| | | |  | | By Ali Bianco | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Irie Sentner and Makayla Gray Good Sunday morning. This is Ali Bianco, in the driver’s seat for your Sunday read. If you woke up out of sorts this morning, you’re probably not alone — we lost an hour as clocks moved forward overnight to kick off Daylight Savings. On the bright side, the sun won’t set until 7:02 p.m. tonight. Get in touch.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
Top candidates in Democratic primaries are watching the record turnout numbers from Latinos and making these voters a top target. | Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP | Democrats watched with mouths agape this week as Latino voters, many of whom have sat out previous primary seasons, turned out in droves for James Talarico in Texas. But the push to win back the elusive and swingy coalition that proved pivotal to President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory goes way beyond the closely watched Lone Star State. This is a story that kicked off last year as Democrats overperformed in Latino-dominant districts across Virginia and New Jersey. It’s one that multiple candidates and strategists told Playbook could make or break Dems’ ambitions to take the House — and there’s a handful of key districts across the country that will offer the next test cases. From Colorado to Arizona to Nebraska, top candidates in Democratic primaries are watching the record turnout numbers from Latinos and making these voters a top target for their campaigns to flip their razor-edge districts now held by Republicans. It’s an early bet as they face primaries in the months ahead — but in seats that in the past have been won by less than a percentage point, these voters could make the difference. “They vote for Trump, they vote for Mikie Sherrill, they just showed up [in Texas] in record numbers,” Chuck Rocha, a strategist who advised Talarico’s campaign, told Playbook. “So what that tells you is you should start talking to them sooner with a persuadable message.” Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, the state’s so-called blue dot which is represented by the retiring Republican Rep. Don Bacon, is a top target for Democrats to flip this year. So too is Colorado’s 8th District, held by incumbent Republican Rep. Gabe Evans. There’s also Arizona’s 6th District, which recently was added to the DCCC’s Red-to-Blue program as Democrats aim to edge out incumbent GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani. All of these districts have an influential minority of Latinos that local strategists say are crucial to any Democratic victory. Enter this crop of Democratic candidates who watched Texas’ results roll in with an eye toward their own races: Denise Powell in Nebraska, Manny Rutinel in Colorado and JoAnna Mendoza in Arizona. In each district, there’s a growing enthusiasm on the ground among Latinos that indicates they’ll be major players in this cycle. “Especially when you have a contested primary in a year like this, every vote matters,” Powell told Playbook in an interview. “And I know that’s something so cliche that we all say and whatever,” she said, but when it comes to Latinos, “We're not taking anything for granted.” Rutinel, one of the top Democrats running in Colorado’s 8th, told Playbook that he’s buoyed by the surge in Latino voters that he’s seen. “This is Colorado's most Latino district. It's drawn for Latino representation,” he said. “And I think folks right now are feeling both scared on the one hand about what's happening with ICE brutality in this district and beyond, and they're also feeling energized to fight back.” And he’s not the only one in the primary watching the Latino vote: former state legislator Shannon Bird has earned the endorsement of top labor unions with Latino membership, her team told Playbook. “We’ve already knocked on thousands of doors in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and attended dozens of community and cultural events organized by local Hispanic institutions,” Bird’s campaign manager Eve Zhurbinskiy said in a statement. Rutinel and his team are leaning into his background to persuade voters ahead of the June 30 election: “I’m the only Latino candidate in this race and bilingual, I have the ability to speak directly to these communities,” he said. Colorado’s 8th was one of the most expensive House races of the 2024 cycle, and it’s 39 percent Latino. Should Rutinel win, he’d face Evans for a Latino vs. Latino showdown.
