Charlie Cook: “There is little reason to believe that the November election will be anything but a referendum on President Trump. With the first anniversary of Trump’s second inauguration arriving Tuesday, we’ve seen a flurry of new polls in recent days. Trump’s job-approval averages sit at 42 percent in both the New York Times and the Silver Bulletin averages. The RealClearPolitics average has him 1 point higher, at 43 percent.”

“While things in politics can certainly change, rarely are there major directional shifts during the year of a midterm election; it’s more about degree than direction.”

Washington Post: “The controversy is part of a larger Democratic disagreement about what makes a candidate ‘electable,’ a term many party leaders have used in recent years to describe scripted, vetted, broadly acceptable contenders poised to capitalize on centrists’ anger with President Donald Trump.”

“After a dismal 2024 performance, Democrats are deciding whether they should embrace more tempered candidates or more pugnacious firebrands in primaries from Maine to Michigan this year.”

“The long-running debate about whether the party should focus more on turning out its base or persuading the middle was scrambled in 2024, when Democrats alienated young, non-White and irregular voters who defected to Trump. Large Democratic constituencies acted like swing voters and would not have voted Democratic even if they had turned out to the polls.”

Marc Novicoff and Jonathan Chait: “A key source of Newsom’s appeal is the belief that he’s electable. It’s easy to see why the party’s voters have such a favorable view of his political skills. The California governor has combined an ideological flexibility—lately embracing both the “abundance agenda” and dialogues with conservatives—with a relentless mockery of President Trump. His new persona as a fighting moderate, a Democrat in tune with the country’s shifting desires and ruthless toward the man at the top, deftly speaks to the needs of a party desperate to regain the White House.”

“But Newsom has a problem: He has been a California politician for decades, and has held the state’s governorship since 2019. During his tenure, the state has been a laboratory for some of the Democratic Party’s most politically fraught policies and instincts, which has left it less affordable and more culturally radical than it used to be. His record not only raises pressing questions about how effectively he could govern as president; it also provides opponents an endless buffet of vulnerabilities across social and economic issues.”

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “In our first handicapping of state legislature control for the 2026 cycle, we find 15 chambers that are competitive—either Leans Republican, Toss-up, or Leans Democratic. That’s slightly higher than the number we found at a similar point in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.”

“At this point in the 2026 cycle, the Republicans are playing defense in more chambers than the Democrats are. The GOP currently holds 8 of the competitive chambers, while the Democrats hold 4 of them. Meanwhile, both Alaska chambers are controlled by a cross-partisan alliance that is favored to continue, and Minnesota’s House chamber should revert to being tied once vacancies are filled by special elections later this month.”

“Among the chambers we rate as competitive, 9 are Toss-ups.”