From “Bombshell poll exposes what working-class voters really think of President Trump” by Joshua Nair at vt.co:

If you ask Donald Trump, he’ll probably tell you that he’s the greatest US President in history, bar none, and people who dislike him are stupid.

Well, if this is the case, then a chunk of US citizens have got a bone to pick with the 80-year-old.

Trump’s latest approval ratings have been made public, and one socioeconomic group has become increasingly disillusioned with the decisions made during his second term in the White House.

Despite claims that his approval ratings are his highest “ever,” data indicates that the majority of the working class now disapprove of the President’s performance.

Ever since the US and Israel waged war on Iran earlier this year, his ratings have fallen off a cliff, and with the war still raging on despite claims of a ceasefire, it looks like it’s not getting any better five months on.

The war seems to have swung voters in the other direction, despite Trump saying on Truth Social on June 29 that he had the “Highest Poll Numbers Ever” that was “Even Higher than Election Day, November 5th.”

…Data in 2024 showed that two in three white working-class Americans supported Trump, if research group PRRI’s post-election survey is to be believed.

Pew Research Center exit polling also indicated that Trump had 69 percent of the rural vote that same year, but in 2026, the story is different.

Back in May, 2,064 US citizens were polled, and over 60 percent of them disapproved of Trump’s performance as POTUS.

Delving into the specifics, 54 percent of white non-college voters also didn’t support Trump, which has gone up by 22 percent since February 2025.

In addition, 61 percent disapproved of the work he has carried out, while 66 percent specifically cited the war with Iran as a poor decision.

More here.

Here’s a stub from “Trump Owes Americans a Better Explanation About Iran. Two more Americans have died. Meanwhile, the president’s rationale for war keeps changing.” by Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: They died in an Iranian attack on a Jordanian air base; several more U.S. military personnel were injured and one is missing. The American people have a right to know why they died, and how many more of their sons and daughters President Trump is willing to risk in this war of choice…The president, so far, has issued his usual stock answers. It’s “a very sad thing,” he said in a phone call on Saturday afternoon to the right-wing outletNewsNation. He added: “We hate to see it happen. It’s in service to our country.” But every military death is in service to the nation. It is true by definition that all 16 Americans who have lost their lives so far in this conflict did so because they volunteered to wear uniforms of the United States military and endure great risks on behalf of their fellow citizens. Military service, even in peacetime, is inherently hazardous…But these Americans are dead because they were sent to war—and for months Trump has offered no comprehensive explanation about why his administration is ordering U.S. military personnel to put their lives on the line. Or, more accurately, he’s offered several rationales at various moments over the past 20 weeks of war.” More here.

Sen. Susan Collins now faces a more authentic working class candidate in Maine, where “Troy Jackson emerges as Democratic pick as top Maine Senate candidates step aside. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former public health official Nirav Shah ended their Senate campaigns on Sunday,” as Bridget Bowman reports at nbcnews.com: “SANFORD, Maine — Former state Senate President Troy Jackson emerged from a whirlwind weekend of voting as Maine Democrats’ likely pick to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins…By Sunday night, all of Jackson’s major opponents had dropped out of the race, including Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, physician Nirav Shah and former congressional staffer Jordan Wood, who reversed course after initially committing to remain in the race…Bellows made her announcement Sunday morning, while Shah exited the race Sunday evening after Democrats across the state selected delegates to next week’s state nominating convention.Jackson quickly established a seemingly insurmountable advantage in delegates as his supporters swept counties throughout the state…Jackson’s supporters won 481 of the 500 convention seats up for grabs this weekend, according to his campaign. Those delegates are not technically required to support Jackson at the convention, but with such a strong showing, his nomination became a foregone conclusion…A logger and former legislator, Jackson doesn’t officially become the nominee until the state convention next week. There, delegates will pick a new nominee to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins, replacing primary winner Graham Platner after he abruptly ended his campaign last week following a sexual assault allegation, which he denied.” More here.

Check out “‘This Is Unbelievable:’ CNN Data Guru Says ‘Working Class Have Turned Against Donald Trump’” by Katherine Boniello at Mediate, who writes: “Working class voters have had it with President Donald Trump‘s handling of the economy, according to CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten…Speaking Friday morning on CNN News Central, Enten went over the staggering change in the president’s poll numbers on the subject with host Kate Bolduan, citing surveys that show 66% of Americans now feel groceries are unaffordable…Enten then dug into polling from The Washington Post and Ipsos showing a stunning 82% of working-class Americans with incomes under $50,000 feel the same…OK, income under $50,000 on grocery affordability. And keep in mind that, this Donald Trump won this group one, this group back in 2024 put up a historically strong performance for Republican candidate. But look at these numbers now, just 16% of those with household incomes under $50,000 think that groceries are affordable…The lion’s share, 82%. You rarely ever see 82% of any group agreeing on anything. But what you see here is that those working class folks, those who have incomes, household incomes, under $50,000, the lion’s share, more than 4 in 5 say that groceries are unaffordable at this point.” More here.

