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.

Coming to Democratic Attack Ads Near You...

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Despite gerrymandering wins, things look bad for the GOP in part because the Iran War has gone badly.  Because of the war, the economy is foundering.

Allen Smith at NBC:

President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he is not weighing the economic burden of the Iran war on everyday Americans when negotiating a deal with the country’s leadership.

Speaking on the White House South Lawn before departing for a diplomatic trip to China, Trump was asked to what extent “Americans’ financial situations” were motivating him to make a deal with Iran.

“Not even a little bit,” Trump replied. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran — they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing — we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”

Ariel Edwards-Levy at CNN:

A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds that 77% – including a majority of Republicans – say that Trump’s policies have increased the cost of living in their own community. Roughly two-thirds of Americans say that Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country. And Trump’s approval rating stands at 30% on the economy, a career low.

 Zachary Basu at Axios:

The big picture: The affordability crisis that fueled Trump's return to power has become a five-alarm threat to his presidency — even as GDP growth, fueled largely by the AI boom, remains strong on paper.

1. Prices are surging: Inflation spiked to 3.8% in April as the Iran war pushed the national average price of gas above $4.50 a gallon.Economists fear the energy shock is beginning to ripple through the broader economy, pushing up the cost of groceries, airfare, electricity and other essentials Americans rely on every day.

2. Paychecks are shrinking: Tuesday's inflation report showed that prices are outpacing wages for the first time in three years, erasing gains in real purchasing power.American households have absorbed a rise of nearly 30% in consumer prices since the pandemic — a cumulative toll that has never fully healed, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

3. Debt is mounting: Americans are increasingly leaning on credit cards and loans to absorb rising costs, with consumer borrowing posting its biggest monthly jump in March since late 2022.The personal savings rate fell to 3.6% in March, its lowest level since 2022, as lower-income households burn through savings to cover essentials.

4. Confidence is collapsing: Consumer sentiment has cratered to record lows as Americans grow pessimistic about the economy and their own financial futures.A new YouGov/Economist poll found that 59% say the economy is getting worse, while just 15% say it's improving. More than two-thirds of Americans say the country feels "out of control."

5. Main Street is souring: The National Federation of Independent Business says optimism around future business conditions and expansion plans has fallen to its lowest level since before Trump's reelection.

The Akin Ploy in the 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. In the 2012 Missouri  Senate race, incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill ran ads during the GOP primary campaign saying that Todd Akin was "too conservative."  The idea of the "attack ad" was to drive GOP voters to Akin, her weakest potential foe.  It worked.  Other campaigns have tried variations of the "pick your opponent" ploy.  And it has happened in 2025 and 2026.

Ha! This ad is designed to actually HELP Spencer Pratt consolidate conservative votes and make the top two in the primary, pushing Raman (the lefty Bass fears) into third place. #Garvey https://t.co/JOffW61lnq

— Mike Murphy (@murphymike) May 10, 2026

 

Consumer Sentiment Darkens

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Despite gerrymandering wins, things look bad for the GOP in part because the Iran War has gone badly.

Jeff Cox at CNBC:

Surging gas prices due to the Iran war sent consumer sentiment to a new low in the early part of May, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday.

The school’s closely watched Survey of Consumers posted a 48.2 preliminary reading, down 3.2% from April’s prior record swoon and off 7.7% from a year ago. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 49.7.

Inflation fears were the primary driver of the continued trend lower in consumer attitudes.

The trend, which also saw the current conditions index tumble 9%, is “owing to a surge in concerns about high prices both for personal finances as well as buying conditions for major purchases,” the survey’s director, Joanne Hsu, said.

One-third of respondents mentioned gas prices as the biggest cause of concern. However, another one-third also cited tariffs — both connected to President Donald Trump, who launched an attack on Iran in late February and announced an aggressive slate of tariffs in April 2025.

“Taken together, consumers continue to feel buffeted by cost pressures, led by soaring prices at the pump,” Hsu said. “Middle East developments are unlikely to meaningfully boost sentiment until supply disruptions have been fully resolved and energy prices fall.

World War G: Republicans Score Wins in VA and TN

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

Sabrina Moreno at Axios:

The Virginia Supreme Court overturned the results of the state's redistricting referendum, which voters narrowly approved last month.

Why it matters: The ruling upends one of the most closely watched redistricting fights in the country.It follows months of legal challenges over whether the referendum was unconstitutional.

The big picture: The decision effectively blocks Democrats from redrawing congressional maps mid-decade.That's after the state spent $5.2 million to pay for the special election, and outside groups raised nearly $100 million to sway voters.

The new map would have been in effect for the November midterms and was expected to shift the state's congressional split from 6-5 favoring Democrats to 10-1.

 Katherine Chui and Emily Cochrane at NYT:

When the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 last week, Republicans saw new political opportunities across the South. Congressional districts that were considered strongholds for Democrats, often with majority Black populations, could be redrawn for the first time in decades.

Among Southern states, Tennessee was the first to redo its map, which Gov. Bill Lee signed into law on Thursday. The new map breaks the Ninth Congressional District — a longtime Democratic base encompassing Memphis — into three Republican-leaning districts.

The new map divides areas of Memphis where most of the population is Black among three districts with overwhelmingly white populations, eliminating the state’s sole majority Black district in the process.

The Thumpin' Redux? 2006 and 2026 Parallels

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

Theodoric Meyer at WP:

“A year ago, no one thought we had a chance to take back the Senate,” Schumer said. “I was one of the very few. And I laid out a plan which is now working.”

For months, Democrats have been far more bullish about retaking the House, which requires flipping only a few seats. But Trump’s unpopularity has made Republicans in both chambers appear more vulnerable.

Thirty-seven percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. Sixty-two percent disapprove, the highest level of either of Trump’s terms. Trump’s approval rating was even lower for his handling of the economy and inflation, which both parties view as crucial to the midterms.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found Trump faring even worse: 34 percent of Americans approved of his performance, and 64 percent disapproved.

Schumer said the political environment feels similar to 2006, when Democrats capitalized on discontent with the Iraq War in President George W. Bush’s second term to pick up six Senate seats and flipped the chamber against the odds.

“There’s a very unpopular president, there’s a war on, and it’s a really hard Senate map,” J.B. Poersch, who runs Senate Majority PAC, the flagship Democratic super PAC in Senate races, said in an interview. “Those are all similarities to ’06. We won in a scenario where we weren’t supposed to win [in 2006] because the map was so challenging — and this one’s challenging, too.”

Trump Clout in IN Primrary, Bad Sign for GOP in Michigan

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

Susan Page at USA TODAY:

He's still the boss.

President Donald Trump is beset by rising gas prices, falling approval ratings and an unpopular war in Iran. But in the Indiana primary May 5 he demonstrated his continued grip on the Republican Party by delivering a thumping to a half-dozen state senators who defied his demands to redraw congressional lines.

Of seven GOP senators who earned his ire, five lost their party's nominations to challengers the president had endorsed, with one race still too close to call.

It was an unlikely test, and an expensive one, in contests that typically attract little attention.

"Trump is perhaps not as popular in my district as he once was," Spencer Deery, one of the incumbent senators, told CNN while the votes were being counted, "but he is still overwhelmingly popular."

Patrick Svitek at CNN:

Michigan Democrats on Tuesday won a special election for a state Senate seat in another party over-performance after the district was almost evenly divided in the last presidential election.

Democratic firefighter Chedrick Greene defeated GOP lawyer Jason Tunney for a seat to determine whether Democrats would retain control of the state Senate. With an estimated 93% of votes in, Greene led Tunney by 19 points.