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By Eli Okun |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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Oregon state Sen. Christine Drazan is keeping the governor’s race close for the second straight cycle. | Claire Rush/AP |
AGAINST THE GRAIN: Polling indicates a blue wave is likely to crest tomorrow. But some Republicans running in Democratic territory could tighten the margins at the local and state levels — or even angle for a surprise victory. From Oregon to Minnesota to New York, blue states where Democratic leaders have poor or middling approval ratings have opened the door for Republicans to mount some unexpectedly competitive challenges. In some cases, locally specific scandals are weighing on Democrats’ political fortunes. In others where Democrats have long held the reins of state power, they could suffer from a generalized anti-incumbent backlash in a moment of deep voter discontent. In the end, any Republican hopes could get swamped by the national pendulum moving against President Donald Trump. But some analysts are watching closely to see whether the swing is weaker in deep blue states, especially where Democrats have unified control of government, than elsewhere. It’s the counterintuitive inverse of Dem inroads this cycle deep into red states, where some voters look readier than ever to punish Republicans. “Oregonians know that what’s happening here at home is not serving them well. It’s local issues,” state Sen. Christine Drazan, the Republican who’s keeping the Oregon governor’s race close for the second straight cycle, told Playbook. “We have uniquely unpopular local electeds, in particular [Gov.] Tina Kotek.” Drazan has narrowly trailed or led in the race’s relatively scant public polling, buoyed by Kotek’s unpopularity and a general sense among some Oregonians that the state is struggling, from affordability to education to homelessness. Voters overwhelmingly sided with the GOP this spring in rejecting a gas tax increase. Like many blue-state Republicans, Drazan still has the odds against her: Republicans haven’t won the governor’s mansion since 1982, though remarkably, Democrats haven’t cracked 51% in a gubernatorial race since 1998. In Minnesota, Michele Tafoya has managed to keep the Senate race against Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan competitive — largely because of the state’s major welfare fraud scandal, which already torpedoed Gov. Tim Walz’s reelection bid. “From the time I got into this campaign back in January to today, fraud is always the first word out of people’s mouths when I talk to voters,” Tafoya said, “No matter where I am, it’s always the first thing.”
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Raphael Warnock on the midterms and Democrats’ path forward In the latest episode of On the Road, Jonathan Martin sits down with Sen. Raphael Warnock in Atlanta to discuss the battle for the Senate, Democrats’ prospects across the South and what he believes the party needs to build a lasting majority.
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Voter anger over the management of a bridge closure took out Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee in a primary this summer, and his incumbent lieutenant governor, Sabina Matos, has had to fend off a strong general-election challenge from Republican John Loughlin. Democratic pollster Adam Carlson, founding partner of Zenith Research, said he’s seeing data that voters in states with Democratic trifectas blame local/state leaders for rising utility costs and high taxes in particular. “People seem to be able to hold two thoughts in their head at once: Trump is bad … but not all of my problems are his doing,” Carlson said, hypothesizing that this economic frustration could be the culprit if Democratic margins underwhelm tomorrow in blue states relative to others. “It wouldn’t shock me if they try and send a message at a local or state level.” Republicans working on state-level races are hopeful they can be the beneficiaries. Edith Jorge-Tuñón, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, told Playbook that even as they focus on states with split control, their most immediate goal in deep-blue America is to pick off a handful of seats that could break Democratic supermajorities in places like Salem and Albany. “The bigger thing we’ve seen in a lot of the modeling and the polling is there’s [an] overwhelming sense that people have that nobody’s listening to them, no one cares,” Jorge-Tuñón said. But but but: If the midterms turn into a rout, a Democratic wave could yet wash away GOP dreams of gains in enemy territory. And the latest polling in races like Minnesota Senate and Rhode Island lieutenant governor show Democrats starting to pull away after months of neck-and-neck numbers — an indication, if surveys are correct, that their voters may ultimately come home in the final stretch. Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com. FOLLOW ELECTION NIGHT WITH POLITICO: Track what’s happening across the country and what it means for the next two years at POLITICO.com and in our new mobile app. Then tune in at 9 p.m. for POLITICO Elections Live, where Alex Burns, JMart and Playbook’s own Dasha, Adam and Will break down the results in a show built for people who want the story beyond the numbers.
