From “Poll: Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill Is a Flop with Voters” by Peter Wade t Rolling Stone: “Overall, 52 percent of poll respondents — 1500 registered voters — opposed the bill, while only 42 percent supported it. Almost all Democrats (94 percent) and the majority of independents (54 percent) were against it, compared to only 12 percent of Republicans who were opposed. Most respondents — 70 percent — agreed the legislation will help the wealthy, and more than half said it would hurt poor people and the working class, people collecting Social Security, the U.S. economy, the federal deficit, and recipients of Medicaid and nutrition assistance…“Cutting Medicaid is unpopular. Cutting food assistance is unpopular,” Sen. Brian Schatz told the Journal. “Cutting those things in order to fund tax cuts for the very wealthy is unpopular, so it’s like it was designed in a lab to be unpopular.”…While respondents supported work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, the majority did not approve of taking away benefits from those who don’t comply…In crafting the bill, Republicans designed it so the hardest hits will come after the midterm elections, an attempt to stave off a blue wave in 2026 that could put Democrats in power in one or more houses of Congress…Some aspects of the bill polled positively, such as no taxes on tips or overtime pay, with majorities of respondents saying they were in favor.”

James Hassett’s “Thanks to the GOP Megabill, You’ll Pay Higher Utility Bills” at Talking Points Memo includes the following observations: “Natural gas price spikes, grid transmission bottlenecks, and a data center construction boom are already straining America’s power grid. The Republican Party just passed a budget bill that might break it… Donald Trump and the GOP’s irrational energy agenda deliberately sidelines wind and solar energy — the lowest cost, fastest-to-deploy sources of energy generation available — to prop up a dying fossil fuel industry that won’t be able to meet rising demand… The consequences will be severe: hundreds of billions in clean energy investment will evaporate, hundreds of gigawatts of power won’t get built, and hundreds of millions of metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be produced. By 2035, according to Princeton’s ZERO Lab for energy research, the U.S. will have added 45% less clean electricity to the grid than it would have if Trump had not been reelected…All of this comes as America’s electricity demand is accelerating for the first time in decades. A report last year from the Clean Grid Initiative projected up to a five-fold increase in demand on the grid. Meanwhile, the U.S. added 64 TWh of solar generation to the grid in 2024 — enough to meet fully half of the record-breaking growth in electricity demand last year, according to independent energy think tank Ember Energy… The only way America can meet rising energy demand and keep costs down is by building more wind and solar. Clean energy means lower utility bills, more good jobs, and cleanerair… The Republicans don’t care. It’s a tale as old as the party. The GOP campaigns on one thing — lowering the cost of energy for Americans — and does the opposite.”

Ari Berman explains why “Trump’s Texas Gerrymander Is Supercharging a New War on Democracy” at Mother Jones: “Blue states could retaliate in response to Texas’ new map but their options are more limited. California and New York, where Democrats could pick up the greatest number of new seats, have independent redistricting commissions and prohibitions on partisan gerrymandering that make any mid-decade redistricting effort more complex. And Democrats have already come close to maximizing the number of representatives in other blue states, such as Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland…Meanwhile, Republicans are pushing forward with mid-decade redistricting in Ohio and floating similar schemes in states including Florida, Indiana, and Missouri…Trump, with the help of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, is supercharging a new race to the bottom, using re-redistricting as the latest tool in his ever-growing war on democracy. As his popularity sinks and a majority of the public disapproves of his handling of every major issue, the president seems to believe that the only way his party can win is if election outcomes are predetermined in their favor…“The president and his party are afraid of the voters,” former Attorney General Eric Holder testified before Senate Democrats on Wednesday, “and they’re trying to manipulate the maps in Texas so that they can rig the elections in 2026.”

William A. Galston presents evidence that “Americans are changing their minds about Trump’s immigration policies” at Brookings: “For the past two decades, as public discontent has risen, elected leaders in Washington have failed either to enforce or to update our obsolete immigration laws. Donald Trump rode the issue to his improbable victory in 2016. Eight years later, President Biden’s failure to control immigration at the United States’ southern border generated a massive public backlash. By July of 2024, 55% of surveyed Americans wanted immigration to be reduced, 53% supported building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and nearly half wanted all immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally to be deported, regardless of their work history and conduct while in the United States. Former President Trump highlighted immigration during his 2024 campaign, and post-election surveys showed that it had contributed significantly to his comeback victory over Kamala Harris, who failed to put any daylight between her approach to immigration and Biden’s unpopular policies…Unsurprisingly, Trump began his second term with majority support for his get-tough policies. But now, less than seven months later, a majority disapproves of his record on immigration, and overall attitudes about immigration have made a U-turn. Support for decreasing immigration has fallen by nearly half, to just 30%, and a record-high 79% now consider immigration to be good for the country. This has happeneddespite broad support for the president’s actions to close the southern border—and for cooperation between federal and local officials to enforce immigration laws, which Democrats often resist…What happened?” Read on here for the answer.