From “Democrats don’t get why they’ve lost most working class voters” by Nicholas Jacobs at The Conversation: “Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who has become the left’s latest blue-collar savior, put the theory in its most unguarded form…“We are in a form of class war,” he says. “And if the Democratic Party is going to have a future with working people, it needs to pick the side of working people.”…The theory is all the same: Somewhere out there is a latent working-class majority, held together by shared economic grievances, waiting to be politically reassembled to vote for Democrats. The New Deal did it – Democrats can do it again…Since the early 1950s, the American National Election Studies has asked respondents whether they think of themselves as members of the working class. This article uses my analysis of that data…While a larger proportion of the electorate has obtained a college degree and household incomes have risen, the share of Americans who consider themselves working class has remained remarkably stable: roughly 35% of voters for the past 70 years, 38% in 2024…Working-class identity is something more durable and culturally grounded than a description of who isn’t a billionaire. It is a specific way of looking at the world…There are conventional ways to define the working class, but they often miss how people understand their own place in society. In the 2024 American National Election Studies, for example, 21% of those who identify as working class have a college degree, only 5% belong to a private-sector union, and 37% own stocks. Conversely, most Americans without a college degree do not identify as working class…Working-class voters have not become Republicans. Only in 2020 and 2024 – the first time in the survey’s history – did more working-class voters identify as Republican than Democrat, and even then by narrow margins…The data shows a working class that is politically homeless: estranged from the Democrats, not captured by the Republicans, stuck in the middle with diminishing attachment to either party.”

Jacobs continues, “So what drove them out? A segment of the progressive left has a ready answer: Democrats abandoned working-class voters economically – on trade, wages and industrial policy. Working-class voters responded rationally. Fix the economics and the coalition comes back…Trade is where the argument is strongest. In 1988, roughly 74% of both Democrats and working-class voters groups favored limits on imports to protect American jobs…By 2024, only 26% of Democrats favored limits, while a majority – 54% – of working-class voters continued to do so…Unlike most Democrats, many working-class communities do not see globalization in their interest. Running alongside the trade gap is a widening divide over values that no tariffs can fix…In 1984, Democrats and working-class voters broadly agreed that treating people more equally would mean fewer social problems. A divergence opened after 2008 and accelerated after 2016, with Democrats now 28 points more likely than working-class voters to think we should worry more about equality…In 1986, half of mainstream Democrats and a slightly smaller percentage of working-class voters agreed with the idea that Black Americans don’t succeed because they don’t try hard enough. By 2024, Democratic agreement had collapsed to 13%. Working-class voters declined too, but to 32%…The gap that opened between them is not primarily a story about rising working-class racial resentment. It is a story about the Democratic Party’s rapid post-2008 shift toward a worldview that places far greater explanatory weight on structural barriersand far less on individual effort and personal responsibility…Working-class voters, who historically have understood their own lives through a framework of hard work and earned reward, did not shift so dramatically.”

Jacobs adds, “On cultural questions, the pattern persists: Working-class voters did not move right in reactionary revolt. Democrats moved left…In 1986, similar levels of Democrats and working-class voters agreed with the statement “This country would have many fewer problems if there were more emphasis on traditional family ties.” By 2024 a 25-point gap emerged…On whether religion is an important part of their life: a near-zero gap through the early 1990s, but 17 points by 2024. On abortion, a 3-point gap in 1980 became 30 points in 2024. Regarding whether immigration levels should be increased, the two groups were virtually identical in 2000 – around 8% support – but by 2020 Democrats were at 48%, working-class voters at 24%…But even where working-class voters nominally agree with a Democratic policy goal, they don’t trust the institution being asked to deliver it – a distrust decades in the making…In 2024, more than three-quarters of voters who identify themselves as Democrats, but less than half of working-class voters, agreed with the statement that the law should allow abortions “always as a personal choice.” The two groups’ positions used to be much closer…In 1958, working-class voters and Democrats were within 5 points of each other on whether government wastes a lot of tax money. By 2024 that gap reached 27 points – not because working-class voters lurched toward anti-government extremism, but because mainstream Democrats became dramatically more trusting of government as an instrument of social change…Working-class voters are 17 points more likely than Democrats to say people like them have no say in what government does. In 2024, 88% of working-class voters and 75% of Democrats said government is run by a few big interests. Both groups agree the system is captured…Yet the Democratic policy response, invariably, is to expand the system.”

Jacobs concludes, “On support for expanding government – from healthcare to jobs to environmental programs – Democrats and working-class voters have diverged dramatically since the 1980s. By 2024, there were approval gaps of between 20 and 30 points on providing government health insurance, environmental spending and a guaranteed jobs program…On every major plank of the progressive economic agenda, Democrats are now substantially to the left of the workers they claim to champion…Working-class voters have been telling pollsters for 60 years that the political system doesn’t hear them. Democrats, over the same period, have grown more comfortable with the institutions working-class voters have increasingly less faith in.This distrust is the accumulated residue of specific experiences: deindustrialization that happened on government’s watch, trade deals that economists endorsed and workers paid for, a 2008 financial crisis response that saved the banks and foreclosed on their homes, an opioid epidemic that regulators missed entirely…To be fair, this is precisely what the new crop of reform candidates say they want to fix. The argument that the right candidate can move the needle is not crazy. Candidate quality matters. Personal trust can substitute for institutional trust, at least at the margins…But economic grievance politics is a very small slice of what working-class voters are telling us. The data documents a comprehensive, decades-long divergence in how working-class voters and mainstream Democrats understand fairness, government, personal responsibility and social change…Reducing that to class war jams working-class voters into a prefabricated progressive agenda rather than taking seriously what they are actually saying.”

From “Rare rebuke for president as four House Republicans side with Democrats to pass war powers resolution. Vote sends resolution to the US Senate, where the chamber must promptly take up the measure under law – key US politics stories from Wednesday, 3 June at a glance” by Guardian Staff at The Guardian. “The US House of Representatives delivered a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump over his war on Iran on Wednesday, as representatives backed a move to force him to seek approval from Congress or withdraw US forces…The House voted 215 to 208 in favor of the war powers resolution, as four Republicans voted with Democrats. The dissident Republicans were Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Tom Barrett of Michigan…Wednesday’s vote came nearly two weeks after House Republicans cancelled an earlier scheduled vote, on the grounds that they lacked the votes to defeat it…The vote sends the resolution to the Senate, where the chamber must promptly take up the measure under the war powers law. A handful of Senate Republican defectors joined Democrats last month to advance a similar resolution forcing Trump to seek congressional approval after four Republican senators rebelled and voted with the Democrats…The latest vote comes as efforts aimed at reaching a negotiated settlement to the three-month conflict have yet to bear fruit, despite repeated claims by Trump and his most senior officials that an agreement is almost negotiated, and that Iran is “desperate” to reach a deal.” More here.

