successful for President Trump in 2024,” where he framed former Vice President Kamala Harris’ openness to transgender rights as being “outside the cultural mainstream.”

For Democrats, determining how candidates “should — or should not — respond to anti-trans attacks” has “since taken up a lot of oxygen in Washington as party strategists debate the best course forward,” said The 19th. Some Democrats are confident that anti-trans ads will “backfire on Republicans as Americans increasingly embrace transgender rights,” said The Washington Times, in much the same way the party “brought voters to their side on gay marriage.”

What happened

The U.S. Postal Service is poised to roll out a “secretive, rushed” and error-riddled online portal for states that could “derail” mail-in voting in the midterm elections, according to a whistleblower complaint released Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). The tool was created in three months, sometimes in defiance of court orders, to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to limit mail voting before the midterms, a USPS official said in the complaint. The “slapdash” development effort and a “zero percent failure” verification requirement mean “potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all.”

Who said what

A federal judge in Boston has temporarily halted USPS from forcing states to use its new Federal Ballot Mail Portal system. But if the stay is lifted or overturned, USPS would require states to submit lists of mail ballot recipients and get approval for envelope and ballot designs with individualized barcodes. If the system worked as designed, the whistleblower said, entire batches of tens of thousands of ballots would be rejected if there were a problem with “even one barcode on one single ballot.” Blumenthal told reporters the new system is “intended to fail.”

What next?

Blumenthal gave Postmaster General David Steiner until Friday to respond to the claims detailing “USPS’s ​seemingly illegal plot to interfere in November’s midterms.” A USPS spokesperson said the Postal Service was “carefully reviewing” the allegations but will roll out the portal “soon” to states that want to use it.

The president may not have had his name on the ballot in South Carolina, but Senator Darline Graham’s narrow win over Rep. Ralph Norman in that state’s GOP Senate primary last week was a major victory for Trump himself. By pulling Graham over the electoral line with massive cash infusions, backroom arm-twisting and MAGA vote-whipping, Trump reestablished himself as an electoral force to reckon with, even as his personal unpopularity threatens the GOP’s midterm prospects. But while Trump reaps the benefits of engineering Graham’s victory, some Republicans worry he’s also sown the seeds of future electoral agita.

Win that ‘defied electoral expectations’

Trump “stuck his neck out” on Graham’s behalf, putting his credibility “on the line” in a state that “twice in the last six months has rejected his preferences,” said The New York Times. Not only did Trump visit Myrtle Beach to “rally supporters,” he “personally called high-level state officials” to “compel them to endorse” his candidate of choice.

The MAGA Inc. super PAC associated with the president’s inner circle, which was “notoriously wary to spend on races this cycle,” also spent “nearly $800,000 on phone calls” for the Graham campaign, said the Times. The president’s pitch to voters was essentially to “treat Graham as an extension of himself,” said Politico.

“What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot,” said Trump at his Myrtle Beach rally for Graham. “Just say that I’m on the ballot one more time.”

Graham’s win came “not only” thanks to Trump’s endorsement but also the “fact that he was willing to come down and campaign on her behalf,” said Jordan Ragusa, a political science professor at the College of Charleston, to South Carolina’s The State. As for “whether Trump still has the same clout” he previously enjoyed, “I think the answer is undeniably that he still has it.”

As Trump has “done often” since first being elected president, he “defied electoral expectations,” said the Times. South Carolina voters have “signaled that the party’s political identity, and perhaps its fortunes, remain tightly intertwined” with Trump, even as the GOP “begins to imagine what it might look like” after his presidency.

Clamoring for the ‘Darline treatment’

While Trump may have carried Graham over the line, he “lost a lot of support in South Carolina” in the process, said The New Republic. Attendees “booed and jeered at mentions of the president’s name” during Rep. Ralph Norman’s concession speech to Graham in a sign of “palpable aggravation” over Trump’s “unwanted involvement in the contentious Senate runoff.”

“I never understood why he got in this race,” said Norman in his concession speech. Still, he allowed that it was Trump’s “prerogative” to involve himself and that the president’s “policies are good.”

Adding to some Republicans’ frustrations is Trump has not “yet campaigned as hard” for other conservative candidates “looking to stem their party’s expected losses in the midterms,” said WPDE. Trump “hasn’t taken a meaningful step” into the states and races “that will matter in a few short months,” said Politico, despite Republicans in those races “clamoring for him to spend his MAGA Inc. money.”

