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Data center fight hits Georgia politics
Data centers have become a boxy, hulking flashpoint across Georgia and the nation heading into the midterms — and the backlash is spreading fast across red and blue states.
A political vibe shift: The Senate is suddenly in play
Republicans entered 2026 all but certain they'd hold the chamber. Six months out, that certainty is fading.
Louisiana Senate showdown tests MAHA’s political power
Movement leaders' efforts to sway the midterms, starting with defeating Sen. Bill Cassidy, will help determine whether MAHA outlasts Trump
Campaigns raise money for and against girls' sports, parents' rights issues on Nov. ballot
We are already gearing up for a busy midterm election that will include at least two statewide issues on Washington’s ballot.Let's Go Washington collected signa
Curing U.S. Health Care, Part I
In 2008, much to their own surprise, leading Democrats unified around a program of major health care reform. Policy wonks had spent years developing the concepts behind what eventually became Obamacare; big Democratic victories in the 2006 midterms and the prospect of controlling both Congress and the presidency made it possible to imagine turning those ideas into reality. During the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama advocated similar plans, based on those ideas, for expanding insurance coverage. And it happened! The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. When it was fully implemented in 2014, millions of Americans got health insurance: Impressive as the raw numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story. Before the ACA, even upper-middle-class Americans often found it impossible to get health insurance if they had pre-existing medical conditions. Many Americans were trapped in jobs they wanted to leave but couldn’t for fear of losing their employment-based coverage. Meanwhile, dire predictions from the usual suspects about runaway costs proved wrong. In fact, overall U.S. medical spending has grown much more slowly since the ACA was enacted than before. But the U.S., alone among advanced nations, still falls far short of providing universal health care. As you can see from the chart above, 8 percent of the population was still uninsured in 2024, a number that is set to rise over the next two years as a result of Republican policies. True, many of the uninsured in 2024 were undocumented immigrants, who we don’t try to cover. But there are still a lot of uninsured. Moreover, a significant number of Americans who have health insurance are in fact underinsured. As a result, they are at risk of incurring devastating healthcare costs and are sometimes forced to forgo needed care. This number is set to rise sharply in the next two years as a result of Republican policies adopted under Donald Trump. And not only is the U.S. unique among advanced countries in its under-provision of health care coverage, it also incurs by far the world’s highest healthcare costs per capita. So now may well be a good time to get behind a new push for major health reform — an effort, if you like, to finish the job begun under Obama. Today’s primer is devoted to the economics of health reform. During his failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump famously complained, “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” Actually, we did know — and it’s not that complicated. Health economists understand the principles very well. And because health policy varies greatly among advanced nations, we know a lot about what works and what doesn’t. This will be the first in a series about health reform. Beyond the paywall I’ll address the following: 1. Why markets can’t be trusted to deliver healthcare 2. Routes to universal healthcare 3. What works? In a follow-up post I’ll discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and possible paths forward for the United States.
Arizona midterms begin with spotlight on largest county's controversial election system
Much of the political spotlight this election year in Arizona has been focused on the office that runs elections in Maricopa County, the state’s largest. Republican Justin Heap is overseeing elections in the Phoenix-area and he's an election skeptic.
A big midterms year in Arizona kicks off with the state's largest county embroiled in election drama
Much of the political spotlight this election year in Arizona has been focused on the office that runs elections in Maricopa County, the state’s largest | WWJ Newsradio 950
A big midterms year in Arizona kicks off with the state's largest county embroiled in election drama
Much of the political spotlight this election year in Arizona has been focused on the office that runs elections in Maricopa County, the state’s largest | KNSS Radio
The Doctor Will Seek Your Vote Now
Dozens of Democratic doctors are running for office in the midterms, including some spurred by opposition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his anti-vaccine stance.
High gas prices become another midterm warning sign for Republicans
In a midterm election that will likely be decided by how voters feel about the economy, Republicans are grappling with how to discuss the war in Iran and its impact on fuel costs.
In Phoenix, Trump Eyes Lower Gas Prices and Frets About the Midterms
President Trump told a crowd of supporters that the price of oil and gas was coming down, part of an effort in recent days to present a rosier picture of the nearly two-month-long Iran war.
