Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 193
The Magnificent Seven
“What are they doing? They’re flipping blue districts to blue. Wow, really impressive, okay? Now, you tell me: If you flip a district from blue to cobalt blue, and you don’t flip Omaha, how much of a minimum wage increase that the middle class, the working class, is relying on are you getting passed? I’m not impressed, okay?”
— Rahm Emanuel, quoted by the Washington Sun, in a rant on the “quote-unquote-left” of the Democratic party.
Sean Trende: “While I can come up with stories about why polls this year might be underestimating Republicans on balance, I can also come up with theories about why polls are now underestimating Democrats on balance.”
“One obvious explanation is that pollsters are overly sensitive about misses in 2016, 2020, and 2024 and have overcorrected for them, effectively solving for Republican turnout problems in their polls that will still exist in the wild. Another is that pollsters are simply weighting 2024 turnout patterns too heavily.”
David Hopkins: “Citizens under 30 dependably have the lowest turnout rates of any age range, and they are especially likely to sit out non-presidential elections. In 2022, only 26 percent of eligible citizens aged 18-29 showed up to vote, compared to 64 percent of those over the age of 60. Even a dramatic surge in support among this sector of the electorate can only deliver a limited number of new votes.”
“A less examined but more strategically important age group is those in their 30s and 40s. Many Americans first become engaged in politics during this life stage, and some are still developing firm views and preferences. As a result, they represent a significantly larger slice of the overall electorate—the Times poll estimates that voters between the ages of 30 and 44 will outnumber those between 18 and 29 by a 2-to-1 ratio this November—but can also exhibit significant partisan shifts from one election to the next.”
“Republicans began the 2026 midterm election cycle with the Senate map as one of their biggest advantages. It hasn’t turned out that way,” Bloomberg reports.
“With less than two weeks until Election Day, President Donald Trump is defensively campaigning in GOP strongholds including South Carolina and Mississippi. Groups are pouring money into deep red states such as Texas. There are signs Republicans have largely given up on winning in places where they should have an edge, including Georgia and North Carolina.”
“Party insiders say this year’s ‘red wall’ — a set of reliably Republican states that are necessary to ensure a majority — includes Iowa, Ohio and Alaska, which Trump won by double digits just two years ago.”
NPR: In Arkansas, Democrats see an opening at the edge of the competitive midterms map.
New Yorker: “It was not always this unnerving to be an election official. But persistent lies about voter fraud, a centerpiece of Trump’s political narrative, have set loose torrents of hostility toward the men and women who oversee balloting nationwide. There are more than ten thousand voting jurisdictions in the United States, ranging from townships to states.”
“In a national survey of local election officials this year, a third of them reported that they had personally been subjected to threats, harassment, or abuse because of their work. Half said they feared for the safety of their colleagues.”
“In this election season, the familiar threats, online and often pseudonymous, have been accompanied by new ones from federal authorities.”
“Like it or not, we’re stuck with two more years of this, but we’re not stuck with a spineless Congress.”
— Former President Barack Obama, quoted by Bloomberg, urging voters to throw out Republicans in the midterms.
“Audi will build its first-ever U.S. factory in Macon, Ga., President Trump announced Saturday, marking the latest move by a global automaker to focus on American buyers as sales fall off elsewhere in the world,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Bloomberg: Trump defends tariffs at rally as he says Audi to build U.S. plant.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells: “Things were going poorly even before Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign ran the most offensive ad of the year.”
“If California Gov. Gavin Newsom enters the 2028 presidential race, as many Democrats expect, he’ll walk in with an asset other White House hopefuls will inarguably envy: A small-dollar fundraising and organizing machine powered by a massive and ever-growing contact list of potential supporters across the country,” The Hill reports.
“Even before last year’s successful Proposition 50 redistricting effort in his state, Newsom had amassed more than 17 million email addresses, and his advisers say it’s only multiplied exponentially since then as Democrats feverishly donated in large numbers to redraw California’s electoral maps.”
“That list — advisers declined to provide its current size — has already helped Newsom raise more than $6.8 million during the midterm election cycle.”
“Republicans tend to run better among voters without a college degree than those with one, which has battered Democrats in recent presidential elections. But that same pattern could give Democrats a potentially decisive boost in next month’s midterms,” CNN reports.
“Even as President Donald Trump’s approval rating craters among Americans with a college degree, history suggests those well-educated voters are virtually certain to constitute a slightly larger share of the electorate this year than in 2024. It’s the political equivalent of what economists call the ‘college premium’ in wages.”
Washington Post: “The formula for Colom to win is deceptively simple: He needs a huge turnout from Black voters and about a quarter of the White vote. Doesn’t sound that hard, yet no Democrat has solved the problem in Mississippi in more than 40 years, and no African American has won statewide since Reconstruction.”
”This year the stakes are especially high, with control of the Senate in the balance and President Donald Trump’s agenda riding on it. Across the nation, deep red states have shifted in recent weeks and become unexpectedly competitive battlegrounds — nowhere more remarkably than in Mississippi.”
For members: Could Mississippi Deliver a November Surprise?
“The midterm campaign is being fought in areas President Donald Trump carried in the last election, and largely among voters who have supported him in the past but have soured on his presidency,” the Washington Post reports.
A new New York Times/Siena College poll in Pennsylvania’s 8th District finds Paige Cognetti (D) leading Rob Bresnahan (R) in the U.S. House race, 51% to 46%.
The same poll in Pennsylvania’s 7th District finds Bob Brooks (D) leading Ryan Mackenzie (R) in the U.S. House race, 49% to 44%.
The same poll in Pennsylvania’s 10th District finds Scott Perry (R) and Janelle Stelson (D) tied in the U.S. House race, 48% to 48%.
The same poll in Pennsylvania’s 1st District finds Bob Harvie (D) leading Brian Fitzpatrick (R) in the U.S. House race, 48% to 46%.
New York Times: “The four seats in Pennsylvania are seen as critical examples of some of the fights playing out nationwide. The districts include working-class communities in the state’s northeastern corner, growing towns with large Hispanic populations, a swing Philadelphia suburb and some more conservative parts of the center of the state.”
CNN: “A decade after the Trump era began, when he first turned Midwestern political battlegrounds into reliably Republican states, the fallout from policies of his second term have rippled through the agriculture sector and broader economies across the Great Plains and the Rust Belt.”
“Iowa and Ohio, which have not been competitive since former President Barack Obama was on the ballot, are in play. And ruby-red states like Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana are not exempt. The shift is happening up and down the ballot, with tight contests for the House, Senate and governor blanketing the middle of the country.”
NPR: “Osborn is one of four independents running for Senate in states President Trump won handily, including Idaho, South Dakota and Montana. Buoyed by the president’s sinking approval ratings and public frustration over affordability, independent candidates argue they bring a winning case to voters.”
“It is an argument that some Democrats hope will resonate with voters as the party looks to retake control of Congress, betting that these candidates can help topple Republicans in parts of the country where their own brand is hurting.”