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.”

Trump's Self-Sabotage Continues

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.

Trump keeps making things worse for his party.  In Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina, he supported the nomination of dubious Republican candidates who could lose otherwise winnable races.  In Florida, he is attacking a Republican who faces a tight contest.

Aleena Fayaz  at CNN:

President Donald Trump appeared to intensify his irritation with GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar on Saturday evening after reposting a series of social media attacks on the congresswoman who made waves last week for breaking with him on his immigration tactics.

The president shared in quick succession on Truth Social at least 14 posts from other users critical of Salazar, who is facing a tough reelection race in Florida as Republicans’ midterm fortunes decline.

“She is nothing but a back stabber. I’m glad the Latino support hasn’t wavered,” one user wrote in a post shared by Trump.

Another user slammed the congresswoman: “She wants amnesty for the ppl how criminally crossed our borders defying our laws.”

“So we need a NEW Republican to Replace Salazar,” different user said

Jacob Ogles at Florida Politics:

One of the nation’s top political prognosticators sees two Republican incumbents in trouble in Florida, and one open race tied. Based on Cook Political Report’s current ratings, it’s possible Republicans net no seats from a new congressional map.

The top election rater shifted 15 House races in Democrats’ direction. That included saying Republican U.S. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna in Florida’s 13th Congressional District and María Elvira Salazar in Florida’s 27th Congressional District now sit in “Lean R” territory.

That means they hold edges on respective Democratic challengers Leela Gray and Eliott Rodriguez, but are more imperiled in a climate increasingly hostile to Republicans.

 

Some Hill Republicans Edge Way from Trump

 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.  Some lawmakers are starting to act.

Olivia Diaz st NYT:

A Republican senator on Tuesday called for the Senate to investigate whether Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, exploited his access to his father for personal gain, spurred by reports that a Russian oligarch funded a lavish wedding after-party for the younger Mr. Trump.

In a three-page letter, Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, urged the Judiciary Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., after it was revealed that a Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the festivities on an island in the Bahamas this year.

Issuing such a subpoena would be exceedingly unlikely by the Republican-led panel, and top Republicans would not say on Tuesday whether they planned to take action. But the request by Mr. Curtis marked a rare instance of a G.O.P. lawmaker daring to challenge the president.

The president has said that his son would repay the Russian businessman, Umar Kremlev, for what he called a wedding gift. But Mr. Curtis rejected that characterization.

“A toaster is a wedding gift,” the senator said in a social media post. “A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else. Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now.”

...
The Utah Republican’s call for an inquiry came as a growing group of Republicans has become more emboldened about breaking with the president ahead of November’s elections. Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa, a Republican running for the Senate, called on Mr. Trump on Monday to end the war with Iran. That came just days after two other G.O.P. lawmakers from Iowa who are battling for re-election, Representatives Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, crossed party lines to help push through a Democratic measure directing Mr. Trump to halt the conflict.

Late conversion does not always work, however.

Mariana Alfaro at WP

In South Florida, Rep. María Elvira Salazar’s latest campaign ad seems to be all voters can talk about.

The Republican’s video, released last week, was shot in front of the White House, not in the sun-blazed streets of Miami-Dade County. Though aimed at frustrated voters, it was framed as a direct appeal to President Donald Trump.

“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar says while looking directly at the camera. She goes on to tell Trump that his advisers are giving him bad advice, and that his immigration policies are weakening Republicans’ standing with the Latino voters who helped power GOP gains in 2024.

But many Latino voters in Salazar’s district said she has misread their sentiment and that their support for Trump has not wavered. Their support for their congresswoman, however, has waned, they said — and the ad did nothing to restore their confidence.

“She’s out of line,” said Hector Rubio, a resident of Miami’s wealthy enclave of Key Biscayne. Rubio, a longtime Republican voter who supported Salazar in the past three races, said in Spanish that Trump “is doing what he can, and he could do even more.” As he watched his wife shop in the neighborhood’s busy farmers market on Saturday morning, Rubio advised Salazar to stick close to Trump.

Even those who agreed with Salazar’s message seemed to find fault in it, with many saying the lawmaker should have made her appeal to Trump earlier.

