Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are neck-and-neck in a new poll on a hypothetical Republican presidential primary as chatter builds about who could lead the GOP in 2028. An Emerson College Polling survey found Vance with 36 percent support among Republican voters, nearly tied with Rubio at 35 percent. They were…
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are separated by one point in a potential 2028 presidential primary preview, according to a new Emerson College Polling survey.
Texas Senate Democratic candidate James Talarico announced Thursday that his campaign brought in over $3 million after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) won the GOP runoff against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Tuesday. “In just 24 hours, working people from every corner of Texas have come together to shatter grassroots fundraising records and send a…
Ken Paxton's primary victory over Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is sending shockwaves through Republican donor circles, with party strategists warning the Texas Senate race could become a financial nightmare that bleeds resources from competitive battlegrounds across the country.Nine GOP strategists and donors told Politico they fear the general election could force the party to spend up to $150 million defending a state Republicans never expected to truly contest — and one donor didn't mince words, comparing the final stretch of the Texas runoff, after President Donald Trump issued a last-minute Paxton endorsement, to a "horror movie.""It means that $100 million will have to go to bail out the Texas seat instead of helping win seats in Maine, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and elsewhere," the anonymous donor told Politico. "[It] will go down as one of the worst self-inflicted political wounds of all-time."Cornyn, a former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was expected to largely fund his own general election campaign through a deep donor network. Paxton, by contrast, had just $2.3 million in the bank heading into the final stretch of the primary — leaving Republicans scrambling to identify who will foot the bill.Many expect Trump and his $350 million MAGA Inc. war chest to step in, though the organization declined to reveal its strategy.“[Democratic state Rep. James]Talarico’s going to raise all sorts of cash,” a Senate GOP strategist told Politico. “There’s a very clear view that Trump took out one of the largest, most successful fundraisers in Senate history, and it’s a huge hole to fill. So the expectation is that Trump will fill that hole. He’s a prolific fundraiser and has a huge war chest.”Making matters worse, Paxton faces a formidable opponent in Talarico, a prolific fundraiser who hauled in $600,000 within two hours of Paxton's victory — the strongest fundraising stretch of his entire campaign. Analysts project total spending in the race could surpass $550 million, dwarfing the $210 million spent in the 2024 Texas Senate race.With Trump's approval ratings underwater, rising gas prices, and an unpopular war in Iran, Republicans can ill afford to play defense in Texas.“Texas is a complex place. The question is, can you get a deep number of MAGA voters… and then get Cornyn establishment voters to convert to [Paxton]?” said another GOP donor. “That’s going to be difficult, and so you’re gonna have to spend a lot of money."
President Donald Trump has notched several notable victories in his campaign of revenge against his perceived GOP enemies, but according to The Hill, there is already a new list of targets brewing for the 2028 election season.Trump has used his highly prized endorsements to sink numerous reelection bids heading into the 2026 midterms, targeting Republicans who have, in one way or another, opposed his agenda or did not push for it as vigorously as he would have liked. So far, this last has included Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn, Rep. Thomas Massie and a whole host of Indiana state lawmakers who voted against the gerrymandering plot he demanded.In a report from Thursday, The Hill noted that Trump's 2026 revenge tour "is largely complete," but also noted that "there’s a growing list of detractors who may face his wrath in two years." The list of names that the outlet put forward included a number of senators who are not up for reelection this year, as well as House members who it is too late for him to endorse challengers against. The first name the outlet offered was Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Alaska Republican who has frequently challenged aspects of Trump's agenda. She is also one of the last remaining GOP senators who voted to convict him after he was impeached for his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. The Hill noted that Trump has tried to endorse someone to oust Murkowski before, in 2022, but her appeal across political boundaries in Alaska has made her tough to unseat."Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has often been a punching bag for the president as a constant contrarian in the Senate GOP, but Trump endorsed him for reelection in 2022," the report continued. "That may change this time after several instances in which Paul has broken with his party on key votes. That’s included Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act and spending votes. He’s also consistently voted to curb the president’s war powers in Iran."The outlet further suggested Sen. Todd Young of Indiana as a sleeper possibility, given his low profile compared to other Republicans. He could still earn Trump's wrath, however, as he declined to endorse him in 2024, and was frequently supportive of Joe Biden's legislative goals. Trump did, however, claim that Young, and others, should "never be elected to office again" after they voted "to rein in his military authority in Venezuela."In the House, the report put forward two names as potential targets: Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Warren Davidson of Ohio."Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has branded herself throughout her congressional career as one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, but their relationship is on the rocks over her support for Massie," The Hill explained. "The president threatened to pull his endorsement of Boebert earlier this month after she campaigned with her Kentucky colleague. The president called her 'weak-minded' and invited a primary challenger to oppose her."It continued later: "Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) also campaigned with Massie and has been among the most willing to buck his party as a deficit hawk. Davidson joined Massie as the only two House Republicans to at least initially oppose the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, though he later supported it."
