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.

What happened

Primaries on Tuesday in Minnesota and Wisconsin offered mixed verdicts for the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic Party and for candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump. In the most-watched contest, establishment-backed David Crowley eked out a projected win in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, beating democratic socialist Francesca Hong by less than 1%. He will face Rep. Tom Tiffany (R) in the general election. Michael Alfonso, the Trump-backed son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, won the GOP primary for Tiffany’s seat.

Trump-endorsed “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell lost Minnesota’s GOP gubernatorial primary to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth. She will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D). Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D), the more progressive candidate in the primary to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D), beat Rep. Angie Craig and will face Republican former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya.

Who said what

Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive, dropped out of the “chaotic race” in July but “reactivated his campaign” after the “implosion” of two top establishment rivals, CNN said. His “stunningly narrow, surprise win” over Hong “seemed to settle little in the party’s national battle” between establishment and “insurgent, populist” left, The Associated Press said. A week after progressive Abdul El-Sayed beat out his moderate rival by a similarly “razor-thin” margin in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, “neither side” appears to be “winning the argument convincingly.”

What next?

In South Carolina, Trump-endorsed Sen. Darline Graham (R) advanced to an Aug. 25 runoff in Tuesday’s special GOP primary to replace her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, on November’s ballot. She will face hardline conservative Rep. Ralph Norman.

What happened

Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) will remain on the ballot in November after Monday’s state deadline to replace him passed. Allegations that Miller physically and emotionally abused his ex-wife and 2-year-old daughter helped turn what had been a safe Republican district into a competitive race against Democrat Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Monday shifted Miller’s 7th Congressional District from “likely Republican” to “toss-up.”

Who said what

Republican officials had “led an intense push” to get Miller out of the race, CNN said. But as it became clear he wouldn’t drop out, members of President Donald Trump’s political team urged Ohio Republicans “not to wage a public pressure campaign” against him, arguing that such “moot” efforts “would complicate messaging” when “those same leaders would likely later have to defend Miller’s candidacy,” said Politico.

What next?

Local Republican leaders in North Carolina’s 11th District on Monday selected state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom to replace Rep. Chuck Edwards, who dropped his reelection bid last week after the House Ethics Committee urged his censure over troubling conduct toward two female aides. Balkcom “will now have roughly 80 days to crisscross” the mountainous district and raise a “crush of cash” to compete against well-funded Democrat Jamie Ager, said The New York Times.

The House Ethics Committee this week announced it had opened an investigation into Ohio Republican Rep. Max Miller, after ex-wife Emily Moreno accused the lawmaker of violently assaulting her and the pair’s child. While Miller has denied the allegations against him, a growing chorus of Republicans, including Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), Emily’s father, has demanded he resign from Congress. Still, not everyone in the GOP is on board with calls for Miller to step down — particularly during an election cycle in which Republicans’ narrow control of Congress appears up for grabs.

What did the commentators say?

With “public scrutiny” of Miller and the allegations against him “quickly mounting,” many of his Republican colleagues have been “slow to respond,” said Politico. The “surge of attention” surrounding Miller “presents a dilemma for Republicans.” They can either “speak out against their colleague” amid a competitive race or “face accusations of hypocrisy” after “hammering multiple similarly scandal-plagued Democrats.” The situation risks being like “Graham Platner on steroids,” said one GOP operative to the outlet. Republicans may be “struggling up and down the ballot in the Rust Belt state” in general, but Miller’s situation in particular has “muddied their prospects,” said Axios.

Intra-party debate over Miller’s behavior has “led to one question,” said Ohio Capital Journal: “Where is the line in believing accusations when an election is at risk?” Although Miller himself is “confident he will win in the fall,” other Republican officials are “not as confident of a Miller victory.” This “general reluctance to publicly engage” with Miller’s case until this week has “raised questions” for Republicans about the “standards they maintain within their own party,” said The Free Press.

“There’s all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to Politico. “It’s not my business to get engaged in it.” The public should wait for the “process to play out.” Johnson’s response to Miller “raises the question of what Johnson does think the speaker’s business is,” said The Atlantic. His “reluctance to become involved” in Miller’s “messy, lurid story” is “understandable, but it’s also one of the burdens that falls on leaders.”

Despite publicly defending Miller as a “good person” whose family should “figure that out,” President Donald Trump offered a more candid take on a private call with the congressman Monday evening, said Axios. During the conversation, the president reportedly told Miller that “things aren’t looking good” and “repeatedly said his reelection would be tough.” But the president “stopped short of asking Miller to step aside,” said The New York Times, and Miller “made it clear he had no intention of doing so.” Because Trump has yet to “publicly withdraw his support” for Miller, other Republicans remain “reluctant to do so themselves.”

Miller himself has responded to the increased scrutiny by comparing the domestic violence allegations that “threaten his reelection” to the “political attacks Trump weathered in 2016,” said Cleveland.com. He mentioned the president’s “sexual assault and harassment claims” and the release of the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape.