“Her blind support of Trump has me very disturbed. She’s not thinking for herself,” said Charles Parsons, 83, another Key Biscayne resident who voted for Salazar in the past but said Saturday that he will not support her this year, even though he plans to vote for other Florida Republicans on the ballot. “All she’s thinking about is her political survival, and this ad … does nothing more than exacerbate the wound for me.”

Pre-Election House Turnover

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

Drew DeSilver at Pew:

With primary season in the United States now over, control of the House of Representatives is still very much up for grabs. But before a single general-election vote has been tallied, 74 House members are already heading out the door – more than before any general election since 1992.

Near-record number of House members already on their way out the door
Number of House members who lost or gave up their seats

As of now, 42 Republicans and 32 Democrats won’t be returning to the House next year. That’s because they ran or are running for some other office instead; failed to win their primaries; resigned and haven’t been replaced via special election; or simply decided to retire from the House.

In 1992, 86 members were on their way out before the general election – more than in any election since. That election year was the first after House districts were redrawn following the 1990 census, which on its own created churn as states gained or lost seats and many incumbents found themselves in unfamiliar territory. In addition, the House banking scandal fueled widespread public outrage. In the end, 110 members either gave up or lost their seats, including 24 losses in the general election.About this research

This Pew Research Center analysis looks at how many U.S. House members have lost or given up their seats during primary season and how that compares with previous election cycles.

We looked at the outcomes of every individual House race for each election year since 1992 (the modern record for House turnover). For each year, we determined whether each incumbent sought reelection; ran for some other office instead; won or lost their primary; and won or lost the general election.

We treated representatives elected in special elections before the general election the same as other incumbents. We counted House members who resigned, died, or were expelled and whose seats had not been filled by special election before the general election as non-returning incumbents.

A notable driver of this year’s departures is the 28 members who chose to run for other offices rather than seek reelection. That’s the most in any election cycle we studied. By comparison, only 15 House members ran for other offices in the record-turnover year of 1992.

World War G in September

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

The 2026 movie Pressure dramatizes the clash of Allied meteorologists in the run-up to D-Day.  The Americans relied on analog forecasting, looking for past weather maps that matched current conditions, and assuming that the weather would play out the same way.  The British were more alert to differences that the analog maps did not capture. Like the American forecasters in 1944, the Republicans assumed that the patterns of 2024 would remain in place in 2026.  They did not count on the extent to which Trump's actions alienated Hispanics and other voters.

They had similar problems in previous elections.

Andrew Howard and Aaron Pellish at POLITICO:

Republicans are growing increasingly worried their mid-decade gerrymandering push isn’t going to save their House majority.

The norm-breaking plan hatched by the White House last summer to draw new maps to protect the party from an unfavorable midterm environment is not on track to bear the fruits they hoped it would. Two months out from Election Day, Republicans are sweating races they thought they would win comfortably when they redrew district boundaries, according to conversations with a dozen Republican strategists on Friday.

...

Republicans redrew maps in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama — while Democrats only pulled off a gerrymander in California. (They got another seat from a Utah court decision but had their Virginia gerrymander blocked in court.) In a less hostile political environment, that could have netted the GOP more than a dozen seats.

But they’re not all looking so solid. Texas Republicans are growing increasingly worried that newly drawn Latino-heavy seats Trump carried by double digits in 2024 are looking shaky, and the five-seat net they’d hoped out of the state looks increasingly unrealistic by the day.“The Texas redistricting effort will for sure yield a two-seat gain, and more than likely yield a three-seat gain,” said Alfredo Rodriguez, a Dallas-based Republican strategist. “Picking up five seats will be difficult considering the environment and headwinds Republicans face this cycle.”In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Don Davis looks very much alive in a tough seat redrawn by the GOP to take him out.

And Florida’s new gerrymander isn’t looking bulletproof, either, with Democratic Reps. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor and Jared Moskowitz running hard to hold onto newly red-leaning territory.

Trump to Hill Republicans: Meh!

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

ADAM WREN, DASHA BURNS and WILL STEAKIN at POLITICO:

House Republicans are hurtling toward August recess and a 105-day sprint to midterm elections, and President Donald Trump is showing little interest in boosting their prospects.

"Zero," a person close to the president told Playbook when asked about his engagement on the Hill.

Trump "doesn't care about anything beyond SAVE, Iran, and the ballroom,” another White House ally put it.

