“Well before President Trump’s inauguration, his top adviser Steve Bannon met with a few top-tier donors — the kind of donors capable of writing million-dollar checks,” BuzzFeed reports.

“The message, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversations, was that Bannon wants to use the 2018 midterm elections as the arena to test the political clout of Trump’s populist message.”

“The former chairman of far-right news website Breitbart was light on specifics and didn’t say which 2018 Senate races he had in mind… But he encouraged donors to starting giving to the outside entity created by Trump allies that was still taking shape at the time.”

“Democrats are moving urgently to harness the wave of grass-roots protests that have greeted President Trump in his first weeks in office to reclaim the House majority in next year’s midterm elections,” the Washington Post reports.

“As of this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is hiring full-time operatives to do political organizing work in 20 key Republican-held districts — an unusually early investment in House races that do not even have declared candidates yet.”

“Donald Trump’s campaign paid his companies $12.8 million from the time he launched his improbable presidential bid in the lobby of his company’s flagship Trump Tower property through the end of last year,” Politico reports.