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By Irie Sentner |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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Less than one month out from Election Day, Democrats are bullish they’ll take back the House and perhaps even the Senate — expanding their map into deep-red areas that appeared to be unthinkable targets even a few months ago. They’re pinning it on President Donald Trump. Half of Democratic midterm voters say that if they win control of Congress in November, it will be because of Trump’s actions rather than because candidates in their party ran strong campaigns, according to the latest results from The POLITICO Poll, reported here for the first time. And, among Democratic voters, 46% said they were mainly casting ballots to oppose Trump, while 37% said they were mainly doing so to support a candidate in their area. Respondents were asked to choose what they believed would drive Republicans’ losses in the House and Senate: Trump’s actions, Democrats running strong campaigns or Republicans running weak campaigns. “Don’t know” was also an option. Just 35% of Democratic midterm voters said the outcome would be driven more by Democrats’ campaigning prowess than the president’s actions. If Republicans hold control, meanwhile, 43% of Democratic voters said they would blame a weak campaign from Democrats, 22% would blame Trump’s actions and just 16% would blame Republican candidates. The results suggest Trump is getting his wish: The president is, in effect, on the ballot and remains the main character of this election cycle. That’s causing major headwinds for GOP candidates, who already face an incumbent disadvantage from voters who historically seek change from the party in power. Trump’s approval rating is historically low, and polls suggest voters blame him for the affordability crisis at the center of both parties’ messaging. But across the two scenarios, the trend breaks down between the wings of the Republican Party.
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Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO |
If the GOP loses Congress, respondents who identified as non-MAGA voters who backed Trump in 2024 said they will primarily blame the president’s actions (31%), while among those who identified as MAGA Trump voters, 41% said they will blame the campaigns their candidates ran, compared with just 22% who would blame the president. If Republicans do hold control, 40% of non-MAGA Trump voters will point to strong Republican campaigns, compared with just 22% who credit the president. MAGA Trump voters almost equally will attribute a successful defense to Trump (37%) and strong campaigns (36%). Taken together, those results indicate that Trump maintains a heavy grip on his base, while more traditional Republicans appear to acknowledge that the president’s unpopular actions — including a nationwide immigration crackdown, a global tariff regime and an ongoing war with Iran — could undermine the party’s ability to maintain power. Just today, GOP Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers released a direct-to-camera ad breaking with Trump over his trade war with Canada. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy,” Rogers says in the ad, holding a Labatt, the Canadian-brewed beer. “We need to end this tariff war — now.” Polls show that Democrats are likely to win the House, while the Senate is more of a toss-up. Voters in both parties are similarly confident their side will win control of Congress next month, The POLITICO Poll found. Still, more Americans say they plan to vote for Democrats than Republicans, helping explain why, overall, more Americans expect Democrats to win control of both chambers. About half of both Democrats and Republican voters said they’re excited about the midterms. But 53% of Democrats said they were worried, compared to just 36% of Republicans, according to the poll. Good Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at isentner@politico.com.
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7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. TRUTH BOMB: Trump responded this morning to Ken Vogel’s NYT scoop detailing the hundreds of thousands that James Blair and Chris LaCivita were paid through a law firm retained by Republika Srpska’s government to counsel on voting issues — and the torrent of criticism (reported in Playbook) from GOP operatives and Steve Bannon, who tore into the duo for their foreign focus and questioned their dedication to more immediate domestic politics. “Chris LaCivita and James Blair are outside consultants. They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “They most likely have numerous clients, but for that, you would have to ask them. They are allowed to do work for others, just like all consultants in Washington, D.C. I do not have any idea who else they work for but will, on reflection, ask them and, if there’s a conflict, I will terminate them, immediately!” Trump in the Oval Office this afternoon reiterated to reporters that Blair and LaCivita are “independent people” who “don't work” inside the White House and that he would “terminate” ties if he thought there was a conflict. “They are not sitting around a Cabinet table or anything like that,” Trump said. Pressed on whether he would request a client list from the duo, Trump said “I would ask them, sure.” A former Trump administration official put a finer point on the frustration inside Trump world over the NYT report: “This just continues to feed the Russia connection. Unnecessarily,” the person told POLITICO’s Alex Gangitano. 2. TRAIL MIX: POLITICO’s Jason Beeferman asked the DCCC’s Will Van Nuys and the NRCC’s Will Kiley to name the four under-the-radar races where they’re feeling good about their underdog candidates pulling off an upset. These are the races that if they see a flip, they know they’re having a good night. On the Dem list: CO-05, IA-02, KY-06 and WI-01. On the GOP list: NM-02, NY-03, AZ-01 and NV-03. Hillary’s list: Minnesota Democratic Senate nominee Peggy Flanagan scored Hillary Clinton’s first congressional endorsement of the cycle, HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery reports. “Peggy Flanagan has spent her career fighting for children and families, from the Children’s Defense Fund to the Lieutenant Governor’s office, and she’s delivered for them,” Clinton said. The former secretary of state began her career as an advocate at the Children’s Defense Fund.