Republicans are staring down Election Day with a short list of accomplishments to sell, forcing them to reconcile two truths: The president doesn’t appear interested in helping Speaker Mike Johnson ram legislation over the finish line, and one of the only cases they have to make back home is to frame Democrats as communists.

Rep. Lisa McClain (Mich.), the GOP conference chair, who not long ago shared Republicans’ midterm messaging strategy with Playbook, told us she’s whittled that down to something simpler: Democrats are crazy.

“We voted for capitalism,” McCLain told Playbook. “We voted to lower your taxes: every Democrat voted to raise your taxes, and they are crazy. They want communism. They hate this country. They hate what this country stands for. That’s crazy.”

Never mind the president pitching federal stakes in private companies himself, McClain said. “He’s doing that to level the playing field for America.”

Is the White House leaning into their agreed-upon messaging enough? “No,” she said.

“We need to use it, and then when we think we've exhausted it, we need to use it some more,” McCLain said.

Family Succession

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  The sudden death of Lindsey Graham was a shock to the system.

A total of 48 women have been elected or appointed to fill congressional vacancies created by the deaths of their husbands, 8 to the U.S. Senate and 40 to the U. S. House of Representatives.

Less often, other family members have succeeded deceased lawmakers:  According to Claude:

Vetted father-son and father-daughter congressional successions, excluding edge cases

Here's a rundown, organized by relationship, of family members other than widows who directly succeeded a deceased House member or senator (via special election or gubernatorial appointment):

Sister succeeding brother: Darline Graham Nordone was appointed just this week (July 13, 2026) by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to fill the Senate seat of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly on July 12. Graham never married or had children; McMaster's pick to serve out the remainder of his term, which runs through January 2027, is his adopted-and-raised younger sister. She's set to be the first woman to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. CBS News 

• Sons succeeding fathers: John Dingell Jr. won a 1955 special election to succeed his father, John Dingell Sr., in Michigan's 15th District — beginning a Dingell family run in that seat that lasted decades. Wikipedia: John Dingell
• Donald Payne Jr. won a 2012 special election to succeed his father, Donald Payne Sr., in New Jersey's 10th District. Payne won the general election 56-44 percent and never faced a competitive race again. Wikipedia: Donald Payne Jr. Insideelections

Daughters succeeding fathers:

• Adelita Grijalva was elected in 2025 to succeed her father, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), after his death — though her swearing-in was delayed several weeks by Speaker Mike Johnson during a government shutdown. House.gov coverage / AP via WSB-TV WSB-TV
• Marcye Scott is currently running (special election set for July 28, 2026) to succeed her father, the late Rep. David Scott (D-GA), who died in April 2026 — not yet resolved, but worth flagging since it's live right now. WSB-TV

Daughter succeeding mother: Erica Lee Carter won a November 2024 special election to succeed her mother, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), after Jackson Lee's death from pancreatic cancer — the first (and so far only) daughter to succeed her mother in Congress. House.gov: Family Firsts U.S. House of Representatives

Anti-Incumbency 2026

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

Alexander Bolton at The Hill:

A sour, anti-incumbent mood is sweeping across the nation on its 250th anniversary in what political analysts say is an especially troubling sign for Republican control of the House and Senate, given President Trump’s slumping approval rating.

Rising voter anger with the status quo has hit both parties, with eight House incumbents — five Democrats and three Republicans — losing primary races this year in addition to two GOP Senate incumbents, Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.) and John Cornyn (Texas).

Republicans on Capitol Hill fear the antiestablishment mood could cost them control of the House and perhaps the Senate as well.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Tim Scott (S.C.) has warned Senate GOP colleagues privately “about how bad polling is, currently, for Republicans and how bad the president is losing ground among all groups,” said a senior Republican aide.

Senate Republican Conference Chair Tom Cotton (Ark.) also shared polling with Senate Republicans at a recent lunch meeting that showed independents moving in large numbers away from the GOP and toward Democrats, according to a GOP senator who attended the presentation.

