In “‘The new soccer mom’: Both parties scramble for working class voters ahead of ’28,” Megan Messerly writes at Politico: ” President Donald Trump, two years ago, won over Latino and working class voters frustrated with Democrats’ economic stewardship with promises of a brighter future…Now, many of those voters are frustrated with him, too — and threatening to stay home in 2028…Nowhere is that more apparent than Nevada, the battleground state where Latino and working class voters are largely the same people — the hospitality workers, dishwashers and bellmen who keep Las Vegas humming and who were among the most coveted demographics of the 2024 election…They’re the new soccer mom. We are literally the new persuadable voter,” said Democratic strategist and former union organizer Chuck Rocha, who served as an adviser to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 and 2016 presidential campaigns and ran the campaign’s efforts to turn out Latinos. “But I’m not sure if either party yet treats us that way.”…Strategists from both parties are facing an uncomfortable reality: These voters, who have in recent cycles swung between Democrats and Republicans, may not come back at all. The 2024 shifts to Trump, they say, were less about enthusiasm for Republicans than dissatisfaction with Democrats. Turnout among young Latino voters fell off sharply between 2020 and 2024, according to Tufts’ Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement; even as those Latinos who did show up swung to Trump…“It’s not a realignment,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who specializes in Latino voter outreach. “It’s a dealignment — moving away from both parties.” More here.

Steff Chavez writes in “Democrats turn to working-class candidates to win back voters” at Financial Times, “Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles…
Democrats across the US know they’re in trouble. The party is still picking itself up off the floor after its brutal 2024 election loss and is struggling with relatively low national approval ratings. Even though Democrats got a boost from winning the New Jersey and Virginia governorships — and found a new energy in Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City — they still need to rebuild support and convince some Donald Trump supporters to vote for them instead in November’s midterms. The party is hoping to take control of both chambers of Congress — and deliver a strong rebuke to Trump. Democrats “haven’t talked about working-class people. They became known as the party of the elites. That’s a problem”, Bob Brooks, a former firefighter who is running in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district, told the FT’s Lauren Fedor…“That’s why I have watched my members in the firehouse drift to either independents or even to Republicans.” Congressional lawmakers are much wealthier than the broader US population — just 2 per cent have working-class backgrounds, according to a University of Chicago analysis.” More here.

From “Why the Working Class Has Given Up on the Liberal Establishment” by Les Leopold at Common Dreams: “We used demographic and mass layoff data in conjunction with election results and found a statistically solid causal relationship: As the county mass layoff rate went up, the Democratic vote went down between 1996 and 2020. Year by year, voters in areas hard hit by mass layoffs were abandoning the Democratic Party…Our YouGov survey of 3,000 voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin found that 70 percent of the respondents have negative opinions of the Democrats…Are voters in red areas ready for working-class independents? Our YouGov survey shows they are. Looking only at rural county data in those four states (the reddest areas), there is strong support for a new party, independent of the two parties, that would run on a progressive populist working-class platform: Voter Support for the New Independent Workers’ Political Association

• Rural Republicans: 50%
• Rural Independents: 50%
• Rural Democrats“ 77%”

Leopold continues, “If the Democrats want to reconnect with working people, they need to put job security front and center. They need to stop relying on public-private partnerships, which use public funds to encourage corporate job creation that too often fails to materialize. And the Dems need to purge vacuous language, like the phrase “the opportunity society,” which promotes corporate-first thinking that adds to, rather than reduces, job precarity. In fact, they should replace their corporate-first thinking, with people-first thinking…To do so the Democrats should call for federal job guarantees. They would do well to read Jared Abbot’s review of a compendium of poll data that shows massive support for the government serving as the employer of last resort. People don’t want handouts; they want a chance to earn a fair living. (Even the new “Working Families Guarantee” agenda, put forward by the Working Families Party, guarantees just about everything but stops short of a federal job guarantee.)…But a shift to ensuring people-first job security will not come easily to a party dominated by wealthy donors, millionaire politicians, lobbyists, pollsters, and consultants. Corporate leaders will rail against the prospect of workers having access to federal jobs and thereby forcing the company to bid up wages and benefits to retain and attract employees. Heaven forbid that direct government support go to workers instead of corporations!…Until the party supports job guarantees and runs hundreds of working-class candidates, we can expect more working people to reject the Democratic establishment (and the liberal college administrators) who care so little about working-class job security.” More here.

At The Guardian, Steven Greenhouse reports that “Young Americans have soured on Trump” and writes: “The president’s approval rating with those under 30 has plummeted as he has failed to deliver on promise after promise…Republicans rejoiced when far more young voters than expectedbacked Donald Trump in 2024, with many of them moved byTrump’s grandiose promises, such as his vow to “build the greatest economy in the history of the world”. But Republicans should be alarmed that so many 18- to 29-year-olds have soured on Trump – his approval rating with that group has sunk from 48% in January 2025 to between just 25% and 33% in recent months, according to polls by YouGov/the Economist…It shouldn’t be a surprise that millions of young Americans have turned against Trump, considering that he has failed to deliver on so many promises, most notably his vow to reduce prices on day one. For young people, inflation is the No 1 economic issue, far outpacing other issues, and they very much wanted Trump to focus on affordability, but Trump has focused on everything but affordability. He’s focused instead on his glitzy, $400m ballroom, his war against Iran (which has increased gas prices), and his tariff wars (which have increased overall inflation). In bad news for Republicans, 78% of Americans under age 30 disapprove of how Trump is handling inflation…Fed up with the status quo under Joe Biden, many young people expected great things from Trump, but 15 months into his second term, many feel let down, not least because the economy has taken a bad turn. Inflation has increased, job growth has slowed, and housing, healthcare and higher education have all gotten more expensive. What’s more, young Americans complain that the job market stinks for their age group…“Things are pretty chaotic lately,” Lizabel, a young voter who backed Trump, said in a focus group for the Bulwark. “A lot of people are struggling to find jobs. A lot of people are feeling kind of pessimistic about what things are going on.”…Beyond pocketbook issues, many young Americans are upset by Trump’s authoritarian actions and never-ending chaos: his deeply unpopular war against Iran, his sending masked ICE agents into major cities, his posting a picture of himself as a Jesus-like figure, his demolishing the East Wing of the White House, and his insulting everyone from Pope Leo to supreme court justices to other countries’ leaders.”