In “Attitudes toward same-sex marriage and transgender issues are shifting, Gallup poll shows,” Geoff Mulvihill ands Amelia Thomson Deveaux write at apneas.com: “Acceptance of same-sex marriage and relationships in the U.S. has flattened after more than two decades of steadily increasing support, with an ongoing decline among Republicans, according to a new Gallup poll…About 65% of U.S. adults believe same-sex marriage should be legal, down slightly from 71% in 2022 and 2023…Most of the change is due to dropping acceptance among Republicans. In the new survey, which was conducted in May, only 37% of Republicans say same-sex marriage should be legally valid, while 35% say gay and lesbian relations are “morally acceptable.”…The views of Democrats and independents are largely stable in the findings released Wednesday, with most in both groups saying same-sex marriage should be legal and that gay or lesbian relations are moral…The widening partisan divide is also reflected in policy around LGBTQ+ issues across the U.S., particularly regarding transgender people, and a rising push in some states to ban same-sex marriage…The downtick in support for same-sex marriage, while slight, is still striking because of how dramatically American views on the issue have shifted over the past few decades…According to Gallup’s trend data, only 27% of U.S. adults supported legal same-sex marriage in 1996. Since then, support for same-sex marriage rose steadily until a few years ago, when it peaked with around 7 in 10 U.S. adults saying same-sex marriage should be legal…Opinion about the morality of same-sex relationships followed the same pattern. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults said same-sex relations were morally acceptable in 2001. That increased nearly 30 percentage points over the next two decades.” More here.

Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman report on “Rating Changes in Iowa Following Tuesday’s Primary” at The Center for Politics: “In Iowa, Rep. Randy Feenstra (R, IA-4), who got a late endorsement from Donald Trump, lost a gubernatorial primary to Zach Lahn, an anti-establishment newcomer…Regardless of who the GOP picked to run against state Auditor Rob Sand, the Democratic nominee for governor, we have been considering moving the race to Toss-up—and we are making that change today…We are also bumping both Iowa’s Senate race and the contest for the state’s 2nd District from Likely Republican to Leans Republican…With the Supreme Court allowing Alabama to use a 6-1 Republican map, mid-decade redistricting may be coming to a close, at least for 2026…In Vermont, popular Gov. Phil Scott (R) announced at the last minute that he’d seek a sixth term; his decision means that the GOP will almost certainly keep the state’s governor’s mansion for at least 2 more years…With virtually all votes reporting, Lahn leads Feenstra by a 37.8% to 37.0% margin. One early indicator that Feenstra was in trouble was that he was clearly weak at home (he is from the Sioux City area). In 2020, three counties that occupy the state’s northwestern corner—Lyon, Sioux, and Plymouth—collectively gave Feenstra close to three-quarters of the vote against King; yesterday, that area was a draw, as Feenstra won them by about 90 votes out of the 10,000 they cast…The Lahn campaign’s spending strategy, from these returns, appears clear: it focused on the two most populous markets, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids/Waterloo—while the latter was close, the former made up just under 40% of the statewide share and also gave Lahn just under 40% of its vote. Meanwhile, Feenstra tended to do better in the markets that were less centrally-located: he carried Davenport while Omaha represented his best substantially-sized market—curiously, while many of those Omaha-area counties are in his district, he has less of a personal history there than he does in the Sioux City area, where he seemed to underwhelm.” More here.

Political prognosticators should take a look at “Black and Latino voters face an affordability gap before the midterms,” in which Keon L. Gilbert, Gabriel R. Sanchez, and Rashawn Ray write at Brookings: Despite the Trump administration’s claims of a thriving economy, data show inflation, stagnant wages, and rising costs are hitting middle- and lower-income Americans—particularly Black and Latino communities—the hardest…Latino and Black voters who shifted toward Trump in 2024 over economic concerns are now among the most likely to reconsider their support ahead of the midterms…The party that can credibly promise to lower the cost of daily living will have the advantage this fall, and that race remains wide open…Affordability is a top issue for Americans and will be a key component in the 2026 midterms. Racial and ethnic minorities will be a crucial voting bloc in future elections, and given that they are some of the most vulnerable communities bearing the brunt of economic downturns, their opinions on the economy shouldn’t be overlooked. Lower-income Americans are widely understood to face tremendous challenges with daily-cost-of-living expenses, but recent reports point to middle-class Americans also struggling with affordability across every state…Below, Brookings scholars from the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative (RPII) discuss the affordability crisis in America, and find a harsher reality than what President Trump has consistently described throughout his second term. From his State of the Union address claiming Americans are “thriving” to his mid-May assertion that he does not “think about Americans’ financial situation” when negotiating with Iran, we analyze the disconnect between the administration’s messaging and the lived experiences of Americans…Recent polling suggests that a majority of Americans (57%) believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, contradicting the Trump administration’s messaging of a “thriving nation.” Perhaps most telling, a net 76% of Americans describe current economic conditions as fair or poor…While President Trump inherited a strong economy,  many Americans believe there is a cost-of-living crisis and are uncertain about when or how conditions will improve. Many also believe the Trump administration has deepened the affordability crisis through rising prices and its geopolitical actions, contributing to inflation outpacing wages for the first time since May 2023 and reaching 3.8% this past April. Although no single government agency controls the economy, many Americans across the political spectrum believe government should help manage the costs of daily living—from health care, medications, and groceries, to child care, housing, and utilities, and gas. These rising costs are leading many households to fall behind on bills such as rent, mortgage, car payments, and utilities. Middle- and lower-income households—and Black and Hispanic households in particular—will continue to bear the greatest burden if wages remain stagnant and economic conditions don’t improve.” More here.

In “James Talarico has an obligation to win. Ken Paxton is a terrible candidate, but don’t take anything for granted,” Matthew Yglesias writes at slowboring.com: “Ken Paxton defeated incumbent John Cornyn last week to become the G.O.P. nominee for a Texas U.S. Senate seat…This was one of those races where I wasn’t sure which outcome I was hoping for. Operatives at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Majority PAC could hardly contain their enthusiasm for the Paxton win since he is clearly the weaker candidate…On the other hand, the two candidates are really not the same on the merits…Cornyn is a conservative Republican. I don’t agree with him on public policy issues and I would not vote for him. But Texas is a conservative state, and it is what it is. Paxton, by contrast, is an election denier who tried to help Donald Trump stay in office after he lost in 2020. Beyond that, Paxton is an actual criminal. He simultaneously claimed three different homes as a primary residence on mortgage documents and, as we’ll see below, that’s not even the main financial scandal that got him in trouble. He’s the kind of Bible thumper who ended up in a messy divorce after it came out that he was cheating on his wife…But the real scandal there wasn’t the affair so much as the fact that Paxton got his affair partner a job working for a guy named Nate Paul so that she could move to Austin. Paul and Paxton also jointly had a secret Uber account that was used for Paxton’s assignations. ” More here.