In “Florida Democrats point to special-election wins as proof of a comeback. After decisive statewide losses in 2022 and 2024, Florida Democratic leaders say more than 30 local and special-election flips show their organizing strategy is working,” Forrest Saunders writes at wptv.com: “TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Democrats say they have proof a 2026 comeback is possible. Now, they have to prove that momentum can survive Election Day…After decisive statewide losses in 2022 and 2024, Democratic leaders on Monday outlined a path they say could break Republican supermajorities in the Florida Legislature and begin moving the state’s politics back toward the middle…“The Republican supermajority in this legislature is breakable, and we are going to break it this cycle,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said during a virtual briefing…The party pointed to more than 30 local and special-election flips since the 2024 election, more than 3,000 volunteers, increased candidate recruitment and an advantage in requests for vote-by-mail ballots. The party’s tally includes local offices as well as recent legislative special elections — not 30 seats in the Florida Legislature…Fried said the difference this cycle is the party’s “Pendulum Project,” a year-round organizing operation designed to maintain voter contact between major elections…“This does feel different for multiple reasons,” Fried said in a separate interview. “We have seen that work paying off by flipping almost 33 seats at this point, overperforming the national average.” More here.

The following article, “Energy Costs Decide Power — Voters Demand Relief: The fight for political power now runs through affordable, abundant, reliable energy” by Ralph Benko and Jeff Garzik, is cross-posted from The Fulcrum:

Politics, for all its stagecraft and saccharine homilies, is not about “service” or “community” or any of the other treacly euphemisms politicians recite like Gregorian chants. Politics, as Christopher Hitchens might have acidly reminded us, is about power.

The taking of it.

The wielding of it.

The keeping of it.

Everything else is embroidery.

And the surest road to political power today is not identity pandering, culture-war theatrics, or the solutions, untethered from economic reality, of much “climate action”. It is energy — affordable, abundant, reliable energy. Energy is not a plank in the policy platform. It is the platform.

It is the oxygen of prosperity, the lubricant of peace, the arbiter of survival.

Those who grasp this axiom will inherit the Earth. Those who don’t will be reduced to muttering slogans over the ashes of their credibility.

The Revolt Of The Overcharged

Consider the improbable rise of two entirely different figures: Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani. Ideological opposites, united by a single brutal insight: voters are furious about affordability.

Trump put it plainly: “I won on groceries.” Bacon, eggs, apples — if the price doubles while wages stagnate, you can spend billions on messaging and still lose Ohio. Mamdani, from the opposite end of the spectrum, beat the same drum: “New York is too expensive. I’ll lower costs.” Did his proposed remedies make sense? About as much as medieval bloodletting. But he read the room correctly — voters were howling for relief.

This is the lesson. It isn’t ideology. It isn’t clever branding. It’s not even competence. It’s the perception — however implausible — that you can make life less ruinously expensive.

The Energy Elephant In The Room

Which brings us to the elephant crushing the furniture: energy. The cost of keeping the lights on, the servers humming, the food refrigerated, the wheels turning. Cheap, reliable energy is the hinge upon which affordability swings.

The American public knows it intuitively. As Roger Pielke Jr. and Ruy Teixeira have observed, voters broadly support an “all‑of‑the‑above” energy policy. They want fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear — whatever delivers reliability and keeps costs in check. What they do not support is a climate approach that drifts into overzealous or economically detached prescriptions, especially when those prescriptions ask ordinary people to bear steep costs for minimal environmental gain. Most Americans believe climate change is real and worth addressing — but they also believe that solutions must be scientifically grounded, economically sane, and compatible with rising living standards. People will not choose policies that make their lives materially harder when better‑balanced options exist.

Meanwhile, our economic adversary, China, has understood this with the cold precision of an engineer. Beijing has decided that energy abundance beats energy sermons. The result? A kilowatt-hour costs under ten cents there. In the U.S., depending on where you live, you’ll likely pay anywhere from 30% to 250% more for the same electricity — the financial equivalent of shooting ourselves in both feet, then politely handing China the starting pistol.

Free Markets, Not Fairy Tales

Here’s the part politicians can’t bring themselves to say aloud: free markets work. China — a nominally communist state — is quietly embracing market pricing to generate cheap, stable energy, while America — land of the supposedly free — ties itself into regulatory knots and engages in performative subsidy theater.

Even our supposed tech vanguard is sounding the alarm. Artificial intelligence, for all its promise, is a glutton for electricity. Data centers don’t run on slogans. The sudden, unignorable demand for baseload power has done what decades of climate reports could not: forced lawmakers to confront reality.

