ABC News: “The Democrats are in a tough stretch. Their fundraising and voter registration lags Republicans. And polls show American voters find the party generally unfavorable.”
“But at this week’s Democratic National Committee summer meeting in Minneapolis, members are desperate to turn a page, shed a rudderless reputation, and more clearly define their platform as they look to deliver wins in upcoming governor’s races and the midterms next year.”
“Florida could be the next big target for Republicans to redraw their congressional lines to their advantage, with plans in the works to potentially target three to five House seats currently held by Democrats before the 2026 midterm elections,” CBS News reports.
“President Donald Trump’s escalating pressure campaign to get Indiana Republicans to gerrymander their state appeared to have some success Tuesday,” Politico reports.
“Vice President JD Vance urged more than 55 Indiana Republicans to push forward with redistricting during a long-planned meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to three people familiar with the matter and, like others in this article, was given anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive meeting.”
President Trump celebrated after Cracker Barrel backed down following the president’s comments on the controversy over its new logo.
“Lawyers for Jack Smith, the former special counsel who investigated Donald J. Trump, have struck back for the first time against some of the accusations conservatives have leveled against him, denouncing an ethics complaint as ‘imaginary and unfounded,’” the New York Times reports.
“For months, Mr. Smith has remained silent as the president and some of his senior advisers, including top Justice Department officials, publicly attacked him, accusing Mr. Smith of engaging in wrongdoing for overseeing two criminal inquiries and indictments of Mr. Trump. The investigations involved whether Mr. Trump mishandled classified documents after he left office as well as his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds just 38% of Americans support President Trump’s use of troops to police Washington, D.C.
A new Doug Sosnik memo and slide deck points out that while Democrats would normally be in a strong position to make major gains in the midterm elections, “it is unlikely that they will have anywhere near the level of success that the out-of-power party has had in previous midterm elections with such an unpopular incumbent president.”
Playbook explains: “In the current Congress, a whopping 419 members of the House are from the same party as the presidential candidate who won their district. The result: way fewer races are competitive these days, ‘which narrows the opportunity for the Democrats to fully benefit politically even if support for Trump and the Republicans implodes.’”
Politico: “While Democratic senators and representatives struggle for impact in Trump’s trifecta — bladder-busting 25-hour speeches aside — and party bigwigs tie themselves in knots over dismal funding and poll numbers, it’s a band of combative Democratic governors who’ve grabbed the opportunity to make waves. That opportunity has been afforded them by none other than the president of the United States, whose method of turning the page on the Jeffrey Epstein saga this summer has been a high-profile assault on their cities.”
“And here’s the bottom line: It’s working pretty well for Trump — but it’s working for these guys too.”
The Downballot: “Iowa Democrat Catelin Drey won a major upset on Tuesday night, flipping a deep-red seat in the state Senate and breaking the GOP’s supermajority in the chamber.”
“Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch by a wide 55-44 margin in a district Donald Trump carried by 11 points last year.”
“It’s the second conservative district that Iowa Republicans have lost in the legislature this year, and the results will further buoy Democratic hopes for similar victories in contests for governor and the U.S. Senate in 2026.”
“After several disappointing failures, SpaceX’s Starship — the mammoth rocket that Elon Musk hopes to use to take people to Mars — made it all the way up to space and all the way back down to Earth during a 10th test flight,” the New York Times reports.
“The largely successful mission was a likely relief to both SpaceX and NASA, suggesting that the development program is back on track. NASA is counting on Starship as the lander to put its astronauts on the moon in the coming years.”
Reuters: SpaceX’s Starship deploys first mock Starlink satellites on 10th test flight.
“America’s largest charitable foundation has quietly ceased backing a nonprofit network closely associated with the Democratic Party and criticized by conservatives, a symbolically significant blow to a powerful player in liberal politics,” the New York Times reports.
Ryan Lizza: “Probably more than one. In fact, if you’re an average professional who has filled out lots of government forms, signed and mailed contracts, has semi-complicated taxes, some investments, financial relationships, and a mortgage, you’ve almost certainly run afoul of several federal statutes over the years.”
“Though plenty of people get swept up in life-ruining investigations by overly zealous prosecutors, most Americans go about their lives, occasionally breaking federal laws without fear of prison, because no free country would unleash its prosecutors to pursue every violation of every statute in our labyrinthine criminal code.”
“Federal prosecutors make choices. This vague concept of prosecutorial discretion prevents millions of technical lawbreakers from losing their freedom or suffering the devastating consequences of a criminal accusation by the government.”
“Not long ago, conservatives dreaded the possibility that an unconstrained executive branch might unleash its prosecutors to pursue violations of every law on the books.”
“President Trump’s bid to fire a member of the Federal Reserve board is a new escalation of his efforts to amass more power over American government and society: Congress generations ago structured the agency, crucial to the health of the economy, to be independent of White House control,” the New York Times reports.
“In purporting to fire the board member, Lisa Cook, Mr. Trump is setting up another test of how far the Republican-appointed supermajority on the Supreme Court will let him go in eroding the checks and balances Congress has long imposed on executive power.”
“His attempt to fire Ms. Cook presents a new twist. It raises the question of whether he alone can decide whether there is cause to fire an official at an independent agency whose leaders are protected by law from arbitrary removal — or whether courts will be willing and able to intervene if judges believe his justification is a pretext.”
Aaron Blake: Trump’s new “dictator” comment betrays his trick for expanding his power.
“A conservative election researcher whose faulty findings on voter data were cited by President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn his 2020 election loss has been appointed to an election integrity role at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” the AP reports.
“Pennsylvania activist Heather Honey is now serving as the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the department’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, an organizational chart on its website shows.”
“I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters at a Cabinet meeting today.
“New York Mayor Eric Adams said he has no plans to drop out of November’s election after his struggling campaign was rocked last week by more corruption allegations,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Adams: “Yes, I’m staying in, no matter what.”
Related for members: Opposition Struggles to Unite Against Mamdani
When Republicans repealed a Biden-era “access and equity” grant program for transportation, they canceled funding for projects in some of their own districts, the New York Times reports.
“President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will soon have a ‘majority’ of his own nominees on the Federal Reserve board of governors who will back his desire to slash interest rates,” CNBC reports.
Said Trump: “We’ll have a majority very shortly. So that’ll be great.”
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.