It's His Party. It's Not His Senate

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

Trump endorsed Ken Paxton for the Senate in Texas and secured the defeat of Rep. Thomas Massie in a KY primary.  Adam Wren and Samuel Benson at POLITICO:

“Those so-called victories over the last couple weeks are just a mirage. They are self-owns,” said one senior Senate Republican operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about frustration with the White House. “We’re not actually beating Democrats, and we’re not actually advancing legislation. Instead, gas is up 45% due to our actions and the President’s decision to go to war with Iran. He’s focused on the ballroom. He’s announced a $1.8 billion restitution fund with zero details or congressional authority to do so. It just is crazy.”

In just one day, a conquered — and, consequently, unbridled — Sen. Bill Cassidy joined Democrats to become the 50th yes vote on a war powers resolution, opposed Trump’s ballroom funding in reconciliation and called Trump’s freshly picked Paxton a “felon.” And that was just day three of Cassidy unchained.

Cassidy is not alone. Trump’s ballroom funding is stalled, the SAVE America Act is mired in the Senate and Majority Leader John Thune is pushing back on his desire to fire the parliamentarian. That’s not to mention the pushback even from the likes of the friendlier senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, who expressed doubt about the Justice Department’s $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund.

“There are still many, many months to go before the election, and this president is going to have to continue to deal and work with, and partner with, or battle with this group of lawmakers,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told reporters Tuesday. “Even though Bill Cassidy lost his primary, he is still a voting member of the Senate until January. … So the president may have just opened some opportunities for people.”

Now Cornyn could join their ranks. After Trump endorsed Paxton, the senior Texas senator faces increasingly slim chances of surviving next week’s runoff election. Should he lose, Cornyn will be liberated to vote his conscience — unmoved by threats of further political vengeance from Trump — for the final months of his term.

Paxon could still win, but only if Republicans divert millions of dollars from North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and other competitive races.

Gerrymanders and Waves

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

Bill Scher at The Washington Monthly:

While it’s likely that Democrats will maintain a healthy generic congressional ballot lead heading into Election Day, the math linking the national House popular vote to House seats is murkier than ever. In 2006, a Democratic 7.9-point popular vote advantage translated to 233 House seats, a net gain of 30. In 2010, the Republicans leveraged a 6.8-point vote edge into 257 seats, a net gain of 63. Eight years later, an 8.4-point margin gave Democrats 40 more seats, bringing their total to 241.

Today, thanks to increased political polarization, geographic sorting, and aerobic gerrymandering, political handicappers envision fewer competitive House districts, which means big popular vote swings may not translate into big numbers of seat flips. That’s why political handicappers such as The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter classify relatively few House districts, just 18, as toss-ups with another 17 as leaning towards one party (12 Democrat, five Republican). The other 400 are considered likely or solidly with a party.

Still, a strong political wind typically blows most toss-up districts towards the popular vote winner. In 2018, Democrats won 21 of the 30 toss-ups, or 70 percent, according to Cook. Moreover, Cook’s race ratings shifted in the Democrats’ favor over the course of the year, as often happens when political analysts receive more district-level poll data. Twelve districts considered toss-ups on May 18 were moved to the “Lean Democratic” or “Likely Democratic” columns by November, and Democrats swept those races. Plus, they picked up three seats from the “Lean Republican” and “Likely Republican” columns.

This November, based on today’s Cook ratings, if Democrats sweep their Lean and Likely races and pick up 70 percent of the toss-ups, they will win 219 seats, just one more seat sufficient for a majority. And that would only mean a net gain of four seats, well below the post-war 25-seat average. A big reason is the explosion of Republican gerrymandering greenlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s rollback of the Voting Rights Act, coupled with the Democrats’ loss at the Virginia Supreme Court, scotching their voter-approved gerrymander. As Amy Walter explained to the New York Times, before the judicial rulings, Cook classified 217 House seats as at least leaning Democratic; now that number is down to 207.