Greenhouse continues, “Just 13% of Americans 18 to 29 say the US is headed in the right direction, while 57% say things are on the wrong track, according to a Harvard Youth Poll released in December. In a sign of profound pessimism, just 30% believethey will be better off financially than their parents. Many young people are no doubt upset that the inflation rate now, 3.3%, is higher than when Biden left office, even though candidate Trump promised he would end inflationand reduce prices on day one. Coffee prices are up 18.7% over the past year, beef jumped 12.1%, and fresh vegetables, 7.5%. Hospital costs have climbed 6.4% and electricity by 4.6%, while gas prices have soared by over 45% since Trump began bombing Iran…In an effort to woo young voters, Trump said he’d work to make college more affordable, but since he returned to office, tuition has continued to climb, especially at private colleges. At the same time, Trump is pushing for deep cuts in student aid, a move that will hurt non-affluent students in particular…Trump also said he would lower health costs, but those costs also continue to head skyward. Making things worse, Trump’s “big beautiful bill”, along with his blocking new Obamacare subsidies, will cause 10 million Americans to lose health insurance and cause premiums to more than double on average for 20 million Americans, many of them under 30…Even though Trump promised to create “millions and millions of jobs”, especially blue-collar ones, many young Americans are worried to panicking about their job prospects. I’ve heard too many stories of young people who have sent out 200 job applications and heard back from only two or three employers – and sometimes from none. Since Trump returned to office, the US has added a puny 26,000 jobs per month on average, one-fourth the rate during Biden’s last year in office. Not only has Trump utterly failed to create millions of jobs, but in bad news for blue-collar Americans, the US has lost 82,000 factory jobs since his inauguration.” More here.

Psychologist Don P. McAdams explores “The Mind off Donald Trump” at The Atlantic, and writes: “In 2006, Donald Trump made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort. He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details. But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage…“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it…The same feeling perplexed Mark Singer in the late 1990s when he was working on a profile of Trump for The New Yorker. Singer wondered what went through his mind when he was not playing the public role of Donald Trump. What are you thinking about, Singer asked him, when you are shaving in front of the mirror in the morning? Trump, Singer writes, appeared baffled. Hoping to uncover the man behind the actor’s mask, Singer tried a different tack: “O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”…“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”…I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”…Trump’s tendencies toward social ambition and aggressiveness were evident very early in his life, as we will see later. (By his own account, he once punched his second-grade music teacher, giving him a black eye.) According to Barbara Res, who in the early 1980s served as vice president in charge of construction of Trump Tower in Manhattan, the emotional core around which Donald Trump’s personality constellates is anger…More here.

From “The Clock Is Ticking to Secure the Midterms — Here’s What the Experts Say,” a forum at Politico. This contribution comes from Galen Sheely, research director for the Voting Laws Roundup project at the Democracy Policy Lab in University of California, Berkeley: “The Trump administration has suggested it could send law enforcement to the polls or in election certification processes — even though federal law prohibits the deployment of federal agents to polling places. Considering the very real crisis the administration would cause by carrying out these orders, however, it is imperative for states to provide as many protections against federal interference and avenues for holding violating federal officials accountable as possible…State legislators can do this by enacting legislation that reinforces existing federal protections by enshrining them in state law. The Brennan Center has provided excellent model legislation on this topic, which provides a good starting point for legislators drafting legislation to prevent federal election interference and providing accountability for potential violations. The model legislation highlights several important key provisions that legislators can address in such legislation…First, state legislation should prohibit sending troops or other federal agents to the polls except in emergencies and requested by state officials. Second, legislation should prohibit election interference by federal officials. Finally, state legislation should allow aggrieved parties or state officials to sue the government or federal agents in state court. To avoid Supremacy Clause issues — the concept that federal law takes precedence over conflicting state law — states can mimic the language of existing federal statutes and include language that applies equally to state and federal officials…Luckily, state legislators in Virginia, Washington and California have already begun reacting to this threat. Legislators in these states should vote to enact these proposals before the midterms, and more states should follow in their footsteps and enact legislation protecting against federal interference.”

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.”

Jared Abbott, a researcher at the Center for Working-Class Politics and a contributor to Jacobin and Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, argues, “Class Dealignment Hasn’t Gone Away”  at Jacobin: “Working-class voters may be having second thoughts about MAGA, but they’re still abandoning the Democratic Party. Democrats’ reliance on college-educated suburbanites is arithmetically insufficient and politically unsustainable…Whatever short-term movement we see in the polls, the structural trend that has defined American politics for decades remains firmly in place: working-class voters continue to abandon the Democratic Party. The 2024 election confirmed and accelerated this pattern among non-white working-class voters, and the fact that the Democrats aren’t reaping the rewards we’d expect from Donald Trump’s disastrous poll numbers (at least not yet) is a clear sign of the party’s continued working-class woes…The most basic measure of partisan alignment is party identification, or whether voters think of themselves as Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. On this measure, the trend toward dealignment is unambiguous. Data from the American National Election Studies (ANES), stretching back to the early 1970s, show that working-class Americans, defined as those without a college degree and in the bottom two-thirds of the income distribution, identified as Democrats at rates as high as 65%. That share stayed well above 50% until 2016. By 2024, however, that figure had fallen to 42%, dropping an alarming 9 percentage points between 2020 and 2024. Over the same period, college-educated, upper-income voters moved in the opposite direction, with their Democratic identification rising to a whopping 68% by 2024…The General Social Survey (GSS), using an entirely different measure of class based on occupation, confirms the same pattern. Whether you define the working class as manual, service, and clerical workers (the “traditional” definition) or expand it to include more highly credentialed workers like teachers and nurses, the downward trend is the same. No matter how you define the term, working-class identification with the Democratic Party has fallen to historic lows.” Read more here.

