| | | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | | | 
Sen. Jon Tester is the only Democrat left in statewide elected office in Montana. | Tom Williams/Pool/AP Photo | Sen. JON TESTER (D-Mont.) gave Democrats a shot in the arm with an announcement this morning that he’ll run for reelection, keeping an incumbent in place in a state that’s critical to their hopes of holding the chamber in 2024. Victory in Montana, a state DONALD TRUMP won by 16 points in 2020, may yet prove an uphill battle in a challenging year for Dems, when they’ll mostly be playing defense in the Senate across the country. He’s the only Democrat left in statewide elected office in Montana. But the farmer has pulled it off thrice before — and though he’s been a politician for decades, Tester pitched himself as a perennial Washington outsider. “I know that people in Washington don’t understand what a hard day’s work looks like or the challenges working families are facing in Montana,” he said in a statement. “I am running for re-election so I can keep fighting for Montanans and demand that Washington stand up for our veterans and lower costs.” FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Republicans certainly won’t make it easy for Tester. In a new statement via our colleague Burgess Everett, NRSC Chair STEVE DAINES (R-Mont.) came out swinging: “Jon Tester just made the same mistake STEVE BULLOCK did in 2020,” Daines said. “Both should have ended their political careers on their terms. Instead, they each will have their careers ended by Montana voters. Jon’s support for JOE BIDEN’s disastrous agenda of open borders, reckless spending, and massive tax hikes is a fireable offense.” It’s rare for an intra-state senator, even the NRSC chair, to hammer someone on the record like this. Part of the history here is that Tester helped recruit Bullock to run against Daines in 2020, when the then-governor ultimately lost to the incumbent senator by 10 points. Now the big question is whom Tester will face: The state’s two Republican House members, MATT ROSENDALE and RYAN ZINKE, are both weighing campaigns, with chatter also swirling around Gov. GREG GIANFORTE and state AG AUSTIN KNUDSEN, Marianne LeVine and Burgess report. Tester beat Rosendale in 2018. On the Senate map’s three reddest Democratic-held seats, Democrats now have two incumbents locked in for another go, after Sen. SHERROD BROWN (D-Ohio) announced he’d run for reelection. Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) is the biggest remaining holdout, and he told Hoppy Kercheval on West Virginia radio today that he still hasn’t made up his mind — though he said that at least as of now, he’s not running for president. “I don’t know,” he said. “What I do know: I’m going to do whatever I can to help my state and country. … There’s nobody fighting for the middle — so where can I best fight for the middle?” MEDIA MESS — NPR will lay off about 10% of its staff, amounting to at least 100 people, amid financial strains and a plunge in podcast ad revenues, David Folkenflik reports. Good Wednesday afternoon, and thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
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At Amazon there is something for everyone. | | | ALL POLITICS DEMOCRACY WATCH — Then-Arizona AG MARK BRNOVICH’s office concluded in a major report last year that there was basically no evidence of election fraud in the state in 2020 — and then he hid those findings with an “interim report” that tried to claim there were “serious vulnerabilities,” WaPo’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Isaac Stanley-Becker scooped. “The records show how Brnovich used his office to further claims about voting in Maricopa County that his own staff considered inaccurate. They suggest that his administration privately disregarded fact-checks provided by state investigators while publicly promoting incomplete accounts of the office’s work.” And Arizona became a hotbed of conspiracy theories. BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE — Democrats know that New York could be the state where they win back the House — and House Majority PAC is announcing a new $45 million fund to flip six Republican seats in the Empire State, NYT’s Nicholas Fandos reports. The surprisingly early move “would dwarf outside spending in the state by either party in recent election cycles,” though the funds are still being raised. — Democrat GEORGE WHITESIDES jumped into the race today to try to flip Rep. MIKE GARCIA’s (R-Calif.) seat. Whitesides is a former Virgin Galactic CEO and NASA chief of staff. BRAND MANAGEMENT — A new report from the nonprofit American Family Voices warns that the Democratic Party brand has gotten toxic in the white, working-class industrial Midwest — but says Dems can make progress if they can sell voters on their recent big-ticket legislation, NYT’s Katie