On Monday, I went to the Stop & Shop and had that old familiar feeling. I spent over $80 on a bag of groceries. Nothing fancy, just regular groceries, not even everything I need for the week. One bag. Eighty United States dollars. Something's gotta give. Maybe it already has.The Times said last week that 61 percent of Americans are cutting back on food. Another 59 percent are cutting back on extra spending. Three-fourths have forgotten about Joe Biden and blame the current president for the disaster. Economic confidence hasn't been this low since 2022. A stunning 80 percent blame him for gas price spikes, according to a Fox poll. Donald Trump was already burning us up with tariffs, but the burn rate has accelerated dramatically since the start of the war. He won't end it, because he can't. He's a terrible war president. His idea of a deal is "I get everything; you get nothing." Iran knows this about his nature, exploits it, and here we are: in war that could stretch into the summer and fall.Yet Trump is not acting like he's in trouble. He yak-yak-yaks about ballrooms, about gas prices being "peanuts," about how the Democrats made up the word "affordability" to make him look bad. (He is hosting an ultimate fighting circus at the White House, for God's sake.) He created a nearly $1.8 billion slush fund to pay J6 insurrectionists for their service to him. His party is practically begging him to take the midterms seriously. "We need Republicans to do well in November," Thom Tillis told the Times, “but the stupid stuff is killing our chances."Stupid stuff" might be too generous. Trump will not end his illegal war. He will not end his illegal tariffs. He will not pretend to care about the hardship Americans are experiencing as a consequence of both. (Nor does he not care about the optics of asking taxpayers to pay for a ballroom when they can't pay for food.) On top of that, he's endorsing primary challengers to incumbent Republicans who would otherwise coast to victory in the coming midterms. Reporters say he's "tightening grip on the GOP." But it looks more like he's sabotaging it.After all this time, we still interpret the president through a partisan lens that attempts to explain his behavior. Everyone assumes he wants his party to keep the House, at the very least to avoid impeachment. It's because of this assumption that Republicans are growing frustrated. “The president was elected to juice the economy, to bring down inflation, to stop illegal immigration and to get away from woke culture,” a GOP pollster told the Times. “If his highest goal were to maintain control of Congress, he would not be doing what he is doing.”We should consider the alternative: that control of Congress is not his highest goal.Anthony Scarammuci suggested as much in an interview with Bloomberg. He was the White House communications director during Trump's first term whose tenure famously lasted 10 days. He told Mishal Husain that we're misreading the president. His personality is such that he doesn't want the GOP to succeed. Success would mean there's life after Donald Trump.And, according to Donald Trump, that's impossible."His personality is 'you guys were nothing before I got on the stage and I’ve carried you for the last 12 years, and the 2020 election was rigged and everyone knows it, and I should’ve won that election, and I’ve returned to the presidency carrying all the Republicans on my back, and when I leave ... you’re going back to nothing' ... that’s Donald Trump's personality."Scarammuci added that "we try to normalize him, sane-wash him, and put him into a bucket. 'Oh, he’s a Republican, he'll want a Republican to succeed him or he’ll want JD Vance or Marco Rubio.' He doesn’t want those guys to succeed him. Let's say he has a successful remaining two years of his presidency, which seems unlikely, but let's say he did. He wouldn’t want those guys taking any credit for anything that happened in the administration. "It’s an administration of one person and there’s one spotlight on," he said.We assume Trump wants to end the war, because we assume he wants the Republicans to win in November. But what if he doesn't care about ending it any more than he cares about his party? It might even be in his interest to prolong it, as it boils the GOP down to its pure maga essence, making it even more dependent on him. Indeed, victory would suggest his party doesn't need him anymore. And that, according to Donald Trump, is impossible.During today's made-for-TV cabinet meeting, the president claimed that he had the advantage in negotiations with Iran. "They thought they were gonna outwait me. You know, ‘We’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms,'" Trump said. "I don’t care about the midterms.” We all assume he's lying. We had better hope he is. If Donald Trump really doesn't care about losing the congressional elections, the last remaining partisan constraints have fallen away. The war could go on indefinitely.
Investor expectations that rising inflation will force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year are creating a political quandary for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections, as well as new chairman Kevin Warsh. Bond markets show that traders see it as a fifty-fifty proposition that the central bank will raise its interest rate […]
Populist and union-friendly Republicans are flexing their muscles on Capitol Hill, notching wins in the House despite furious pushback from traditional free-market conservatives and opposition from GOP leaders. Two key developments came in the House last week in the form of a rail safety bill’s inclusion in a major transportation package and a petition that…