The gerrymandering follies roll on, now in Florida. At Politico, Mia McCarthy, Ali Bianco and Riley Rogerson report that “Florida Republicans make peace with proposed new House map,” and write: “Some House Republicans spent weeks warning against a drastic redraw of Florida’s congressional map…Now that it’s out — with Gov. Ron DeSantis targeting as many as four Democratic seats for a GOP takeover — they’re mostly keeping any criticism to themselves…“I think they did a pretty good job,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis, who said he was one of the Florida Republicans whose district changed “quite a bit…“But I think they could touch it up a little bit, too,” he added…Rep. Scott Franklin said he is set to represent his third constituency in four terms. He still lives within the confines of the 18th district, he said, though it is much smaller in area…“Mine gets significantly less red than it was,” Franklin said. “But it’s still a conservative performing seat.”…DeSantis’ map still has to be approved by the Florida legislature, and it’s almost certain to face challenges in court. But many of the states’ 20 Republicans are already making peace with new districts that will be at least slightly more competitive…Many warned that redrawing the existing GOP-favored map to pick up more than one or two Democratic seats could dangerously dilute the Republican vote. And at least one, Jacksonville-area Rep. John Rutherford, said targeting four “could be a bit much.” More here.

In “Give Workers the Right of First Refusal,” Bhaskar Sunkara writes at Democracy: “For most workers, the defining economic experience is not the level of after-tax inequality in the abstract, but instability and the feeling of powerlessness in the modern economy. Factories are closed, offices relocated, and plants sold off not only when they fail, but often when ownership changes or financial incentives shift. The people who depend on those firms—for income, yes, but also as a font of individual and local identity—absorb the consequences, while the decision itself remains firmly out of reach…If Democrats want a reform that will shape our national political conversation and how the party is perceived, they could champion demands more closely tied the point of production. One concrete way to do that would be to establish a federal right of first refusal for workers to buy their workplace when it is being sold, closed, or relocated, paired with access to standard-form public financing that makes that right real…This policy does not mandate worker ownership, abolish markets, or require ideological buy-in from the people it affects. It simply recognizes that when a firm can plausibly continue operating, the people who built it and rely on it should have a legally enforceable opportunity to keep it running.” More here.

In “National Trust says it won’t drop suit against Trump’s $400M White House ballroom after DOJ request,” Meg Kinnard reports at apnews.com: “Preservationists are pressing ahead with their lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s planned $400 million White House ballroom, declining a request by the Department of Justice to withdraw the complaint following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday…Trump and other conservatives have made a renewed push for the ballroom in the wake of Saturday’s media dinner shooting, arguing it exposed the difficulties in ensuring presidential security at large events outside the White House grounds, and urging the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop its lawsuit…Top Justice officials said the government would ask a court to dismiss the lawsuit “in light of last night’s extraordinary events” if the Trust did not voluntarily drop it…Trust attorney Gregory Craig declined that request, writing to the Justice Department that the legal issues at the heart of the lawsuit are unchanged…“What Saturday’s awful event does not change is that the Constitution and multiple federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction of a ballroom on White House grounds, and that Congress has not done so,” Craig wrote…The preservation group sued in December, a week after the White House finished demolishing the East Wing to make way for a ballroom that Trump said would fit 999 people. Trump says the project is funded by private donations, although public money is paying for a below-ground bunker and security upgrades…In its lawsuit, the Trust argued that Trump had overstepped his authority by moving forward with the project without first getting approval from key federal agencies and Congress.” More here.

The New Republic and Greg Sargent explain “How Trump Accidentally Handed Dems Their Big Win in Virginia. The “vote yes” campaign featured Trump in all of its closing ads in areas where it ran up huge numbers. Voters know who started this war,” and write:

“Trump, of course, urged Texas Republicans last summer to gerrymander to help the GOP hold the House, then pressed other red states to follow suit. That prompted Democrats to retaliate in blue states. Trump initiated this arms race. So by declaring the Virginia initiative “not good,” he inadvertently confirmed the actual Trump-GOP position: Republicans should be permitted to rig elections to their maximum benefit, and Democrats should roll over and accept it…It’s fitting that Trump laid this bare so clearly. Because as it turns out, Trump is perhaps the primary reason that the referendum passed

In the “vote yes” campaign’s final days, 100 percent of the ads that aired in Northern Virginia markets heavily emphasized or featured very prominent imagery of Trump, a source familiar with ad buy information tells me. “Trump’s mug was all over the communications that voters were receiving, specifically among the lion’s share of the voters we needed,” the source says. “Trump’s name and face were plastered all over the mess he made.”…It was largely Northern Virginia that put the referendum—which passed by a narrow three points—over the top. The most heavily populated areas there—Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Arlington, Alexandria—all voted for it by big to enormous margins, contributing nearly 600,000 of the “yes” side’s total of nearly 1.6 million votes.” More here.