Trump v. Republicans in Congress

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

Trump is acting without regard for the political needs of Republicans in Congress.  An unpopular war is just part of it. Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Axios:

• The big picture: Trump has spent his second term steamrolling his own party, confident the lawmakers he humiliates will keep voting his way. You see it everywhere:He canceled the signing of a landmark bipartisan housing bill just hours before the ceremony — trying to strong-arm the Senate into passing the SAVE America Act, a sweeping voter ID bill with no realistic path to 60 (or even 50) votes.
• He dismissed the housing bill — which his own White House had called "one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history" — as "of minor importance."
• He berated the "Four Republican Losers" in the Senate who voted this week to rein in his Iran war powers, calling the rebuke "poorly timed and meaningless." (Hours after his barrage, Republicans passed a symbolic reversal.)
• He blew up a bipartisan scramble aimed at renewing the government's FISA surveillance powers, demanding the SAVE Act on voting rules be bolted on. He let the authority lapse rather than back down.
• He yanked his own intelligence nominee, Jay Clayton, from a confirmation hearing hours before it began, leaving the nation's spy agencies under an acting director both parties distrust.
• He refused to brief Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other senators on his Iran deal until after the text was finally released, leaving them to defend terms they hadn't seen.
• He blindsided senators by proposing a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund just as they moved a $70 billion immigration package, defending Jan. 6 rioters who attacked the building where the senators work.

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.”

Voting Rights And World War G

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

Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog::

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, in the case of Louisiana v. Callais, struck down a Louisiana congressional map that a group of voters who describe themselves as “non-African American” had challenged as the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. By a vote of 6-3, the justices left in place a ruling by a federal court that barred the state from using the map, which had created a second majority-Black district, in future elections. Although Wednesday’s ruling did not strike down a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, as Louisiana and the challengers had asked the court to do, Justice Elena Kagan suggested in her dissent (which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson) that the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito had rendered the provision “all but a dead letter.”

Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns at POLITICO:

Excitable Republicans hailing the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act as the start of a golden age of neverending House majorities may need to pause and take breath.
...

How far can they go this year? With the ruling less than 24 hours old — and with the midterms just six months away — there’s uncertainty about what’s possible. But even in a maximalist scenario for Republicans, none of the experts Playbook spoke to believed this ruling will net the GOP more than a handful of House seats in November.

...

ABOUT THAT UNCERTAINTY: Four big factors will ultimately decide the extent of further Republican redistricting this year.

1. TIME PRESSURE: This was an extraordinary moment for the Supreme Court to drop this ruling. (In Louisiana, absentee ballots for next month’s primaries have already been sent out.) Those Southern states keen to redistrict before November are in for an almighty scramble. What’s possible will vary state to state.

2. GOP APPETITE: Not every state-level Republican will want to redraw maps on short notice. Some may see 2028 as a more realistic target. Others may be reluctant to move mid-decade at all. Don’t forget that state legislatures in Republican-run Indiana and Democratic-run Maryland already resisted pressure to accept redrawn maps this cycle.

3. TRUMP: The president remains the decisive factor. How hard the White House pushes for new maps this cycle remains an unknown factor, but may prove critical in how many states move immediately. Trump sounded keen yesterday —- “I would think that they would want to do it,” he told reporters — but had only just learned about the ruling.

4. LEGALITY: This wasn’t the “clean kill” Republicans hoped for, watering down rather than completely gutting Section 2 of the VRA. Experts believe there are legal uncertainties still to be ironed out. Pro-VRA litigation — even if ultimately fruitless — could slow the process down.

Democrats will likely retaliate.  (And after the midterms, they might control more legislative chambers.)

Reid J. Epstein at NYT:

Some Democrats who backed new redistricting commissions in the 2010s now look back on those efforts as tying one hand behind their back for the future.

“It seemed like a pitchfork moment. It did seem good,” said Michael Li, a senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “The lesson is that there are some states that are never going to be able to do this. If you’re not going to do it nationally, you’re going to have an unlevel playing field.”

The California and Virginia referendums to let Democrats seize redistricting power represented mea culpas about political idealism that could spread to other blue states.

One of the nation’s oldest redistricting commissions is in Washington State, where voters in 1983 adopted a provision to shift map-drawing power from elected officials. Now Shasti Conrad, the state’s Democratic Party chairwoman, said that it could be undone if Democrats were to flip a handful of seats in the State Legislature and seize supermajority control next year.

