Corruption Update

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist. Along with war and inflation, Trump's corruption is bringing down the GOP.

AP-NORC:

Most Americans say President Trump has prioritized his personal financial interests and the interests of people close to him since taking office again in 2025. Far fewer say he has prioritized the country as a whole or people like them. Four in 10 believe he has done something illegal and another 18% see his actions as unethical but not illegal, though views diverge sharply by party.

More adults see Trump as focused on his own business interests and those of his inner circle than on the country as a whole or people like them. A majority, 56%, say Trump has prioritized his personal business interests “a lot,” and 54% say the same about the business interests of his friends and family. By comparison, only 23% say he has prioritized the country overall “a lot,” and just 11% say he has prioritized people like them “a lot.” Half of Americans say Trump has not prioritized people like them at all.

Democrats and independents overwhelmingly say Trump has prioritized his own business interests and those of his friends and family “a lot” or “some,” and about half of Republicans agree. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats or independents to say the president has prioritized the country overall or people like them.

Trump fired Kim Guilfoyle as Ambassador to Greece for allegedly selling access. 

Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:

Indeed, by comparison with the charges leveled at others—including against the president himself, who seems utterly unconcerned with notions such as “emoluments”—Guilfoyle is decidedly a small-timer. This past spring, for example, the Financial Times reported that a broker for Pete Hegseth attempted to make a big investment in defense industries just before the Iran war, raising suspicions of insider trading. FBI Director Kash Patel has been accused of using government money as a slush fund to pay improper bonuses to his favorites within the Bureau. “Border Czar” Tom Homan was caught on audio in 2024 accepting $50,000 in cash (wrapped in a Cava food bag, always the sign of a deal on the up-and-up) from undercover FBI agents posing as business executives, and yet he remains in his job. Hegseth and Homan deny any wrongdoing; Patel and the FBI have offered no comment or explanation. And the journalist Dexter Filkins recently described Trump’s son-in-law and roving minister-without-portfolio Jared Kushner as representative of “a new kind of Washington figure, for whom public office serves as a means to extraordinary wealth.”

Guilfoyle may have been a relative piker among giants in the grift game, but her real sin was the pathetic and humiliating nature of her behavior. (Even Homan managed not to seem quite so grubby when reportedly accepting a bag of greenbacks.) Her messages to a Trump donor asking for money to help pay her huge credit-card bills are cringe-inducing. “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she wrote to the Trump supporter Eric Deters when asking him to wire a cool $100,000 directly into her American Express account in July 2025, just before her confirmation hearings.

Worse, she continually told Deters to stop writing things down and just contact her on Signal. “What a nightmare you’ll literally cost me my ambassadorship stop writing,” she said. This was apparently Guilfoyle’s version of the infamous “Stringer Bell rule,” named for a character from the television series The Wire who dressed down one of his drug-dealing accomplices for being stupid enough to keep written notes on a criminal conspiracy. The problem is that she, too, violated that rule: She made her requests to Deters to stop writing things down in writing.

GOP Dunkirk

  Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  In 2024, the book explains, the Democrats' problems involved reality, not just messaging.  Two years later, Republicans own the reality problems, including the Iran quagmire and the resulting economic pain.

Meredith Lee Hill, Andrew Howard and Mia McCarthy

Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.

Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told POLITICO the House had all but slipped away.

One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.

“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”

A second Republican member of Congress said the movement of campaign advertising made plain which side was in control of the midterms. This lawmaker predicted Democrats would pick up about 10 seats, more than enough to take control of the chamber.

Even in newly redistricted red states like Florida and Texas, this person said, Republican candidates were “hanging on with their fingernails.”

Republicans have already fallen back from several contested House districts that they feel are no longer winnable, including those held by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey. Trump carried their districts just two years ago. The party last week gave up on an Omaha-based district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon.

Asked how he plans to reach voters without RGA-funded ads, James cited his efforts to talk to reporters, whom he described as "vital truth tellers."

— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) October 12, 2026

Another Oppo Fail

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

Bayliss Wagner at NYT:

After James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, spent more than a week with no campaign appearances because of what he and his aides described as a bad case of the flu, a false rumor circulated by conservatives exploded online.

By Sunday, a post on X claiming that Mr. Talarico had been at a mental health facility in Ohio — a story promoted by Republican allies of Mr. Talarico’s opponent, Ken Paxton — had been viewed millions of times. Then the Ohio facility took the remarkable step of publicly announcing on Sunday night that Mr. Talarico had in fact never been treated there.

“I’ve never even been to Ohio,” Mr. Talarico, who returned to the campaign trail on Friday, wrote in a post sharing the center’s statement. He called the theory “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard” in an interview with MS NOW.

The New York Times reviewed time-stamped images from a security camera at Mr. Talarico’s home, which were provided by his campaign on the condition they not be published for security reasons. The images showed Mr. Talarico around the exterior of the home and at its entrances between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8.