In his opinion essay, “‘Easily the Worst President in U.S. History’,” Thomas B. Edsall writes at The New York Times: “The damage President Trump has inflicted on the United States and the world is so enormous and wide-ranging that it is hard to grasp…It runs the gamut from public and private institutions to core democratic customs and traditions, from the legal system to universities, from innocent targets of fraud to those duped into believing vaccines do more harm than good…Projections suggest there will be millions of dead men, women and children as a result of his budget cuts, which were made without direct congressional approval. A study published in The Lancet, the London-based medical journal, found that Trump administration cuts in U.S.A.I.D. funding “would result in approximately 1,776,539 all-age deaths and 689,900 deaths in children younger than 5 years” in 2025 alone…“Over the remainder of the period,” the study continues, “the complete defunding of U.S.A.I.D. would cause an estimated 2,450,000 all-age deaths annually, leading to a total of 14,051,750 excess all-age deaths and 4,537,157 excess under-5 deaths by 2030.”…There are the fraud victims who will never get court-ordered restitution because Trump pardoned the guilty. In a June 2025 report, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee found that “Trump’s pardons cheat victims out of an astounding $1.3 billion in restitution and fines, allowing fraudsters, tax evaders, drug traffickers to keep ill-gotten gains.” More here.

“When Rahm Emanuel says his party has “lost the plot,” he is not offering a passing observation. He is advancing a political argument — one that could shape the 2028 presidential race and a Democratic Party searching for its footing,” David J. Butler writes in “Can Democrats Reconnect With the Center?” in the Jewish Times. “Emanuel has spent recent months in early primary states delivering a blunt message: Democrats, in his view, have drifted from the instincts that once made them broadly competitive. Coming from a former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, the critique carries weight — and reflects a concern that is no longer his alone…Over the past decade, the Democratic Party has taken a noticeable turn — driven by events that demanded response, but also by choices that reshaped its public face. The shock of 2016 pushed Democrats into a more confrontational posture. The protests following George Floyd’s killing accelerated debates over race and policing, elevating slogans and policy ideas that quickly became political markers. Questions of immigration language, gender identity and school curricula moved from the margins to the center of public debate. During the pandemic, school closures and disputes over public health authority widened tensions with many parents and working families…“Defund the police,” whatever its intent, was heard by many as indifference to public safety. Terms like “Latinx,” embraced by activists and institutions, often felt imposed rather than organic. School debates over curriculum and parental involvement became proxies for broader anxieties about who sets norms and values. Immigration rhetoric, at times, was interpreted not as compassion but as a lack of seriousness about borders…Emanuel’s critique goes directly to that tension. Successful Democratic leaders, he argues, anchored themselves in shared, middle-class priorities: economic stability, safe neighborhoods, reliable schools and institutions that work. That grounding made change intelligible.”

Butler continues, “Today, the party is often seen as placing cultural positioning alongside — or above — those fundamentals. The result is not necessarily policy extremism. It is something subtler, and politically just as damaging: cultural distance…Suburban voters who are comfortable with Democratic economic policies sometimes recoil at perceived cultural overreach or instability. Even when Democrats win, they often do so more narrowly than expected — suggesting a gap between what the party offers and how it is received. These tensions extend beyond domestic policy. On issues like Israel, Democrats are also navigating a widening gap between traditional party positions and the views of a younger, more activist base — another sign of a coalition under strain…But a party that seeks to govern nationally cannot operate only in the vocabulary of its most engaged activists. It must also speak to voters outside those circles, in language that feels grounded and shared — and that reflects the priorities voters themselves consistently elevate…Emanuel is one of several voices making that case. Governors have begun emphasizing public safety alongside reform. Mayors have recalibrated their approach to policing. Party strategists are urging candidates to focus less on ideological signaling and more on economic clarity, competence and order. A quiet reassessment appears to be underway…This is what “coming home” might mean — not retreat, but rebalancing. Advancing equity and opportunity requires more than conviction. It requires connection. It requires a politics that does not assume agreement, but works to build it…Whether that shift takes hold remains uncertain. The Democratic coalition is broad, and many within it see the past decade’s changes as essential progress. Still, the central question is difficult to avoid: Can a party govern nationally if it drifts too far from how most voters understand their lives?…Democrats have faced this kind of moment before. Their most successful periods have not come from choosing between principle and pragmatism, but from aligning the two…If Emanuel and others are right, the task is not to turn back, but to recover that balance — to meet voters where they are and make it easier for them not just to agree, but to come along.”

Kyle Kondik weighs in on the Virginia redistricting election at The Center for Politics, and cautions: “There is still legal action concerning whether Democrats in the state legislature followed the proper procedure in presenting this constitutional amendment to voters—the Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the referendum to proceed, but the legal fight is not yet decided. So it is possible that the map could still end up being reversed, although doing so after the voters decided it for themselves would be a political bombshell, whatever the legal realities. Michael Martz of the Richmond Times-Dispatch recently wrote a good explainer of the legal fight…There is also a political dimension to the court proceedings. In Virginia, the seven members of the state Supreme Court are appointed to 12-year terms by a majority vote of each chamber of the state legislature. Two of the current justices, D. Arthur Kelsey and Stephen R. McCullough, are approaching the end of their terms: Kelsey’s expires in early 2027, and McCullough’s in 2028. Both were last appointed back in the mid-2010s, when Republicans controlled both chambers of the state legislature. It may be that the now-Democratic legislature would not reappoint these justices anyway (if they want reappointment), but one could especially imagine them having a hard time getting reappointed if they ruled against the gerrymandering referendum…If the court does rule against the new Virginia map and reverts to the old one, we will unwind these changes. In that event, VA-2 would still represent a prime Democratic offensive target, and Wittman’s VA-1 would probably still be on the board too (we had it rated as Likely Republican, but we could imagine it being Leans Republican or even Toss-up depending on the political environment). So the new Virginia map didn’t really change the race for the House—Democrats were favored before it, and they are favored after it—but it does make the Democrats’ path to the majority easier.” More here.