Republican Nerves Are Fraying Ahead of Midterm Elections
High gasoline prices, the war in Iran and recent Democratic victories are fueling the angst.
Judge sides with Arizona election official in ruling that could affect midterms voting
The top election official in Arizona's most populous county will get more authority in running elections after a judge sided with his office in a prolonged legal fight with the local board that shares responsibility for overseeing the vote.
Hundreds of Candidates Put the “Science” in “Political Science”
More U.S. scientists are running for state and federal office in the U.S. midterm elections than ever before, Nature reports.
Whole Hog Politics: A Supreme Court vacancy could remake Senate midterms
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audie…
Zohran Mamdani reflects on his first 100 days as NYC mayor, and what else is left to do
Through his first 100 days as mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has focused on “pothole politics” — a blend of high-level legislative wins and intense focus on everyday essential services that keep the city running. The 34-year-old mayor has delivered on progressive campaign promises, from more funding for child care to new taxes on the ultrawealthy. He views his government as a model for how Democrats can deliver on policies that benefit the working class.In this episode of NPR’s Newsmakers, Mamdani sits down with host Leila Fadel at City Hall to discuss his first 100 days in office, his approach to working with President Trump and the message he believes Democrats should deliver during this year’s midterm elections.NPR's Newsmakers is where you'll find NPR's biggest interviews. We post new episodes as soon as they're available -- any day of the week. Follow or watch the show wherever you get podcasts.Newsmakers relies on supporters who value independent journalism and a free press. Join NPR+ today to support our work and get perks from the podcasts you trust. Go to plus.npr.org.
States rush to redraw U.S. House districts ahead of the November midterm elections
Redistricting usually happens once a decade, but President Donald Trump sparked a mid-decade redistricting battle last year while calling on Texas Republicans to redraw their districts for partisan advantage. California Democrats reciprocated, and other states soon followed.
Talarico Leads a Democratic Cash Surge: 7 Takeaways From 2026 Filings
Democrats in key Senate races out-raised their Republican rivals, but super PACs on the right are poised to play a powerful role in the midterms, new campaign finance filings showed.
White House sidesteps vaccine skeptics in potential CDC leadership reset
A new team could mark a shift away from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unpopular vaccine agenda ahead of the midterms.
Iran war has some Republicans worried their chances of keeping the House are slipping away
The White House had long circled Tax Day as the unofficial start to a critical midterm campaign meant to highlight how much money the administration was putting back in voters’ pockets.
House Democrats attempt anti-corruption message to gain traction against Trump
Days after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was ousted by an opposition campaign with an anti-corruption message, Democrats want to try the same playbook against President Donald Trump before the midterm elections.
In group chats and meetings, Republicans are privately petrified the Iran war could cost them the midterms
Many Republican lawmakers and strategists told NBC News they worry the party has little to run on. “Right now, the voters don’t see a message or a strategy,” a Trump pollster said.
Trump predicts oil prices will drop ‘tremendously’ despite recent surge
President Donald Trump sits down with FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo to discuss escalating Middle East tensions, his warning to Iran on nuclear weapons and why he believes gas prices will drop ahead of the midterms.
GOP faces rising political tides on Iran, affordability in midterm year
Republicans are facing an increasingly difficult political environment in a midterm election year where their majorities in the House and Senate are on the line. The Iran war has been a drag on Pre…
Worried about the midterms, Republicans mobilize rural Virginia voters against redistricting
Republican groups are mounting an intensifying, 11th-hour campaign to mobilize rural voters ahead of Virginia’s April 21 referendum to redraw its US House maps. At stake are as many as four US House seats Democrats want to redraw in their favor for the midterms. To maximize Democratic advantage, the map would put wealthy Washington, DC, suburbs in the same districts as farm communities 90 miles away, including in one misshapen district nicknamed the “lobster claw.”
Young voters shun Trump, plan to vote blue in midterms, poll says
With the midterm primary season underway, a new national poll is measuring how the nation's youngest voters feel about Trump and the November election.