Glueck reports. AMERICA AND THE WORLD POTUS IN EUROPE — Biden today deemed Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN’s decision to suspend participation in the New START treaty “a big mistake,” per the AP. Meeting with allies in Warsaw, Poland, he vowed to maintain support for the “sacred” NATO pact, and called their collective fight on behalf of Ukraine a global bulwark for freedom. DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS — Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wis.) has returned from a secret trip to Taiwan and tells WaPo’s Ellen Nakashima that the war in Ukraine has been a wake-up call for the island to stockpile more weapons. “That was the biggest thing we heard from every major Taiwanese leader — concerns over delays,” said Gallagher, who chairs the new House committee on China competition and wants the U.S. to step up its arming of Taipei. JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH LOOSE LIPS — After EMILY KOHRS, the foreperson of the Fulton County, Ga., special grand jury, went on a media tour yesterday, the potential indictment targets are already seeking to capitalize on the unusual public display. “CBS News has learned that lawyers close to several GOP witnesses in Fulton Co. investigation are preparing to move to quash any possible indictments by DA based on the public statements,” Robert Costa reports. 2024 WATCH HOW HALEY IS PLAYING — In Marion, Iowa, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott talks with voters who’ve seen former South Carolina Gov. NIKKI HALEY on the stump: “It was clear … that they were still unsure how to differentiate Haley from leading options like Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS and former President Donald Trump on major issues — and many saw appealing qualities in all three. … But some Haley-specific positive feelings could be found within the crowd: Two voters said they’d prefer Haley in part because they’d like to see a female president.” Talcott also finds some evidence that criticism of Republicans for supporting cuts to Social Security and Medicare is breaking through with retirees. PENCE DINGS DeSANTIS — Former VP MIKE PENCE today became the latest Republican to criticize DeSantis for his move to seize control of Disney’s special tax district. On CNBC, Pence said it “was beyond the scope of what I, as a conservative limited-government Republican, would be prepared to do.” (Notes NYT’s Maggie Haberman: “Unclear that GOP primary voters actually want limited government at this point, which is inherently the tension.”) Pence also held firm that Medicare and Social Security cuts have to be “on the table for the long term.”
| | | | We’re spilling the tea (and drinking tons of it in our newsroom) in U.K. politics with our latest newsletter, London Playbook PM. Get to know all the movers and shakers in Westminster and never miss a beat of British politics with a free subscription. Don’t miss out, we’ve got some exciting moves coming. Sign up today. | | | | | VALLEY TALK MUSK’S DISINFORMATION DEN — “Russian propagandists said to buy Twitter blue-check verifications,” by WaPo’s Joseph Menn: “Accounts pushing Kremlin propaganda are using Twitter’s new paid verification system to appear more prominently on the global platform, another sign that ELON MUSK’s takeover is accelerating the spread of politically charged misinformation, a nonprofit research group has found.” CONGRESS THE TALENTED MR. SANTOS — “George Santos reported spreading campaign cash to other Republicans. The money never showed up,” by Jessica Piper: “One of GEORGE SANTOS’ first acts as a candidate for Congress in 2019, according to his campaign finance filings, was making a series of four-figure donations from his campaign to a pair of local Republican groups and President Donald Trump’s reelection committee. But according to those groups’ own filings, the contributions were never received — and may not have been donated.” STAT OF THE DAY — In the past 16 years, the Senate Ethics Committee has gotten 1,523 complaints of misbehavior and started a “preliminary inquiry” 204 times — but the number of disciplinary sanctions the panel has issued is zero, Raw Story’s Dave Levinthal and Matt Laslo reveal. “[T]he Senate’s chummy and clubby reputation remains largely intact even amid an age of hyperpartisanship,” they write. But committee members defend the panel’s work — and note that in one serious case, a senator resigned before they could take action. BEYOND THE BELTWAY EAST PALESTINE LATEST — Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG will head to the scene of the train derailment and toxic chemical spill in Ohio tomorrow, Adam Wren scooped. Republicans have blasted Buttigieg for not visiting sooner. Trump will be there today. WHERE THE RED WAVE CRASHED — The New York state Democratic Party is in disarray after the