Beth Howard explains “How working-class white Southerners can help defeat MAGA: Rural whites can be fierce fighters for economic and racial justice — if they are welcomed by progressives” at Salon: “There’s a big misconception that poor white people are Donald Trump’s base. There’s so many images of “hillbillies,” “rednecks,” “white trash” and “trailer trash” used in the media to portray racism in this country, to make the case that poor white people in the South hold all of the racism in the entire nation. Many liberals like to say we are too ignorant and stupid to vote for candidates and issues that relieve our suffering. But during our work in rural North Georgia in the 2020 elections, we saw gains for the Democratic ticket in the poor white communities where Showing Up for Racial Justice, the antiracist organization I work for, called and knocked for the general and runoff elections, because we talked to them. We engaged people who are often ignored, abandoned and scapegoated around issues that matter to them, and they cast a vote against MAGA and for all working-class people…We had doors slammed in our faces, people who were tired of election talk, but we also had conversations with people who were proudly already with us and were excited we had knocked on their doors. All of these conversations, along with our partners’ work across the state, added up to Joe Biden making gains in Georgia in majority-white counties among whites without college degrees. Our collective work increased the voter turnout of the white Democratic voters who were the least likely to vote by 20%. By our calculations, In the runoff election for the Senate, which pitted Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock against Republican Kelly Loeffler, and Democrat Jon Ossoff against Republican David Perdue, rural voters and white voters with less education — a common but classist metric for the working class — turned out at higher rates for Democrats than they had in the presidential election. These were the people we called and the doors we knocked on.” More here.

“Vice President JD Vance’s support among lower‑income Republican voters has weakened significantly in recent months, according to a new poll,” Sam Stevenson writes in “JD Vance’s Support Tumbles Among Working Class Republicans” at Newsweek. “Surveys conducted by YouGov show that between January and April, Vance’s support among Republicans earning under $50,000 fell, mirroring a broader dip in his overall backing…Working‑class Republicans have long been central to Republican coalition‑building. A drop in support within this group raises questions about whether enthusiasm for Vance is softening as voters reassess potential 2028 contenders…In a YouGov survey conducted between January 9 and 14, 2026, 41 percent of respondents said they would ideally choose Vance for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination…Support was even stronger among voters with family incomes under $50,000, where he captured 45 percent… The question was posed to Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party. The poll surveyed 2,250 U.S. adult citizens and had a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points, adjusted for weighting…A follow-up YouGov survey, conducted between April 8 and 13, showed that Vance’s overall support had dropped to 36 percent…Among respondents earning under $50,000, Vance’s backing slipped to 37 percent. That represents an eight‑point decline among lower‑income Republican‑leaning voters and a five‑point drop overall…In the April poll, 13 percent of respondents chose both Donald Trump Jr. and Marco Rubio as their ideal choices; followed by Ron DeSantis on six percent; Mike Pence, Ted Cruz and Robert F Kennedy Jr. on two percent; and Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Glenn Youngkin on one percent each…”

In “2028 candidates will face a new kind of economic anger. Polls show cratering optimism as working-class voters try to prepare for the seismic changes ahead,” Connor Diamond-Yauman writes at Fast Company: “Election after election, Democratic strategist James Carville’s maxim, “It’s the economy, stupid!” has held true. But in coming political campaigns, candidates will encounter an especially virulent strain of economic anxiety—driven by artificial intelligence—that is proliferating among lower-wage, working Americans… AI’s advances are directly intersecting with Americans’ economic security. Candidates across parties, states, and offices will have to adapt to this new reality, quickly… New data show why. As AI reshapes the labor market and impacts individual economic prospects, these voters view it in increasingly dire terms. Merit America, the workforce development nonprofit that we co-lead, recently commissioned a national survey of more than 3,000 low-income Americans. The goal was to gauge their feelings about economic mobility, affordability, and AI…The upshot? Lower-wage Americans—those earning under $50,000 per year—hold a dim view of the rapid technological and economic change reshaping society. These voters not only feel unprepared, they feel that preparation is beyond their reach. And they do not believe that government or tech leaders are looking out for their interests…Seventy percent say they are not on track to achieve the American Dream, and 84% report delaying major milestones like buying a home or starting a family. A majority, 56%, believe they will have to change careers because of AI. But two-thirds also believe that higher education—the traditional path to a more stable career—fails to offer a good return on investment… If they had the power to do so, 70% say they would prefer to halt the development of any AI tools with the potential to eliminate jobs.” More here.

From “AARP Warns Americans On Major Social Security Problem” by Jeffrey Quiggle at The Street: “Retired Americans collecting Social Security benefits often anticipate the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in their monthly paychecks, which is designed to ensure their benefits don’t lose value as prices for everyday items rise due to inflation…In my reporting on this and other personal finance topics over the years, I’ve found that these adjustments are of vital concern to Social Security recipients as they budget for expenses…Immediately prior to 2026, AARP (the nonprofit organization that advocates for Americans over 50) made a prediction about the 2.8% increase that was on its way for the new year…And because of economic developments four months into 2026, that forecast is more than a little relevant…“The COLA’s impact on beneficiaries’ purchasing power will depend largely on inflation trends in 2026,” wrote AARP. “If inflation cools, the 2.8 percent benefit increase could provide retirees with a modest financial cushion.”…“But if prices continue to climb, the COLA may leave beneficiaries struggling to manage their expenses.”…On April 10, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the March Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which measures inflation…“In March, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose 0.9 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.3 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted,” BLS wrote…At present, with inflation rising, the 2026 2.8% Social Security COLA appears to be worth less than hoped…That is shaping up to be a major problem for Social Security recipients.” Given the high voter turnout rate for seniors, that is sure to be a major political issue as well. More here.

