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By Erin Doherty and Ali Bianco |
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With help from Eli Okun BREAKING: “Former Southern Poverty Law Center CFO arrested on fraud charges,” by CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand: Heidi Beirich “has been arrested in California and for her alleged role in overseeing secret payments to informants inside of White supremacist groups, one of whom she was allegedly living with and had a romantic relationship with at the time.”
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THE CATCH-UP |
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President Donald Trump waves from the stairs of Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on Tuesday, Aug. 11. | Luis M. Alvarez/AP |
POLL POSITION: A crucial share of President Donald Trump’s own supporters say the biggest failure of his second term is also the issue that matters most to them: the cost of living. New results from The POLITICO Poll reveal an urgent warning sign for Trump as Republicans try to keep his winning coalition intact ahead of November — and new indications of wear among the very voters that helped elect him in 2024. The findings underscore the political challenge facing Trump and Republicans across the midterm map as they try to quell frustration over pinched pocketbooks, including the spiraling gas prices triggered by the ongoing Iran war. The issue cutting most sharply against Trump is also the one voters — including his own — say matters most. And it has been for months. “For gas prices, it's hard to find a more visible or salient indicator of prices than them, right?” said one Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape. “I think voters, they're drawing … a pretty direct line between a closed Strait of Hormuz because of a war, to higher gas prices, and you know I don't know if there’s a way around that right now.” The cost of living remains the top issue across the board, including a 54 percent majority of Trump voters. But many of those voters are sour over his handling of it — particularly those who backed Trump in 2024 but do not identify as MAGA. A 41 percent plurality of non-MAGA Trump voters said the rising cost of living, including gasoline and energy bills, is one of the main failures of Trump’s second term, while another 28 percent said the economy generally. Just 11 percent of this group says Trump’s handling of the economy — and 14 percent say improving the cost of living — are some of the biggest successes of his presidency.
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That comes as voters across the board — 56 percent — also say concern over the cost of living is one of the top issues facing the country. Even Trump’s most loyal base is torn. While 33 percent of MAGA Trump voters say the economy is one of the president’s biggest successes, 26 percent cited the cost of living as one of his main failures. “Republican voters need to be reminded they need something to cheer for here,” the Republican strategist said. Instead, Trump’s supporters overwhelmingly point to border security and immigration as one of his biggest successes. Nearly half — 46 percent — of MAGA Trump voters cite border security, as do 39 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters, underscoring the durability of an issue that has long been one of Trump’s political strengths. But immigration appears far less central to voter priorities than the economy. Just 34 percent of MAGA Trump voters and 24 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters say illegal immigration being too high is one of the top issues facing the country — roughly half the share who cite cost of living as a top concern. That juxtaposition creates a political hurdle for Trump and Republicans heading into the midterms: His voters give him the most credit on an issue that is not core to their concerns, while faulting him on the one that is. One bit of relief: The annual inflation rate cooled slightly last month, down to 3.4 percent from 3.5 percent in June, in the latest consumer price index report, per POLITICO’s Victoria Guida. The slowdown came as negotiations in the Iran war provided a brief respite for gas prices. Core prices had a modest increase. These inflation numbers, coming on the heels of a weak jobs report, could help reduce pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates. (That would also ease the political squeeze for Chair Kevin Warsh, as Trump strongly favors lowering rates.) Good Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM, and a shout-out to POLITICO’s polling ace Erin Doherty for today’s afternoon read. Get in touch: edoherty@politico.com and abianco@politico.com.
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A message from AHIP: Congress enacted the No Surprises Act to protect consumers from surprise medical bills and to lower healthcare costs. But egregious abuse of the law by certain private equity-backed providers is causing billions in wasteful spending and Americans are footing the bill. Policy action is needed to stop this windfall. Learn more. |
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6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — On Wisconsin: Following David Crowley’s victory in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary over DSA-backed Francesca Hong, the Democratic Governors Association is racing to bolster the case that Crowley can take on GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany in the general election, Playbook’s Irie Sentner scoops. A new poll, conducted by GBAO for Protect Our Wisconsin before the primary, shows Crowley with a three-point lead over Tiffany, 47 percent to 44 percent. The poll surveyed 800 likely general election voters, and notably gives Crowley a four-point edge among independent voters: 44 percent to Tiffany’s 40 percent. See the full polling memo Wisconsin Democrats are hopeful Crowley will give them a better shot than Hong would have at flipping not only a competitive congressional seat but many key state legislative districts, which overlap more with Crowley’s likeliest path to victory than Hong’s, The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reports. Flipping the state legislature — still a tall order — could potentially tee up Democrats to undo a congressional map that strongly favors Republicans. More takeaways from last night: Reading the tea leaves after a long night of primary election results, there are some bigger trends to glean. Among the most significant: TV ads still matter, POLITICO’s Jessica Piper writes. Former MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell lost the GOP primary for Minnesota governor, after spending zero on ads. And Hong significantly underperformed polls and expectations, losing her primary after spending around $100,000 on ads and $135,000 on digital. Crowley spent a combined $3.3 million. The anti-incumbency wave: The trend of older Dems losing their seats is holding. Rep. John Larson losing his reelection bid to his younger challenger, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, makes him the seventh House Democrat ousted this cycle, Axios’ Andrew Solender notes. And what everyone is talking about: The internet is calling it a big polling flop, after progressives walked into the night confident and saw their expected leads close. But the reality is more nuanced, especially for such a chaotic race as Wisconsin saw toward the end, POLITICO’s Andrew Howard writes. “In a never-ending news cycle, any fresh data is quick to draw eyes and make headlines, like it or not (I’m looking at you, social media aggregators). Still, the recent misses — asterisks aside — are making operatives and reporters alike question their usefulness ahead of wide open presidential primaries in 2028,” Andrew writes. 2. ON THAT PLANE SWAP: Some of Trump’s closest aides also left Air Force One and secretly boarded a catering truck that shuttled them to a smaller jet before taking off, separated from other senior officials and the White House press corps, WaPo’s Dan Lamothe and Cat Zakrzewski report. That includes Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, who all joined the president. But while WaPo reports no Cabinet officials joined Trump, CBS’ Jennifer Jacobs reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did in fact switch planes, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remained on the decoy, aware that Trump had switched planes. Behind the threat: The possible assassination attempt emerged as he headed to the last day of the NATO summit in Turkey, with U.S. intelligence picking up a threat of a surface-to-air missile targeting Air Force One and that the Iranians knew where Trump was staying in Ankara, NYT’s Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman report. Trump told reporters last night that he switched planes at the direction of the Secret Service, claiming, “the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” per Reuters.