Dustin Guastella’s “If Democrats are to win Texas, James Talarico must win blue-collar voters” at The Guardian puts the big Texas race in perspective. As Guastella writes, “Texas could become the hottest battleground state in the country, if the results of both Republican and Democratic primaries are anything to go by…Democrat James Talarico, a progressive Presbyterian seminarian, will face off against Trump’s favored candidate, the scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton. The matchup has liberals salivating. Paxton, dogged by corruption charges, impeachment hearings and an affair that left his marriage in tatters, is considered by some in his own party as “the worst possible top-of-the-ticket” candidate. Meanwhile, Talarico, a fresh-faced, clean-cut millennial, who quotes scripture to justify his progressive beliefs, seems like the perfect foil, at least according to Democratic party leaders…No wonder, then, that Talarico pulled in a massive fundraising haul immediately after Paxton won his party’s nomination. This combined with his already impressive war-chest of about $27m is a good indication that Democratic donors are betting big on Talarico to turn Texas blue. But the reality is that blue-collar voters, not blue-blooded donors, will decide the outcome of the race. And Talarico has a lot of work to do to win over working-class Texans…It’s true that a bevy of early polls show Talarico slightly ahead. But if you dig into the results you’ll notice that these surveys skew toward highly engaged and highly educated voters. Consider a recent poll from Public Policy Polling that has Talarico leading Paxton by seven points; only 22% of voters sampled have less than a college education. Or a recent University of Texas poll which has Talarico up eight points; only 27% of respondents lack a degree. Polls like these could be giving Democrats a false sense of confidence by overrepresenting college-educated voters who increasingly skew liberal.” More here.

Marc Caputo reports at Axios that the “Trump admin plans to drop “weaponization” fund“: “The Trump administration plans to drop its controversial $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund the president sought to compensate alleged victims of prosecutorial conduct under his predecessor, two senior administration officials told Axios…”It’s dead for now,” one of the sources said…Why it matters: Bashed as a political slush fund that could be tapped by those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Trump’s proposal has drawn bipartisan pushback in the GOP-led House and Senate…Zoom in: The plan for the fund came about as part of a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service…Trump and his business had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his 2019 and 2020 tax returns by a former contractor…Last month, they reached a settlement in which Trump dropped the lawsuit in exchange for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for government abuse claims for his administration to use with virtually no oversight…The settlement also included broad immunity for Trump from IRS audits…The plan was widely criticized on Capitol Hill, drawing backlash even from some Republicans loyal to the president. House Speaker Mike Johnson planned to raise the issue of the fund in a White House meeting with Trump, two sources said…Driving the news: The White House’s discussions about dropping the fund came after two federal judges weighed in against the fund on Friday…U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia halted the disbursement of money from it…U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in the Southern District of Florida announcedshe would launch an inquiry…Williams was the judge in charge of the original lawsuit Trump and the Trump Organization brought against the IRS for the unauthorized disclosure of tax information.” More here.

In “How can Dems win the White House in 2028? This think tank says move to the middle. Forget Mamdani, Bernie and AOC. A recent conference in Nevada embraced the controversial hypothesis that centrism — and not progressivism — will win the day,” Kate Reynolds and Isabella Aldrete report on the centrist confab at The Nevada Independent, and write: “The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) got a jolt of energy in 2020 from its early win in Nevada’s Democratic presidential caucus…The caucus system was phased out the following year, replaced with the primary system used by most states. That means 2028 will be the Democrats’ first competitive presidential primary in Nevada since the 1980s, when caucuses were introduced, besides an easy primary win in 2024 for former President Joe Biden… But a group of moderate Democratic strategists who hope to retake the White House in 2028 say Sanders’ win was a one-off and that voters in swingy Nevada want pragmatism, not progressivism…That was one of the key themes at a daylong event hosted earlier this month in Las Vegas by the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way. The group was in Nevada urging Democrats to shed unpopular policies on cultural issues and focus on economic woes as the party seeks to reconnect with working-class voters…”One of the reasons we wanted to do this in Vegas was, you’re in a whole new world now. This is a completely different ball game,” said Matt Bennett, Third Way’s executive vice president of public affairs, in an interview with The Nevada Independent…Third Way is speaking to voters, strategists and candidates in key swing states as it seeks to empower the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. Formed in 2005, many of the group’s leaders are alums of the administrations of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats.” More here.

Putting Paxton’s primary run-off victory in perspective, he got less than 886 thousand votes, compared to more than a million votes that Jame Talarico got in his Democratic primary. Adam Wren and Irie Sentner write in “James Talarico’s theory of victory in Texas” that “Recent internal polling from a pro-Talarico PAC shows the Democrat has a 7-point lead against Paxton…But Talarico faces a Texas-sized challenge to finally deliver on Democrats’ long-held fantasy of flipping the state, just two years after Trump won it by 14 points…Talarico said Tuesday night that to win in November, he must convert supporters of Sen. John Cornyn — a conservative by almost any metric, except Trump’s. After Cornyn conceded, Talarico thanked the four-term incumbentfor his service and told his supporters “you have a place in our campaign.”…“I have a legislative record that I think has a lot to offer supporters of Senator Cornyn. Ken Paxton has a criminal record. I have a legislative record,” Talarico told POLITICO (Paxton struck a deal in 2024 where he paid restitution and securities fraud felony charges were dropped). He emphasized his history reaching across the aisle “to cut property taxes and raise teacher pay and lower the cost of housing and child care and prescription drugs,” and touted his willingness to break with Democrats on issues including energy and the border that are important in Texas.” More here.

“A combination of factors including bad weather, tariffs and a dwindling cattle herd are already pushing up grocery prices at an above-average pace,” Mark Niquette and Lauren Rosenthal write in “Americans Are About to Pay Even More at the Grocery Store” at Bloomberg, via Yahoo Finance. “In April, they rose by the most in nearly four years, and economists say the impact of the Iran war and a potential El Niño weather pattern will only add to pressures into 2027…The hit to US household finances from higher grocery bills is set to intensify just ahead of the November midterm elections, amplifying affordability as a defining issue. And to a greater extent than the surge in gas prices, the slower-moving food shock will be difficult to reverse quickly because the size of autumn harvests is determined by planting decisions made in the spring…“It’s going to be a challenging year,” said Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness professor at California Polytechnic State University who previously worked at the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. “Food is going to become less affordable, and consumers should be prepared for it.”…The latest USDA food price outlook, published Friday, projected a 3.2% advance in grocery prices this year, while Volpe said he expects inflation more on the order of 4% to 4.5%…Then there’s the war, which has brought a massive shock to global fertilizer markets due to the Middle East’s role as a major supplier of inputs…Prices of fertilizer are up 20% since the war began, according to a Green Markets index for North America. That will likely mean higher prices come harvest time, and if farmers decide to scale back applications, that would also leave crops less able to withstand heat, drought or flooding…At the same time, household debt is rising, the personal saving rate is falling, and real average hourly earnings fell in the 12 months through April for the first time in three years. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published data Wednesday indicating a “meaningful” increase in measures of food insecurity between October 2025 and February 2026.” More here.