The physics don’t care about your narrative. You either provide abundant energy, or you fall behind.

The Path Forward

If you want power — real, electoral, enduring power — promise voters affordable, abundant, reliable energy. And mean it.

Not with incoherent subsidies. Not with punitive regulations. Not with magical thinking that wind and solar will replace baseload overnight. But with sober policies rooted in engineering reality and price transparency.

Give the American voter energy at less than ten cents per kilowatt-hour, and they will give you Congress, the White House, and the keys to the kingdom. Fail, and watch as Beijing writes the terms of the 21st century.

Energy is the root. Prosperity the trunk. Jobs, security, peace, and dignity — the branches. Everything else is foliage.

In politics, as in physics, power is everything.

Ralph Benko serves as co-founder and general counsel to Washington Power and Light, a DC-based policy institute. He is the co-founder and general counsel for F1R3FLY Industries and has worked in or with three White Houses, two executive branch agencies, and the Congress, as well as many political and policy institutes.

Jeff Garzik is the founder of Washington Power and Light and a foundational pioneer of digital infrastructure. He was one of Satoshi Nakamoto’s four core Bitcoin developers, wrote much of the Linux/Android code powering billions of devices globally at Red Hat, and is now the founder/CEO of HEMI.xyz

As Democrats react to the continuing atrocities associated with the mass deportation campaign, it’s important for them to understand that what they find most objectionable is a feature, not a bug, for Trump’s base, as I explained at New York.

If you get your information from mainstream media or progressive political outlets, the recent debate over ICE tactics and mass-deportation policies during the second Trump administration is one-sided. Whipped on by quotas and undermined by haste and poor training, immigration enforcement agencies are constantly overreaching and providing horrifying social-media content to their many critics, it seems. More generally, the administration’s mass-deportation efforts appear to be going far beyond its claimed focus on “the worst of the worst.” There’s plenty of evidence that law-abiding immigrants who have been here for years are being targeted and treated abominably.

It’s understandable, then, that ICE’s overseers periodically give the impression that they’re working to rein in the masked agents. And even Republican politicians urge better deportation targeting as though the current politics just need some fine-tuning.

But it all looks different from MAGA-land, as evidenced by the backlash to the recent suspension of ICE vehicle stops after two fatal shootings. This infuriated many pro-Trump social-media influencers, reported the Daily Beast:

“MAGA faithful are revolting against Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, accusing him of surrendering to Democrats on a recent ICE reform … after he ordered ICE to suspend traffic stops in the wake of two fatal shootings of men by federal agents this week.

“Fox News host Tomi Lahren fumed on X, ‘We are being betrayed in real time. If you want Trump voters to stay home in November, keep this up, Markwayne and co. …’

“MAGA influencer and self-styled citizen journalist Nick Sortor blasted the change in ICE policy as a ‘TOTAL CAPITULATION to the left’ and ‘WEAK’ in an X post.

“Laura Loomer, the Islamophobic far-right influencer and President Donald Trump’s ‘loyalty enforcer,’ simply wrote, ‘Deport Markwayne Muslim!'”

In Trump’s world, keeping his base energized is always Job One. So unsurprisingly, he un-suspended the vehicle stops and restated the MAGA catechism about the need for mass deportation at Truth Social:

“The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done. CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven’t been seen in decades. The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted. Many were Criminals, and we have to get them out. In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands. The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job. Keep those Crime Stat Records coming! Remember, you are loved and respected in America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”

This backlash against the apparently woke idea of reducing cruelty in ICE tactics stems from broader MAGA suspicions that opponents of mass deportation are lurking somewhere in the administration. It erupted even before Trump’s second term began in an intense battle over H-1B visas, beloved of the tech community (Elon Musk in particular). It continued in mid-2025 when there was talk of going easy on the immigrant farm workers who are so critical to U.S. agriculture. And when the general public began turning on ICE after high-profile shootings in Minneapolis, leading to bipartisan calls for reform, the hammer came down in the shape of GOP party-line legislation in Congress (signed by Trump last month) that pre-funds immigration enforcement for years with zero “guardrails” to prevent agent misconduct.

House Republicans are currently considering a tangible product of the MAGA backlash on immigration: legislation to “codify” the administration’s border and mass-deportation policies in order to make it somewhat more difficult for a future Democratic (or RINO) administration to change course. It’s called the Permanent Trump Secure Border Act, and the House Freedom Caucus is insisting it be passed before it will consider anything else (it’s dead on arrival in the Senate, of course, but this is about posturing for the base, not changing laws).

More and more, it’s looking like rational Republicans focused on swing-voter sentiments going into the midterms are being outgunned by those for whom base-voter mobilization is the exclusive and eternal formula for winning elections. That means making sure every single voter is aware that outrage over ICE agents dragging people from their cars and shooting them in the head is just a speed bump on the road to ridding America of as many immigrants as possible.

