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MIDTERMS AND CONDITIONS
Can Democrats retake the Senate this fall? New polling shows they have a path, if everything goes right.
No one ever said that Democrats would have an easy time capturing the Senate this fall, despite plenty of cautious optimism in the party about winning back the House. Yet betting odds on a double-chamber Democratic blowout have risen since last fall [ [link removed] ]. Now, a new series [ [link removed] ] of New York Times/Siena polls suggests a Democratic Senate majority is possible.
In short, the polls found that a potential path runs through six key battleground states: Alaska, Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. Although Trump won those states by an average of eight percentage points in 2024, Democrats and Republicans are now tied in the average of the six states’ Senate races. That reflects an 8-point shift in favor of Democrats since 2024.
Still, while Dems have momentum, they remain the underdogs. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate, meaning Democrats need to flip at least four to take control of the chamber. Right now, they have the lead in just two of the six battleground states surveyed — Maine and North Carolina. Republicans have the edge in Alaska, Iowa and Ohio. Texas, the state famous for crushing Democratic dreams, is tied. The Times noted that if the midterms were held today, Republicans would likely keep the Senate.
The GOP, however, is being dragged down by the very unpopular President Donald Trump.
Americans have grown increasingly pessimistic [ [link removed] ] about Trump’s handling of the economy. That pessimism is spurred by soaring costs of living and high gas prices exacerbated by the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran.
A majority — 53 percent — of likely voters across the six states that were surveyed think the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, compared with only 39 percent who say it’s on the right track. More battleground voters said Trump’s policies hurt them in their state than those who said his policies have helped. The split was even more apparent among independents. According to the polling, 52 percent of independent voters said Trump’s policies had hurt, while just 22 percent said they’ve helped.
A White House spokesperson downplayed the Times/Siena polling, touting Trump’s 2024 election win and adding that “no other President in history has accomplished more for the American people than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more.”
How’s Trump responding? He spent more days last month [ [link removed] ] talking about the ballroom, reflecting pool, arch and other vanity projects than he did healthcare and wages.
WHAT ELSE? 👀
Trump raked in a stunning $2.2 billion last year, [ [link removed] ] including $1.4 billion from his family’s murky crypto currency ventures, according to new filings. A White House spokesperson said recently that Trump “acts in the best interests of the American public” and that “there are no conflicts of interest.” Promises made, promises crypto!
Questions are swirling about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s [ [link removed] ] future, after NPR Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg mistakenly reported he was stepping down (and then retracted the story). The debate now: Was that article a total fluke… or did Totenberg know something, and accidentally push out an embargoed piece early? We may find out soon….
Democratic socialists continued their winning streak [ [link removed] ] with a pair of decisive primary wins in Colorado on Tuesday night. Both victories come on the heels of democratic socialist pickups in New York, and present fresh evidence of voters’ discontent with the status quo on the left.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris reached out [ [link removed] ] to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as well as to pro-Palestinian activists, in recent weeks, Axios reports. Harris’ outreach is one of the strongest signals yet about her 2028 ambitions and indicates the former veep recognizes the staying power of the Uncommitted Movement, which opposed the Biden administration’s support for Israel, and other pro-Palestinian causes.
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett drew MAGA’s rage [ [link removed] ] after she joined the majority in striking down Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. Barrett was the sole Trump nominee to side with Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals, making her a prime target for conservatives and MAGA pundits who accused her of betraying the president, called her a “DEI hire” and a “turncoat,” and demanded she be removed from the bench.
The vast majority of Americans think the country has strayed from its founding principles [ [link removed] ], a new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll found. A staggering 83 percent of U.S. adults believe the country has moved away from its nearly 250-year-old founding ideals, while more than one-third of adults say they’re “not too proud” or “not proud at all” to be American.
ICE drew rare bipartisan backlash in Texas after arresting a Catholic nun [ [link removed] ] who was on her way to church on Sunday, the Washington Post reported. Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, who is from Nigeria, was released from detention hours later, after both Democrats and Republicans intervened. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Post’s questions about Ugboaja’s immigration status and diocesan officials said she is a nurse who legally entered the U.S.
LIGHT AT THE END… ☀️
In a major scientific breakthrough, researchers in Minnesota were able to create a cell [ [link removed] ] that has most of the hallmarks of life, the New York Times reported. These manmade cells can grow, reproduce, feed and compete with each other for food, the report said, and it’s the first time humans have been able to create a cell that can perform so many functions that indicate life. “It’s a cell that was built, not born,” Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist from Stanford University, told the Times. “It’s constructed, but it does what cells do.”
Paleontologists came across an extremely rare dinosaur bone from Antarctica [ [link removed] ] after finding it stowed away in a drawer in the British Antarctic Survey’s collections, CBS News reported. Geologist Mike Thomson first discovered the fossil in 1985 while working with the British Antarctic Survey and recorded it as a large reptile. It was recently spotted again by a paleontologist and he and other researchers later confirmed it came from a plant-eating dinosaur in Antarctica.
Russian rooftoppers Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau [ [link removed] ], the stars of Netflix’s 2024 “Skywalkers: A Love Story” documentary, got engaged atop the Empire State Building on Wednesday — and then promptly got arrested. Beerkus and Nikolau wore masks as they climbed the 1,454-foot landmark. When they reached the top, they unfurled a banner that read, “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.” Charges in the case are pending, CNN reported.
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