What next?

With Miller’s “relatively safe House seat in jeopardy,” the congressman would need to “resign or drop out by Aug. 10 for Republicans to be able to replace him on the ballot,” said The Hill. “With him on the ballot,” said one Ohio GOP official to the outlet, it’s “incredibly difficult to hold a seat that they should.” Republican party chairs for the counties Miller represents have a “window” to “name a successor as the Republican candidate on the ballot,” said Cleveland.com.

Nationally, Johnson is for now “declining to bear” the burden of leadership regarding Miller, said The Atlantic. But by doing so, he may ultimately “ensure that he doesn’t have to worry about the duties of the speaker when the new Congress opens next January.”

What happened

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) lost his bid for reelection on Thursday, ousted in a Republican primary by former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher. The primaries were held under a new map Tennessee Republicans passed to eliminate the state’s last Democratic-held congressional district following the Supreme Court’s weakening of Voting Rights Act protections for minorities.

State Rep. Justin Pearson (D) won his primary for that previously Democratic Memphis-based seat, which was cracked into three GOP-leaning districts, and will face state Sen. Brent Taylor (R). Rep. Steve Cohen (D) “chose not to seek reelection to the seat, which independent political analysts now rate as safe Republican,” Reuters said.

Who said what

Ogles has “faced backlash over anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric” and previous campaign finance controversies, The New York Times said, but his loss was “seen as an upset.” It was a “rare rejection of a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump,” The Associated Press said. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “tried to boost his campaign in the final days,” Politico said, but a “flood of outside money” for Hatcher from a renewable energy super PAC, “coupled with a newly redrawn district that forced Ogles to reach new voters,” helped seal his loss.

What next?

Sen. Marsha Blackburn won the GOP primary for governor, and she’s expected to prevail over Democratic nominee Jerri Green, a Memphis city council member. It’s the first time in Tennessee that “either major political party has nominated a woman” for governor, the Times said.

What happened

The Democratic Party’s moderate and progressive wings each won key primaries in Michigan, Virginia, Missouri, Kansas and Washington state on Tuesday. In the highest-profile showdown between the two factions, progressive candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Senate primary in Michigan, The Associated Press projected, beating establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens.

Voters in Kansas defeated a Republican ballot measure that would have turned state Supreme Court appointments into partisan races — a “referendum designed to overturn Kansas’ constitutional right to abortion,” Politico said. In Missouri, voters overwhelmingly rejected a GOP-led amendment that would have made it harder to pass voter-approved ballot measures.

Who said what

The winners in the Democrats’ moderate faction include Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), who fended off a leftist challenger; former Rep. Elaine Luria (Va.) and Richmond-area prosecutor Shannon Taylor, who won swing-district primaries; and Rep. Wesley Bell (Mo.), who prevailed in his rematch against democratic socialist former Rep. Cori Bush. Progressive climate activist William Lawrence won a three-way primary against two moderates in Michigan and will face Rep. Tom Barrett (R) in a “competitive contest that will test whether left-wing populism is viable in swing districts,” The New York Times said.

What next?

The race between El-Sayed and Stevens was this year’s “most significant test” of how Democratic voters are “weighing questions of ideology and electability,” CNN said. Despite his eventual victory, El-Sayed’s consistently thin lead was “much narrower than what the most recent polling had shown” in the pivotal race to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D), the Times said. El-Sayed will face former Rep. Mike Rogers (R) in the general election.

President Donald Trump has long flirted with dispatching federal forces to polling sites as part of a broader and oftentimes martial emphasis on election security. Now, with the 2026 midterms just months away and Democrats looking increasingly likely to make major (perhaps even chamber-flipping) gains in November, party figures are starting to take Trump’s threats seriously. As blue state attorneys general coordinate with one another and Senate Democrats convene high-level strategy sessions, is the party ready to face the White House’s increasingly brazen electoral saber-rattling?

‘War room’ preparations

In July, a “group of powerful” Democratic lawmakers “rehearsed for some of their darkest fears” about the midterm elections,” said MS NOW. Among those concerns: “disinformation triggering voter-roll purges,” soldiers “deployed to polling places” during open voting hours, and the “machinery of a free election seizing up in real time.” The session was “part of a broader effort” by the party to “prepare for anything ahead of November.”

Democrats are “ramping up” their efforts, said The New York Times. At a meeting in May attended by “staff members from the offices of every Democratic attorney general” and “about a dozen Democratic secretaries of state,” party officials “held tabletop exercises” to prepare for “hypothetical scenarios in the November midterm elections.”

The “sad reality” necessitating these “war rooms” is that the federal government, once a trusted election partner, is now “our biggest concern,” said Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown to the Times. It “doesn’t matter” what the White House “tries to throw at us,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a recent Senate speech. Planning sessions like these “ensure we’ll be ready to respond.” Democratic senators have also introduced legislation to “limit the potential for armed military personnel or federal law enforcement at election polling places,” said CBS News.

