Florida Specials

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

Khaleda Rahman at Newsweek:

President Donald Trump faced a bruising election night on Tuesday, as two Democrats flipped seats in reliably red Florida and the North Carolina Senate leader the president had endorsed for reelection conceded defeat in his primary race..

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The results serve as another sign of trouble for Republicans, who are embarking on a difficult campaign to keep control of both the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections. Historically, the party in power usually gives up seats in midterm elections. Trump has urged the GOP to redraw congressional maps across the country to give Republican candidates an advantage ahead of November's elections, although the effort that could end up backfiring.

Democrats have celebrated Tuesday’s victories in Florida as another signal that voters are turning against Trump and Republicans. They are the latest in a series of special election victories for Democrats across the country since the president returned to the White House more than a year ago

In Florida, Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election to represent the state’s 87th House district, flipping a seat that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The president carried the district by double digits in the 2024 election.

Trump had endorsed Gregory's Republican rival, Jon Maples. In a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday, he urged voters to turn out to vote, saying Maples was backed “by so many of my Palm Beach County friends.”

Also in Florida, Democrat Brian Nathan declared victory in a tight race to replace Republican Jay Collins in State Senate District 14, after Collins was tapped by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to serve as his lieutenant governor.

The win is a major upset in a Tampa-area district that Collins won by almost 10 percentage points in 2022 and where there are about 22,000 more registered Republican voters than Democrats.

The two seats are the 29th and 30th seats that Democrats have flipped from Republican control since Trump returned to office, Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement to Newsweek.

 

Struggling

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments 

Sarah Fioroni at Gallup:

For the first time since Gallup began measuring the life evaluation of the American workforce, more U.S. workers are struggling in their lives (49%) than thriving (46%). This contrasts with 2022 and 2023, when the reverse was true, with the share of U.S. employees considered “thriving” staying in the low-to-mid 50s — a mark of relative resilience after pandemic disruptions. After staying steady between 57% and 60% from 2009 to 2019, the thriving rate among workers fell to 55% in 2020 before rebounding in 2021 then steadily decreasing after that.

 

Trump Blinks Twice

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East. It's good that he backed down from his reckless threat to Iranian energy.  It's bad that he had to.

 

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— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 23, 2026

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— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 23, 2026

Trump Gloats About Mueller's Death

 Our books have discussed Trump's low character, which was on display this weekend.

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— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 21, 2026

In 2016, Trump asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails  As the Mueller report note,  the Russian military quckly did has he had asked.  From the Mueller report.

Trump later claimed that he was just kidding.  He was not. When reporter Katy Tur asked him if the request gave him pause, he said, "It gives me no pause."  When she pressed him, he told her, "Be quiet."

Shell Super PACs

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

 Clara Ence Morse and Dan Merica at WP:

The political arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee funneled over $5 million to other groups as part of its work to defeat Illinois Democrats critical of Israel in House primaries held Tuesday, filings made public late Friday show. The secretive giving is the latest example of how outside groups are obscuring their spending in competitive campaigns.

The contributions, which didn’t have to be disclosed until after Election Day under federal campaign finance regulations, funded part of a record-breaking total of outside spending: $225 million has been spent to influence midterm elections so far, according to a Post analysis of federal election data. Special interest groups, including AIPAC, have sometimes tried to veil their spending by using affiliated organizations that appear unrelated to the parent organization’s stated policy goals.

AIPAC, a pro-Israel group that has grown increasingly unpopular with Democratic primary voters, cloaked its spending in a trio of innocuously named organizations — Chicago Progressive Partnership, Affordable Chicago Now and Elect Chicago Women — and ran ads that attacked candidates, including Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, for a variety of reasons other than his position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

“It’s awful for politics,” said Jim Kessler, an executive at Third Way, a center-left think tank and advocacy organization. The use of shell super PACs, he added, shows these groups know “what you’re peddling is not popular with voters.”