Trump's Iran war deepens the GOP's midterm challenges: From the Politics Desk
Plus, Trump vs. the pope.
Stryker enters competitive IVL space with acquisition of Amplitude Vascular Systems
Stryker, one of the world’s largest medtech companies, has agreed to acquire a rising name in the field of intravascular lithotripsy.
White House says it’s boosting affordability through physician reforms
A new report distills the Trump administration’s strategy as officials jockey to shape health care messages ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Democrat-Leaning Plan Takes Aim At Health Insurers With Proposed New Regulations
Healthcare initiatives being proposed like Patients' Bill of Rights offer a roadmap for Democrats’ priorities, with midterms looming and a presidential election in 2028.
As Iran war drags on, midterm forecasts for Republicans get even worse
The GOP was already bracing for a tough election, but with the ceasefire in doubt, gas prices are likely to stay high, and voters’ economic outlook is dismal.
Trump Says Gas Prices Might Not Drop By Midterms, Highlighting G.O.P. Peril
The president has sent mixed messages on how long he expects costs to be high. Some in his party voiced fresh concern after his comments on Sunday.
Trump says gas prices could be same or 'a little bit higher' before midterms
One of the sticking points in the negotiations held in Islamabad has been Iran's stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz.
Politics: Iowa gubernatorial race shifts to 'toss-up'
The nonpartisan political prediction source Cook Political Report has classified Iowa’s 2026 gubernatorial race as a “toss-up” ahead of this November’s midterms.
Fury dominates Makhmudov and calls out Joshua next
Tyson Fury marks his return to the heavyweight mix with a composed points win over Arslanbek Makhmudo, before immediately turning ringside to call out Anthony Joshua.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
Melania Trump’s Epstein statement stunned White House aides but was in keeping with a first lady who does her own thing
With war raging and midterms on the horizon, the White House seemed to have finally shaken the Jeffrey Epstein saga that plagued the first year of Donald Trump’s second term. But for first lady Melania Trump, the Epstein story was still all consuming.
Trump Moves Top Aide James Blair to Political Operation Ahead of Midterms
Mr. Blair will “lead the charge from the outside,” the president said on social media. The move comes as Republicans are bracing for a potentially difficult November election.
Trump Moves Top Aide James Blair to Political Operation Ahead of Midterm
Mr. Blair will “lead the charge from the outside,” the president said on social media. The move comes as Republicans are bracing for a potentially difficult November election.
Burned Before, Democrats Abruptly Revive the Idea of Impeaching Trump
Democrats in Congress have assiduously avoided talk of a third impeachment of President Trump, concerned that it would distract from their midterm campaign message. That tide seems to have turned.
Why many Trump-supporting business owners hope Democrats win the midterms
If the Democrats control Congress, we will have a deadlocked government. And business owners like me will breathe a sigh of relief. We could use a couple of years of inaction to actually focus on o…
NHL Playoffs: What’s next for the Penguins?
The Pittsburgh Penguins completed a double whammy yesterday, not only did they clinch a playoff spot for the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs as a result of their victory, they also clinched second place in the Metropolitan Division courtesy of the Philadelphia Flyers loss. That makes for the best of days. What’s next for the Pens? […]
Calls to Impeach Trump Collide With Reluctant Democratic Leadership
Democratic leaders are urging against efforts within the party to impeach Trump before the midterms, say those involved in the debate
'We got our butts kicked.' Republicans rattled by Democratic momentum ahead of midterms
Simmering discontent could boomerang on Republicans just two years after Trump harnessed voters' anger with his comeback presidential campaign.
What one campaign rally in Michigan reveals about young voters ahead of midterm elections
What one campaign rally in Michigan reveals about young voters ahead of the midterm elections
Many young voters say politics isn’t delivering and they want candidates who offer something new, not just opposition
Greg Gutfeld: Democrats deemed health and fitness ‘problematic’
‘The Five’ co-hosts analyze HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s midterm travel push to boost support for the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ initiative.
Who Is Funding the 2026 Midterm Elections? A Lot of the Money Is Untraceable.
A lot of the money flowing into the political system is ultimately untraceable.