Polling Floors and Midterm Waves

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

Nate Cohn at NYT:

In this morning’s latest New York Times/Siena poll, whether Mr. Trump really has a high floor is starting to be put to the test.

Just 37 percent of Americans approve of his performance as president, a drop of four percentage points from the last Times/Siena poll in January and his lowest approval rating in any Times/Siena survey in either term.

A four-point decline isn’t necessarily huge, but it puts Mr. Trump’s ratings in new political territory. While recent presidencies have often been unpopular and polarizing, no president’s approval rating has been under 38 percent for more than a few days in the last 17 years, according to our average. If there has been a floor during this partisan era of politics, Mr. Trump’s ratings today have fallen to it.

...

The most immediate political consequence is that Democrats appear increasingly well positioned for the midterm elections in November. The poll shows Democrats have a double-digit lead, 50 percent to 39 percent, when registered voters are asked which party’s candidate they’ll support for Congress. That’s a notable shift from Times/Siena polls earlier this cycle — which showed Democrats up two to five points.

Anything like it would easily overcome the Republicans’ redistricting advantage in the House and suggest that Democrats could be highly competitive in the Senate. And although there’s still a long time until the election, Democrats held an even larger 14-point lead among those who said they were “almost certain” or “very likely” to vote.

...

The case of George W. Bush is instructive. At almost the exact same stage of Mr. Bush’s second term, the combination of the war in Iraq and high gas prices dragged his approval rating to about where Mr. Trump’s ratings are today. His ratings ultimately fell into the 20s, but it didn’t happen overnight. On average, Mr. Bush’s approval rating fell by less than one point per month for the rest of his term — which so happens to be the rate that Mr. Trump has been losing support over the last few months. For his approval rating to keep falling, Mr. Bush had to lose the support of longtime fans and Republicans. It can take a while.

If the conflict lasts long enough for Mr. Trump to keep bleeding support, Republicans might face something a lot worse than a bad midterm. A midterm defeat was likely even before the war began — it’s the usual fate of parties in power, after all — but the president’s party usually rebounds relative to that for the next presidential election. If Mr. Trump’s approval rating stays in the 30s, it won’t be so easy to assume Republicans will rebound. In the polling era, there are no examples of the president’s party retaining the White House when the president’s approval rating is under 40 percent. More often, the election is a rout.

Cassidy Loses

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  Sen. Bill Cassidy voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment.  He tried to regain Trump's favor by casting the deciding vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as HHS secretary.  It did not work.

 Michael Gold at NYT:

Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana on Saturday lost his Republican primary and the chance to seek a third term, after President Trump targeted him for defeat in retaliation for voting to convict him in his impeachment trial five years ago.

In a result that underscored the durability of Mr. Trump’s grip on his party, Representative Julia Letlow, the president’s chosen candidate, finished well ahead, drawing about 45 percent of the vote. John Fleming, the state treasurer and a former Trump administration official, edged out Mr. Cassidy to finish second, with about 28 percent of the vote.

Both Ms. Letlow and Mr. Fleming will advance to a runoff on June 27, according to The Associated Press.

Neither secured a majority of votes. But Mr. Cassidy, who voted to remove Mr. Trump in 2021 for inciting insurrection and has clashed with the Make America Healthy Again movement over vaccines, could not even secure enough support in his state to stay in the race, finishing with around 25 percent of the vote.

Farm Belt Woes in a Midterm Election Year

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

Mike Allen at Axios:

 The big picture: Mark Mueller — a northeast Iowa farmer and president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association — tells Axios that the current landscape is tougher than at any time since the 1980s farm crisis, when interest rates soared and exports plunged, triggering agricultural bank failures.Bankruptcies are rising. Lenders are becoming more reluctant to loan to farmers. "There's going to be fewer farmers next year than this year," Mueller says.

Farmers are grappling with a confluence of forces:

• Skyrocketing energy prices triggered by the Iran war. Diesel is up 60% from last year.
• Spiking fertilizer prices and shortages after Iran blocked shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. 70% of farmers say they can't afford the fertilizer they need.
• Disrupted export markets tied to President Trump's tariffs and Chinese import restrictions.
• Global drought and other weather pressures.