After Trump “declined to rule out” sending National Guard troops or DHS agents to polling sites on election day, a coalition of Democratic district attorneys calling itself the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach also warned the White House that “any federal agents sent to polling places within their jurisdictions will be prosecuted,” said Politico. But it’s “unclear” whether that would include “working with local law enforcement to block federal agents from visiting polling places,” and what, if any, “potential consequences would be for the election” should prosecutors find evidence of “mass voter intimidation” by federal agents.

‘Unprecedented’ electoral environment

Although attorneys general and secretaries of state often work closely together in a particular state, they “rarely work” with corresponding figures from another, said the Times. Given Trump’s threats, Democratic figures say “creating a national network of these two offices is necessary.”

The “most realistic threats” from the Trump administration “create confusion, trigger litigation, delay certification or further undermine public confidence," said Ari Mittleman, the executive director of the nonpartisan Keep Our Republic election group, to Newsweek. Though such officials remain “confident in the professionalism” of the local officials tasked with overseeing the electoral mechanics of the midterm race, the “current environment is unprecedented,” said the outlet. “The guardrails are real,” said Mittleman. But they “depend on courts acting promptly, officials following the law and political leaders refusing to promote” election lies.

If there’s anything Donald Trump enjoys more than “relitigating the 2020 election,” said Peter Baker in The New York Times, it’s “finding ways to cast doubt on the 2026 election.” The president did both this month, giving a primetime address to the nation in which he called the U.S. electoral system “so broken and vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it.” Debuting a new conspiracy theory of how his 2020 loss was “rigged,” Trump accused China of having “bought, stolen, or hacked” millions of voter registration files in the run-up to that election. As for the validity of this November’s midterms—a likely “drubbing” for Republicans—Trump offered a grab bag of predicates for disputing the results, including the claim that at least 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in federal elections. In a curious move, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, the White House released a trove of intelligence documents that actually undermine Trump’s claims. The reports showed that the data China acquired was publicly available, and that Beijing largely stayed on the sidelines in 2020. As for the foreigners registered to vote, that claim relies on a dataset that’s plagued with errors. So why give this speech at all? It’s too late to enact Trump’s SAVE America Act package of voting restrictions in time for the midterms, and his supporters may now be wondering whether they should bother going to the polls in November, if our elections are as “catastrophically” broken as Trump claims.

In fairness, said Tom Nichols in The Atlantic, Trump’s documents do prove that one hostile foreign power “engaged in operations against” the 2020 election. That nation is Russia, which the declassified reports state used a “range of measures” to boost Trump’s chances in 2020, from spreading rumors about Joe Biden’s supposed “criminal activity” in Ukraine to flooding social media with Trump-loving bots. Of course, our Putin-fan president didn’t mention the Russian autocrat in his speech. But he did emulate him, said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch, issuing “fascist threats” to revoke the broadcast licenses of “fake news” networks ABC and NBC for the crime of declining to carry his lie-filled speech live.

We know why Trump gave this speech, said Brian Tyler Cohen in The Bulwark. In February, The Washington Post reported that Trump allies had drafted a 17-page executive order that would let him use the “pretext” of foreign interference to declare a “national emergency.” Trump could then dispatch troops or ICE agents to polling places, and even seize voting machines. If Democrats rush to block the order in court, Trump could point to his recent speech—its “nonsensical” content notwithstanding—as proof that he was warning of foreign meddling as far back as July.

Trump’s attempted theft of the midterms is already underway, said Zolan Kanno-Youngs in The New York Times, and he’s using “the full arsenal of the federal government.” Led by “election deniers and loyalists,” the FBI and CIA are hunting for pretexts to discredit state election officials, while Justice Department lawyers craft legal arguments to prosecute them. Even the Postal Service is floating a Trump-approved plan to roll back mail-in voting. These are perilous times, said David A. Graham in The Atlantic, but “a close election is easier to steal than a decisive one.” Trump’s speech removed any doubt that he intends to sow “chaos” in November. Instead of discouraging Americans, that should inspire us to turn out in overwhelming numbers, and vote like our democracy depends on it.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) just signed off on the nation’s first state-level moratorium on data center construction, and other governors may follow, as the pushback against data centers grows. Voter anger at the facilities may be a major factor in this fall’s midterm elections, though how it plays out is still anybody’s guess. The issue does not easily map onto party-line divisions, and both Democrats and Republicans are trying to figure out the path forward.

What did the commentators say?

Congressional Democrats are looking at the New York example and are “hoping to seize on the issue in the November midterms,” said Politico. The issue could serve as a “bridge” between moderates like Hochul and progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who have “clamored for more restrictions” on artificial intelligence.

Opposing data centers might be good politics. A whopping 71% of Americans “don’t want an A.I. data center built close to where they live,” said The New York Times. Democrats could be poised to take advantage. When U.S. voters “feel like there’s some industry or sector of the economy that’s out of control, they reach for Democrats,” said Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer to the outlet.

