A new Emerson College poll of Texas’ Senate GOP primary shows Sen. John Cornyn leading Attorney General Ken Paxton by 1 percentage point, 30% to 29%, breaking a spell of public polling that had found the incumbent trailing by wide margins.
However, much of the Republican electorate is still up for grabs, with 37% saying they were undecided.
Quinta Jurecic: “During the interregnum between his terms, MAGA’s would-be philosophers built out the intellectual architecture for a presidential takeover of the Justice Department. Once Trump was back in office, the new administration set about filling DOJ leadership with loyalists and firing anyone who might object to abuses of power. The president, insistent that he was the victim of persecution by federal law enforcement, now seeks to turn the same apparatus against his enemies. In a representative Truth Social post last month, he shared an AI-generated video of Barack Obama being handcuffed by FBI agents and dragged out of the Oval Office.”
“But Trump’s plan to leverage the DOJ for his campaign of revenge is not generating the results he might have hoped for, and not just because Obama remains a free man. The Justice Department has been slow to move forward with the investigations Trump demanded, hemmed in by the constraints of the legal system. Federal prosecutors targeting protesters and Democratic politicians have been dealt embarrassing defeats. American criminal law appears to be a less flexible tool in the hands of an authoritarian than Trump hoped—at least for now.”
“President Trump said on Thursday that a next step for nationwide immigration enforcement would be identifying undocumented immigrants during traffic stops,” Axios reports.
“The suggestion comes after Trump temporarily took control of Washington, D.C.’s police department and ordered the National Guard and FBI to aid law enforcement despite crime in the city being at a 30-year low.”
Said Trump: “That’s a great step, if they’re doing that. Yeah, I think that’s going to happen all over the country. We want to stop crime.”
The White House is inviting Indiana Republicans to D.C. later this month as President Trump tries to push them to flip a House seat through redistricting, Punchbowl News reports.
“President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops has produced Humvees on the National Mall and roving bands of agents in tourist areas as part of his stated effort to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital,” USA Today reports.
“But many residents of the city’s highest-crime neighborhoods say they haven’t yet seen the results of Trump’s surge in the places it is needed the most.”
Steve Bannon called for Republicans to go to “maximalist” political war against Democrats and institutions and expand their Texas redistricting effort to flip nine or 10 seats.
“More details on California Democrats’ proposed overhaul to the state congressional map are coming to light in advance of the official release of the new boundaries,” Politico reports.
“State lawmakers were briefed Wednesday evening on the expected partisan tilt of all 52 congressional districts, providing the clearest view yet of which Republican districts they are targeting. The changes, which are not yet final, were detailed in a chart obtained by Politico and confirmed by multiple legislators and staffers.”
“Honestly, if he could bring about the end to this terrible war… if he could end it without putting Ukraine in a position where it had to concede its territory to the aggressor… could really stand up to Putin, something we haven’t seen, but maybe this is the opportunity… If President Trump were the architect of that, I’d nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Because my goal here is to not allow capitulation to Putin.”
— Hillary Clinton, on the Raging Moderates podcast.
“Democrats are starting to finally see their path back to power in the Senate — if they squint really, really hard,” Politico reports.
“Party leaders have landed top recruits in Ohio and North Carolina, both pickup opportunities. They hope a snowball effect will push their favorite candidate in Maine, another offensive target, into that race in a state former Vice President Kamala Harris won.”
“There are other, rockier potential targets: Perhaps they could finally win Texas, where Republicans are locked in a messy, expensive primary. Or Alaska, where senior Democrats are courting a dynamic former congresswoman. Or maybe, they hope, Iowa could become a purple state again.”
Wall Street Journal: “People are moving to new homes and new cities at around the lowest rate on record. Companies have fewer roles for entry-level workers trying to launch their lives. Workers who do have jobs are hanging on to them. Economists worry the phenomenon is putting some of the country’s trademark dynamism at risk.”
“Former President Barack Obama on Thursday joined a virtual meeting with Texas House Democrats who left the state to deny Republicans the ability to pass newly drawn GOP-favorable congressional maps, cheering on their efforts and stressing their work comes at a critical time in the fight against partisan gerrymandering,” ABC News reports.
Said Obama: “We can’t let a systematic assault on democracy just happen and stand by and so because of your actions, because of your courage, what you’ve seen is California responding, other states looking at what they can do to offset this mid-decade gerrymandering.”
He continued: “I want all of you to be returning feeling invigorated and know that you have helped to lead what is going to be a long struggle. It’s not going to be resolved right away, and it’s going to require, ultimately, the American people understanding the stakes and realizing that we cannot take our freedoms and our democracy for granted. You’ve helped set the tone for that, and I’m grateful for it.”
“Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday night rescinded Washington policies that restrict the local police from aiding in immigration enforcement as she moved to tighten the Trump administration’s grip on law enforcement in the nation’s capital,” the New York Times reports.
“The two-page order from Ms. Bondi also declared that Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who had already been overseeing the federal takeover of the city’s police department, was now the ‘emergency police commissioner,’ with ‘all the powers and duties’ invested in the city’s police chief, Pamela A. Smith.”
Washington Post: Muriel Bowser and D.C. attorney general reject push by Bondi to name emergency police commissioner.
“The highest tariffs in almost a century haven’t caused inflation to surge. The phenomenon has puzzled economists, some of whom suspect that companies have so far simply been reluctant to pass along the extra costs to their customers,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But another argument for the limited impact is gaining traction: that tariffs being paid by importers are lower than advertised.”
“When President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, the Russian leader and former KGB officer will draw on decades of experience seeking to charm and manipulate foreign leaders as he tries to convince the American president he is open to peace,” the Washington Post reports.
“One of Putin’s most important tasks will be to use these skills to drive a wedge between the American president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his supporters in Europe after they presented a united front Wednesday in support of a ceasefire and giving Kyiv a role in negotiations over its territory, Russian analysts said.”
“The nine law firms that promised President Trump they would perform about $1 billion in pro bono work on his favored causes have embraced broad interpretations of what they owe,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Several firms that struck the unprecedented deals have shrugged them off as unenforceable and have taken on little to no additional unpaid work, according to people familiar with the matter. They are hoping Trump has moved on.”
“Others are doing the math to classify the pro bono work they perform anyway to satisfy their commitments to the White House.”
“Rich Americans are spending at a higher rate this year — everyone else is basically slowing their roll,” Axios reports.
“New data makes clear that while the good times continue for higher-income earners — strong wage growth, less debt — lower-income Americans are under increasing financial stress.”
“President Donald Trump campaigned on an ‘America First’ policy that rejected the United States’ traditional role of global policeman. His first 200 days in office have said otherwise,” Politico reports.
“Trump is relishing his role as peacemaker in chief, according to a White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly about the president, believing he can make deals that have eluded his predecessors, showing simultaneously his acumen and his power – whether he’s successful or not.”
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.