Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 193
The Magnificent Seven
“There’s like this Bolshevik revolution that has taken over the Democrat Party. It’s scary to see because many of them are espousing communist viewpoints — very, very radical viewpoints — and they’re winning. They’re beating liberals.”
— House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), talking to Fox News.
Franklin Foer: “Just over a decade ago, support for Israel was one of the last remaining bipartisan reflexes in American politics. The harshest thing most mainstream Democrats said about the country was that Netanyahu’s government was obstructing a two-state agreement with Palestinians.”
“But in the years since the October 7 Hamas-led massacre of Israelis and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, that consensus, which was already losing ground among the Democratic rank and file, gave way.”
“Moderate Democrats in the Empire State are being forced to evolve — or risk going extinct,” Politico reports.
”A surging youth vote that propelled New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rise and powered recent primary upsets against the Democratic establishment has become a flashing red light for centrist Democrats who are now scrambling for solutions.”
“Young voters are turning to candidates who reflect their abiding discontent with the Democratic establishment.”
“Abdul El-Sayed has a frank private assessment of what victory in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary over Rep. Haley Stevens would mean,” Politico reports.
“During a recent Zoom donor meeting, El-Sayed indicated that a win in the Aug. 4 contest — and another one in November — would give him a platform to push the progressive movement forward.”
Said El-Sayed, according to audio of the meeting: “You put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.”
“Officials who separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his young twins last month relied on a vague and unsubstantiated allegation from an accuser authorities later deemed possibly ‘mentally unstable,’ according to previously unreported police records,” the Washington Post reports.
”The records, obtained by The Washington Post, and an interview with the apparent complainant offer the most detailed account yet of how a false tip led investigators to the home of one of the country’s most prominent Democrats, drawing bipartisan outrage.”
“Democrats are learning a hard lesson Republicans know all too well: The party out of power doesn’t just ride the anti-incumbency wave — it can also get swept up in it,” Axios reports.
“The populist energy surging through the left after President Trump’s return to the White House is roiling Democratic primaries and fueling establishment fears about the party’s general election chances.
Just ask Senate Republicans how that went for them in 2010, 2012 and 2022.”
“A small but growing number of Democrats are embracing their own version of ‘America First’ in response to Donald Trump’s ongoing war with Iran in partnership with Israel,” Axios reports.
“Trump’s war is scrambling the politics of a slogan he once owned, fracturing the right even as some Democrats — including potential 2028 presidential candidates — embrace it.”
“Some progressive Democrats are fuming that the party’s new schedule for 2028 presidential primaries could make it harder for one of their own to win the party’s nomination,” Axios reports.
“From Wisconsin to Michigan to Maine, top Democrats are trying to halt the left wing’s momentum in the run-up to this year’s midterms, favoring relatively centrist candidates they see as more electable.”
“Some progressives view the elevation of South Carolina on the party’s 2028 primary calendar as part of that effort.”
“Bernie Sanders cheered on progressive congressional candidates who have been on the rise in some states ahead of the 2026 midterm elections during an interview,” CBS News reports.
Said Sanders: “Whether it’s Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, or anyplace else in this country… the polling indicates this, the people are sick and tired of the status quo.”
“The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections,” the New York Times reports.
“The bookkeeping maneuver, which was described by three people briefed on it, is the latest sign of financial duress for the Democratic National Committee and its embattled leader as money troubles threaten to undercut Democratic momentum with 100 days until the midterms.”
Politico: “Ben Wikler wanted to lead the Democratic Party after his party’s disastrous 2024. But Wikler, the former Wisconsin Democratic chair, may ultimately help Democrats even more with his new book: This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy.”
”Equal parts memoir, political history and how-to guide, Wikler does what Democrats desperately need — he grabs them by the proverbial lapels and demands they pay as much attention to their structural and long-term challenges as they do Donald Trump’s latest outburst. He also has some fun along the way.”
New York Times: “On Wednesday, 205 House Democrats voted against that chamber’s version of the legislation, a striking break from the past when only the most liberal Democrats dared to oppose the annual defense bill.”
“The shift underscored the hardening partisan divide over the war with Iran and its elevation as an issue in the coming midterm campaigns. It also highlighted an evolution in the strategy of leading Democrats in Congress, who have become more responsive in recent months to pressure from voters to reject the status quo.”
Politico: ”Nearly 40 years ago, the DNC unwittingly elevated Jesse Jackson by frontloading its schedule with Southern states. At the time, committee members hoped the shift would help a moderate white candidate, who they thought could more easily win a general election. Instead, Southern Black voters rallied to Jackson’s history-making candidacy. On Friday, the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee again sought to push its nomination fight to the South.”
”This time, though, the panel’s decision to lift South Carolina to first-in-the-nation status was done expressly with the state’s Black voters in mind. The party wanted to reward their most loyal constituency and those voters who, in the modern era, have invariably determined its nominees.”
”Yet in making South Carolina first overall, rather than keeping the state in its previous role as first in the South, the party risks diluting the influence of Southern Black voters.”
“South Carolina would be the first state to hold a Democratic primary for president in 2028 under a preliminary recommendation passed with 26 out of 49 votes Friday by a Democratic National Committee panel, capping an internal debate riven with racial overtones,” the Washington Post reports.
”Party officials also recommended New Hampshire, Nevada and Michigan as among the first states to vote for the nominee. South Carolina and Nevada had been vying for the coveted top spot on the primary election calendar.”
Reuters: Democrats pick South Carolina to open 2028 nomination race, elevating Black voters.
“Some House Democrats want the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to rethink its primary strategy after its third high-profile loss this season,” NOTUS reports.
“The 2026 election is far from over, but Democrats are already making specific demands for the DCCC to consider in future cycles: The committee needs to improve how it communicates with members, find ways to take more feedback and stop interfering in Democratic primaries.”
“Democratic state officials are ramping up their preparations to protect against what they view as a new threat to election security: the federal government,” the New York Times reports.
“At a meeting in Milwaukee in May, staff members from the offices of every Democratic attorney general and about a dozen Democratic secretaries of state held tabletop exercises to prepare for hypothetical scenarios in the November midterm elections.”
“Democrat Amish Shah will take on GOP nominee Jay Feely in the general election for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, The Associated Press projects, following primaries for both parties on Tuesday,” CBS News reports.
“Shah’s win against Republican-turned-Democrat Marlene Galán-Woods marks the latest high-profile defeat for the national Democratic Party.”
New York Times: Amish Shah wins Democratic primary in swing Arizona House district.
“Progressive Democrats have romped through primaries this summer, dispatching incumbents and minting new stars of the left in deep-blue territory in New York and Colorado,” the New York Times reports.
“In the coming weeks, they’ll take their fight to tougher turf.”
“Primary elections in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota will test whether Democratic voters in swingier territory have the appetite to send liberal candidates into statewide general elections where the outcome is not assured.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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