From “Key Factors Predicting Support for Donald Trump Among White Working-Class Americans” by Diana Orcés, Ph.D., Melissa Deckman, Ph.D. at prri.com:

White working-class Americans have consistently played a pivotal role in U.S. elections, increasingly aligning with the Republican Party. PRRI research from the 2016 presidential election, for instance, shows that 64% of white working-class voters backed President Donald Trump. Trump’s support among this key demographic remains high, with two in three white working-class voters once again backing him in 2024, according to PRRI’s Post-Election Survey.

PRRI developed a model to test various factors in predicting support for Trump among white working-class voters in the 2016 election, finding that aside from partisanship, much of the support for Trump was driven by cultural concerns, including fears of immigrants and cultural displacement. At the same time, while economic fatalism predicted support for Trump, personal economic hardship predicted support for Clinton in 2016, which ran counter to popular media narratives claiming that Trump’s appeal to the white working class was primarily due to the economic pressures that they faced.

Using data from the 2024 PRRI American Values Survey, we again conducted a logistic regression model among white working-class voters to determine the roots of white-working class support for Trump, replicating as many variables as possible to the original model we conducted in 2016 or substituting similar questions.

The models incorporate various demographic characteristics, including gender, age, region, Republican identity, and evangelical Protestant affiliation. Our logistic regression model also controls for the frequency of worship attendance (weekly or more) and civic engagement (weekly or more). In addition, the model accounts for cultural anxiety through indicators such as agreement with the “Great Replacement Theory” — the belief that immigrants are invading the country and replacing its cultural and ethnic identity — support for deporting immigrants, attitudes about gender, and perceptions of reverse discrimination. Finally, measures of economic anxiety are included, such as the belief that college is a gamble, as well as perceptions of a worsening personal economic situation and concerns about the local community’s future direction.

Partisanship and Demographic Factors:

• Identifying as Republican was strongly predictive of Trump support in both 2016 and 2024, although partisanship became an even stronger predictor in 2024: white working-class voters who identified as Republican were at least 15 times more likely to support Trump than those who did not identify as Republican in 2024.
• In 2016, we found that white working-class men were marginally more likely to support Trump than women, but this relationship was no longer statistically significant in 2024. Instead, in 2024, senior Americans ages 65 and older were significantly less likely than younger Americans to support Trump, while Southerners were twice as likely as non-Southerners to do so.

Religious Affiliation and Civic Engagement:

• Unlike in 2016, identifying as an evangelical Protestant and attending religious services weekly or more are now significantly related to Trump support in 2024. White working-class evangelicals and white working-class frequent religious service attenders are twice as likely as those who identify with other religious groups or attend religious services less frequently to support Trump.

Fears about Cultural Displacement and Reverse Discrimination:

• The salience of the “Great Replacement Theory” — the belief that immigrants are invading the country and replacing its cultural and ethnic identity — in driving support for Trump increased in 2024 from 2016, with those in the white working class who agree with this sentiment now three times as likely to have supported Trump. Those who oppose the idea that generations of slavery and discrimination against Black people and Native Americans have given white people unfair economic advantages were roughly three times as likely as those who do not share this view to favor Trump; in 2016, views about whether discrimination faced by white people has become a serious problem—a slightly different take on racial discrimination — did not emerge as a significant predictor.

Support for Deporting Immigrants Living in the Country Illegally:

• White working-class Americans who favor deporting undocumented immigrants remained roughly three times as likely as those who oppose this policy to express a preference for Trump in 2024, comparable to 2016.

Support for Patriarchal Views:

• Views about gender emerged as a powerful predictor in explaining support for Trump in 2024; white working-class voters who agree that society as a whole has become too soft and feminine were nearly five times as likely as those who disagree to support Trump. In contrast, the belief that “society seems to punish men just for acting like men,” another measure of patriarchal thinking, was not a driving factor for support for Trump in 2016 among the white working class.

Economic Anxieties:

• While the belief that college education is a gamble was no longer a significant factor in predicting support for Trump in 2024 as it was in 2016, white working-class Americans who perceive their personal financial situation as worse than the previous year were three times more likely to support Trump in 2024. In contrast, in 2016, individuals who perceived their personal financial situation as becoming worse were more likely to support Clinton than Trump.

More here.