It’s been a hard cheese week for right-wing kleptocracies, as Harold Meyerson explains at The American Prospect: “By any empirically based metric, this has been a lousy week for the global right. Hungarian voters overwhelmingly repudiated their Christian nationalist kleptocratic prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Here at home, Donald Trump took ownership of the Strait of Hormuz blockade, ensuring the continued rise of oil and gas prices at a time when the foremost concern of American voters is the unaffordability of life’s essentials…Sensing he’d left something undone, Trump also accused the pope of being “soft on crime” (hey, it worked against Michael Dukakis; why not the pope?). And just in case he still retained the support of those right-wing Catholics who’d railed against Francis and were holding their tongues against Leo, not to mention the Protestant evangelicals who’ve never quite made their peace with Catholics, he then decided to post an image on Truth Social that depicted himself as Christ the Healer…The 1960s comic Mort Sahl would always interject a line into his act: “Is there anyone I haven’t offended?” Sahl never offered that line up, however, as a political strategy…Trump’s supporters are disproportionately evangelical Protestants, so attacking the pope merely harked back to the classic evangelical fear of satanic popery (the main reason, along with that hardy perennial of antisemitism, that the U.S. banned immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe from 1924 through 1965). But equating himself with Jesus was a bridge too far even for many evangelicals. Trump was compelled to take down that Truth Social post, though if he now looks at it at all askance, I suspect it’s because he realizes he should have identified himself with God the Father, who was made of sterner stuff than his Son, who was way softer on crime (“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”) than Leo, or, for that matter, Dukakis…”

Meyerson continues, “In looking at the defeat of Orbán, there are enough parallels with the current state of American politics to make Republicans even more nervous than they already are. For one thing, discontent with the stagnating Hungarian economy was widespread, and heightened by voters’ awareness that Orbán had redistributed the nation’s wealth both upward and to his cronies, whom he’d turned into oligarchs. There are some parallels to this here at home. Trump’s cultivation of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and their ilk, and the deals he’s cut with Silicon Valley billionaires to support a rapid and unregulated expansion of their AI ventures (wildly unpopular with the public at large, fearful of jobless futures and data centers in their backyards), from which, he surely hopes, his family will get a cut—all this is in sync with the kleptocratic policies of Orbán and, for that matter, Orbán’s other great champion, Vladimir Putin…Indeed, the course of Christian nationalist nations compels us to wonder if there’s a causal link between Christian nationalism, illiberal democracy, and kleptocracy. Christian nationalism elevates a particular segment of the population, which at some point tends to claim both spiritual and material rewards. Illiberal democracy—the suppression of rival or unbiased media, the attack on other sources of knowledge (universities) and power (courts, unions)—creates a “get out of jail free card” mentality among the leader’s favorites. The defenders of Christian nationalism and illiberalism have yet to explain away the drift of nations pursuing those policies toward full kleptocracies…What should even more immediately alarm Republicans is the failure of the right’s campaigns, in both Hungary and the U.S., to make any plausible positive claims. Orbán understood he had to divert attention from the economy, so he ran against his opponents by alleging they’d send Hungarian boys to fight in Ukraine, and with whatever culture-war golden oldies he could play once more. Neither worked…For their part, U.S. Republicans are beginning to sense that running against the specter of “transsexuals in ladies’ rooms” may no longer be as salient as it once was. Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears campaigned across Virginia last year by linking her Democratic opponent, Abigail Spanberger, to the cause of trans rights. Spanberger won by 15 percentage points.” More here.

At Endless Urgency, Mike Nellis reports that “Trump Just Exposed Every MAGA Influencer & Politician in One Post, They’re All Bootlickers” and writes that “I appreciate the days when Donald Trump does something so ridiculous that it captures the nation’s attention. That doesn’t mean I enjoyed yesterday’s scrambling by the White House and the MAGA movement to justify and explain away Trump posting an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ healing the sick. I did not. As a practicing Catholic, I was as offended by it as every other American…But the one good thing that came out of it is how much it exposes this administration—and the influencers and politicians who cling to Donald Trump in order to get access to money, power, and influence…Incidents like this cut through the white noise and force a level of attention that makes it harder to ignore the bigger problem we’re dealing with and just how deep it goes. They show who’s willing to defend it and who isn’t willing to own the disaster they’ve created…Yes, he attacked the Pope. And very few of his MAGA influencers were willing to come to the defense of tens of millions of Catholics who were offended and upset about Trump attacking their faith leader. Yes, Trump posted an image of himself as Jesus. What was most revealing was how he tried to explain it away…Trump then proceeded to take questions from the press, which were mostly focused on his attacks on the Pope and the AI-generated image. His explanation for it was, basically, “I don’t understand why the media is so offended. It’s an image of me as a doctor healing the sick”—an image of Donald Trump as a doctor healing the sick. In fact, he said he was a Red Cross worker, I believe, because we all know Red Cross workers are frequently depicted wearing flowing robes, halos, and fighting demons with glowing hands that can heal whatever ails you…It goes to show you how stupid Donald Trump thinks the American people are. That’s how dumb he thinks his own supporters are—and how highly he thinks of himself—that he can say something like that and expect it to pass without question. He knows there are people in his orbit who will immediately go sell that lie, and it’s unbelievable.” More here.

Ken Mitchell, a 24-year military veteran who served in the White House under Presidents HW Bush and Clinton, is running as a Democrat to flip VA-6, and he’s got a smart pitch: “I worked to bring telecommunications to rural Virginia, modernized Monticello, and helped rebuild contaminated water lines throughout rural VA so that we could have clean drinking water…But none of that – none of it – was as important as raising two daughters to be strong women in a society that doesn’t always make space for them…That’s why I’m running for Congress in Virginia’s 6th District on a platform of affordable housing and good paying jobs, accessible healthcare, lower costs for working families, and fighting MAGA tooth and nail. I’m fighting to make sure that our kids and grandkids inherit the same opportunities I had—and the ones I never want them denied…Congress needs more girl dads who understand what’s at stake. Will you join me and become a founding donor? We’re building this campaign from the ground up starting today, and every single dollar helps us reach more voters, knock on more doors, and share this message across the district. Let’s show Washington that rural Virginia is ready for new leadership—leadership that puts hardworking families first and fights for the futures of our children and grandchildren…With gratitude and determination…Ken Mitchell Democrat for VA-06 Proud Girl Dad & Granddad.” You want further corroboration?