midterms, and various ideological factions are filling the weak organization’s vacuum in a competition over its future, Ross Barkan reports in a big NYT Magazine story. “New Hampshire, a state with roughly half the population of Queens, has a Democratic Party with 16 full-time paid staff members. New York’s has four, according to the state chairman, JAY JACOBS. One helps maintain social media accounts that update only sparingly. Most state committee members have no idea where the party keeps its headquarters, or if it even has one.” Incredible detail: Jacobs actually has a different day job overseeing summer camps. GOING WHERE CONGRESS WOULDN’T — “The raucous battle over Americans’ online privacy is landing on states,” by Alfred Ng: “Tech privacy advocates frustrated by failures on Capitol Hill are looking to mine state capitals for legislative victories. A broad bipartisan federal privacy bill that died in Congress last year has quickly become the template for a statehouse-by-statehouse campaign to enact tough new restrictions on how Americans’ personal data can be mined and shared.” CASHING IN THE CHIPS — A handful of new stories today show the promise and the peril of the $53 billion U.S. investment in semiconductor chip manufacturing and research that is about to start sweeping the country this week: Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO will roll out details of how the administration will dole out the subsidies, and how companies can apply, tomorrow, WSJ’s Yuka Hayashi previews. Arizona is preparing to be a big winner, NYT’s Cecilia Kang reports, building on its history of chip manufacturing as state officials lobby Raimondo and industry executives. The all-out effort is competing especially with New York, Ohio and Texas. But it might not be smooth sailing for the $40 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company expansion plan that constitutes the state’s marquee project right now, NYT’s John Liu and Paul Mozur report from Seoul. “Internal doubts are mounting” in the company, they write: “Many of the workers said the project could distract from the research and development focus that had long helped TSMC outmaneuver rivals. Some added that they were hesitant to move to the United States because of potential culture clashes.”
| | | | JOIN POLITICO ON 3/1 TO DISCUSS AMERICAN PRIVACY LAWS: Americans have fewer privacy rights than Europeans, and companies continue to face a minefield of competing state and foreign legislation. There is strong bipartisan support for a federal privacy bill, but it has yet to materialize. Join POLITICO on 3/1 to discuss what it will take to get a federal privacy law on the books, potential designs for how this type of legislation could protect consumers and innovators, and more. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | POLICY CORNER AFTERNOON READ — “Joe Biden Promised To Make National Security Agencies More Inclusive. Many Officials Are Still Waiting,” by HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed: “A former diplomat has been on a years-long quest to get answers about a sexual harassment allegation against a top State Department nominee, and several Biden appointees have filed Equal Employment Opportunity complaints.” PLAYBOOKERS AND THE AWARD GOES TO — Gayle King received the 39th Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism yesterday in Phoenix. Pic TRANSITIONS — The Hub Project has added Allyson Marcus as deputy executive director for campaigns at and Chrystian Woods as a senior director for campaigns. Marcus most recently was political director at American Bridge 21st Century and is an Antonio Delgado and DCCC alum. Woods most recently was senior adviser to the Georgia Coordinated Campaign and is an American Bridge and NARAL Pro-Choice America alum. … … Amanda Hobby is now digital director for the House Oversight Committee. She previously was digital director for Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). … Mercedes Osma-Peralta is now counselor for press and public affairs at the Colombian Embassy in D.C. She most recently held the same role for the Colombian Embassy in London. … Nefertiri Sickout is now SVP of equity, diversity and inclusion at Share Our Strength. She previously was chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer for the Philadelphia mayor’s office. WEDDING — Hilary Hurd, a national security counsel to the deputy AG and a White House alum, and Martin Levy, an environmental and climate lawyer at Covington & Burling LLP and a Biden transition alum, got married recently at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart. They met during their first year at Harvard Law School. Pic, via So Tender is Humanity BONUS BIRTHDAY: Former Rep. David Skaggs (D-Colo.) (8-0) Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine.
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