Forward Blue has an e-bast message entitled “The Flippable Five,” in which they write “there are FIVE Republican-held seats where Democrats can win. Right now, with the right resources, the right organizing, and enough people coming together to fuel the fight, Democrats will WIN…Here’s the plan:

🔴 FLIP North Carolina: Roy Cooper is one of the most popular Democrats in the South. He built a coalition that wins in a state Republicans have taken for granted for a decade. This race is winnable.

🔴 FLIP Maine: Graham Platner is running hard in a state where Democrats have been closing the gap. Independent voters are reachable here. We just have to show up.

🔴 FLIP Ohio: Sherrod Brown won Ohio three times as a Democrat. He knows how to talk to working-class voters, union households, and small towns the party has written off. Republicans know this race scares them.

🔴 FLIP Alaska: Mary Peltola has already proved the skeptics wrong once. She’s a proven winner in a state that shouldn’t be competitive. It is. She’s proof.

🔴 FLIP Texas: James Talarico is running hard, raising real money, and building the kind of ground game that turns “longshot” into “wait, did we just flip Texas?”

Republican super PACs already know these races are prime targets for us. They are not waiting. Right now, dark money groups are pulling together tens of millions of dollars to bury every single one of these candidates before Election Day. The infrastructure is already being built to poison these races before Democrats have a chance to define them…We are not going to let that happen without a fight…But here’s the honest truth: spring and summer are when these races are won or lost. June ad buys cost half what they cost in October, registration drives launched now reach the voters who actually decide close elections, and organizers hired this summer have six months to build the relationships that turn out the people who only vote when someone they trust asks them to…If we wait until fall, we are handing Republicans a six-month head start. That is not a gap we can close with October money. Here is their contributions page.

In “Trump Blurts Out Plot to Rig Midterms after Humiliating Fox Poll Hits,” Greg Sargent writes at The New Republic: “Donald Trump just got hit with an absolutely crushing poll from Fox News. Disapproval of his handling of the economy is at an all-time high. His ratings on inflation are staggeringly awful. Historically friendly voter groups—whites, rural Americans, the working class—are all turning away from him in surprising numbers. It’s no accident that on Thursday, Trump let out a rambling diatribe, demanding Republicans pass his onerous voter suppression legislation. Critically, Trump said straight out that if they do, Democrats will “never be elected again.” Trump admittedthat the whole point of his bill is to ensure one-party rule in perpetuity, in the GOP’s favor—exactly why he wants it passed before the midterms. We talked to MS NOW opinion editor James Downie, author of a piece on Trump’s deepening unpopularity. We discuss why Trump is losing his base and the new voters he won in 2024, what opportunities that offers Democrats, whether the bottom is really falling out for good, and why Trump can’t cheat his way out this time. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.”

From “Republicans worry the Cornyn-Paxton fight is tearing their party apart: After months of mudslinging, several Republicans are bracing for a messy primary finish — and an even more costly general election.” by Liz Crampton and Samuel Benson at Politico: “…The John Cornyn vs. Ken Paxton showdown ends Tuesday night, but the brutal primary has some Republicans worried the party will emerge in tatters…Armed with President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Paxton has emerged as the clear front-runner in the final days of a Texas Senate runoff where the MAGA-aligned, scandal-plagued firebrand state attorney general has weathered millions of dollars in attack ads. But Cornyn, the establishment favorite and a giant of the Senate seeking a fifth term in office, is putting up a hard fight until the end, bolstered by a massive war chest and solidarity from senior leadership in Congress…“In Spanish, they call it lucha de gigantes — a fight between two giants,” said Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Institute, a conservative Texas-based group that has stayed out of the primary. “Post-runoff, you’re going to have to mend a lot of fences.”…The race has become increasingly vicious in the final stretch, with Cornyn accusing the attorney general of being ethically unfit for office and Paxton arguing that the incumbent, 74, is too old to continue serving in the Senate. Their relentless mudslinging has only deepened existing divisions between the GOP’s hardliners and traditional moderates. Several Republicans in both Texas and Washington warn that Trump’s decision to endorse Paxton over Cornyn has alienated lawmakers on Capitol Hill — and risks turning off major GOP donors who will be critical during an expensive general election.” More here.

In “Is the Working Class Finally Turning on Trump?,” Eyal Press writes at The New Yorker: “In a recent exchange with reporters, Donald Trump insisted that his policies to fight inflation are working “incredibly,” and that America is on the cusp of a “golden age.” This sunny appraisal is not widely shared. Trump’s tariffs are broadly unpopular. So is his decision to go to war with Iran, particularly as the ripple effects of Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has disrupted global shipping and caused the price of oil to soar above a hundred dollars a barrel, have spread to American shores. In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll published in early May, eighty-one per cent of respondents said that higher gas prices were straining their household budgets. Sixty-three per cent of those feeling the strain blamed the problem on Trump. In another recent poll, carried out by CNN, three-fourths of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, said that Trump’s policies have increased the cost of living in their communities…Such surveys have alarmed some Republican strategists. But they do not appear to be troubling Trump, who, when asked recently how much thought he gives to Americans’ financial situations when negotiating with Iran, replied, “Not even a little bit”—a comment consistent with his view of the affordability crisis, which he dismissed last year as a Democratic “con job” and a “hoax.” These are the words of a President whose populist rhetoric has long been at odds with the substance of his policies and the concentration of billionaires in his Cabinet. They are also a reminder of how confident Trump remains that his supporters will stay loyal to him regardless of what he does, an assumption that until recently seemed warranted. During his first term, Trump passed tax cuts for the rich and appointed anti-union, management-side attorneys to run the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board. Union leaders decried these developments, but many rank-and-file workers were more forgiving, continuing to place Trump signs on their lawns and to show up at his rallies wearing maga hats.” More here.