| | A message from Anthropic: AI helps most with the hardest work, not the simplest. Anthropic analyzed 2 million conversations and found Claude's biggest impact is on complex, college-level tasks. The Economic Index tracks adoption across every state and occupation. See the data | | | | Over in Arizona, even its lower Latino-dominant districts like the 6th are still heavily influenced by the coalition. “This is just a part of the world where one out of every three people is Latino,” a Democratic strategist working on Arizona races told Playbook. It’s a district that contains parts of Tucson, a major Air Force base and more rural on-the-border voters. The path to victory there for a Democratic candidate like Mendoza is a bit closer: her primary isn’t nearly as contentious, but the district is a toss-up. Ciscomani, in the 2022 midterm season, carried the district by fewer than 6,000 votes. A Mendoza and Ciscomani matchup will make for another Latino vs. Latino showdown. But of course, whether it be in Colorado, Arizona or Nebraska, the Democratic nominees will inevitably face a tough battle against Republicans, who’ve made significant inroads with Latinos over the past several years. Republicans are still pointing to those significant margins as they get deeper into the primary season and beyond, and they’re projecting confidence that the margins will stick. “Democrats haven't learned a thing from the historic realignment among Hispanic voters in recent elections,” RNC spokesperson Zach Kraft said in a statement to Playbook. Trump’s agenda of “secure borders, safe communities, and a strong economy resonates with all hardworking Americans and is enabling Republicans to be on offense,” he said. But with Texas delivering such a resounding early sign of Latino engagement for Democrats, the campaigns are growing more bullish that these voters may start trending back in their direction. “We don't treat Latino voters like a turnout target. We treat them like they are a persuasion target,” the Arizona strategist said. Latino voters have historically had abysmal turnout in midterm elections. Many report in polls having never interacted with any campaign. It’s making the recent trends all the more eye-popping, and reaffirming Powell’s campaign strategy to target them in a place like Nebraska’s 2nd, where Latinos in South Omaha make up about 10 percent of the district. Powell is also facing fierce competition to win over the district’s Latinos ahead of the May 12 primary. John Cavanaugh, a state senator and one of the primary front-runners, told Playbook in a statement that he’s also pursuing an “aggressive Latino voter contact plan” building on “prominent Latino endorsements, my work with and for the Hispanic community in the Legislature, and my record of showing up in every part of this district.” The throughline connecting all these campaigns is the significance of the Latino voter margins. Powell said Democratic campaigns like hers were “glued to Texas” to see if the turnout trend would continue to bear out. With all signs pointing to yes, expect the Latino outreach to grow in these must-watch races. “We’re paying close attention to it,” a Democratic strategist working in Nebraska told Playbook. “We’re communicating to [Latino voters] in every way that we possibly can, and making sure they know we need to turn out in this primary.”
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| | | | SUNDAY BEST … — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Democrats’ stance on funding for DHS following Kristi Noem’s exit as secretary, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “What we need is a change in policy, not simply a change in personnel. Now, Kristi Noem was a disgrace. She was totally unqualified. She's a pathological liar. She called American citizens domestic terrorists without any justification whatsoever. But we need dramatic, bold, meaningful and transformational changes to get ICE under control.” — Energy Secretary Chris Wright on rising oil costs and the concerns over the energy sector as the war in the Middle East continues, on “Fox News Sunday”: “Oh, it's fiction. It's right along the line. … We've been planning and talking about this, you know, for quite some time. Energy markets are massively well supplied right now. In fact, the run up in prices has nothing to do with any shortage of barrels of oil or natural gas. It is just fear and perception — the unknown — that this could be some long, you know, drawn-out crisis. But it won't be.” — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on whether Trump will play a role in picking Iran’s next leader and on calls to deescalate, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “We allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs. This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader. They have already elected the Assembly of Experts, and the Assembly of Experts will do the job. It's only the business of the Iranian people, and nobody else's business. … This is not our war. This is not, you know, the war of our choice. This is imposed on us by the United States, by Israel.” — U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz on who should be the next leader of Iran, on ABC’s “This Week”: “Well, as President Trump just said last night that, you know, he wants to see leadership in Iran — and this is just a commonsense approach here. He wants to see leadership in Iran that no longer threatens the United States or our allies in the region. … So, it has to be someone that we can deal with. It has to be someone that doesn’t threaten Americans, attack Americans and try to attack us and our allies at any given chance.” On Trump’s claim that Iran is responsible for the strikes that left civilian casualties at an elementary school: “Well, I’ll leave that to the investigators to determine. We saw — we’ve seen instances, like we saw in Gaza, for example, where Hamas immediately blamed the Israelis. The international community jumped on it, and it turned out it was an errant rocket from Hamas. We’ve seen those kind of incidences in the past.” TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.