In “After fatal shooting, Joe Scarborough rips into Susan Collins over funding ICE,” Allison Detzel reports at MS NOW that News commentator and Former Republican congressman “Joe Scarborough criticized Republican Sen. Susan Collins for her role in supplying tens of billions of dollars in new funding for President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement in light of the fatal shooting by federal authorities of a 26-year-old Colombian immigrant in Collins’ home state of Maine — the second fatal shooting involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in a week…Johan Sebastián Guerrero was killed by immigration agents in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday morning while he was on his way to work. Authorities later revealed he was not the target of the warrant agents were trying to execute…On Tuesday’s “Morning Joe,” Scarborough blasted Collins and her fellow conservatives for effectively co-signing what he said was the federal government “killing people in the streets of America.” In doing so, the former Republican congressman accused the party of abandoning values it once held most dear, including its staunch opposition to government overreach…“When people like me started running,” Scarborough, who represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District from 1995 to 2001, recalled, “everywhere I went, I wanted to talk about ‘Well, the flat tax is more —’ they wanted to talk about Ruby Ridge. They wanted to talk about the ATF killing families that had guns.”” More here.

From “Trump Pulls Abrupt 180 on Strait of Hormuz After Iran Humiliates Him. Donald Trump had proposed tolling the Strait of Hormuz, but 24 hours later, he was singing a different tune” by Robert McCoy at The New Republic: “Rather than provide steady, articulate leadership and communication during his Iran war, the commander in chief has embraced bluster and erratic flip-flopping. The latest example of this came Tuesday, when President Donald Trump adopted a stance on the Strait of Hormuz diametrically opposed to the one he had announced the day before…On Monday, Trump decided that the United States would seize control of the strait. “We’ll become the guardian of the strait,” he told Fox News. “Now we’re gonna guard it, and we’re gonna get paid for guarding it. A lot of money. But we just want to be reimbursed.” In a Truth Social post, he said a 20 percent toll would be imposed on “all cargo shipped” through the strait…It was a stark reversal of the administration’s previous stance; Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance had stated unequivocally that no country would impose such a toll…Then the sun set and rose again, and Trump had yet another 180-degree change of heart…Tuesday, Trump declared that there would be no toll after all. Instead, he said vaguely in a Truth Social post that the U.S. would pursue “Trade and Investment Deals” with Gulf states. Shortly thereafter, he confirmed this new approach during a press conference. “I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait,” the president said, “or for any other strait relationship in terms of other sections of the world. I don’t think anybody should be really in that position.” More here.

The Broadcast Blog at Daily Kos shares “Trump Losing Everything Everywhere All At Once, which includes these observations: “After public outrage and outcry following two murders of immigrants by ICE officials over the past week — one in Maine who had an authorized work permit, the other in Texas who has been here for 30 years — the Dept. of Homeland Security is reportedly suspending most vehicle stops around the country. We’ll see if they do. Both men were shot and killed by immigration enforcement agents while in their car. Neither were endangering Trump’s jackbooted federal goons, nor were they their supposed targets for enforcement actions. At least 22 people have been fired on by agents involved in Trump’s deportation efforts during his second term. Six people, including three U.S. citizens, have been killed as a result of those shootings…In response to Iran‘s Sunday announcement that they are shutting down the Strait of Hormuz again, amid the collapse of peace talks, Trump declared on Monday that the U.S. was placing its own blockade on the Strait and would (unlawfully) charge ships 20% of the value of their cargo in exchange for safe passage. That ill-considered policy pronouncement didn’t last 24 hours before Trump called off the plan on TACO Tuesday. Instead, he spun an elaborate lie about “kings and emirs” calling him to suggest they be charged with investment in U.S. manufacturing to cross through the Strait…or some other fantastical, unintelligible, made-up-on-the-fly bullshit for reporters at the White House today.” More here.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (GA) has a few choice words for the Prez and his fellow election-denyers, as reported by Irene Wright at USA Today: “Georgia is in the middle of a tight and highly contested midterm election season, with two major races at the top of the ticket. And President Trumpis watching closely…Incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is running against MAGA-backed, election denier Rep. Mike Collins for Georgia’s second senate seat. The other seat is held by Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is not up for reelection this cycle….Throughout his election campaign, Ossoff has accused Trump of peddling an election lie, one that has been echoed by his opponent, Collins, during his campaign. As recently as June, Collins stated he believed Trump won the 2020 election in an interview with CNN…In response to reporting from MS Now and the Washington Reporter that Trump’s speech could be about election fraud and target Georgia’s two Senate seats, Ossoff said this renewed “obsession” with Georgia elections stems from Trump’s anger toward Black voters who turned against him…”Donald Trump‘s spiral continues. The failed president, pocketing billions as he drives up prices, is afraid to lose the midterms. So he will reheat debunked election conspiracy theories and tell bizarre new lies to deny his 2020 defeat and attack voting rights,” Ossoff said in a statement late Monday….”From the start, Trump’s obsession with Georgia elections revealed his fury that Black voters were instrumental to his defeat,” Ossoff said. “I’m asking concerned citizens nationwide to join me and support our voter protection efforts in Georgia.” More here.