The challenge is that while Democrats see data centers as a problem, “they disagree on what to do about it,” said The Hill. The centers’ role in “exacerbating both electricity bills and climate change” makes restrictions a “no-brainer” for some in the party, especially in a year when affordability concerns are center stage. But neither Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) nor House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has backed a “specific proposal to achieve those ends.”

Other Democrats, like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have meanwhile “rolled out the red carpet” for data center projects, Stephen Starr said at The Guardian. Opposing data centers “should be an easy way to win votes” for Democrats. Embracing construction is “risking their midterm hopes.”

The GOP also faces divisions over the issue. A “string of polls” shows that “even a majority of Republicans” oppose data center construction, said The Washington Post, and some Republican candidates are pitching themselves as defenders of local communities against the projects. Others have decided to “stake out firmly pro-AI positions” out of “concerns about losing the AI war to China.” The centers are “key to the revolution that’s coming,” Arizona congressional candidate Jay Feely said in a podcast interview.

What next?

The Trump administration is attempting to “quell public concerns” ahead of the midterms by inviting GOP governors to sign a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” that would commit data center developers to “pay for their fair share of energy and water use.” Meanwhile, AI and tech groups connected to OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google are “flooding money into the midterms,” said NPR. The election outcomes will have a “big impact on the shape” of any new legislation that regulates the sector over the next two years. Work in the current Congress “remains stalled” even though there is “bipartisan support to do something about the technology.”

Graham Platner’s political implosion has forced Maine Democrats into a monthlong dash to replace the disgraced oysterman-cum-political-upstart and challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November. Senate hopefuls have been courting supporters ahead of a July 25 nominating convention. But rushed deadlines, unexpected tragedies and residual frustrations over Platner’s failed campaign have put Democrats in a bind. As of now, no candidate has emerged as a clear frontrunner, and some national party figures are keeping their distance from an electorate still raw after Platner’s downfall.

‘Stakes couldn’t be higher’

Democrats hope to “turn the page from the former standard-bearer” without “abandoning his supporters,” said Roll Call. Progressives who had been buoyed by Platner’s “populist message” are “hoping to maintain their momentum.” The “snap” replacement race is “off to a hectic and dramatic start,” said CNN. Maine Democrats are “scrambling to create a highly unorthodox process” in which candidates have rushed to “collect enough signatures to qualify for the convention and assemble slates of delegates to vote for them.”

Moreover, what was “expected to be an intense two-week primary campaign” has instead “effectively been reduced to one week,” after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot Colombian immigrant Joan Sebastian Guerrero in the town of Biddeford, said The Boston Globe. Candidates have spent time “in and around Biddeford with the community” in recent days, “expressing outrage at the latest death of an individual at ICE’s hands.” But without a front-runner, and most of the candidates in broad agreement on many issues, the “clarity and contrasts that campaigns tend to reveal” are missing for Democrats at a “time when they would be most helpful.”

It’s encouraging how many candidates are “running on Platner's progressive platform of transformational change,” said NPR, paraphrasing Maine’s state Senate president, Democrat Mattie Daughtry. But voters may be “turned off” by the process. Meanwhile, the “stakes couldn't be higher” for the party, with Senate control on the line, said the outlet. “No clear front-runner has emerged” from the existing pack of candidates, and it’s unclear whether "one candidate can capitalize” on Platner’s political momentum.

Many of the Democrats’ Senate hopefuls “share something in common,” said NBC. They “all made unsuccessful bids for higher office this year.” For voters, though, “I don’t think it matters,” said party strategist Mike Nellis to the outlet — unless it’s a “perennial loser candidate that’s been running for, like, 1,000 years, which none of these candidates are.”

‘Process for Maine and Mainers’

Faced with the “nearly hopeless position” of rapidly finding a new candidate, the Maine Democratic Party has nevertheless “shown a finesse I never imagined possible,” said Steve Collins at Centralmaine.com. The hyper-compressed campaign schedule and upcoming convention are “not a simple solution or one that will make everyone happy.” But “that was never possible.”

Absent throughout much of this process has been Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). He has been given a “clear message from his party’s voters, candidates and local leaders” in “all-important” Maine,” said The New York Times: “Stay away.” Many of the declared candidates have “signaled interest in replacing Schumer as leader after the midterms.” This is a “process for Maine and Mainers,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, one of the candidates, to the Times.

Historically unpopular and facing potentially catastrophic midterm elections in November, President Donald Trump has thrown an electoral hand grenade into the campaign calendar. “For the first time ever, the Republican Party will hold a midterm convention” in Dallas, Texas, Sept. 9-10 — a “rally like none other,” said Trump on Truth Social last week. And as the president tries to consolidate GOP strength ahead of a make-or-break election, Democrats see signs of desperation and political opportunities.