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3. A TEXAS-SIZED PROBLEM: Audio of Texas GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton claiming that “D.C.” Republicans were largely controlling his race — first reported by Playbook — is complicating an already very complicated bid for the scandal-plagued candidate, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill and Alex Gangitano report. “He is welcome to raise his own money and say whatever he wants,” said one Republican involved in the Paxton rescue effort. “In fact, if he did that, he’d probably be winning right now and we wouldn’t need to spend all this money.” 4. BRAVE NEW WORLD: Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, released an AI framework this morning outlining six safety principles she believes should underpin any legislation to regulate the technology, POLITICO’s Kelsey Brugger reports. They include enforceable safety standards for frontier models, continuous testing, disclosure and oversight, public-private partnerships, protection for children and workers and adherence to U.S.-led global standards. Dispatch from Berkeley: “Inside AI safety’s hottest club,” by POLITICO’s Christine Mui: “Decoded by POLITICO got an inside look at The Curve, the invite-only conference last weekend that hosted a rare convergence of AI influence and offered a microcosm of the state of current global safety talks. It’s the kind of gathering where Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer asks famed AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio about open-weight models, while attendees muse in the bathroom line on the odds of California Gov. Gavin Newsom calling a special session for AI. (Hint: they are low.)” 5. TAKE A CHANCE ON ME: Washington and Athens are launching a new counterterrorism information-sharing program as Greece contends with threats posed by mass migration, human trafficking and terror, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today, per POLITICO’s Nektaria Stamouli in Athens. Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis said Greece was willing to cooperate with the U.S. and provide maritime assistance in the Strait of Hormuz if a viable peace process exists there. (And just look at the backdrop for Rubio’s announcement.) 6. TROOP SCOOP: “Immigration agents thrust National Guard into huge raid with zero warning, document shows,” by MS NOW’s David Noriega: “National Guard troops under the control of the federal government were drawn into a sprawling, chaotic Southern California immigration raid on short notice and with little guidance, an internal Army document shared exclusively with MS NOW states. … The after-action review prepared by the U.S. Northern Command also indicates the Department of Homeland Security had the soldiers perform duties that, according to experts who reviewed the document, potentially violated a law that largely bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.” 7. INVESTIGATION NATION: Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Rep. Salud Carbajal, all California Democrats, sent a letter today to Brittany Kelm demanding information about her relationship with oil company Sable Offshore, which she worked with as senior energy adviser on the National Energy Dominance Council before taking a high-ranking job there. The inquiry follows a POLITICO report this summer that raised ethics questions about the transition and is Democrats’ latest warning shot on potential oversight probes into Trump administration officials if they take back Congress. More from POLITICO’s Ian Stevenson and Scott Waldman
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A message from OpenAI:  
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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DEVELOPER-IN-CHIEF — President Donald Trump is hoping to turn his West Palm Beach golf club into an official presidential retreat, WaPo’s Meryl Kornfield reports. “Just as Camp David, Windsor Castle, or the Elysee Palace are known worldwide, so too will the Presidential Golf Course in Palm Beach County,” lawyer Harvey Oyer wrote in a letter last month to the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners. He asked the county, which owns the property the course sits on, to provide a piece of land to the federal government and said Trump would pay to construct a presidential residence and facilities there. DOWN ON THE VALLEY — “Hollywood tears into Big Tech,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Miller and Tyler Katzenberger: “In a run of films arriving this fall, the industry casts Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Elizabeth Holmes as venal, feckless, cowardly, cruel or worse — villains in a new, on-screen front in the backlash over Silicon Valley’s power. … And the pile-on may not end there.” OUT AND ABOUT — Torie Clarke, Juleanna Glover, Eileen O’Connor, and Katherine O’Hearn hosted a celebration to toast the release of David Hume Kennerly’s book “In the Room: 60 Years on the Front Lines of History” ($55). SPOTTED: Wolf Blitzer, Andrea Mitchell, Robert Draper, Sam Feist, Michael Beschloss, Kasie Hunt, Susan Glasser, Peter Baker, Michael Isikoff, Antonia Hitchens, Cat Zakrewski, John McCarthy, Stephanie Cutter, Phil Rucker, Meredith McGraw, Abbe Lowell, James Nachtwey, Diana Walker, Mark Leibovich, Jodi Cobb, Kathleen Parker, Cathy Merrill, Don Graham, and Jonathan Davidson. TRANSITIONS — Katrina Valdes Bishop is joining The Lafayette Company as chief of staff. She previously worked at the American Seed Trade Association and is an Association of Equipment Manufacturers and Mario Diaz-Balart alum. … Michael R. Wysong is joining the National Association of Chain Drug Stores as CEO. He most recently was at CARE Pharmacies. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editors Giuseppe Macri, Garrett Ross and Kyler Alvord. |
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