In “Democrat James Talarico leads both Republicans in Texas US Senate race,” Gabby Birenbaum writes at Salon: “Democratic state Rep. James Talarico is leading both of his prospective Republican opponents in a new poll of Texas’ U.S. Senate race — though the result is within the margin of error in either scenario, suggesting a close contest in November…The poll, conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research from April 17 to 20, found Talarico leading Sen. John Cornyn by three percentage points, 44% to 41%. The Austin Democrat leads Attorney General Ken Paxton by a margin of five percentage points, 46% to 41%. The survey included 1,018 likely general election voters and had a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points…TPOR is a nonpartisan public opinion research group directed by Democratic strategist Luke Warford. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, and in recent cycles, polls have routinely offered rosy projections for the minority party that are not borne out in November…Still, Democrats are hopeful that President Donald Trump’s flagging approval ratings, paired with backlash from Latino voters over the economy and the White House’s immigration policies, will create an environment more akin to 2018, when Democrat Beto O’Rourke came within 3 points of unseating GOP Sen. Ted Cruz…Cornyn and Paxton are competing in a May 26 runoff to be the Republican nominee for Senate and take on Talarico, who won a competitive primary of his own in early March. A handful of polls throughout the cycle, some nonpartisan and some sponsored by Democrats, have found Democratic candidates with narrow leads or within the margin of error in hypothetical general election matchups…Talarico’s support is heavily powered by voters of color, college-educated Texans and independents. Among Black voters, Talarico leads Cornyn by 51 percentage points and Paxton by 56 percentage points. Among Latino voters, Talarico leads Cornyn by a 32-point margin and Paxton by a 27-point margin.” More here.

At The Hill, Ashleigh Fields’s “Democrat on Trump’s ballroom: ‘My constituents can’t afford f—ing groceries or utility bills’” captures a bit of the growing outrage over Trump/GOP”s effort to force taxpayers to pick up part of the tab for his gilded ballroom construction at the White House. “Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) on Tuesday railed against a push to fundPresident Trump’s White House ballroom, citing affordability concerns in her state and nationwide…“My constituents can’t afford f—ing groceries or utility bills, and he now wants to spend taxpayer money on a ballroom?” McBride told MeidasTouch in an interview…“They shouldn’t use a potential tragedy to try to secure funding from taxpayers for the president to have Great Gatsby parties in the White House,” she added, referring to the Saturday shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner…On Monday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed a bill that would earmark $400 million to build the ballroom along with an underground military facility and Secret Service annex in case of national emergency. Trump’s original plan for the ballroom was for it to be completely funded by private donors and corporations, with the promise of recognition inside the space…The South Carolina Republican said taxpayers should pay for the infrastructure and donors could pay for decor and furnishings…Lawmakers said donor provisions “remain unclear” and asserted the “opaque nature of this scheme reinforces concerns that President Trump is again selling presidential access to individuals or entities, including foreign nationals and corporate actors.”

Oliver Millman reports that “Trump’s attempt to crush clean energy progress not going to plan, experts say: US generated more power from renewables including solar and wind than gas last month in a first” at The Guardian. “Donald Trump has wielded the full might of his administration to crush the progress of clean energy, which he has called a “scam” and “stupid”. But there are signs this assault is not going to plan…In March, the US generated more of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind than it did via gas, the first time clean energy has surpassed the planet-heating fossil fuel for a full month nationally, according to data from the Ember thinktank…While this was just one month, it follows a record 2025 for renewable energy. The pipeline of new power coming online in the US is overwhelmingly green this year, too, with 93% of all electricity capacity added in 2026 set to come from solar, wind and batteries. Just 7% will come from the fossil fuels that are dangerously overheating our world…The undaunted pace of the renewables rollout comes as the Trump administration’s attempts to stymie the industry have floundered in court…Last week, a federal court in Massachusetts blocked a slew of Trump’s anti-renewables actions, such as barring solar and wind projects on federal land. This follows the resumption of five major offshore wind farms, a form of energy the president has long reviled as “ugly”, that the administration had ordered to halt…All of this has boosted optimism among clean energy advocates who have felt under siege during Trump’s second term…Wind, solar and batteries are now far cheaper and quicker to construct than gas and coal plants, causing a market “tipping point” that Trump cannot reverse, according to Davidson…The US’s budding clean energy sector had been left shellshocked by Trump’s hostility after he returned to the White House and enacted sweeping rollbacks to environmental rules in a bid to bolster the fossil fuel interests who donated heavily to his presidential campaign.”

“The false choice between “moderate” and “progressive” has trapped Democrats in an irrelevant debate while democracy hangs in the balance,” Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach write in “How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism” at The Boston Review. “The real divide isn’t left versus center—it’s whether Democrats view Trump as an aberration to be waited out or as an authoritarian threat that requires an extraordinary response. Journalist Ronald Brownstein recently identified this fault line: those who view authoritarianism as a “distraction” from kitchen-table issues versus those who see it as the existential crisis defining all other questions. The “distraction” camp still operates by 1990s rules, counseling moderation and patience, trusting failed institutions…This brings us back to a crucial point: successful anti-authoritarian movements don’t win by moderating their positions on a traditional left-right axis but by creating an entirely new one. They mobilize previously disengaged citizens by framing the struggle not as a contest over policy, but as a fight for the fundamental fairness of the system itself…Democrats can keep debating whether to stand five degrees or fifteen degrees left of center, fine-tuning messages drowned out by the latest Trump spectacle. They can chase moderate voters our data shows won’t materialize while their base stays home. They can maintain faith that reasonableness will eventually triumph…Or they can accept the evidence: the old rules are dead. In a nationalized media environment with an authoritarian movement capturing one major party, electoral politics has become existential conflict. This requires not moderation but mobilization, not positioning but purpose, not just messaging but genuine reform to prove that Democrats will fight for democracy itself by first attacking the corruption that rots it from within…You defeat them by being more determined and by uniting the country against their most visible vulnerability: their corruption…The choice now is to transform the party’s strategy to meet the scale of the threat, or to fail. In this contest, failure is not just an electoral defeat; it may be the end of democratic self-governance.”