| | | | POLITICO Forecast In a fragmented global landscape, understanding how policy and politics intersect across borders is critical. Forecast synthesizes POLITICO’s global reporting to connect key developments and global convenings, giving readers a clearer view of what’s ahead. Subscribe Now. | | | | | 9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR 1. IRAN LATEST: The war in the Middle East, now over a week in, remains in full force, with over 1,000 dead in Iran. Videos of parts of Tehran with massive fires following an attack on their oil storage facilities dominated social media last night. The region is now trading attacks on desalination plants, from Iran to Bahrain, per AP. The war’s first week has been a taste of warfare of the future — and shows little signs of any let up, NYT’s Mark Mazzetti and six colleagues write. Just the start of the war has cost approximately $6 billion. Now, the U.S. and Israel are considering sending special forces into Iran to seize its uranium stockpile deeper into the war, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott scoops. The view from the White House: Trump saluted and paid his respects yesterday to the remains of the first troops killed in Iran returned to the U.S., WaPo’s Michael Birnbaum writes. Trump told reporters he believes the war is a “short excursion” but also left the door open to putting American troops on the ground, if there were a “very good reason.” He denied U.S. involvement in the strike that killed over 165 people in an elementary school and blamed Iran without evidence, per POLITICO’s Ben Johansen. He also dismissed reports that Iran has been using targeting information from Russia, per AP. The view from Iran: As the country escalates its retaliations with attacks on the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia overnight, Iran has picked a new supreme leader, Bloomberg’s Arsalan Shahla and Josh Wingrove report. Tehran has yet to disclose the identity of the new leader, as the U.S. and Israel have threatened to widen their strikes as the war continues. And Tehran isn’t looking to ease tensions either: “If Mr. Trump seeks escalation, it is precisely what our Powerful Armed forces have long prepared for, and what he will get,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, per POLITICO’s Greg Svirnovskiy. The view from Israel: “Netanyahu Finally Got What He Wanted on Iran by Appealing to an Audience of One,” by WSJ’s Dov Lieber: “The campaign, undertaken side by side with the Americans, would transform the region’s strategic landscape with Israel as an unrivaled military power. And it would mark a stunning success for [PM Benjamin Netanyahu], who has long argued that the threat from Tehran isn’t only Israel’s problem but America’s as well. Central to that success was Netanyahu’s belief that the most important audience for Israel’s case against Iran was the American president. … The strategy helped bring the U.S. directly into Israel’s confrontation with Iran. But it also leaves both leaders exposed if the campaign falters.” 2. DON-ROE DOCTRINE: As Trump has increasingly embraced Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez as interim president, opposition leader María Corina Machado has been largely left behind as she prepares her return to Venezuela, WSJ’s Vera Bergengruen and Alex Leary report. Despite her time lobbying top officials in D.C., Machado appears to be playing no active role in Venezuela’s transition. She met with Trump at the White House on Friday, a meeting a White House official told WSJ was “as a courtesy, and at her request.” What’s on Trump’s mind: Trump doubled down on his call for the U.S. military to crack down on drug cartels in Central America, signing a new proclamation yesterday that authorizes “lethal military force” to destroy the cartel networks and asking Latin American countries to help at his Shield of the Americas Summit yesterday, POLITICO’s Megan Messerly reports. The event was the first public appearance for ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in her new role. 3. CUTTING DEEP: “Judge says Kari Lake’s tenure atop US media agency was improper, voids actions as ‘acting CEO,’” by POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Ben Johansen: “Kari Lake was illegally empowered to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media — the federal agency that oversees Voice of America — and her actions in that role were illegitimate, a federal judge ruled Saturday. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth concluded that Lake was ineligible to serve as USAGM’s acting CEO … Lamberth said any actions Lake took in that four-month timeframe must be treated as ‘void,’ including an Aug. 29 reduction in USAGM’s workforce.” 4. EAT OR BE EATEN: “Trump’s food industry friends are warning him RFK Jr.’s agenda is bad for business,” by POLITICO’s Amanda Chu: “Since Trump teamed up with [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] to win the 2024 election and made him Health secretary, the GOP’s traditional allies in the food industry have mostly stood down as Kennedy called their products poison and blamed them for chronic disease. They aren’t standing down anymore. … In a new video and report titled ‘Manufacturers Feed America’ shared first with POLITICO, NAM warns the food industry is ‘under increasing strain’ and federal and state rules targeting ingredients ‘risk undermining the system.’”