What did the commentators say?

Party officials have been “planning the logistics of the event for months,” after Trump became “enamored with the idea of a splashy midterm convention last year,” said The New York Times. Given that the party in power has “historically lost ground in midterm elections, Republicans see a convention so close to election day as “offering the party a large platform to make the case to stay in power.” Democrats had “briefly considered” holding their own midterm convention, but ultimately “decided against such a pricey event.”

The “Trumpapalooza” gathering will offer Republicans a “chance to highlight all the wonderful things this president has done,” said Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters to Fox News. GOP officials also hope the convention will “energize MAGA voters who don’t always vote when Trump isn’t on the ballot,” said the outlet. Despite being “designed to showcase Republican achievements,” however, the planned convention is “likely to have detractors, even among party officials,” said Al Jazeera. Critics fear the event could “draw resources away from key battlegrounds in the final stretch of the race,” and will “shine a spotlight on Trump himself at a moment when his poll numbers are drooping.”

Although the convention “comes at a politically vulnerable time” for Republicans, its “location in Texas is also significant,” said Time. “No further proof is needed” that the GOP is “freaking the f*** out” over their midterms standing, said Texas State Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez (D) on X. While Texas has “not elected a Democrat statewide in decades,” Democratic State Rep. James Talarico is currently neck and neck with Attorney General Ken Paxton for outgoing Sen. John Cornyn’s (R) U.S. Senate seat, and has become “one of his party’s top fundraisers,” said the Times.

Whether GOP officials “appreciate it or not,” there are “two main problems they should probably keep in mind,” said MS NOW. First, “holding a national convention is extremely expensive.” Second, and “just as important,” is the fact that the goal of a national convention is “nationalizing an election cycle.” Given how unpopular Trump is, the GOP should be “going out of its way to localize the midterms,” rather than the opposite.

What next?

It is likely that “many Democratic officials are looking forward” to Trump’s event, said MS NOW. The convention will “give the minority party an opportunity to do what it wants to do anyway: connect Republican candidates and officeholders to Trump.”

While much of the event’s programming remains under wraps, officials have begun to “fill in some of the details,” said The Dallas Morning News. The convention will “blend elements of a traditional political convention” with a “Trump-centered program designed to energize Republican voters.” The event will also “include delegates from across the country,” but it will feature “no official party business.” Organizers have also not clarified “whether members of the public will be able to attend” or how ticketing might work.

Trump’s scheduled convention will also be “clashing with a pair of NFL matchups that will kick off the 2026 season,” forcing both events to “potentially compete for viewership,” said Forbes. In the past, NFL kickoff games have been rescheduled to avoid overlap with political conventions during presidential election years. It is “not immediately clear if the same will happen to this year’s season opener.”

Strong showings from the Democrats’ left flank in recent elections have spooked some in the party’s leadership. Criticism of Israel, once deemed outside the bounds of mainstream political discourse, has become an increasingly common feature of progressive campaigns. Victories in New York City by candidates who “ran hard against the war in Gaza” are now “turbocharging” Democrats’ “yearslong shift away from Israel,” said Politico. While progressives begin flexing their newfound electoral muscles, party centrists are feeling anxious. These growing pains for the party, combined with an appetite for sharper Israel criticism, could reflect a national electoral risk in November.

What did the commentators say?

Progressive primary victories by strident Israel critics in New York “paint a picture of a Democratic Party rapidly shifting” on an issue once considered a ”bipartisan prerequisite for success in the Big Apple and beyond,” said Politico. The victories of candidates like self-described “liberal Zionist” Brad Lander over the more conservative Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman demonstrated that “harsh criticism” of Israel is “not only politically survivable” but can even be “advantageous in New York City’s dominant party.”

Primary wins in the “deep-blue districts of Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier” signaled a “new era of skepticism” among some Democrats “toward the Jewish state and its actions,” said The New York Times. Do those wins “mark the end for Democratic politicians who hold traditional pro-Israel views?” asked Forward. Or do they “represent something more narrow” and specific to New York?

Democrats’ shifting relationship with Israel “looms in Michigan,” where the party will defend outgoing Sen. Gary Peters’ seat, and “may continue” to be felt in Colorado, where challenger Melat Kiros has accused Rep. Diana DeGette of “being too supportive of Israel,” said The Guardian. The ongoing focus on Israel has become a “bigger issue” that Democrats need to “deal with more comprehensively than, like, ‘If I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t happen,’” said Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) to The Hill. The debate has become a “corporate issue with all these PACs pouring in a lot of money,” which is “giving people a really bad taste in their mouth.”

In previous elections, Democrats’ Israel-focused policies have been “confined largely to niche foreign policy considerations for most voters,” said Haaretz. This year, voters are “considering Israel at the ballot box more than ever before.” Establishment Democratic leaders “still very much believe that being a Zionist and a Democrat are not mutually exclusive.” But it’s become “abundantly clear” that aspirants “within the party structure” are “participating in a real-time vibe shift” that prioritizes a “willingness to hold Israel to account” over “pro-Israel bona fides.”