Probably Sunday's best moment in Texas politics: @CurrentRevolt loses it over how shoddy the work was by the MAGA influencers trying to convince you that Rep Talarico was in a mental hospital: "This story sucks, man...this is shit work, bro... I'm actually upset" https://t.co/oAwJnWvh00

— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) October 12, 2026

MAGA operative's Talarico denial explodes in his face as tape of confession surfaces #RawStory https://t.co/vGC7BwIV2f

— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) October 12, 2026

On the Menu: Baked Midterm

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

Erin Doherty and Jessie Blaeser at POLITICO:

Republicans are running out of ways to reverse their gloomy midterm prospects.

The POLITICO Poll finds most Americans see no clear way for the party to regain the advantage as the election reaches its final weeks, with even Republican voters skeptical that President Donald Trump could pull off a last-minute move that could shake up the campaign. And majorities of voters say they would not be more likely to vote Republican even if Trump were to pull off a major political feat before November — like announcing the Iran war was over, bringing the price of gasoline down by $1 or creating 100,000 new jobs.

That’s especially true of Democratic midterm and undecided voters: No matter the scenario or how significant the accomplishment, both groups hardly moved, the poll shows.

Voters’ perception of Trump’s actions and the economy are largely baked — a worrying sign for the GOP staring down an increasingly difficult landscape.

 “I think a lot of the die is already cast,” said Mike Noble, the founder of Arizona-based polling firm Noble Predictive Insights. “It’s tough talking to Republicans, unless they’re just incredibly big die-hards. Like, how do they get motivated right now? Democrats are clearly motivated.”

Less GOP Bang for the Buck

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

Calen Razor at POLITICO:

Republicans have a massive campaign cash advantage going into the final stretch before Election Day, but a new POLITICO poll shows they aren't yet capturing voters’ attention.

More than 70% of poll respondents who had seen ads said they’d either seen more spots in support of Democrats or an equal amount between the parties over the past week — including ads on television, social media, or any other platform. Only 24% said they’d seen more ads for Republicans.

The numbers are striking considering Republican-aligned groups had triple the amount of cash on hand compared to their Democratic rivals going into the final months of the campaign. That figure includes the $400 million war chest that President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC reported over the summer, for which Dems have no equivalent.

Republicans have been racing to saturate key battlegrounds — and even some deep-red districts and states — with GOP messages in the final weeks before the midterms to counterbalance the favorable political environment for Democrats.

One reason GOP ad dollars could be getting less bang for their buck may lie in ad rates: direct campaign accounts from prolific individual fundraisers — Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff or Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, for example — can buy ads at cheaper rates.

Timing may be another reason: Trump’s super PAC waited until recent weeks to start buying ads through affiliate groups, when rates were already high close to the election.

...

The poll was conducted by surveying U.S. adults online between Oct. 3-5 with PF Global.

Paxton's Complaint

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

Andrew Solender and Stef W. Kight at Axios:

Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton privately lamented the impact of the Iran war and gas prices on his campaign in a meeting last month, telling a group of donors and lobbyists, "I don't make the decisions," according to audio obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: It's a candid admission from a close Trump ally about the challenging environment Republicans face this cycle.

Paxton, the Texas attorney general, was speaking to donors and lobbyists at a closed-door fundraiser in Washington, D.C. The audio was provided to Axios by a person, granted anonymity because it was a private event, who was in the meeting and is opposed to Paxton.

President Trump is set to rally with Paxton in San Antonio on Wednesday.

Driving the news: Asked by one attendee what issues are "dragging" on his campaign, Paxton responded, "It's not tariffs. ... It's the war, it's gas prices, it's diesel," according to an audio file obtained by Axios."When it's over $6 per gallon for diesel ... people are feeling the pinch," he continued, adding that the rising cost of fuel "drives up food prices and everything else."

The Republican candidate said affordability is "by far our biggest problem" and "why we're having a hard time with numbers."

Triage

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

Andrew Howard, Erin Doherty and Lisa Kashinsky at POLITICO:

Republicans are flooding the electoral map with a deluge of advertising to defend their House and Senate majorities. But their once-towering financial advantage is starting to show its limits.

In recent days, Republican campaign groups began to make concessions to the punishing political environment, shifting money away from races they no longer believe to be winnable and falling back to reinforce another tier of seats in solidly red states that no longer look safe.

After abandoning a GOP-held Senate seat in North Carolina — a state President Donald Trump won three times — the outside groups began spending money to defend a seat in South Carolina. And they’re intensifying their advertising in Kansas, where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in nearly a century.

In the battle for control of the House, national Republicans gave up on defending a blue-leaning seat in Nebraska held for a decade by retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon.

Those dispiriting setbacks signal that the party’s defensive position is weakening with a month still left in the campaign.

One national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak freely about the party’s predicament, said the GOP could wind up facing even worse losses than in President George W. Bush’s disastrous second term.

“If the bottom continues falling out like it has been,” this operative said, “this will be worse than 2006.”