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| | | | 5. FIVE YEARS LATER: “Long-delayed Jan. 6 plaque honoring police installed in Capitol at 4 a.m.,” by WaPo’s Olivia George: “In the predawn hours Saturday, around 4 a.m., staff with the Architect of the Capitol bolted the bronze plaque to a granite wall near an entrance on the west front, close to where the armed crowd had amassed and scaled scaffolding set up for the inauguration. … There was no announcement, no ceremony, no news cameras — just two employees on their routine overnight shift working while most of Washington slept. The quiet installation, which Congress ordered completed by mid-March 2023, marks the latest turn in the contested effort to remember Jan. 6, as Trump continues to reframe the riot as patriotic and the rioters as victims of a weaponized justice system.” 6. IMMIGRATION FILES: ICE agents earlier this week detained Spanish-language journalist Estefany Maria Rodriguez Florez, who’d been reporting on immigration arrests in Tennessee, CNN’s Elise Hammond and colleagues report. She’s the latest Latino journalist to be swept up in enforcement operations. She has a pending asylum case and is married to a U.S. citizen. … An appeals court dealt the administration another blow late Friday, declining to allow DHS to terminate temporary protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, per Reuters’ Nate Raymond. Must-read investigation: WSJ’s Brenna Smith and colleagues tracked the cases of U.S. citizens who’ve been accused of being dissenters and “agitators” by DHS, yet none have been convicted at trial. 7. THE CRENSHAW CRASH: Dan Crenshaw had the makings of a Republican star when he first got to Congress — and seemed to thrive on the social media ecosystem. But all his talents for visibility made him a target as he broke ranks, suffering a defeat in his own primary on Tuesday that spelled an end to his time representing Texas in Congress, POLITICO Magazine’s Catherine Kim writes. “Crenshaw’s downfall is in part a cautionary tale for the politicians looking to rise quickly in today’s political-media ecosystem, as well as a counterpoint to the idea that all press might be good press,” Catherine writes. “There is an art to conquering the internet, and even then, the formula is constantly changing.” 8. HOT ON THE LEFT: “The left’s housing civil war is ending,” by POLITICO’s Liam Dillon and Janaki Chadha: “Over the past decade, two movements on the left have emerged to explain the housing crisis punishing America’s big cities. One has branded the real-estate business as a villain, blaming realtors, landlords and developers for soaring costs that force people from their apartments. The other has pointed the finger at homeowners for blocking new construction in their neighborhoods, limiting supply and raising prices. … But now, a pair of ascendant politicians in the country’s largest metropolises are asking, ‘Why not both?’” 9. VIRGINIA IS FOR … WATCHERS?: As the public battle to sway Virginia voters to enact a new gerrymander that could net Democrats more seats in Congress enters its final stretch, Republicans in the state are airing frustrations that former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, one of their biggest voices, has largely sat out the fight, WSJ’s Olivia Beavers reports. “A group of House Republicans approached Youngkin in November, shortly before he left office, and implored him to help campaign against the voter referendum … Some who attended the meeting last year with Youngkin said they came away frustrated, while others characterized it as more an opening salvo.” Youngkin is “just missing in action,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) told WSJ.
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➡️ Get on the Invite List | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — “As D.C.’s mayor race heats up, stark contrasts emerge in the two front-runners,” by WaPo’s Meagan Flynn and Jenny Gathright: “Former council member Kenyan R. McDuffie, who entered the race in January, just last week released a campaign platform through a news release — nearly two months after his top opponent for the Democratic nomination, council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), drew hundreds of supporters at a party at Howard Theatre to announce hers. … McDuffie, meanwhile, has been doing more intimate events such as meet-and-greets at schools and private homes.” PLAYBOOK ARTS SECTION — “A Washington Museum Zeros In on Presidential Scandal. From 50 Years Ago,” by NYT’s Alexander Nazaryan: “A pop-up version of the museum opened late last year in an empty commercial space in the Watergate’s underground shopping arcade … [Keith] Krom had planned to close the pop-up at the end of 2025 but has extended the show through April. … His goal is to raise a few million dollars for a permanent space for the museum in late spring or early summer, after a consultancy, the Design Minds … completes a feasibility study.” MEDIA MOVES — POLITICO is adding Veronica Tejera as deputy head of audio/video, Caitlin Hartman as senior producer for “The Conversation,” and Blair Guild as senior video producer, and elevating Saga Ringmar to the “Brussels Playbook Podcast” and Nirmal Mulaikal to senior producer of the “Energy Podcast.” Tejera and Guild previously worked at WaPo, and Hartman previously worked at NBC. POLITICO has also added Kara Ellis as an audience editor. She most recently worked at McClatchy. SATURDAY BIRTHDAYS: Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) … Guy Benson … former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar … Kristan King Nevins … Josh Holly … Mike Watson … Noreen Nielsen … Focal Point Strategy Group’s Ryan Thomas … Savannah Behrmann … Carol Danko … Elad Strohmayer … Alan Neuhauser … Matt Higginson … former Reps. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) and Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) … Anne Farris Rosen … Myron Belkind … Nate Evans … Matt Handverger … NBC’s Matt Glassman … Mark Schuermann … Anthony Bellotti … Sam Markstein of the Republican Jewish Coalition … American Conservation Coalition’s Zack Abnet … Jordan Colvin … Gretchen Opper … Raymond Rodriguez … Joe Fadness of Michael Best Strategies … SKDK’s Jacob Long … Eliza VanZoeren … BCW’s Katie Nerantzis … Josh Cohen-Doron SUNDAY BIRTHDAYS: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) and Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) … NBC’s Lester Holt … Adrian Saenz … Taylor Lustig … Evan Feigenbaum … Drew Nirenberg … Micah Barbour … Shanon Henry … Sarah Burke … Jeff Sonderman … Maggie Moore of Foreign Policy … AARP’s Ashley Wolos … former Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) … David Malpass … former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) … POLITICO’s Emily Solomon and Andrew Holmes … Stephen Perkins of the American Conservation Coalition … New Heights Communications’ Morgan Snyder … Grace Evangelista … Robert Wolf … DOD’s Zach Emanuel … House Majority PAC’s Katarina Flicker 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 editor Giuseppe Macri and deputy editor Garrett Ross.
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