“More and more Democrats” are “making it clear” they want to end “U.S. taxpayer support to the government of Israel,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) to the Times. Next session, Congress should eschew “reflexive unconditional support to the government of Israel.”

What next?

Incumbent losses in New York’s recent primaries show that the debate over Democrats’ relationship with Israel has “already left a lasting mark on the midterms,” said the Times. No matter what “other issues were at play in the individual races,” said JTA, the success of candidates with an “outsized focus” on criticizing Israel “sends the message that their approach is a winning strategy.” Republicans, meanwhile, “believe that Democrats reap what they sow” ahead of the midterms, said Fox Business. Conservatives “plan to use this” in November, as Democrats contend with a trend that works in “urban areas, but not swing districts.”

Leftist critics of Israel are having a moment,” said former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) to Politico. “That doesn’t mean they represent a majority of congressional Democrats in the country.” Pro-Israel Democrats must develop a “better strategy before a handful of primaries approach a tipping point.”

The effects will likely be felt beyond November. Every Democratic presidential candidate “will be required to declare himself or herself on the matter of the United States’ stance toward Israel,” said Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Bill Galston to The Guardian. “The question was largely evaded in 2024. That strategy is no longer possible.”

What happened

Republican lawmakers in Georgia on Wednesday rejected Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) push to redraw the state’s political maps to erase one or two Democratic congressional districts before the 2028 elections. Kemp had called the special legislative session expressly so Georgia would join other Southern states in breaking up majority-Black districts after the Supreme Court gutted the last main pillar of the Voting Rights Act.

Who said what

Wednesday’s decision “marked a setback for both Kemp and President Donald Trump,” who started the national redistricting war to improve GOP odds of keeping control of Congress, The Associated Press said. Georgia Republican legislative leaders “cited a desire for a more methodical process that included greater input from voters and a better understanding” of the legal challenges, The New York Times said. But the redistricting retreat followed “weeks of mounting pressure from Democrats, voting rights groups and even some uneasy Republicans who warned that reopening redistricting could energize Democratic voters” in the increasingly competitive state, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.

What next?

Kemp and other Georgia Republicans vowed to push ahead with the redistricting bid. The Supreme Court “left no doubt that we would need to draw new maps,” Senate President Larry Walker III (R) said at a news conference. “The question was when.”

What happened

Voters in Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma on Tuesday picked nominees for governor and Congress. All three Senate candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump won their Republican primaries. But his pick for Georgia governor, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, lost to billionaire Rick Jackson, and Trump’s gubernatorial choice in Oklahoma placed a close second and will advance to a runoff.

In Washington, D.C., city council member Robert White Jr. won the Democratic primary to succeed retiring 18-term Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D). Democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George had a large lead in the open mayoral race as of Wednesday morning.

Who said what

In deep-red Oklahoma, Rep. Kevin Hern won the GOP primary to fill the Senate seat vacated by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Rep. Barry Moore won Alabama’s Republican runoff to replace Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R). And in Georgia, Trump-backed Rep. Mike Collins defeated former football coach Derek Dooley in the GOP runoff to face Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) in a pivotal battleground Senate race. Ossoff had “worked quietly for months to undermine” the more moderate Dooley, The New York Times said.

But Jones’ loss was a “major upset” for Trump, Politico said, and proved that “an endless stream of cash” can “overcome the power” of his endorsement. Jackson, a health care tycoon, personally “supplied most of the $100 million-plus that his campaign has spent to persuade Republican primary voters to overlook Trump’s advice,” The Associated Press said.

What next?

Trump, who “loves to boast of the win-loss record of his endorsed candidates,” is considering endorsing both Republicans in South Carolina’s June 23 gubernatorial runoff, The Washington Post said.

President Donald Trump is once again making baseless accusations of election fraud. This time it is in California, where right-wing Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt failed to survive this month’s primary election.

Trump treats “any Democratic election victory” as “suspicious on its face” even if it happens in “one of the most liberal cities in America,” said The New York Times. His evidence-free assertions of vote-rigging in the California race are an “unusually clear preview of how he could greet any disappointing results for his party in November.” It is “not possible” for Pratt to have lost this month’s election, the president said on Truth Social.

Trump’s efforts to take greater control of voting processes have so far fallen short, said the Times. His SAVE Act that would require voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship failed to advance in the Senate. But as the Jan. 6, 2001 insurrection demonstrated, the president still can “sow substantial chaos” with false allegations of fraud.

‘Petty and tired strategy’

The president is using a familiar playbook, LeBron Antonio Hill said at The Sacramento Bee. Trump is attempting to “sow doubt, divide the country and rally his base with conspiracy” in order to upend elections that do not go his way. California is actually a “model for voter access and participation” with features such as “universal mail-in ballots, early voting and same-day registration” that have led to “record turnout” in elections. That achievement is “something to celebrate, not undermine.” Americans should not allow Trump’s “petty and tired strategy to become the norm.”

