President Donald Trump is so weak that political experts anticipate potentially Democrats flipping the House of Representatives, Senate or both — and yet an anti-Trump Republican strategist warns they may be undone by incompetence at the top of their organization. “The Democratic National Committee is failing every person reading these words,” Steve Schmidt, who advised President George W. Bush, wrote for his Substack on Sunday. “You should be very angry about it because that failure is neither providential nor pre-ordained. It’s a choice — like Trump — and it’s killing the United States of America.”Schmidt reviewed the party’s financial travails, writing that “the MAGA Republicans have more than $128.5 million cash on hand compared to the Democratic National Committee, which is more than $2 million in debt. It’s also on track to spend exponentially more money on politics in Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Marianas, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa than across Mississippi and Louisiana, both of which have great US Senate candidates.”He added, “It’s unacceptable. The DNC is terribly led by Chairman Ken Martin. A sign of the political ineptitude of both [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer and [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries is their inability to deal with what must be dealt with.”He went on to quote The New York Times story that shed light on these travails. The report found that when it came to Democrats’ troubles “at the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs.”The Times added, “Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.”Schmidt condemned Martin’s reported behavior, writing that “personally, I’m sick of the tolerance for losing and the Democratic Party mediocrities, careerists and hustlers who can’t, won’t, and will never stop losing because deep down they’re simply doing what they’re good at: losing.”He continued, “The problem is that we’re losing the country because it isn’t being properly defended by the institution that’s built to stand up to MAGA and be for something better. It’s one of the foremost tragedies of this whole era. It’s deeply true and very real.”AlterNet previously reported on criticisms of Martin’s performance. In June anonymous high-ranking DNC sources told AlterNet that Martin has failed to prepare for Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting, mishandled releasing an autopsy of its failed 2024 presidential campaign and refused to adequately address threats to voting security on electronic machines, even though it admitted that "any assessment of the state of technology in the Democratic party would be incomplete without an acknowledgement that comprehensive data warehouses like Phoenix represent an irresistible target for hackers and other bad actors seeking to undermine the integrity of the modern political process."
Democrats are favored to win the House but are slight underdogs in the fight for the Senate with 100 days to go before the midterms, according to the latest forecast from Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ). Both parties are dealing with headwinds as they head into the home stretch of the high-stakes election. Republicans are worried…
Dr Annie Andrews says her ‘mission remains the same’ as she now aims to unseat Darline Graham, sister of the late Republican senatorIt was early Sunday morning and Dr Annie Andrews was far from the political fray, dropping her youngest daughter off at a summer camp, when she heard the news.“It was shocking and unbelievable,” she says of the death of Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who defined South Carolina politics for a generation aged 71. “It’s a profound moment for the whole state of South Carolina.” Continue reading...
NBC News Chief Data Analyst Steve Kornacki joins Meet the Press to analyze the key issues weighing on Republicans and Democrats 100 days out from the midterm elections.
President Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud early Sunday morning — or at least, he reposted it. Trump's startling admission came in the form of a Truth Social post — one of more than a dozen he posted about 5:20 a.m. — that centered on a video clip Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) shredding his SAVE America Act to pieces. "It's already illegal for someone who is not an American noncitizen to vote," Warren can be heard telling a reporter. "I don't understand why you want laws that are already there." Warren was clearly referring to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 which prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. This is one of three common critiques of Trump's controversial legislation. The second is that it could have "dystopian" consequences for Americans, as the National Women's Law Center explains. "This bill could disenfranchise 21.3 million eligible voters who don’t have the required documents ready, and it would particularly impact married women and trans people—all in order to fix a problem that doesn’t exist," an NWLC explainer states. "It’s voter suppression that perpetuates anti-immigrant misinformation."The third common critique is most commonly made by Republicans in the Senate who say it hasn't a chance of passing no matter how much pressure Trump puts on Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD). “This idea that he can just command members of the Republican conference to get in line is just a fantasy," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) earlier this week. “I don’t know who it was that sold the president on this idea, that this was obtainable, but it’s creating a circular firing squad for Republicans.”The Warren clip appeared among many reposts of commentary from Sen. Mike Lee, who was attempting to defend the SAVE America Act.The Utah Republican's most direct defense of the legislation was that existing noncitizen-voting law was "impossible to enforce." But he also made another direct claim — a kind compliment for the Massachusetts senator. Wrote Lee, "Elizabeth Warren is incredibly smart."