We can hope that “Trump’s Game Plan to Win Back the Working Class” will be driven by the same smarts that he brought to his tariff, inflation and Iran policies. But first Dems have to understand what he is  planning. Hugh Cameron’s Newsweek article is instructive. As Cameron writes: “As his support among working-class voters—a coalition that helped him return to power in 2024—shows signs of erosion, President Donald Trump continues to champion a series of progressive-style policies that experts read as clear attempt to stem the bleeding in this crucial bloc…According to a CNN/SSRS poll from late March, Trump’s approval among white non-college graduates has dipped into negative territory—with 49 percent supporting and 51 percent disapproving of his presidency. A separate survey of nearly 2,000 Trump voters found that one in five do not plan to support a Republican candidate in 2028, a departure that the pollsters said was “concentrated among his working-class voters.”…The results have emerged as voters in general sour on his handling of the economy and cost-of-living issues—made more pressing with the war in Iran driving up energy prices—and mark a significant shift from the support Trump enjoyed in 2024…Despite robust macroeconomic indicators, Trump leaned on Americans squeezed by the costs of housing, groceries, gas and debt—broadening the party’s non-college coalition beyond the white vote and securing 56 percent of working-class support in 2024, according to analysis by the Center for American Progress.” More here.

Some wisdom from a former First Lady that Democrats would do well to heed, as reported by msn.com in “Michelle Obama urges empathy for Trump voters’ economic struggles“: “In a candid interview on the “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso” podcast, Michelle Obama said she could not resent those who voted for Donald Trump, attributing their choices to economic hardship and a sense of being left behind. She emphasized that many Americans are struggling with housing, healthcare, and basic costs, leading them to seek dramatic change. Obama warned against pigeonholing such voters as uncaring or racist, framing their decisions as acts of desperation rather than malice…Many of the people who voted for my husband twice — twice! And I know that that’s how they feel. It’s like, this isn’t about anything other than just, we need something different…Obama’s remarks challenge a common narrative within liberal circles that equates Trump support with bigotry, instead highlighting economic vulnerability as a driver of political behavior. By acknowledging that some who voted for her husband later supported Trump, she underscored the fluidity of voter allegiance when systemic issues go unaddressed. Her approach could encourage a more nuanced political strategy focused on empathy and economic reform rather than moral condemnation…Obama’s observation that voters can swing between ideologically different candidates echoes historical patterns in U.S. politics, where economic downturns often trigger shifts in party loyalty. Similar to past realignments, she pointed to working-class dissatisfaction and distrust in institutions as catalysts for change. This mirrors trends in regions that once leaned Democratic but have turned Republican in recent years.”

From “Poll: Trump’s election orders would mass disenfranchise working-class voters” by Jordan Zakarin at More Perfect Union: “President Donald Trump’s executive orders on election administration would create significant — and in many cases, insurmountable — barriers for working- and middle- class Americans to voting, according to a new poll from More Perfect Union and Blue Rose Research…In his second term, Trump has taken aggressive steps to attempt to restrict voting. In March 2025, he signed an executive order to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. A more recent executive order would create a national database of voters and instruct the USPS to limit who receives mail-in ballots. (The March 2025 executive order was blocked in August, while litigation has been filed in response to the executive order pertaining to mail-in voting.)…Trump also continues to demand that Congress pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a bill that would radically limit voter registration and which experts say would be the most restrictive federal voting legislation in history…The poll, which surveyed 3,129 registered voters between April 16 and April 27, found that the proof of citizenship requirements pushed by Trump set a bar for voter registration that most voters would struggle to meet. Just 26% of voters said that they have an up-to-date passport, while nearly a third of voters (32%) said that requiring a passport to register would make it more difficult or prevent them from voting…Nearly half of voters (46%) said that the $130 fee to purchase a new passport would be a financial burden. Two-thirds of lower-income voters said the $130 cost would be a barrier and nearly half (47%) reported it would prevent or deter them from registering and voting altogether. Among middle-income voters, just over half (53%) said that the price would cause them issues, including just over a third (36%) who said it would make them less likely or unable to vote.” More here.

Douglas MacKinnon argues that “Without the working class, Democrats will tank the midterms — and 2028” at The Hill, and writes: “As we get closer to the midterms in November and the presidential election in 2028, one has to wonder if any of the Democrats in leadership positions — be they in Congress, in the Democratic National Committee or the billionaires bankrolling various initiatives in favor of leftist causes — actually know or speak with any working-class Americans on a regular basis…As someone who grew up in abject poverty, I have long stayed in touch with parents and individuals who live paycheck to paycheck. Some are Democrats. Some are Republicans. Some are fiercely independent. Most are facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles tied to the cost of living, rising crime, and an increasingly bleak future for their children…These Americans, who make up the vast majority of our population, have grown wary of leaders representing both political parties who float high above them and their increasing misery in bubbles of entitlement, luxury and purposeful ignorance. They may not understand the intricacies of politics and policy, but they recognize nonsense and abdication of responsibility when they see it.” More here.

It has been decided in Trumpworld that you should pay for the January 6 “insurrection,” in which rioters broke into congress, some defaced the walls with feces and many sought to do harm to members of congress and the Vice President. As the Associated Press team of Fatima Hussein, Alanna Tucker and Eric Durker report in “Justice Department announces a $1.7 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ fund to compensate Trump allies” via pbs.org: “The Trump administration on Monday announced the creation a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies of the Republican president who believe they were mistreated by the Biden administration Justice Department…The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was announced by the Justice Department as part of a deal to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns…Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in announcing the fund in a statement that it was “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.”…Democrats and government watchdogs immediately pledged to fight what they called a “corrupt” and unprecedented resolution, warning that the arrangement would unjustly enrich people close to the president with taxpayer dollars and open the door to meritless claims of political persecution…Trump’s lawyers disclosed the dismissal of the case in a filing Monday in federal court in Florida, where the president sued earlier this year…The fund would represent not only a highly unorthodox resolution but also a further demonstration of the administration’s eagerness to reward allies who before Trump came to power were investigated and in some cases charged and convicted. Most notably, the president on his first day back in office pardoned or commuted the sentences of supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His Justice Department since then has approved payouts to supporters entangled in the Trump-Russia investigation and investigated and prosecuted some of his perceived adversaries…”This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.” More here.

In “Tax world gawks at Trump audit agreement: ‘Never seen anything like this‘,” Brian Faler sees it like this at Politico: “President Donald Trump is flipping what had been a doomed lawsuit against the IRS into a free pass from the agency…Astonishment is rippling through tax world at a settlement that goes far beyond the specifics of Trump’s suit — he sought billions of dollars as compensation for some of his tax records being leaked to the news media — to instead provide him, his family and his businesses sweeping protections against government scrutiny of his taxes…Under the plan signed off on by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the IRS would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from all audits of “any matters currently pending.” What’s more, some worry it may mean Trump will never again be audited by the agency, pointing to vague language in the settlement barring examinations that stem from “lawfare.”…“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Steve Rosenthal, a former longtime senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank…The one-page document the Justice Department released Tuesday represents the most audacious step yet in Trump’s ongoing efforts to shield his taxes from scrutiny. He’s long bucked a decades-old tradition of presidents voluntarily releasing their filings, but this would prevent the IRS from examining them as well — special treatment that the IRS does not provide any other American. It would also flout the agency’s longstanding policy of automatically auditing every president…It also promises a massive fight with Democrats if they vault back into power in this year’s midterm elections, with the agreement rocketing up lawmakers’ oversight to-do list…“Democrats are going to fight every element of this,” said Sen. Ron Wyden(Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the tax-writing Finance committee.” More here.