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6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. COMING TO A HEAD: The Trump administration escalated its fight over California voter rolls all the way to the Supreme Court today, filing an eleventh-hour request for the justices to force 20,000 ballots to be segregated from the rest. Those ballots — from people the administration alleges may be non-citizens, despite a general lack of evidence for its voter-fraud claims — place California at the center of a legal fight that could transform the federal role in elections, if lower courts are overruled. More from POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney 2. WEAPONIZATION WATCH: The Justice Department suffered a beatdown today in federal court over its criminal case against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, which a judge tossed out and said “cannot be described as anything other than weaponization.” The comments from Zia Faruqui, which came at an unusually early stage and in a charged hearing, junked the Trump administration’s allegations that the former top FBI officials had lied about a Hunter Biden laptop investigation. Faruqui accused DOJ leaders of failing to establish probable cause, rushing the case, making mistakes and being motivated by politics ahead of the election. More from Reuters 3. THE ART OF THE DEAL: Iran’s foreign ministry said it could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within as quick a time frame as two days — if the U.S. agreed to demands the Trump administration seems unlikely to indulge, per the NYT. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also said today that the country’s supreme leader had given the government greater powers to pursue peace talks with the U.S., per Bloomberg. The somewhat positive signals about negotiations pushed oil markets down, after weeks of signals that the combatants might renew more intense strikes after the election. 4. THIS KEEPS HAPPENING: Another former staffer for Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) seems to be linked to an X account that has opposed democracy and civil rights laws and called for political violence, WaPo’s Emily Kennard and Liz Goodwin scooped. Jonathon Hatzistefanou, now a staffer for Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), denied he’s behind the account — but its controversial posts immediately started to get deleted after WaPo called him, and all its biographical information matches him. 5. TRAIL MIX: Sabato’s Crystal Ball published its last midterm race ratings, eliminating all toss-ups and making a call for each close race as leaning Democratic or Republican. The result: a final prediction of a 239-196 Democratic House, a 53-47 Democratic Senate and Dems holding 28 governorships to Republicans’ 22. Notably, Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman also shifted the under-the-radar Louisiana Senate race from likely Republican to leaning Republican. 6. TREND TO WATCH: “The Democratic Party Is Slowly Losing Jewish Support in New York,” by NYT’s Benjamin Oreskes: “Much of the drift away from Democrats has come from Zionist Jews, who fear that the party’s growing opposition to Israel is a betrayal of the Jewish community and can lead to antisemitic acts. At the same time, there are younger and more progressive Jews in New York who are frustrated with the reluctance of most Democratic leaders to take meaningful action against Israel. Taken together, the agitation could eventually spell trouble for Democrats.”
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A message from OpenAI:  
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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ALL IN THE FAMILY — “Trump Family-Linked Mining Venture Aims to Go Public in $2 Billion Deal,” by WSJ’s David Uberti: “A tungsten miner with ties to two of President Trump’s sons is preparing to go public, the latest twist for a business that has courted both government funding and Democrats’ scrutiny. The company that will be known as Kaz Resources said it plans to sell shares to the public next year through a direct U.S. listing, giving Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump a stake in its project in Kazakhstan.” PLAYBOOK ARTS SECTION — The Kennedy Center may be dark, but the Kennedy Center Honors go on: This year’s honorees will be Paul Anka, David Foster, Andy Garcia, David Mamet and Barbara Mandrell. The event will take place at Capital One Arena on Dec. 7. More from Variety IN MEMORIAM — Richard Sullivan, a longtime Democratic fundraiser and staffer, died of cancer recently at 62. “For over 40 years, Richard worked or volunteered for Democratic candidates and public servants,” including working for Dick Gephardt, the DSCC, the DNC and the DGA. His full obituary TRANSITIONS — Erik Baptist is now SVP of legal strategy at SBA Pro-Life America. He most recently worked at Alliance Defending Freedom and is an EPA alum. … Heather (Fischer) Panton is now president of Panton Equity Partners. She most recently worked at Thomson Reuters, and is a Trump White House and McCain Institute alum. 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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