Several states with a high concentration of agricultural jobs have competitive Senate elections.  There is precedent.  In 1986, Robert Shogan wrote at LAT:

The farms and small towns of this region have traditionally been the GOP’s electoral backbone and its ideological heart, giving life to the party’s ingrained conservative ethic of hard work and self-reliance. Yet the farm economy on which much of the Midwest depends is undergoing a dramatic, apparently continuing decline. And in many places, Republican candidates are in jeopardy in this fall’s elections--a development that poses new dangers to GOP hopes of achieving majority status.

And even if many individual Republican officeholders survive on Election Day, there are indications that the farm crisis has cost the GOP a historically important opportunity to expand on its Reagan-era gains by taking some of the shine off Republicanism. In Iowa, for example, Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley says that without the farm recession, “the Republicans would have a landslide victory in Iowa this fall. With it, there are major problems.”

Prat Videos in LA Mayor Race

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

pic.twitter.com/YPrZIS0Mp1

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) May 12, 2026

Angela Yang at NBC:

Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt isn’t a superhero.

But a slew of recent viral AI-generated videos portray him as Los Angeles’ lone savior — helping thrust his mayoral campaign against Mayor Karen Bass and City Council member Nithya Raman into the spotlight in recent weeks.

Many of the videos, created by filmmaker Charlie Curran, cast Pratt in cinematic, hero-style scenarios: battling Bass in a lightsaber duel while California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris scheme behind the scenes or appearing as a Batman-like figure opposite a Joker-esque Bass. The posts have been viewed millions of times on social media.

Pratt has denied involvement, calling the clips “fan-made” in a since-deleted Instagram video. He has reposted several of them on X while sharing his own “man-made” campaign videos that feature video of his wife, fellow “The Hills” alum Heidi Pratt, and their son navigating life after their house burned down in the Palisades Fire.

The Batman video is a ripoff of a 2025 anti-Trump video::

 

🇺🇸🍾 MAGA BALLROOM 2028 - You are invited to the grand opening of the Beautiful Ballroom. A new chapter. An AI experiment #maga #democracy pic.twitter.com/ShN1XoQ9C6

— Ari K (@arikuschnir) August 6, 2025

Buying Influencers

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

Lia Russell at the Sacramento Bee:

 Isaiah “Zay Dante” Washington normally posts about pop culture and sports to his 1.8 million TikTok followers as @zayydante. His most viral videos include skits about dueling Drake and Kendrick Lamar tracks and parodies amplifying more serious lyrical messages in popular party music. 

In March, he briefly pivoted by interviewing governor candidate Tom Steyer, asking the billionaire climate change activist to square his populist platform with his wealth and how he intended to fight his fellow patricians knowing “how capitalism has scorned young people.” 

Steyer’s campaign paid Washington $10,000 to post to Instagram, YouTube and TikTok under his former handle @relatableisaiah, which now links to @zayydante, per campaign expenditures. According to a strategy memo obtained by The Sacramento Bee, Steyer’s campaign has approached other content creators to boost him online for $10 per video, with more promised if they reach a certain threshold of views. 

...

“Many voters are critical of Tom Steyer because of his billionaire status, lack of experience and previous investments. Rather than pretending that these things don’t exist, acknowledge and relate to voters’ concerns and explain why you still believe Steyer is the strongest candidate despite them,” the Steyer memo read. It asks creators to post three to four videos weekly without mentioning him or the governor’s race. “

This content should still be related to policies he supports, for instance, videos about abolishing ICE, taxing the rich, AI regulation, climate change, free universal education, ending corporate influence in politics, etc. This will help your content reach more audiences and build audience trust,” the memo said.

The memo instructs creators who sign on to make new social media accounts under usernames that reflect their names or a nickname, avoiding brands, random numbers or anything that looks like spam. They then upload them for approval to the app SideShift, which recruits creators to make content for companies like the Kalshi prediction market, Paramount and the Wasserman Group.