In “Billionaire Trump’s Secret Trading Spree Alarms Wall Street,” Laura Eposito writes at Daily Beast: “Donald Trump’s Wall Street side hustle is starting to look like a full-time job…During the first three months of 2026, the billionaire president pocketed tens of millions of dollars through 3,700 investment trades involving companies with direct ties to his administration…“This is an insane amount of trades,” Matthew Tuttle, chief executive officer of Tuttle Capital Management, told Bloomberg, which first obtained the 79-year-old president’s financial disclosures…Overall, Trump disclosed at least $220 million in financial transactions earlier this year, including trades in securities tied to major U.S. companies…“I’m baffled,” said Eric Diton, president at The Wealth Alliance, an investment advisory firm, told Bloomberg. “In the 40-plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards.”…Trump’s frequent trading doesn’t bode well in the eyes of Americans. Eighty-eight percent of Americans oppose public officials trading stocks while in office, according to polls. What’s more, presidents are expected to avoid any appearance of benefiting personally from inside knowledge or government decisions, making Trump’s transactions especially damning…Still, that hasn’t stopped him from buying at least $1 million worth of stock in companies including Nvidia Corp., Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp., Boeing Co., and Costco Wholesale Corp….The ethical concerns surrounding those dealings are extensive. Nvidia, the chipmaking giant, struck a deal with the White House last year to manufacture AI infrastructure in the United States. The president also remains close to Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, who accompanied him to Beijing last week for his summit with President Xi Jinping.”

If you have wondered, particularly in the wake of Sen. Bill Cassidy’s recent defeat in the Louisiana GOP primary, about the power of political endorsements, check out “Poll: Why some endorsements might hurt more than help” by Jessica Piper, who writes at Politico: “To test the relative power of various endorsements in the current political environment, Public First ran an experiment in a survey last month. Respondents were asked to select between two candidates in a House race, both of whom were described as being backed by a special interest group, supported by Trump or opposed by Trump. Specific groups were not named, but a brief description of their advocacy was given. For example, one candidate might be described as “backed by Donald Trump” while the other is “backed by a campaign group advocating for increased abortion access…Trump has splattered endorsements across much of the country this year. On Saturday, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) lost his primary after Trump endorsed one of his opponents, Rep. Julia Letlow. The president’s endorsement will again be put to the test on Tuesday, where he endorsed Ed Gallrein over Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)…When voters who supported Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 were told that Trump backed a candidate, they were 55 percent less likely to support that candidate…The much larger effect size among Harris voters outweighs the boost among Trump supporters. As a result, across all voters, a Trump endorsement was more detrimental than helpful — a warning sign for the president’s potential involvement as Republicans look to hold on to the House and Senate this fall…The results of The POLITICO Poll fit with existing research finding that endorsements generate reactions from both people who agree and disagree, and thus sometimes do more harm than good.” I would add that party endorsements for lower level offices can be influential. I certainly rely on them for judgeships and local contests that I was too lazy to properly research.

Another kind of endorsement I have been wondering about is that which comes from a spouse. It can be put in terms of “Do husbands vote like their wives?” or more often the reverse, “Do wives tend to vote like their husbands?” I refer you to a wonky 12-year old article, which shares confident conclusions based on data, rather than share the actual data, “How husbands and wives vote” by Marte Strom at ScienceDirect. The Abstract says “This article uses economic theories of voting behavior and household decision making to analyze the role of own and spouse earnings in determining political voting behavior. The main predictions from these models is that earnings is one of the factors that has an impact on political preferences and in households who share resources, voting behavior will be influenced more by the most representative labor income in the family. I investigate empirically the importance of individual vs household income, and find that the importance of individual income on voting behavior is contingent on employment. On average women earn less than their husband and vote according to their husbands income. If the wife is the maximum earner of the household or works fulltime, she votes more according to her own earnings.” Of course, most of the time people marry within their socio-economic strata, which sets up the phenomenon. You may have seen a recent celebrity meme in which readers are reminded that you vote in private and there is nothing wrong with voting differently than a spouse. I wouldn’t be shocked if we see more of that in future elections.

From “Estimating the GOP Edge from Redistricting: A State-by-State Accounting, with Caveats” by Kyle Kondik at the Center for Politics: “Although several states are still in flux, we may be nearing the end of 2026’s redistricting saga…As tempting as it may be to do so, it won’t be possible to do a precise accounting of redistricting’s effects until after the November election…Assuming Republicans successfully add an extra seat apiece in Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina, and that all of the current redraws remain in place, our best guess is a Republican gain in the high single digits from redistricting, with the potential for that to grow or shrink based on the actual results in several key races…We haven’t yet given an overall seat-by-seat assessment of the impact of redistricting. But with the process potentially winding down, at least for 2026, we thought we’d offer some back-of-the-envelope math now, which we’ll keep updating as changes are formalized for 2026 and any legal action is resolved…Unfortunately, those looking for precise clarity on redistricting’s effect are going to have to wait until after the election, as it will take analysis to determine whether certain close results might have gone the other way had there been no changes to the maps. For instance, let’s say, hypothetically, that Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D, OH-9) loses by 1 point this fall in what we currently rate as a Toss-up race. Her district got 4 points redder at the presidential level in redistricting, so we’ll probably be able to say that she likely would have won without redistricting…What follows is a state by state assessment of redistricting. We are using our ratings as a guide here. If a race is rated something other than a Toss-up in our ratings, we counted it as a redistricting-related gain or loss. If a race was rated as a Toss-up, we included it as part of a range. Even by doing this, there is uncertainty built in—for instance, we call North Carolina R +1 below because the new Republican map there targets Rep. Don Davis (D, NC-1). But we only rate that race Leans Republican, meaning that we think there’s a chance Davis could hang on. So North Carolina could end up being a wash in redistricting…So there are still a number of moving pieces here, but the endgame is a Republican advantage of some size. As we wrote in our last issue, this is a redistricting deficit that we favor Democrats to overcome, but it’s also enough of a Republican edge that it could allow them to save their House majority under the right circumstances.” More here.