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Catch up on On the Road with Jonathan Martin Season 2 is underway. Jonathan Martin sits down with key political players in the places that shaped them for conversations on power, strategy, 2028 and what comes next for American politics.
Watch now. |
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3. WAR REPORT: The state of negotiations on the Iran war are reminiscent of the Iraq war in the mid-2000s, when the conflict had no end in sight. Yet U.S. officials are worried Iran could have an even bigger global impact of economic pain and challenges to American credibility, POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi writes in her latest column. “When I asked current and former U.S. officials what had to be done to win, the most common first response was a primal scream of sorts that translated into, ‘We never should have started this war.’ That was followed by: ‘What do you mean by ‘win’?’” State of play: Iran and the U.S. remain at a stalemate, with no progress in talks to revive an interim peace deal, per Reuters. Meanwhile Iran is reorganizing its top military ranks and shifting to a more offensive posture, in a signal they may be preparing for a more protracted regional conflict, per Bloomberg. 4. THE MAINE LINE: The Senate Leadership Fund’s deluge in the Maine Senate race has begun: They launched their first ad today slamming Democrat Troy Jackson as “just another dirty politician,” while their sister organization One Nation ups its investment to $30 million, Semafor’s Burgess Everett scoops. It’s one part of SLF’s $42 million fall campaign in the state. 5. THE NEW DHS: “How Trump turned Homeland Security into an engine of his voter fraud crusade,” by CNN’s Gabe Cohen and colleagues: “[DHS Secretary Markwayne] Mullin has accelerated efforts to make the department a central force in Trump’s crusade against purported widespread election fraud. DHS has pushed states to share their voter rolls for audit and vowed to withhold grant funding from those that refuse to adopt a broader set of election reforms. … The department has leaned for investigative work on one of its federal agencies – Homeland Security Investigations – an arm of [ICE] that typically tackles major crimes like human trafficking, drug smuggling and child exploitation, not voter fraud.” The deported: Two in-depth features out today tell remarkable stories of two Cubans deported from the U.S. to limbo in countries where they have no connections. NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery traveled to crime-ridden Guayaquil, Ecuador, to profile Rogelio Bolufé, who was sent there with false DHS-created documents. And the NYT Magazine’s Nicholas Casey writes about Roberto Mosquera, a former Mariel boatlift kid who took an attempted murder plea deal as a young man but then became a born-again father of four. He’s now been sent to a maximum-security prison in Eswatini, perhaps indefinitely, without charges, appeals or a way out. 6. LIVE FROM NEW YORK: The latest Siena University poll has New York Gov. Kathy Hochul leading GOP challenger Bruce Blakeman by 10 points, in the first major poll of likely voters ahead of the midterms, POLITICO’s Bill Mahoney reports. That said, Hochul is underperforming compared to the generic congressional ballot, where Democrats have a 16-point lead. But there was bipartisan support in the poll for Hochul’s push for a one-year moratorium on data centers.
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A message from AHIP:  
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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HEADS UP — U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro has convened a special grand jury, overseen by Steven Vandervelden, in an unusual move “that officials say could pave the way for federal prosecutors in the nation’s capital to investigate some of its biggest and most controversial cases,” WaPo’s Perry Stein and Salvador Rizzo scooped. Vandervelden steered the investigation of Jerome Powell, among others, and some legal experts noted that the special grand jury comes as Pirro faces intense pressure from Trump to prosecute his enemies. BIG SPENDERS — “Trump administration set to spend at least $900 million on White House construction,” by WaPo’s Jonathan O’Connell and Sarah Blaskey: “The Trump administration plans to spend at least $900 million for construction projects on the White House grounds, a significantly larger price tag than has been previously reported and one that would be covered primarily by taxpayers … Confidential contracts and related planning documents indicate that the administration plans to use money in that account for White House ‘modernization projects’ — the administration’s term for President Donald Trump’s planned overhaul of the property, at the center of which is a gilded East Wing ballroom.” MEDIA MOVES — WaPo’s opinions team is adding Justin Colman as a social media editor, Clare Ramirez as a designer, Cole Murphy as assistant op-ed editor and Thomas McKenna as a fact-checker. Colman previously worked at the Dispatch, Ramirez at The Hollywood Reporter and Murphy at the WSJ. TRANSITION — Newt McKissick is now a senior adviser at WestExec Advisors. He previously worked in the Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit. ENGAGED — Ian Parish, campaign manager for Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), and Sophia Fairman, who works in government relations, got engaged Saturday at Burnside Farms in Virginia. They met while working on Kim Taylor’s Virginia state delegate campaign. Pic … Another pic BONUS BIRTHDAY: Zaina Adamu of the House China committee 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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