Like a lot of Democrats, I’ve been anxiously watching the topsy-turvy situation in Maine, but made it clear at New York that it’s not absolutely the be-all end-all race.

Now that Graham Platner has withdrawn his Senate candidacy, his supporters in Maine seem equally furious at their former nominee and at national Democratic operatives both left and center. The former seized on Platner as a bundle of male proletarian stereotypes without bothering to vet him thoroughly for precisely the sort of background and character issues that brought him down. The latter cleared the field of viable alternatives to the hapless Janet Mills, even as they worked behind the scenes to undermine Platner and then exulted in his humiliation. The national narrative, as my Maine-residing colleague Rebecca Traister put it, promoted a “cartoonish proxy war … pitting the oysterman Platner, working-class cosplayer and dirtbaggy avatar of the male left, against a hidebound Establishment.” So it’s understandable that the locals would just as soon be left alone to work out their own representation in the U.S. Senate.

But it’s also understandable that Democrats nationwide tend to believe that “as Maine goes, so goes the Senate,” to adapt the ancient slogan about that state’s bellwether status. Susan Collins is the only GOP incumbent up for reelection this year whose state Kamala Harris carried in 2024. In fact, Maine hasn’t gone Republican in a presidential election since 1988, when George H.W. Bush (whose family maintained a summer retreat in Kennebunkport for many decades) won the presidency. Collins got lucky with a weak opponent in 2020 and has been given considerable leeway to distance herself from Donald Trump. But still, she is a Trump enabler and represents low-hanging fruit for 2026 … or at least she did until Platner’s campaign imploded.

As Maine Democrats try to get their act together, it’s a good time to ask the question: Could Democrats possibly flip control of the Senate without taking down Collins? A fresh look at the math is in order.

With Vice-President J.D. Vance holding a tiebreaking Senate vote, Democrats need a net gain of four seats to gain control of the chamber. According to the authoritative Cook Political Report ratings of 2026 Senate races, there are five GOP-held seats other than Collins’s that are in a competitive range. North Carolina, where Republican Thom Tillis is retiring, is rated “lean Democratic,” with former governor Roy Cooper running very strong. Races to defenestrate Dan Sullivan in Alaska (with former statewide congresswoman Mary Peltola as the Democratic nominee) and topple appointed senator Jon Husted in Ohio (former three-term senator Sherrod Brown is running there) are rated toss-ups. Winning all the toss-ups against the White House party in a midterm election is not a big reach, particularly when the president is as unpopular as Trump. Then there are two more races rated as “lean Republican”: the Republican-held seats in Iowa (where Democrat Josh Turek is running even with Republican Ashley Hinson) and Texas (where Democrat James Talarico is running even with MAGA wild man Ken Paxton). And while it’s rated “likely republican,” GOP Senator Pete Ricketts’s Nebraska seat is in everyone’s peripheral vision, given the potential strength of independent (but Democrat-supported) Dan Osborn.

So even if Susan Collins wins, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Texas offer a path to a Democratic majority with Nebraska being a possible wild card. And of course, that assumes Democrats win their own competitive races in “lean Democratic” Georgia (where incumbent Jon Ossoff has a solid lead over Republican Mike Collins) and New Hampshire (Democrat Chris Pappas has a slim but steady lead over former senator John E. Sununu), plus the toss-up race in Michigan (an open Democratic-controlled seat where Republican Mike Rogers awaits the winner of a high-profile Democratic primary between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens).

Is it improbable that Democrats will win seven of nine competitive Senate races in November (not counting Maine)? Not necessarily. That’s how wave elections tend to work. Democrats netted six Senate seats in 2006 and eight in 2008, while Republicans netted nine in 2014. Yes, Trump carried Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Georgia, and Michigan in 2024 — all but the last two by double digits — making them officially “red states” for the moment. But Democrats have unusually strong candidates in Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Georgia and an unusually weak opponent in Texas. If there’s any GOP ace in the hole, it could be a stash of national PAC money (the value of which was enhanced by a recent U.S. Supreme Court campaign-finance ruling) it can deploy strategically. But that’s hardly a guarantee of victory.

Besides, Susan Collins is by no means out of the woods; indeed, her best hope of survival might have been to run against a damaged-but-not-defeated Platner. If Maine Democrats can unite behind a viable and scandal-free substitute, there’s plenty of time to challenge this vulnerable incumbent. And if they know what’s good for them, national Democrats should try to keep a relatively low profile down east.