In “Democrats should capitalize by nominating a solid candidate,” Matt. K. Lewis of Tribune News Service shares some solid observations and advice for Democrats at Gulf Today, including: “Thanks in large part to President Donald Trump’s disastrous policies, Democrats have a decent shot at not just retaking the House, but maybe even flipping the Senate. Here’s the thing to know: Midterms are a referendum on the incumbent president. And this is especially true when the president is Donald Trump, who dominates every news cycle. He creates weather. He is, in short, always the issue. But what happens when Trump is gone? What happens when Democrats have to defend their record of leadership? What happens when the referendum is on them? Even now — as Dems appear to be surging — polling suggests that fewer than 40% of Americans view the Democratic Party favorably. That’s not exactly a mandate…Yes, voters might choose Democrats as the lesser of two evils this November, but that doesn’t mean Americans are out there buying Democratic foam fingers. Not yet, anyway. It also doesn’t mean Democrats are technically competent. As I type this, the Republican National Committee currently has a 7-to-1 money advantage over Democrats. While Dems might win in 2026 in spite of all of their problems, a false sense of security would not bode well for 2028 — and beyond…Let’s start with the premise that Democrats cannot afford to be outflanked on populism again. That already happened once, and it was not their finest hour. Economic inequality is rising, and artificial intelligence threatens to widen that gap while disrupting millions of jobs. Meanwhile, the tech billionaires (who will profit handsomely from AI) are all lining up behind MAGA. Putting these tech bros on the ballot should be a no-brainer…The path forward is not especially mysterious, but it is very difficult. In the short term, Democrats can probably ride the blue wave. But in the long term, they need a standard bearer who can synthesize economic populism with mainstream American cultural credibility. The future may rest on whether that political savior ever arrives.”

Zachary Basu has some insightful comments about “Trump’s incredible shrinking tent” at Axios: “Trump’s war on his own coalition extends far beyond the pews.

• MAGA media: Trump has lashed out at the most powerful voices in the “America First” ecosystem, disavowing erstwhile allies for their criticism of his Iran war. The fallout is tearing through the broader MAGA media world, forcing influencers who’ve spent years in lockstep to publicly pick sides.
• Podcast populists: Trump’s 2024 campaign attracted a generation of young, nontraditional Republican voters who’d never pulled a lever for the party before. The Iran war, the Epstein files and suspicious trading activity tied to Trump announcements have shattered their fleeting trust in politicians.
• Crypto enthusiasts: Trump ran as the “crypto president,” and the industry poured millions into his campaign. A cascade of controversies — including crashing prices, meme coin “rug pulls,” and new allegations of self-dealing by the Trump family’s crypto venture — has left even true believers questioning whether they were ever anything more than marks.
• Farmers: Trump’s policies are hitting his rural base from every direction — tariffs that squeezed margins, deportations that thinned the farm labor force, trade tensions with China that sent soybean prices tumbling, and now an Iran war that’s sent fuel costs soaring.
• Nonwhite voters: Trump made historic inroads with Latino and Black men in 2024 on the strength of his economic message. Deep pessimism about the U.S. economy has rapidly unraveled those gains, with Trump’s approval among Latinos cratering to 22% in February, according to a CNN poll. Read more here.

Also at Axios, Andrew Pantazi reports that “Trump’s pope spat risks feud with crucial Catholic swing voters,” and writes: “President Trump followed a Holy Week of profanity-laced threats with attacks on Pope Leo XIV and posting an AI self-portrait as a Jesus-like figure — risking alienating Catholic swing voters who backed him in 2024…Why it matters: Catholics are America’s largest swing religious vote, and Trump’s support among them was already sliding before his latest attacks on their pontiff.

• Trump won Catholics by 10–20 points in 2024, depending on the exit poll, a dramatic swing from 2020.
• Now, he has used campaign-style rhetoric to attack their pope as a political enemy.
• “I cannot think of any parallels, at least coming from Western Christian majority countries, of such pointed and public attacks on the Pope,” Andrew Chesnut, Virginia Commonwealth University’s Catholic studies chair, tells Axios.

Catch up quick: Trump’s clash with Leo has been building, but it exploded over the Holy Week.

• Trump posted a profanity-laced Easter morning threat to Iran: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had urged Americans to pray for “overwhelming violence” against enemies, even as Pope Leo used his Easter Mass to call on “those who have weapons” to “lay them down.”
• Trump then threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight” in Iran. Leo called the threat “truly unacceptable.”

Driving the news: On Sunday, Trump called Leo “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy.”

• Trump also targeted the conclave itself, claiming Leo was chosen only because the church “thought that would be the best way to deal with” him.
• Minutes later, Trump posted an AI image depicting himself in biblical robes healing the sick. He deleted it Monday and claimed it depicted him “as a doctor.”
• Outside the Oval Office Monday, Trump doubled down on his criticisms of Leo: “There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.”