From “Working Class Weekly: Cracks Emerge Among White Working Class Voters in North Carolina” at The Working Class Project: “In late April, we conducted two virtual focus groups with white working class swing voters in North Carolina– one with women, one with men. Most participants voted for Trump in 2024…As one of two Republican-held U.S. Senate seats rated “tossup,” North Carolina is a top-tier battleground in the midterms. And following Senator Thom Tillis’ retirement, the state is one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities. The race is between former Gov. Roy Cooper and RNC Chair Michael Whatley after both secured their nominations. The state also boasts several competitive House races and several that are on the cusp of being competitive if conditions continue to shift against President Trump and Congressional Republicans…Working class voters in the state will tip the scales in either direction…What we heard should give Democrats both real cause for optimism and a clear-eyed sense of the work still ahead…If you’ve been following this newsletter and our work the past year, none of this will surprise you. Working class voters in every state we’ve visited lead with the same concern: everything costs too much, wages aren’t keeping up, and life feels unsustainable…North Carolina is no different.” More here.

“Donald Trump can now claim a trifecta of restoring white privilege in a siege smoldering with all the grievance of George Wallace’s segregation now, tomorrow, and forever,” Derrick Z. Jackson writes in “Trump’s Appalling Racial Legacy” at The American Prospect…While Trump has not brought us all the way back to “Whites Only” water fountains and packing Black folks in the back of buses, the ghost of Bull Connor floats above Trump’s vicious federal police crackdowns on Latino immigrants and the military occupations of racially diverse cities under lies that crime was out of control…With both iron fist of police brutality and blunt leveraging of federal agencies and the Supreme Court, Trump has assured that for the foreseeable future, white folks will maintain a disproportionate share of front-row seats to orchestrate the future of this country…The trifecta began with the 2023 Supreme Court ban on race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions. The Court, packed into a conservative supermajority by Trump in his first term, said colleges must now be colorblind. That means willfully blind to the fact, as stated bydissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that the United States remains largely “an endemically segregated society.”…Next in the trifecta is Trump’s bleaching the government of any concern about racial disparities. He has transformed divisions of government created to enforce civil rights into agencies to destroy Black advancement. It is no secret that in the richest nation in the world, Black people still suffer from grievous gaps in health care, housing discrimination, and proximity to pollution, just to name a few. A central accompaniment to the Trump administration’s termination of disparity data collection across agencies is his slew of executive orders, beginning on the first day back in office, that ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government.”

In “Redistricting Makes the House Map a Bit Redder, but Not By Enough to Protect Republicans from a Wave” by Kyle Kondik at The Center for Politics: “The overall national redistricting fight clearly tilted toward Republicans following their twin legal victories in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Callais case and in the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Friday decision to overturn a Democratic gerrymandering effort there on process grounds…Five House ratings move toward the Republicans following a sharpened GOP gerrymander in Tennessee and as Virginia reverted to its old map. Democrats do still have targets on the old Virginia map, though…The House map has taken on a larger GOP bias as a result of redistricting, although when it’s all said and done, the bias by one measure may essentially be the same as it was in 2018, when Democrats easily won the House…Let’s say that median seat ends up 4 points to the right of the nation (so voting for Trump by 5.5 points). Interestingly, if the median House seat was 4 points to the right of the nation compared to the 2024 presidential results, that actually would be the same Republican bias as when Democrats won the House in 2018, at least based on this measure…Back then, the median House seat was the Omaha-based NE-2, which had backed Trump by about 2 points in the 2016 election while Trump had lost the national popular vote by about 2 points, a roughly 4-point Republican bias…Under such circumstances, and using their own analysis and assumptions about where the map ends up, analysts such as Nate Cohn and G. Elliott Morris suggested over the weekend that Democrats probably would need to win the House popular vote by 4 points to feel good about flipping the House. Democrats’ lead in House generic ballot polling now is more like 6 points, and Republicans face a number of big-picture headaches as Trump’s approval rating has dipped a bit under 40% and economic pessimism reigns…This helps explain why the House still seems quite winnable for Democrats despite their significant recent setbacks in redistricting. Republicans have on balance improved their position on the House map, but not yet in such a way that they could reasonably be expected to defend the House majority in the event of a 2018-style Democratic performance (or a performance that is still strong for Democrats but not as strong)…Republicans, however, could defend the House if the environment is more like 2022, when they won the majority, but not by much.”

Rep. Ro Khana outlines “AI for the People: A manifesto for an AI revolution that works for the many, not just the billionaires” at The Nation: “The AI revolution is destined to transform human society in ways that most of us cannot begin to fathom. The changes to come will be every bit as daunting as what the world saw in the industrial and digital revolutions. Yet our policymakers are ill-prepared—and, in the case of our president, dramatically unwilling—to ensure that these changes benefit everyone rather than a tiny cabal of hyper-wealthy tech oligarchs…To meet this challenge, we must develop a new social contract that begins with the basic premise that artificial intelligence must serve humanity, not the bottom line of a billionaire class that seeks to become a trillionaire class at our expense. We cannot allow technological overlords to build a society where AI “progress” is defined by their wealth rather than by our democracy…I make this argument as a member of Congress who represents Silicon Valley, the home of companies with more than $18 trillion in market capitalization—more than one-quarter of the entire US stock market—and five that are worth more than $1 trillion each. I know tech billionaires, I know the people who are benefiting from the AI revolution’s massive upward redistribution of wealth, and I know that more than a few of them believe they have a divine right to lead and rule. But that cannot be our future…We need to tax extreme wealth in order to meet human needs, which is why I support the proposed onetime 5 percent wealth tax on California billionaires (while not taxing voting shares or illiquid gains) and have proposed federal legislation to raise $4.7 trillion in revenue by taxing billionaires and another $2 trillion by making corporations pay their fair share.” More here.

The guys at “Pod Save America” have a mission for Democrats, especially 2026 candidates. It is to make the Republicans, particularly their candidates, repeatedly own Trump’s ballroom. The Pod guys insist, with good reason, that the ballroom is the perfect symbol to highlight GOP arrogance and coddling the super-wealthy.

Trump’s Ballroom may be the biggest gift Republicans have ever presented to Democrats. Its funding  should be a relentless theme repeated by Democrats every day from now until the midterms. But it is important, indeed mandatory, to lay it at the feet of the G.O.P., not just the president, again and again.

Democrats waste a lot of time and effort just bashing Trump, while allowing all of his enablers to avoid blame. It’s been like shooting a fish in a barrel. Yes, just one fish, the one who is already drowning in his own sinking approval ratings, while enabling the party’s minnows to swim around with no accountability. But it is the minnows who are running for congress the year.

Republican candidates in every county, city and state, from dog-catcher to the U.S. Senate and governorships, must  explain their support of taxpayer financing of the ballroom. Democrats are the ones who have to make them do so, since the media is so easily distracted by side issues.  Sure, keep hammering on the Epstein scandal, the Iran fiasco and whatever else you have. But whatever you do, do NOT fail to make GOP candidates own the ballroom. Don’t let them change the subject in town halls, campaign events, or any of their public appearances. Let them squirm as they try to evade accountability. Even those few Republicans who don’t support the ballroom will look bad, because they would be opposing the leader of their party. Squirming for any reason is not a good look.