Democracy: A Journal of Ideas has a forum on taxation and revenue-raising needed to help fund n needed reforms, featuring more than a dozen articles by top experts. Here is a teaser from one of the articles, “The Right Way to Tax the Rich” by Brian Galle, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley and a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute:

Taxing the accumulated wealth of America’s ultrarich should be a top tax-reform priority for the next administration. To be sure, there are other low-hanging tax-policy fruit, such as reversing recent giveaways to businesses large and small, and putting the United States back on a path to share in historic global commitments to tax multinational firms more effectively. But the ultrarich, and billionaires in particular, have become perhaps the central story in U.S. political life. They dominate campaign spending, and have bought up influential spots in media, infrastructure, and the President’s Cabinet. Tax policy alone cannot repair that problem, of course. But it can do far more than it does today. Indeed, by one recent estimate from researchers at my home institution of University of California, Berkeley, the wealthiest billionaires pay only one-third the effective income tax rate that top earners faced under President Ronald Reagan.

The key word in that sentence is “effective.” Taxing the ultrarich isn’t likely to be as simple as just raising the tax rates they face. Because most of the wealth and power of the ultrarich derives from growth in the value of investment assets, we face a series of practical, legal, and even constitutional challenges in designing an effective tax that can reach a meaningful share of their stockpiles of earnings.

These challenges are solvable, as I explain in great detail in my recent report from the Roosevelt Institute, “How to Tax the Ultrarich.” Briefly, the United States should follow the path of other countries in instituting a tax on wealth, or alternatively an income tax on individuals’ annual accumulations of value that today escape the U.S. tax system. But to satisfy recent demands from the Supreme Court, that tax would not be imposed annually, but rather deferred until taxpayers choose to sell their property. At sale, the taxpayer would pay a higher rate, with the exact rate set so that the taxpayer cannot get any net “time value of money” benefits from deferral. (The time value of money is the extra investment gains taxpayers get from being able to set aside and invest money they would otherwise have paid in tax.) This same system can help to repair our currently dysfunctional regime for intergenerational transfers of wealth as well.

The Multiple Challenges to Taxing Wealth…

Let’s unpack the challenges in a bit more detail, then return to a more detailed version of the possible solution. The core problem we have in the income tax today, both in the United States and around the world, is that income taxes are largely built around what’s known as the “realization” principle. The realization principle is the notion that we should measure income from investment assets only when they are sold (or otherwise disposed of). That approach reflects early-twentieth-century limits on a tax administrator’s capacity to verify what assets a taxpayer owns and how much they are worth. And yet, even as early as 1909, some taxpayers did have to report and pay tax on annual changes in their investments’ value. For instance, that was how the U.S. Treasury implemented the definition of “income” under the corporate income tax, which predated the 1913 adoption of the modern individual income tax.

More here.

“Trump’s approval rating drops among White working-class voters,”Polls shown declining approval for President Donald Trump among White working-class voters and rural voters, but that doesn’t mean they’re all swinging to Democrats in the midterms” according to Chris Kenning at USA Today. An excerpt: “Since Trump first ran for president a decade ago, White working class and rural voters have been an important base of support, drawn to his vows to bring back manufacturing and crack down on immigration. In 2024, 2 in 3 White working-class voters backed him, according to research group PRRI’s post-election survey. Trump won 69% of the rural vote in 2024, according to Pew Research Center exit polling…But polling over recent months has shown rising disapproval from those groups, reaching majorities in some polls, especially on the economy – fueling a potential new vulnerability for Republicans heading into midterm elections that will determine control of Congress…A CBS News-YouGov poll in May found 54% of White, noncollege voters disapproved of Trump’s performance, up from 32% in February 2025. That disapproval hit 49% in a June NPR/PBS/Marist poll and 51% in an April Fox News poll. Among rural voters, a June Reuters/Ipsos poll found 48% disapproved of Trump, up from 34% the month after he returned to office…“The decline is significant given that White working-class voters were a pretty stable support between 2016 and 2020 for Trump after trending Republican since the early 1990s,” said Noam Lupu, a Vanderbilt University political science professor…The main driver of the discontent is higher prices for necessities like gas and food, pushed up by the Iran war and tariffs, experts said…an April NPR/PBS/Marist poll found 44% of White noncollege voters said they were more likely to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate than for a Republican, up from just 30% ahead of the 2018 midterms. That could come into play in rural states…In Iowa, for example, which Trump carried by 13 percentage points in 2024 and whose six House seats are held by Republicans, The Wall Street Journal reported that the race for governor and two of its four House seats are now rated as toss-ups amid rural economic angst.” More here.