We’ll close out today’s edition of Strategy Notes with this chart, reposted from Kyle Kondik’s latest article at the Center for Politics, and invite readers to chew on it for a while and come to their own conclusions:

J. Miles Coleman puts “Another Big Night for Democrats: Tuesday’s Wisconsin and Georgia Results” in perspective at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “In last night’s biggest race, Court of Appeals Judge Chris Taylor continued Wisconsin liberals’ streak of double-digit state Supreme Court election wins. While Taylor’s win over fellow Court of Appeals Judge Maria Lazar was unsurprising, her margin was on the upper end of what we might have guessed: Taylor was elected to the state’s high court by an almost exactly 60%-40% vote…Wisconsin liberals have now expanded their majority to 5-2 on the state Supreme Court and have won 5 of the 6 most recent races by double-digit margins. This also means they appear to be structurally well-positioned to maintain that advantage in the near term: Last month, Annette Ziegler, a conservative who recently served as chief justice of the court, announced that she would not seek a third term next year, so if this dynamic continues, liberals could flip another seat and get to a 6-1 majority a year from now. Liberals will not have to defend one of their own seats until 2028, when Rebecca Dallet’s seat will be up, and the state’s presidential primary may have an outsized bearing on that race…In northwestern Georgia, we were watching the runoff to replace now-former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14), who resigned as she went from being one of the president’s biggest advocates to one of his most vocal intraparty critics. Much like a pair of Florida special elections last year, Democrats posted an impressive overperformance, but the district’s baseline partisanship was just too red—Trump carried it by 37 points—for it to actually be flippable…In last month’s jungle primary—Georgia, like Texas, uses the system that Louisiana is known for when holding special elections—Marine veteran Shawn Harris (D) led the crowded field with a little over 37%. Clay Fuller, an Air Force veteran who had Trump’s backing, finished next, with 34%. Overall, Republicans outvoted Democrats by an underwhelming 60%-40% last month—a spread that was markedly down from the presidential margin and even worse than Taylor Greene’s two most recent performances in the district (likely because of her profile as a partisan bomb thrower, her margins were usually weaker than most Republicans there)…Overall, the 25-point 2024 to 2026 swing in GA-14 represented the biggest U.S. House-level Democratic special election overperformance of Trump’s second term, with one very minor caveat. According to a spreadsheet maintained by Ethan Chen, in last year’s TX-18 jungle primary, Democrats outvoted Republicans by 48.5% in this deep blue seat, representing a 28.4% swing from the 2024 presidential race.”

In “How the Iran War Will Upend the Global Economy. The Risk Is Not Just an Energy Shock—but Also a Debt Crisis,” Henry Tugendhat writes at Foreign Affairs: “Indeed, these strikes, along with the broader energy sector disruptions that have accompanied the U.S-Israeli war in Iran, have all but guaranteed an energy supply shock that will drive up inflation globally. Additional strikes on infrastructure that is critical to energy production and distribution would exacerbate such a crisis. This dynamic—excess demand for limited resources—is a classic driver of inflation. Almost immediately after the strikes, U.S. markets began betting that the U.S. Federal Reserve would increase interest rates, its most direct tool for fighting inflation. Amid an already challenging cost-of-living crisis, the American people willsuffer consequences: rate hikes will affect borrowing costs on expenses such as car loans and mortgages, increased energy prices will drive up the price of gas and other fuels, and manufacturers of the myriad goods on which people rely will pass higher production costs on to consumers…But inflation and decisions made by the Fed to fight it matter far beyond U.S. borders, as most countries’ outstanding debts are still denominated in U.S. dollars. This is equally true for those countries that have spent the past 20 years borrowing from China. Put simply, rising U.S. interest rates will determine the debt sustainability of numerous countries. Regardless of the outcome of this war, it’s already clear that many countries will have to pay more for the energy needed to fuel their industries, power their electric grids, and sustain their transportation networks.” More here.

At Talking Points Memo, Editor Josh Marshall shares “A Few Thoughts on Trump’s Pre-Deal with Iran,” and writes, “First, just because Donald Trump is an inveterate liar, don’t assume that Iran is a reliable narrator about anything that was agreed to in this deal. (Was there a deal? We’ll get to that.) One thing both sides explicitly agree on, coming right from President Trump himself, is that the 10 point Iranian plan will serve as the basis for discussions over the next two weeks. The early accounts of what that document included focused on a lot things Iran wants, even including things it wanted before the war broke out. It doesn’t really focus on the things the U.S. notionally got into this war for. (We’ll get in a moment to what’s included in the document Iran released today.) For the U.S., this ceasefire is at best a ceasefire on the basis of a stalemate, where the fight is about a draw and both sides want to see if they can bring the fight to an end…That’s the optimistic view. The U.S. has clearly been more eager to get to the negotiating table. It’s the U.S. that wants out most. The items on that list tilt heavily toward Iran. The Iranians appear to be exercising continued control of the Strait of Hormuz even if they may allow ships to go through — “allow” being the key word.” More here.

William A. Galston explains “Why affordability will be a key issue in the 2026 midterm elections” at Brookings: “Between 1999 and 2024, health care rose from 13% to 18% as a share of GDP, an increase that has serious consequences for family budgets. While wages rose by 119% during this period, workers’ contributions to family health care insurance premiums surged by 308%, almost three times the pace of wages. This increase was not the result of employers shifting the burden of health insurance to workers; the overall cost of insurance premiums rose even faster, by 342%—more than five times as much as the economy-wide rate of inflation. Since the pandemic began, the burden on average families has accelerated: Out-of-pocket expenses per person rose by nearly one-third, from $1,239 to $1,652, in just five years…Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that health care has risen to the top of Americans’ concerns about affordability. A recent survey found that 32% of respondents were “very worried” about health care costs, compared to 24% for food and groceries, 23% for rent or mortgage payments, 22% for utilities, and 17% for gas and other transportation…Because the problems of health care in the U.S. are structural and deeply rooted, the prospects for quick relief are not bright…The affordability issue has affected President Trump’s standing as well. Most Americans believe that his priorities do not align with theirs, and they want him to focus more on the bread-and-butter challenges they face every day. Whatever the merits of the president’s claim that he inherited these challenges, Americans reject it by a margin of 2-to-1. It is Mr. Trump’s economy now, and Americans want him to do more to fix it than he has so far.” More here.