Will the U. S. Supreme Court cave to the Republican effort to ban voting by mail? Here’s how John Fritze and Tierney Sneed report on the initiative  in “Trump asks Supreme Court to let him curtail mail voting” at CNN Politics: “President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to allow the administration to move forward with implementing a sweeping executive order aimed at mail voting that lower courts blocked in nearly two dozen states — setting up a major elections dispute at the high court months before the midterms…Trump’s order would give the US Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security new roles in screening state voter rolls for potential non-citizen voters…Signed in March, the president’s directive would require states to submit lists of eligible mail voters to the US Postal Service, which would be barred from sending ballots to anyone not on those lists. It would also require states to use individualized ballot tracking barcodes on ballot envelopes. And it would “prioritize” federal prosecution of state election officials who send or receive ballots to non-citizens or others ineligible to vote…Twenty-three Democratic-led states challenged the order, noting that the Constitution leaves the running of elections largely to states, not the White House. A federal district court blocked its implementation for this year’s election in the states that sued, and the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision over the weekend.” More here.

In related voting rights news, Associated Press reporters Joey Cappelletti and Mary Clare Jalonick report that “Trump demands Senate cancel August break until it passes voting bill,” and write: “President Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Senate Majority Leader John Thune cancel the chamber’s upcoming August break until senators pass a strict proof-of-citizenship voting bill, even as Republicans lack the votes to advance it…Trump has repeatedly urged Thune to scrap the legislative filibuster, which effectively sets a 60-vote threshold for most legislation in the 100-member Senate, or find another workaround to pass the voting bill, known as the SAVE America Act. But Republicans hold only a 53-47 majority, and Thune has consistently said they don’t have the votes to pass the bill or change the rules to get around the filibuster…“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER,” Trump wrote on social media…It’s the latest escalation in a monthslong pressure campaign by Trump and others in the GOP base to pass the SAVE Act ahead of the midterms. A small but vocal group of Republican senators has also increasingly pressed Thune to find a way forward…Thune responded Monday afternoon, telling reporters he would be supportive of cancelling the break if there was a path forward on the legislation.” More here.

In “The 2026 House Map is No More Favorable to Republicans than the 2018 Map was,” Kyle Kondik explains” at The Center for Politics: “Republicans made the House map better for themselves compared to the 2024 map by winning this cycle’s expansive redistricting fight…However, comparing this year’s map to the district lines in place in 2018—the last midterm held under President Trump—puts the 2026 House map in a different light…By a number of metrics, the 2026 House map is no more favorable to Republicans than the 2018 map, and it may actually be a little less favorable…The median House district by presidential performance is less Republican, the number of districts that voted to the right of the nation for president is smaller, and the number of plausible Democratic House targets based on history is comparable…There are a lot of numbers here, but the key one for our purposes is summed up at the bottom of the table: On the 2026 map, there are 234 districts that are R+4 or bluer. On the 2018 map, there were 233 such districts…That’s basically the same, but on this metric too, the 2026 map is very slightly better for Democrats than the 2018 map was…To get a sense as to how the 2026 map might have performed in 2018, we looked at the percentage of races Democrats won in each of these categories in the actual 2018 elections, and then we applied those percentages to the 2026 map…That produces 239 Democratic seats, or 4 more than the 235 Democrats actually won in 2018…Now, we wouldn’t take this too literally: beyond map changes, the country has also shifted politically since 2018, with changes that have altered both party coalitions…But here’s the point: If the 2026 House map was worse for Democrats than the 2018 map, we’d expect that if we applied the 2018 win percentage for Democrats in each of these categories to the 2026 map, they would win fewer seats, not more…None of this should be taken to suggest that we think Democrats are going to do better in 2026 than 2018 (at this point we don’t think they will, even though we continue to favor Democrats to win the majority). There’s much more than just the map that goes into producing the actual House results. And however Democrats perform in this election, it’s very likely that they would have done better had there been no redistricting this cycle…But if Democrats could win the House on the 2018 map, they can win it on this one, too.” More here.

As regards public attitudes and protest against AI Centers, in “Data center backlash signals a fight over AI power,” Tom Wheeler writes at Brookings: “The flashpoint has been data centers, the multi-football field-sized computing facilities that power AI. Fundamentally, this is a fight about power and whether it will be exercised by democratic institutions or those that control the infrastructure of AI…Local citizen outrage has taken its toll. The first three months of 2026 saw local data center opposition block or delay 75 projects worth $130 billion in planned construction, according to Data Center Watch. This was roughly the same number of projects affected as in all 12 months of 2025…AI mega centers have become the symbol of citizen frustration about AI. As the most visible manifestation of AI, they have become the proxy for citizen feedback on AI itself. The debate over land use also represents the crystallization of broader public concern about AI’s effect on American lives and livelihood. “Concerns over data centers relate to broader worries that the rapid ​expansion of AI could upend the labor market,” Reuters reported. “Americans don’t know how to fight AI. So they’re fighting data centers,” a Vox headline explained…As AI leaps from technology to politics, the central question becomes who is in charge: democratic structures or autocratic executives.” More here.