If they do, Ms. Conrad said, Washington voters are likely to be asked in 2027 to allow lawmakers to enact a new congressional map. Now, Democrats hold eight of 10 House seats in the state.

“People have been asking, ‘What can Washington do with redistricting?’” Ms. Conrad said. “They’re seeing other states like Virginia do it, so why can’t we?”

Democratic regrets over their redistricting hurdles tend to quickly morph into the party’s most reliable political stance over the last decade: blaming Mr. Trump.

The GOP Does Not Have a Lock on the Senate

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

The Iran war and the resulting economic turmoil have made a Democratic House very likely and made Senate Republicans nervous about holding their majority.

Nate Cohn at NYT:

In recent polls, Democrats appear tied or ahead in four Republican-controlled seats — the number they would need to take the Senate. These include Maine and North Carolina, where the likely Democratic nominees hold clear leads, as well as Ohio and Alaska, where Democrats have recruited strong candidates in states Mr. Trump won by double digits in 2024. There are also signs that Republicans could be in danger in two more states where Mr. Trump won by double digits: Iowa and Texas.

...

In the Trump era, Democratic Senate candidates haven’t had much success at winning in red states. They failed to flip vigorously contested seats in Texas, Tennessee and Montana in 2018 and 2020. And most Democratic red-state incumbents — including those in Florida, Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri — lost re-election. Today, every Democrat in the Senate represents a state that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Looking even further back, no party has managed to flip two states that leaned so much toward the other party since 2008. Only one such seat (Illinois in 2010) was flipped in a regularly scheduled election; two more flipped in memorable special elections (Massachusetts 2010 and Alabama 2017). Most of these victories took extraordinary circumstances, like a criminal conviction, a child molestation allegation or a bank seizure.

This time, Democrats aren’t benefiting from anything as unusual as a criminal conviction.

Instead, they’re counting on a favorable national political environment, strong candidates and the possibility that several of these states may not be quite as Republican-leaning as they seem.

Erin Doherty, Lisa Kashinsky, Liz Crampton, Aaron Pellish and Myah Ward at POLITICO:

Republicans were seeing some cracks in their best-case-scenario map even before the war began.

Party operatives were originally bullish about holding North Carolina and Ohio and flipping Georgia. Then, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his retirement, leaving an open seat in a key battleground state. Republicans nominated former RNC Chair Michael Whatley, and Democrats countered with former Gov. Roy Cooper, who has wide name recognition and strong fundraising chops.

“This is a pretty close state, and it’s a close race,” said a GOP operative in the state. “But with the national environment looking as tough as it is right now for Republicans, and you already have an established governor like Roy Cooper, that’s why I think he’s got the advantage.”

Democrats scored another recruiting win in former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, another prolific fundraiser. Early public polling shows the three-term former senator running neck and neck with GOP Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill the vacancy left by JD Vance’s ascension to the vice presidency and suffers from lower name recognition than is typical for an incumbent.

“I think we’re back in 2018 where the headwinds were against Republicans,” said former Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, who unsuccessfully challenged Brown that year. “I mean, I ran against Sherrod Brown in 2018 and the national electorate was about a D plus 6 to 8. I think we’re getting about that same place in Ohio.”

In Georgia, a messy three-way GOP primary has Republicans increasingly uneasy about their prospects against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has amassed a massive war chest.

House Retirements 2026

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

 Abby Ward and Molly E. Reynolds at Brookings:

Just over halfway through the 119th Congress, 56 House members have announced their retirement plans, marking the highest number in over 30 years. (An additional five have resigned before completing their terms.) Out of the 56 members retiring this year, 35 (63%) are Republicans, meaning that around 16% of the party’s 217-member conference is stepping down. This group includes 18 subcommittee chairs and three committee chairs.

While retirements generally have consequences for the House as an institution, there are reasons to pay particular attention to the career choices of majority-party members, as they may send signals about party morale heading into an election season.

For instance, the last time Congress saw close to this many retirements was in 2018, and a similarly high share (65%) was from the Republican majority. At the time, some observers saw the large number of retirements as evidence of an anxious Republican Party, and subsequent analyses would eventually connect the number of seat vacancies to the blue wave that followed in that year’s midterms.

