In “Democrats fight to win back Latino voters who are key to flipping the House,” Juhi Doshi writes at abcnews.com: “Two years back, President Donald Trump made gains with Latinos that were decisive to his victory. Now, with conflict overseas and high costs, Democrats are eyeing key House races that have significant Latino populations that are essential for a House majority…Trump’s net approval rating among Hispanic voters has suffered since he took office for his second term. A June 2026 Fox News poll found Trump underwater by 38 percentage points, with 31% of Latino voters approving of how he was handling his job as president and 69% disapproving. In March 2025, he was down by only 11 points with the group, with 44% approving and 55% disapproving… But strategists warn that Democrats need to give voters something to vote for, not just something to vote against…Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant who studies Latino voters, said regional and national-origin differences among working class voters — Cubans in Florida, Dominicans in New Jersey, Puerto Ricans in New York and Mexican Americans in California and Texas — are collapsing under one shared issue: the economy…”Both parties just devolve into these petty, irrelevant cultural battles that are not speaking to anybody’s concerns. What you end up with is Latinos voting against whoever is in power and punishing them for the economic issues that aren’t being addressed,” Madrid added…Democrats, who have lost ground with Latinos since 2016, believe the passage of Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” — legislation that is set to result in cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits — will also be key…In California’s Central Valley, where Medicaid covers at least half of all Latino residents, Randy Villegas is challenging Rep. David Valadao. He said that the residents in his district will drive across the border to Tijuana for cheaper medical work.” More here.

From “Trump’s Plot to Rig Midterms Gets So Unhinged That Even Fox Is Rattled. As Trump’s threats to corrupt the midterms grow more vile, a political scientist explains why his visible derangement shouldn’t distract us from the severe threat this moment poses.” by Greg Sargent at The New Republic: “During his prime-time speech dissembling endlessly about our elections, Donald Trump raged at news organizations for refusing to carry him live. Then his Homeland Security secretary also smeared the media, a sign Trump’s fury continues to deepen. We think this means Trump fully expects news organizations to help him amplify his lies about our elections to sow distrust in them. As we discuss in this episode, his speech revealed that he’s plainly mulling an effort to rig the midterms, and sowing that distrust is key to it. A funny thing, though: Fox News explicitly declined to endorse his claims and refrained from carrying his DHS secretary. And according to Fox sources, insiders were dismayed to hear Trump obsessing over our elections, thought it was bad politics for the GOP, and even worried it was bad for business given post-2020 litigation against Fox. We talked to Harvard political scientist Ryan Enos, who explains how Trump is telegraphing an authoritarian plot to corrupt the elections, why the assaults on the media are central to that, and how Democrats and the American people must respond. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.”

Here’s a chart from “The economic policy-branding paradox” by Patrick Ruffini at The Intersection:

Bill McKibben shares “An Idea for Democrats to Keep It Together in 2028. What if a candidate picked a running mate from another faction of the Party right away, and they ran on a unified vision?” at The New Yorker. An excerpt: “So it’s also worth imagining whether there are some structural ways that the Democrats could signal their seriousness about uniting, and their commitment to an alliance in the long term. Here’s one idea: candidates for President should consider naming, and campaigning with, their Vice-Presidential pick from Day One…Imagine this scenario (and feel free to substitute in other names). Say that, a few months after the midterms, Governor J. B. Pritzker, of Illinois, strides to a lectern in Springfield to announce a run for the White House, with the usual bunting and copious references to Abraham Lincoln, but standing with him is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He says that, since he would turn sixty-eight by the end of his first term, and since there is a clear desire among Americans for younger leaders, it makes sense for him to plan on serving just one term, and then to support the Vice-President for a run in 2032. She says that, since she’s short on executive experience, as opposed to legislative experience, it would be a logical step to spend four years as Vice-President—and that she’ll still only be forty-three on Inauguration Day in January, 2033…This plan seems as if it could accomplish any number of useful things. It signals that the candidates’ primary campaign would center on broad areas of agreement that unite centrists and progressives, rather than on the things they might contest: both are against authoritarianism and for action to broaden access to health care; both support more affordable homes and lower electric bills; both are eager for a transition to clean energy; and both are keenly focussed on community college as a key part of building a workforce for the future. In truth, the divisions between the various factions in the Party are not as deep as sometimes imagined—if you look closely, Joe Biden was a very Bernie President, determined to use large-scale government action to transform the economy. But there are also real differences in both style and emphasis, and this would be a way to bridge them—to announce, in short, that these views are not too disparate to animate the same Administration. Call it a government of Democratic unity.” More here.