“Current and former House Democrats, flush with victory following their landslide midterm wins, are already looking at potential opportunities to run for Senate in 2028,” Axios reports.
“Democrats’ 2026 romp — with wins in Texas, South Carolina, Kansas and possibly even Mississippi — has some party members reevaluating what were once considered impossible targets.”
“Truth Social attracted only 11.8 million visits in October, compared to 19.5 million visits in October 2025,” The Righting reports.
“California voters rejected a proposed billionaire tax, ending a heated and expensive fight over what could have been the nation’s first modern tax on wealth,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The Associated Press called the race Monday as the ballot initiative, Proposition 40, was trailing after last week’s election. “
“The outcome is a significant blow to supporters who had hoped to create a template for taxing wealth that could extend far beyond California. It also leaves the state’s next governor, Democrat Xavier Becerra, with a major budget problem.”
“Fresh off what one senator called a ‘good old-fashioned shellacking,’ Republicans are now turning to a more painful phase of their post-election soul-searching: the airing of grievances,” Semafor reports.
“Several senators are unhappy about a rush to reelect the GOP’s Senate leadership team after voters repudiated the party’s reign in Washington. A small but vocal minority is pushing to delay leadership elections beyond Tuesday, giving more time for a potential challenger to emerge against Majority Leader John Thune and his team.”
“Rep. Haley Stevens may be a pariah to her party, but she showed up to work on Monday night anyway, albeit practically in hiding,” the Washington Sun reports.
“A week after blowing up her professional life with her shocking endorsement of Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, many wondered if Stevens would show her face in the Capitol again. Her colleagues have said she made a ‘terrible decision’ and conducted a ‘despicable betrayal. They even said there is ‘not a place’ for her in the Democratic caucus.”
“While she remained out of sight to reporters, it turns out Stevens spent Monday’s vote series in the Republican cloakroom just off of the House floor.”
“Exxon Mobil, the biggest U.S. oil company, said on Monday that it reached a preliminary deal with Venezuela that brings it a step closer to returning to the South American country,” the New York Times reports.
“Republicans are returning to work this week, facing the prospect of an especially lame lame-duck session after a bruising midterm election that set off a countdown clock on their control of Congress,” Axios reports.
“Democrats have little incentive to help Republicans advance their agenda before January, while departing GOP lawmakers could complicate matters further by skipping votes or defying party leaders.”
“As a result, most of the items on their to-do list could get kicked to the new Congress.”
“The Office of Congressional Conduct said Monday that Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) may have misused taxpayer money for luxury travel and ‘misreported or falsified campaign disbursements,’ urging further review by the House Ethics Committee,” the Washington Sun reports.
Politico: Gooden likely misused taxpayer dollars, spent extravagantly on travel, congressional watchdog says.
“Sen. Chris Van Hollen told reporters Monday evening that he’s in ‘listening mode’ about a potential bid for majority leader — and isn’t yet ruling out running against Chuck Schumer,” Politico reports.
Said Van Hollen: “What I’ve said from the very beginning is we shouldn’t have a coronation.”
The New Republic: Did Senate Democrats just find the first challenger to Chuck Schumer?
“Democrats flipped attorney general offices in five Republican-leaning states in the midterm elections, dealing a significant blow to the conservative legal movement and erecting a new line of resistance against President Donald Trump’s agenda,” Reuters reports.
“The victories in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Iowa and Kansas threaten to disrupt conservative legal strategy. Incoming Democratic attorneys general could halt cooperation with federal immigration operations, fortify abortion access and file multistate challenges against the Trump administration’s environmental and gun policies.”
Michael Scherer: “Stephen Miller spent his first weekend as White House chief of staff on the patio at Mar-a-Lago, huddling with President Trump and Natalie Harp, his executive assistant, about how to approach the next two years with the House and Senate under Democratic control. Katie Miller—the podcaster, political consultant, and wife of Stephen—spent the weekend in the Washington area, rearranging her own life.”
“But that was not all that was changing. For months, Stephen Miller has recused himself from matters of policy that involve Katie Miller’s other financial interests at the direction of the White House counsel.”
“That meant that Stephen did not work on issues involving the media company Paramount, where his wife had been seeking a podcast deal, or anything to do with space policy or artificial intelligence, because his wife, a longtime adviser to Elon Musk, also worked for SpaceX, the owner of the Grok artificial-intelligence assistant. All of that changed today.”
“Donald Trump has said that the war in Iran is ‘effectively over’ as he played down concerns that the U.S. would escalate its military campaign against Tehran after the midterm elections,” The Guardian reports.
Said Trump: “At this point, taking the military action doesn’t seem to be a very necessary thing – but we’re locked and loaded, ready to go for any reason.”
“The incoming Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee signaled three major banks with ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein would be top investigative targets for the panel when his party takes control next year,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): “We’ve got three Wall Street banks who if they had done nothing, nothing except follow the law for years on end, we could’ve stopped Epstein cold.”
“Nvidia and its embattled CEO can add Washington to their list of huge problems,” Semafor reports.
“Members of Congress in both parties are pushing for strengthened export controls and investigations of company chief Jensen Huang after he admitted an affair with a woman accused by U.S. intelligence of spying for the Chinese government. Beyond the corporate governance questions raised by the furor, lawmakers are incensed by reports that Nvidia may have pushed for access to its chips by dubious Chinese companies.”
Los Angeles Times: Lawmakers briefed on Nvidia affair as security concerns mount.
New York Times: “After they won the House in the 2018 midterms, Democrats spent months squabbling among themselves over whether or not to impeach Trump over the various dramas that had consumed Washington. They did it once in 2019, for threatening a pre-invasion Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call, and again after Jan. 6, 2021.”
“It’s not clear that those impeachments, which both ended with Senate acquittals, conferred a political benefit for Democrats.”
“That might be why we’re not yet hearing the same colorful exhortations to impeach Trump that we did during the first term — it would just be so 2019.”
“What we are hearing is an attempt to carry the central plank of Democrats’ midterm campaign — the accusation that a corrupt administration has raised costs for regular Americans — into the halls of Congress. Democrats are promising to start investigations and pass anti-corruption bills that would ban congressional stock trading.”
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller a ‘stone-cold racist’ and said he can’t work with him,” Punchbowl News reports.
Said Jeffries: “Stephen Miller is a stone-cold racist. His track record speaks for itself, and I’ve got zero interest in working with that kind of individual.”
“This isn’t terribly surprising, but this is an inauspicious start for the White House’s relationship with congressional Democrats.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson declined to say he would finish out his two-year term,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Instead, Johnson told reporters in the Capitol on Monday to ‘stay tuned.'”
Said Johnson: “I’m focused on finishing this Congress well and helping the Republicans succeed in the 120th Congress, so stay tuned.”
“President Donald Trump defended Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during a surprise press briefing Monday that started after his meeting with UFC founder Dana White, saying that he’d spoken with Huang and that Huang denied knowing that a woman he had a relationship with had ties to the Chinese government,” the Washington Sun reports.
Said Trump: “I asked him that question: ‘Did you have any idea that she was a spy?’ He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy.’ And I really believe him.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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