Trump’s California accusations have “naturally elicited eye rolls,” but the state really does have a “leaky election system” that juices Democratic votes, The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. With the Golden State’s “sloth-like pace of counting ballots,” it can take days for results to emerge. That is why Pratt, who first appeared to be in second place in the early results, dropped to third and out of the race as more votes were counted. The delayed results are a “disservice to democracy,” but Democrats do not seem to care “as long as progressives are winning.”

‘Cried wolf too many times’

The debate makes California the “new ground zero for free and fair elections,” Marc Elias said at Democracy Docket. Trump has attacked its voting processes repeatedly over the years, claiming he would have won the famously liberal state if not for fraud. “If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, okay?” Trump said to Dr. Phil in 2024. That seems unlikely. Trump simply “cannot “bear the fact that there are people willing to stand up to him and his lies,” said Elias.

Trump’s fraud claims “may backfire on him in the fall,” Richard L. Hasen said at MS NOW. Pushback now against the president’s accusations could “inoculate the public against similar unsupported charges” in the midterm elections. “The boy has cried wolf too many times.”

“Tofu Talarico.” “Six-Gender Jimmy.” “James Talafreako.” These are just some of the nicknames allies of Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton have levied against his Democrat competitor, James Talarico.

Paxton himself attacked Talarico as being “too low-T for Texas” in a campaign ad that accuses his opponent of being a “threat to everything we hold dear.” Now, by deploying these aggressively gendered lines of attack against Talarico, Republicans have positioned dueling definitions of masculinity as a key issue in one of the most combative campaigns of this election year.

‘Obviously coordinated and unusually overt’

Since winning the GOP Senate primary late last month, Paxton and Republicans have “pushed the issue of manliness and masculinity to the forefront,” said USA Today. Their push “encapsulates the broader thinking” in our “current man-o-verse of faux-tough-guy podcasters, politicians and influencers.” In this paradigm, men “are to be bold, dominating and aggressive” and “must mock other men who don’t fit their criteria.” The “explicit, sometimes vulgar emphasis on masculinity as an electoral argument” is “one highly visible way” of tracking Donald Trump’s political and cultural influence over the past decade, said NPR.

The GOP’s “anti-Talarico blitzkrieg” is both “obviously coordinated and unusually overt,” said The Atlantic. Talarico’s “aw-shucks niceness and youthful looks” is “reframed as the result of low testosterone,” while GOP attacks manifest as “99,999 dog whistles implying that he is gay.” The “obvious explanation” for the intensity of the GOP’s gendered attacks on Talarico is that “Paxton’s nomination has created certain challenges for Republicans,” given the attorney general’s many legal and personal scandals, said columnist Matt Lewis at The Hill. Conservatives must now “dirty up a squeaky clean seminarian who appears to be something of a Boy Scout.”

Any politician who can “discredit a candidate right out of the gate” by suggesting that they “don’t share the culture of the people” and aren’t “up to the task of representing a state like Texas” has ultimately won, said Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson at the CBC. The GOP’s masculinity attacks “wouldn’t necessarily work in places like California or New York, or possibly parts of the Midwest,” said Monika L. McDermott, the co-editor of the book “Masculinity in American Politics,” to the outlet.

’Rather strange vision of masculinity’

Conservative japes about Talarico’s masculinity “never come from a place of comfort or security,” said Dave Holmes at Esquire. Rather, the politicians and pundits attacking Talarico “fall short of their own definitions of masculinity, and it is killing them.” Republicans are working to “inflict a rather strange vision of masculinity on America,” said The New Republic. Theirs is “meant to look like a parade of Aryan Ubermenschen” but instead reads as a “depressingly absurd circus sideshow.”

Ironically, the “very qualities that make Talarico a ripe target today” — his relative youth, faith and vocal enthusiasm for “servant leadership” — were “once traits that many conservatives would have regarded as virtues,” said Lewis at The Hill. The “sad thing” isn’t simply that Texas conservatives are publicly questioning “whether these cultural signifiers say he’s a real man.” It’s that “it just might work.”

What happened

Primary voters in Maine, South Carolina and Nevada on Tuesday set up key races that could determine which party controls Congress after November’s midterms. Democrats chose Maine oyster farmer and combat veteran Graham Platner to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R). Republicans picked House candidates for Maine and Nevada seats they hope to flip, and Democrats chose Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford to take on Gov. Joe Lombardo (R).

A week after California’s primary, The Associated Press projected Tuesday night that Republican Steve Hilton beat Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer for second place in the gubernatorial race and will face Democrat Xavier Becerra in the general election.

Who said what

On a busy primary night, Platner’s “character test” was the “main event,” USA Today said. And despite recent “embarrassing revelations about his personal life,” he “cruised to victory.” In his victory speech, Platner “openly acknowledged” he has “repair work to do,” the AP said.

