California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) told the New York Times that he’s no longer waiting for Nancy Pelosi to announce her intentions for 2026, despite his previous pledges to hold off until the former speaker officially announced her retirement.
Said Wiener: “The world changes. I made a decision that it makes sense for me to get into the race now because I’m passionate about San Francisco having the best possible representation.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot by nine points, 50% to 41%.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds 45% of registered voters think Republicans in Congress are more responsible for the government shutdown, while 39% think Democrats in Congress are more responsible and 11% volunteered that they think both parties are equally responsible
Jonathan Martin: “It goes something like this: Political outsider or mostly new name mounts statewide campaign with online video that leans heavily on compelling biography or powerful oratory, out-of-state liberal hobbyists quickly fall in love and fork over money, and journalists rush to profile the latest heartthrob before inevitable disappointment when the candidate loses or, well, becomes John Fetterman.”
“Platner is the latest example. A military veteran turned oysterman who looked the hirsute part, the Mainer’s populist candidacy seemed to be an immaculate conception. The contributions piled up, the profiles were published and then suddenly there was a disruption to the formula. Or maybe it was more of an acceleration.”
“Once his Democratic rival, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, entered the race, Platner was hit with a nor’easter of oppo research that had the added value of being his own damning words.”
“North Carolina Republicans passed a new congressional map Wednesday that will likely give the GOP one more red-leaning seat in next year’s midterms, the latest in a string of White House-backed redistricting efforts,” Politico reports.
“The redraw creates the seventh new red-leaning seat nationwide since 2024, following similar efforts in Texas and Missouri.”
Jonathan Last: “After authoritarian regimes are toppled, monuments to the authoritarians are always removed. If you leave monuments to authoritarians standing, then you encourage (a) resistance from the out-of-power revanchists and (b) future strongmen who believe they can permanently mark history.”
“Would Trump supporters be antagonized by demolition of the Trump Presidential Palace Ballroom? I bet they would.”
“But we’ve tried the strategy of non-antagonism, in which Merrick Garland refrained from aggressively pursuing criminal accountability for Trump while Joe Biden shoveled money into red states to create jobs for Trump voters while building rural broadband and better roads to solve their Kitchen Table Issues.”
“Those acts of goodwill increased Trump’s vote share from 2020 to 2024. So maybe the way to persuade Republican voters to abandon their authoritarian project isn’t conciliation but domination.”
“Peace talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have been called off after Russia refused to accept America’s terms for a ceasefire in Ukraine,” the Telegraph reports.
“Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, that Russia would not agree to a ceasefire that froze the front lines in Ukraine.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is still speaking on the Senate floor after more than 16 hours in protest of what he described as President Trump’s “authoritarian” leadership and warning that the republic is facing “the biggest threat” since the Civil War, NBC News reports.
The U.S. struck another alleged drug vessel Tuesday night, this time on the Pacific side of South America, CBS News reports.
“Tech giant Alphabet is contributing $22 million to help build the White House ballroom under a legal settlement reached with President Donald Trump last month over his being banned from the company’s YouTube platform after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot by his supporters,” CNBC reports.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “North Carolina Republicans are moving quickly to redraw the state’s already-gerrymandered map to give themselves a much better chance of winning an extra seat in the state.”
“Republicans already hold 10 of 14 seats in North Carolina, and they would be favored to win 11 of the 14 on the new map.”
Trump administration preparing for visit to U.S. by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman next month, the AP reports.
The best-selling author Michael Wolff is suing Melania Trump in an unprecedented court case—after she threatened to sue him for $1 billion, the Daily Beast reports.
Wolff is asking the court for permission to question Melania and Donald Trump under oath about their dealings with Jeffrey Epstein.
“His U.S. Senate campaign under fire, Maine Democrat Graham Platner said Wednesday that a tattoo on his chest has been covered to no longer reflect an image widely recognized as a Nazi symbol,” the AP reports.
“The ghost writer who helped Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, pen her posthumous memoir claimed she knows everyone named in the so-called Epstein files,” the New York Post reports.
Said Amy Wallace: “I know all the names.”
She added: “It exists in the FBI files. It exists in the Epstein files, as we now call them… There are four different document dumps, and there are many, many names in those… They have the names — and they’ve had them for more than a decade.”
New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa (R) angrily quit his radio gig in a fiery on-air argument after its owner and one of the station’s most recognizable hosts called on him to drop his bid, the New York Post reports.
Said Sliwa: “You will never see me in the studio of WABC ever again.”
“The temporary seven-week funding patch Republicans passed in October to help finish appropriations bills has quickly become a four-week patch,” NOTUS reports.
“Whether the next CR gets pushed back a few weeks or through the beginning of 2026 is a matter of debate among Republicans. But there is a broad belief there will need to be some kind of extension regardless, given that Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House in recess while the shutdown drags on.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