The number of retirements is not the only feature that makes this cycle consequential. In addition to being large in number, this year’s class of retirees—and particularly those from the majority—are notable for two additional reasons. First, many are early in their congressional tenures. Second, many are leaving to run for other offices, including at the state level. Both of these dynamics suggest there may be something bigger than midterm anxiety at play, perhaps reflecting broader frustration with Congress as an institution and workplace.

Democrats Cool on Israel

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 Justin Green at Axios:

Zoom in: Every Senate Democrat who's eyeing a 2028 presidential run voted against arms sales to Israel in votes earlier this week.40 Senate Dems voted on a resolution to block arms sales to Israel, up from just 15 on a similar vote last April. Netanyahu is "destroying the bipartisan nature in terms of support for Israel," Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told Punchbowl News.

Over in the House, some Democrats are turning against defensive support, including funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.That was "seen as insanely fringe four years ago," Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) told Axios. But multiple Democrats who voted for Iron Dome in 2021 told Axios they're done providing financial aid.The big picture: Older Republicans and white Evangelicals are the last groups to hold majority favorable views of Israel, according to recent Pew polling. For every other group, Israel's favorability has collapsed since 2022.

⬇️ Down 31 percentage points among older Democrats (ages 50+).
⬇️ Down 22 percentage points among both younger Republicans/GOP leaners and younger Dems/Dem leaners.
⬇️ Down 14 percentage points among Protestants, 23 among Catholics and 20 among the religiously unaffiliated.
⬇️ Even white Evangelical support, which was at 80% in 2022, has slid by 15 points.

Swalwell Scandal

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

Seema Mehta,  Dakota Smith and Nicole Nixon at LAT:

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic front-runner in the hotly contested California governor’s race, is facing mounting calls to drop out of the contest after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct by a former staff member and other women in reports published on Friday.

A woman who worked for the Northern California congressman said they had a consensual relationship at times, but that he sexually assaulted her twice when she was too inebriated to consent, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle. Three other women also have accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct, including sending unsolicited nude photos, according to CNN.

The allegations have Swalwell’s campaign teetering on collapse, with powerful labor organizations and other major supporters pulling their endorsements and canceling political ads promoting the once-promising candidate. Prominent Democrats — including U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter — are among the politicians who called on him to rdrop out of the race.

Riley Rogerson at Politico:

The situation presents a predicament for the sitting House Democratic leaders, who have insisted on letting a full Ethics Committee investigation play out before supporting formal discipline against another House Democrat accused of misconduct, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.).

Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California did not speak directly to consequences in the House in a joint statement.

But House Republicans were already discussing by Friday evening the likely scenario that one of their own members will bring a censure effort against Swalwell, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said in an interview that she was weighing a censure and other action against Swalwell based on the reports of sexual assault allegations against him.

Luna said she would act “if there is evidence brought forward.”

 

Bizarro GOP Plan: Cut Health Spending to Pay for an Unpopular War

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.

In early February, a YouGov poll found majorities of Americans supported increasing government spending on veterans (74%), Social Security (69%), Medicare (67%), aid to the poor (64%), Medicaid (59%), and the environment (52%).   Only 34% wanted to increase defense spending -- that that was before the Iran war, which is unpopular.  Last week, Pew found 61% disapproved of Trump's handling of the war, and 59% said that US made the wrong decision to use military force in Iran.

In that light, the House GOP's spending plans sound politically insane.  Peter Sullivan at Axios:

Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement.

Why it matters: New efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election-year attacks that they're cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war.

Driving the news: Top House Republicans are looking at health care offsets addressing fraud in federal programs, as they did during last year's debate over the budget law that made deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending and imposed first-time work requirements.

Another Midterm Omen: Retirements

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

Olivia Beavers at WSJ:

[Sam] Graves [R-TN] is among a wave of lawmakers leaving Congress after this term, with more than 50 House members announcing they won’t seek another term—recently hitting a record for a midterm election. About half of those members are seeking a different elected office.

As of this morning, 36 of 57 House retirees are Republicans. 

Some of the GOP retirees are retiring because of the prospect of losing their seats (e.g., Issa, a casualty of the CA gerrymander). But Graves and others have safe seats.  Why are they in the departure lounge?  One reason is that they expect their party to lose the majority, and they know it is unpleasant to serve in the House minority.