South Carolina’s GOP gubernatorial primary was the “latest test of President Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican electorate,” CNN said, and while his endorsement was “helpful,” it wasn’t a “slam dunk” for Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, who failed to get 50% and faces a June 23 runoff. On the other hand, Trump “appears to have ended the political career” of Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, said Reuters, as both gave up their House seats to run for governor and fell far short.

What next?

California has come under fire for its slow vote-counting, the AP said, but the “final results for Maine could take even longer” thanks to its ranked-voting system.

What happened

Progressive Los Angeles city council member Nithya Raman placed second in the city’s mayoral primary race and will face Mayor Karen Bass in a runoff election, The Associated Press projected Monday. Republican reality TV personality Spencer Pratt was initially in second place after last week’s election but lost ground with every vote update, and Raman overtook him over the weekend. Pratt’s slide to third place is “not possible,” President Donald Trump claimed on social media. “Rigged Elections!”

Who said what

In California’s “notoriously slow vote-counting process,” Republicans typically vote in person and Democrats mail in their ballots, which get counted later, the AP said. These “fleeting Republican leads are common enough to have a name — the ‘red mirage,’” The New York Times said. And this year, with the Democratic gubernatorial field in flux until the end, the election was “primed to create even more of a red mirage” than normal.

“There has been no evidence of impropriety” in Los Angeles, a “deep-blue city” that “hasn’t had a Republican mayor in more than two decades,” The Wall Street Journal said. But by “escalating allegations of election fraud in California,” Trump and his allies are “turning to a playbook they have used previously to sow doubt about election results,” including his 2020 loss.

What next?

Trump’s baseless “Democratic scam” claims “gave an unusually clear preview of how he could greet any disappointing results for his party in November, when control of Congress is at stake,” the Times said.

Is President Trump finally tired of winning? asked Shawn McCreesh in The New York Times. Asked in a Cabinet meeting two weeks ago if he feels pressure to end the Iran war before November’s elections, Trump airily replied, “I don’t care about the midterms.” In the context of Iran, Trump’s “posture of nonchalance” is defensible. Presidents shouldn’t let politics sway their thinking on matters of war. But GOP lawmakers are starting to wonder if Trump couldn’t care less about their party’s bleak electoral prospects. Republicans trail Democrats by 7.6% in the generic ballot, dragged down by Iran, high gas prices, Trump’s slumping approval rating (38% and falling), and the belief—shared by 77% of Americans, including most Republicans—that Trump’s policies have driven up the cost of living. Without a course correction, the GOP could lose both the House and Senate in November, a prospect suddenly more likely after Trump’s endorsement lifted Ken Paxton, the scandal-drenched MAGA loyalist, over incumbent Texas Sen. John Cornyn in last week’s primary. But instead of assuring cash-strapped Americans that he feels their pain, Trump spends his days constructing “pricey pet projects,” from his gilded White House ballroom to a 250-foot triumphal arch. These don’t seem like the actions of someone who’s especially bothered “about what’s coming after the summer.”

“Don’t be fooled,” said Frank Bruni, also in the Times. Trump’s ego won’t let him confess his midterm anxieties. But beneath the “bluster and makeup, he’s sweating.” Look at how hard he’s pressured red-state legislatures to redraw their electoral maps to gain a handful of seats in November, and how he’s “haranguing congressional Republicans” to pass new voting laws to depress Democratic turnout. And the electoral landscape this fall might not be as grim for Republicans as it looks now, said Mene Ukueberuwa in The Free Press. Progressives are pushing Democrats toward nominating class warriors like Maine’s Graham Platner and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, potentially alienating moderate voters in what would otherwise be “easily winnable races.”

I suspect Trump is relaxed about the midterms because “there might be political upside regardless of who wins,” said Abby McCloskey in Bloomberg. If the House and Senate turn blue, Trump will gain the scapegoat that his second term has lacked. He can blame “any and all shortcomings on Congress’s new Democratic majority.” And if empowered Democrats push left-wing legislation and try to impeach him, Trump will get to replay his favorite roles: “victim of the elite” and “protector against the progressive tide.” There’s a Jan. 6–size hole in such analyses, said Joel Mathis in his Substack newsletter. Trump’s indifference to the midterms more likely flows from the fact that he has plans in place—this time fully thought-out—to ignore or reverse the results “unless they are favorable to him.”

None of this explains why Trump suddenly cares so little about his popularity, said Paul Waldman in MS.now. Perhaps he’s contemplating his post-2029 legacy. He may be comfortable with being loathed by two-thirds of the country “so long as there are gigantic buildings with his name on them.” And his newfound indifference to approval ratings may be liberating. Trump has spent his life trying “to free himself of any and all constraints”—the law, civility, political norms, international alliances—“so he can do whatever he wants.” The interests of his party, and Americans, are just more things tying him down. “And he’s going to cut those cords.”