After seeing how Trump helped Graham, “it’s now or never,” said one GOP consultant to Politico regarding other campaigns seeking the “Darline treatment.” With just months to go before polls close, “it’s put up or shut up time, and it’s really time to start to see if he’s going to get serious.” However, it “just doesn’t seem like there’s any sense of urgency” or understanding that “we are down big in some of these states.”

Trump’s “desire for sycophants” has “hollowed out his party and likely hurt his own cause,” said Bloomberg. Had congressional Republicans “pushed back” and “saved him from his worst instincts,” maybe his “policies might be more popular.” Trump must now instead “broaden his coalition” to convince potential voters who “may not be total MAGA loyalists” to “show up for weak candidates like Graham in November.”

What happened

Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday won the Republican primary to succeed her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, defeating hard-right Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) 52% to 48%. At President Donald Trump’s urging, Gov. Henry McMaster (R) last month appointed Graham to serve out the last six months of her brother’s term.

Trump’s pick for Oklahoma governor, businessman Mike Mazzei, also narrowly beat state Attorney General Gentner Drummond in Tuesday’s GOP runoff primary. In Georgia’s heavily Democratic 13th Congressional District, former school board chair Everton Blair Jr. won a special election to fill out the term of Rep. David Scott (D), who died in April.

Who said what

The South Carolina runoff was “seen as a test of Trump’s endorsement power,” The Wall Street Journal said, and he “flexed his political muscles in the final days of the campaign” to get Graham “over the finish line.” Trump “did more to support her than he had for any other Republican candidate this year,” The New York Times said, and it took the strength of his “political capital” — including a rally and $830,000 from his MAGA Inc. super PAC — to “overcome her inexperience” and a “flubbed” debate answer about national security.

What next?

Once Blair and Aisha Wahab, the Democrat who won last week’s special election in California, are sworn in, the GOP’s thin House majority will shrink to just four members, 218 to 214.

What happened

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and Jared Kushner, a top outside adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, “met privately in recent weeks” and “discussed potential areas of common ground,” The New York Times reported Sunday.

The meeting “shows the depth of Republican Party angst over losing their congressional majority,” The Associated Press said, and White House efforts to “stem any potential political fallout” on Trump if Democrats “wrest majority control” in November.

Who said what

Kushner and Jeffries “discussed housing, immigration and the high cost of living,” the Times said, all issues where compromise “seems remote.” The Trump GOP’s “my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing” has “failed the American people,” Jeffries said Sunday, and the “question is whether Republicans will join us” in “fighting for an affordable America.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “bristled” Sunday when asked about the meeting, the AP said. “I don’t know what that’s about,” but Kushner “hedges his bets” and isn’t “directly involved” in “day-to-day” White House operations, he said on Fox News. “I’m telling you, we’re going to defy history and hold this majority.”

What next?

Trump has “mostly steered around Congress in his second term, trampling its powers and prerogatives” with “little pushback from GOP leaders,” the Times said. “All that is likely to change if Democrats control either chamber,” the AP said.

What happened

Tuesday’s primaries in Florida, Wyoming and Alaska delivered another surprise win for democratic socialists, another loss for a House incumbent and a mixed bag for candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump. His pick for Florida governor, Rep. Byron Donalds, won the Republican primary and will face Democrat David Jolly, a former GOP member. But in Wyoming’s GOP gubernatorial contest, Trump-backed Megan Degenfelder lost to state Sen. Eric Barlow.

Trump’s candidate to replace Donalds in the House, Catalina Lauf, was defeated by conservative talk radio station owner Jim Schwartzel in a crowded GOP primary. And Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who previously had Trump’s backing, became the “fourth House Republican to lose his primary this year,” Semafor said, “solving a problem for colleagues who wanted him and his scandals” gone.

On the Democratic side, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a new member of the Democratic Socialists of America, beat the better-funded Alexander Vindman to face Sen. Ashley Moody (R) in November. Nixon’s win was a “stunner,” CNN said. But the “progressive insurgency fell short in two other closely watched” Florida races, as Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Jared Moskowitz prevailed in newly drawn districts.

Who said what

Tuesday’s results were the “latest indication that Trump’s endorsement — the most coveted asset in Republican campaigns — is no guarantee of victory,” CNN said. They were also another “lesson in why not to write national narratives out of every race,” Semafor said.

What next?

“Very few” of the contested seats “will be competitive in November,” Semafor said. In an exception, former Rep. Mary Peltola (D) and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) will face each other — and likely another Dan Sullivan — in Alaska’s four-way ranked-choice Senate election.