It’s not just about words; there are pictures – photos and videos of the destruction of the east wing of the White House. There are also plenty of drawings of the gaudy, gilded interior as Trump envisions it – images that would have embarrassed Liberace. Dem ad-makers should also collect and share images of Republican candidates struggling to explain themselves.

Voters should be frequently reminded that the GOP’s leader tore down the east wing of the White House with no permission whatsoever. But even more important, remind voters that he stated on several occasions that he and his “contributors” would foot the bill, not taxpayers. That was before Republicans decided to slip the $1 billion bill, ostensibly for security enhancements, into a legislative proposal. They were arrogant enough to think they would get away with it. Don’t let that come true.

From “Concrete Local Work Moderates Partisanship Among Rural Residents”  by Rural Urban Bridge Initiative: “In a time of widespread partisan animosity across much of the United States, a just-released study of the Community Works initiative demonstrates that sustained, concrete, non-political work in rural communities reduces the intensity of partisan polarization when compared with similar “control counties.”  The study was designed and overseen by Professor Nick Jacobs, a social scientist at Colby College, and the co-author of The Rural Voter.  The analysis considered four rural counties in Virginia and two in Georgia with Community Works chapters, comparing them to comparable neighboring counties that had no chapters.  Before and after surveys were conducted in these counties, designed by Dr Jacobs, to assess the perceptions and feelings of rural residents about politics and the political parties…The study period included two years of Community Works activities in Virginia and one year in Georgia…Community Works, a program of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, helps liberals and Democrats living in rural areas to work side by side with their neighbors to solve local problems.  The program is growing, with chapters now active in seven states…The study’s findings were clear.  According to Dr Jacobs, “Across six counties within two states and across multiple outcome measures, Community Works consistently reduces the intensity of partisan polarization.”  The clarity of the findings after such a relatively short period of time surprised both the study’s author and the leaders of the Community Works Initiative.  According to Meredith Dean, National Director of Community Works, “We knew from  experience on the ground that CWorks was shifting attitudes and increasing trust.  But honestly, we didn’t expect that this would be statistically validated so soon.”…To learn more about the Community Works program and Dr Jacob’s study, contact Meredith Dean at meredith@ruralurbanbridge.org, Professor Nick Jacobs at jacobsnf@gmail.com or view this recording of a May 6^th briefing about the study.”

Greg Sargent writes at The New Republic that “a Washington Post poll taken before and after the shooting incident found the ballroom to be deeply unpopular. It’s opposed by 56 percent of Americans and supported by only 28 percent. Independents oppose it by a whopping 61-18, working class Americans by 54-28, and moderates by 64-16. Importantly, the Post polling done after the incident showed no clear shift toward support for the project, another sign that MAGA propaganda around it fizzled…It’s not clear, of course, whether most ordinary voters oppose the ballroom merely because they want the president to focus on material things or because it represents a massive abuse of power suffused with Nero-level megalomania. It’s probably some of both…After all, to build the ballroom, Trump bulldozed large swaths of the White House—which belongs to the American people—without congressional approval. A judge temporarily halted the project, but Trump used the shooting to try to browbeat him into rubberstamping it. The White House withheld the names of some well-heeled donors to the project, including some with business before the government. Trump’s fundraising for the ballroom has created new avenues for the wealthy to pay tribute to him, as part of his effort to transform the presidency into a massive Bribe Delivery System.”

Sargent continues: “The ballroom should also be viewed alongside other Trumpian projects—the planned Triumphal Arch, the renaming of the Kennedy Center after himself, and the stamping of his face on our passports. As Bill Kristol notes, taken with all those other things, Trump’s plan to transform the People’s House into an “emperor’s palace” symbolizes a “broader effort to replace a republican regime with an imperial one.”…Understood in that context, MAGA efforts to bully Democrats into supporting the ballroom look more like an attempt to strongarm them into capitulating to that bigger imperial project. And when Democratic strategists say the ballroom is a “distraction,” they’re putting their heads in the sand about all these larger implications…But the Post poll suggests that the ballroom has proven to be one of those things that breaks through to lower-information voters in unpredictable ways. If it’s true, as Derek Thompson says, that the smartphone is imperceptibly, indelibly transforming our politics, the ballroom might illustrate the point: With those dramatic and shareable images of Trump’s White House East Wing demolition, this saga has unexpectedly captured something larger than itself…In fact, the deeper subtexts of the ballroom tale—the corruption, the megalomania, the careless Gatsby-esque destructiveness, the Trumpian imperium—are surely a key reason it has broken through. It’s creating the type of meaningful moment in our politics that offers surprising political openings to the opposition.”

Joyce Vance shares a salient critique of the Supreme Court’s Callais decision: “The Supreme Court’s decision in Callais continues to make clear all the reasons we needed, and continue to need, a Voting Rights Act. And it isn’t about protecting white voters. Congress had an entirely different intent when it passed the Act, an intent that DOJ has forgotten to remove mention of from its website: …When the Court gutted Section 5 of the act in Shelby County v. Holder, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accused the majority of shutting the umbrella that was meant to protect voters in the middle of a rainstorm who weren’t getting wet, because the umbrella was working. The case was decided in 2013, but even before the Supreme Court formally gutted Section 5 of the Act, repressive measures were being adopted in states like Alabama, which adopted a stepped-up voter identification requirement that made it more difficult for parts of the population, including Black voters, to exercise their rights, expecting that the Court would do away with Section 5’s preclearance provision…A study at the Brennan Center explained the impact: “The racial turnout gap — the difference between white and nonwhite turnout rates in elections — has been consistently growing since at least 2008, reaching 18 percentage points in the 2022 midterm elections. If the gap did not exist, nearly 14 million additional ballots would have come from voters of color that year.” The analysis was based on nearly 1 billion vote records and controlled for factors like regional differences, income, and education…The kind of behavior the Act was meant to prevent is exactly what’s happening, as Black voting power is diluted with new maps that are being adopted. And the Court seems to have abandoned its allegiance to the Purcell principle, which it has used in the past to prevent changes from being made too close to an election. Some of the new measures adopted by the states are being challenged, or will be challenged in court, and we’ll get a chance to see if the rules are different now that the Court is focused on protecting white voters from discrimination, which was the story behind Callais…To put all of this into context, consider the importance of the right to vote. At bottom, it’s the right that unlocks all of the other rights, the essence of democracy. Efforts by the Trump faction to impede that right—whether it’s by making it more difficult to register, more difficult to vote, or more difficult to have your vote count—is an effort to lock up all of our other rights.”