From “Susan Collins May Be Chuckling, but She’s in Far Worse Trouble Now” by Editor Michael Tomasky at The New Republic: “…Collins could well be in far more trouble with a new Democratic nominee. Kamala Harris beat Trump by seven points in the state. And as I noted above, in a recent poll, respondents said that for Congress, they’d choose a Democrat over a Republican by 53 percent to 42 percent. On top of that, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Hannah Pingree, who will be at the top of the ticket, looks like she’s going to beat her Republican foe by around 15 points. That means Collins is going to have to convince a lot of independents to switch from the D column to the R one as they move down the ballot from governor to senator…And what’s going on now, nationally and in Maine, is a strong anti-Trump sentiment—and a GOP incumbent senator who voted to confirm 22 of Trump’s 23 Cabinet nominees…What the Maine Democratic Party, and to some extent the national Democratic Party, has to do here is run a process that is widely accepted as having two qualities: It must be transparent, and it has to feel fair. The party needs to give voters and citizens regular updates on the process—this is happening today; this is happening next Tuesday—so that everyone feels they’re in the loop and no one feels sandbagged. And it needs to feel fair so that in the end, everyone at least feels that they need to accept the outcome.” More here.

Douglas Schoen and Carly Cooperman write at The Hill: “For Democrats, the opening is real and the timing could hardly be better. Just 32 percent of registered voters say the country is “on the right track” per Economist/YouGov polling…Likewise, Trump’s approval ratings continue to hover near record lows — 40 percent approve versus 58 percent disapprove per RealClearPolitics. And on the economy, which the housing bill could have addressed, it’s even lower, sitting at just 36 percent approve…Democrats’ lead in the generic congressional ballot is steady at 6 points according to RealClearPolitics, but among Hispanics and independents, Democrats have a 34 and 15-point edge, respectively, according to Emerson polling…Aside from bringing the Senate to a virtual halt, the optics of Trump refusing to sign a housing bill until he gets his way on the SAVE Act, which Thune has repeatedly told Trump can’t pass, are ideal for Democrats. Republicans had been counting on a very public ceremony to show voters that they are committed to lowering costs, but Trump’s actions robbed them of an excellent opportunity…The campaign ads write themselves: “The president wants to make it harder for you to vote rather than make it easier for you to live” as one political strategist said in a recent interview…” More here.

It’s easy enough to rebut election-deniers with compelling evidence from dozens of court decisions and studies of election integrity. But that won’t stop them from being on midterm ballots in significant numbers. Read “All The Places Election Deniers Could Be in Charge of Elections After the Midterms” by Khaya Himmelman at Talking Points Memo, who says: “In an increasingly ominous trend, there are currently hundreds of election deniers on the ballot for the 2026 midterm elections. And although history has shown election denialism is not a winning campaign strategy, it continues to be a powerful force in the right-wing movement, from President Donald Trump on down…According to the nonpartisan non-profit States United Action, there are at least 140 election deniers currently running for statewide and congressional office. In statewide races, there are at least 42 election deniers running in 23 states. And in congressional races, there are at least 98 election deniers running in 25 states…“We’ve been tracking this movement since right after the 2020 election. And one thing we can say about the election denial movement now is that it seems to be more powerful than ever,” Kelly Rader, research director at States United Action, told TPM…“In some ways it reflects how election denial has matured into an organized movement,” Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations for Campaign Legal Center, similarly told TPM… “Election denial is no longer just a collection of fringe activists and isolated candidates making unsupported claims of election fraud,” Fischer added. “It’s really evolved into a well-funded, coordinated infrastructure of activists and advocacy organizations that has transformed the fringe conspiracy theories into a cornerstone of the conservative movement…Of particular concern are the election denial candidates running for secretary of state positions, potentially putting an elected official who has denied the integrity of a free and fair election at the helm of election administration in a particular state.” More here.

From “What Trump Voters Say About The Economy Now As His Approval Slips With White Working-Class Voters” by Tomas Kassahun at USA Today:

The latest poll numbers from various sources show that Donald Trump is facing growing disapproval from white working-class voters, mainly because many are concerned about how the president is handling the economy. According to USA Today, data from CBS News, NPR, Fox News and Reuters/Ipsos show a similar trend in Trump’s latest approval ratings.

What does the latest data show about Donald Trump’s approval rating?

According to a CBS News-YouGov poll published in May, 54% of white noncollege voters disapprove of Trump’s performance. That number increased from 32% in February 2025.

Another poll from NPR/PBS/Marist, published in June, surveyed the same demographic and found that 49% of voters disapprove of Trump’s performance.

Meanwhile, a Fox News poll from April showed a 51% disapproval rating for Trump. In June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found a 48% disapproval rating for the president. That number increased from 34% earlier this year.

“The decline is significant given that White working-class voters were a pretty stable support between 2016 and 2020 for Trump after trending Republican since the early 1990s,” Noam Lupu, a Vanderbilt University political science professor, told USA Today.

Why the working class showing increasing disapproval of Donald Trump

The increasing cost of essentials such as gas and food, caused by the war with Iran and tariffs, appears to be contributing to the growing disapproval of Trump.

Ashton Reed, a 22-year-old voter who was laid off from his HVAC job, is among those concerned about the economy. Although he voted for Trump in 2024, Reed is disappointed with the results.

More here.