The groups behind the spending argue they are using legal tools to further their goals and hinted they will do so in future primaries. Critics argue that the masking is underhanded, noting that the practice suggests the groups know their policy objectives are unpopular, or they would otherwise be willing to reveal the spending before the races are decided

Trump Coalition

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

Ian Ward at Politico:

With the 2026 midterms fast approaching, those divides have fueled speculation that MAGA voters might defect en masse from the GOP in November. But that’s not the primary threat facing the Trump coalition: Recent polling suggests that self-identified “MAGA Republicans” are standing firmly with Trump on the war and a host of other divisive issues, underscoring the stubborn reality that — as Trump has pithily put it — “MAGA is me.”

Yet as several conservative commentators have recently pointed out, Trump didn’t win reelection in 2024 merely on the strength of MAGA voters. His winning coalition paired his core MAGA constituency with a broader constellation of other non-traditional Republican constituencies — disillusioned Democrats and “MAHA moms” and “manosphere” podcast bros among them.

It is that broader Trumpian coalition — rather than the core base of MAGA supporters — that some Trump backers fear has been endangered by Trump’s policy choices. As the conservative activist Mike Cernovich put it this week, “A generational coalition, squandered.”

The issues:

• Iran
• Antisemitism 
• Immigration
• Epstein files
• MAHA
• AI
• Gender politics
• Identity

Save America Act Would Backfire on the GOP

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.  Trump keeps pushing the myth of widespread fraud in US elections. He is demanding that the Senate pass the Save America Act. It would backfire on the GOP.

 Amy B Wang, Scott Clement and Lydia Sidhom at WP:

Everyone would need to present a photo ID to cast a ballot. But the bill would have the greatest impact on the registration process. While the bill does not explicitly require everyone to reregister to vote, a significant number of currently registered voters could be asked to provide documentation to remain on the rolls. Others may have to reregister because of a move or a name change. And this registration would need to take place in person.

An analysis by The Washington Post found that a greater number of Republican-held congressional districts have at least 5 percent of residents who would need to reregister to vote because they are considered “inactive voters.” That means they failed to verify their address with election officials, haven’t voted in two or more consecutive federal elections, or have no valid or current address on file. In about 54 percent of Republican-held congressional districts, at least 5 percent of residents would have to reregister to vote, more than the 36 percent of Democratic-held congressional districts in which at least 5 percent of residents would need to reregister.

About 21 million U.S. citizens of voting age (9 percent) do not have or lack easy access to documents proving their citizenship, according to a 2023 survey conducted by the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, VoteRiders and the Brennan Center for Justice.

About 2.6 million Americans of voting age (1 percent) do not have any government-issued photo ID, while 34.5 million (15 percent) do not have a driver’s license or official state ID card that has their current name and address, according to the survey. Under the Save America Act, student IDs and other state licenses or ID cards would not be accepted.

As many as 69 million married women in the United States do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name, according to the Center for American Progress, and they could face additional hurdles if they need to register to vote.

Much of the real-world impact would ultimately depend on how states implement the verification requirements — whether they already collect proof of citizenship from voters, for example.

Wren Orey and William T. Adler at the Bipartisan Policy Center:

Research from Pew Research Center finds that Republican women are about half as likely as Democratic women to keep their last name after marriage (10% versus 20%), suggesting that Republican voters may be somewhat more likely to have to complete additional steps 4 linking their birth certificate to their current voter record.

In short, birth certificates are a less reliable form of documentary proof than passports. Because Republicans are more likely to rely on them than Democrats, they may ultimately be more disadvantaged by documentary proof requirements.

Democrats do better among voters with more years of education.  And they find that this variable correlates with passport possession:

• No HS 16%
• HS 30%
• 2-yr 41%
• Some college 37%
• 4-yr 61%
• Postgrad 72%

Marc Novicoff  at The Atlantic:

One recent YouGov poll showed that 64 percent of Harris voters reported having a valid passport compared with 55 percent of Trump voters. According to an analysis by the voting-rights nonprofit Secure Democracy USA, the 13 states in which people are least likely to have a passport voted for Trump in 2024. Passports are especially rare in rural counties, where Republicans run up the score, Daniel Griffith, the author of the report, told me.