Influential Democratic think tank pushes plan for government to lower health care costs
Democrats are honing in on health care affordability as a key issue, ahead of the midterm elections.
5 US House races shift toward Democrats: Cook Political Report
Five House districts shift toward Democrats in new Cook Political Report analysis as the GOP and Democrats vie for control of the House during midterms.
Cook Political Report shifts 5 House races toward Democrats
The Cook Political Report on Tuesday shifted five House races toward Democrats and one toward Republicans, as the minority party seeks to take back control of the House in the November midterms. Th…
L.A. election shadow hearing: Democrats, experts defend voting systems
House Democrats gathered in Los Angeles on Tuesday for a "shadow hearing" on midterm election security, where experts echoed their arguments that state-run elections are safe and secure.
MedTech Entrepreneurs Secure a Leg Up with PLASMA Health at Aggie Square
There’s a new educational arm to PLASMA, the flagship entrepreneurship program of the Student Startup Center. The 12-week accelerator, which helps undergraduates launch a startup business, now features a track for students interested in medtech.
Georgia Runoff Puts Trump Influence to the Test in MAGA Stronghold
By Nathan Layne April 7 (Reuters) - Voters in northwest Georgia go to the polls on Tuesday in a congressional race between a moderate Democrat and a Republican backed by President Donald Trump, in a test of Trump's sway over his base and a possible barometer for the November midterms. The two-way ...
Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie on Leadership and the Political Landscape
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) discusses leadership, the upcoming midterm elections, and the political landscape during a conversation hosted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.
State election officials wonder if massive federal voter database will be used to sow doubts about midterm elections
Public health takes center stage in US midterm campaigns: ‘It’s already been politicized’
Some candidates are making public health a central part of their midterm campaigns amid Trump’s war on science
Republican Clay Fuller under pressure in Georgia race to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene
The special election runoff between Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris is being watched by both parties as they consider strategy ahead of the midterms.
NFL draft profile 2026: Carson Beck (Quarterback, Miami)
Is Beck on of the 2026 draft’s top quarterbacks?
US health officials appear to shy away from anti-vaccine talk ahead of midterms
Elections seem top-of-mind for the Maha movement as key polling indicates anti-vaccine views are a liability
Here are three ways we can turn anti-Trump solidarity into political power
The No Kings protests affirmed widespread opposition to Trump’s actions. As the midterms approach, we have an opportunity
Democrats eye 2028 for bigger health care push
WASHINGTON – As Democrats vie to take control of Congress in the midterms this fall, their main message on health care policy is fairly straightforward: undo Republicans’ Medicaid cuts and restore the health care subsidies that lapsed at the end of last year.
RFK Jr. launches midterm travel push to shore up ‘MAHA’ support
The Trump White House counts RFK Jr. as a top surrogate – but he comes with downsides, too.
House Democrats to hold California 'shadow hearings' on midterm election security
House Democrats will hold informal hearings in California on midterm election security, following multiple threats of intervention in state-run voting by the Trump administration.
Trump Contemplates Other Cabinet Changes as He Faces Political Clock
With the midterms approaching, the president may be running out of time to get new cabinet members confirmed without bipartisan support.
Voting by mail in midterms? Democrats' suit could impact how it works
A coalition of Democrat-led states filed yet another court challenge to President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting.
New CNN poll shows Democrats up big heading into midterm election season. Can Republicans claw back to avoid a blue wave?
What Trump's Iran war means for Republicans ahead of midterms
This is not the run-up to the midterm elections that Republicans wanted.
Many Americans are mad at both parties. Those ‘double haters’ favor the Democrats in the midterms
Americans’ views of both the Democratic and Republican parties remain deeply negative, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. And in an election year that may turn on which party voters see as the lesser of two evils, the Democrats hold an early advantage.
Trump pushed the Iran war in prime time. The public wasn’t sold.
The president is in a precarious political moment seven months before the midterm elections, facing some of his lowest approval ratings and presiding over an unpopular war.
Midterm messaging and foreign policy shape the political landscape heading into midterms
Former Miami Mayor and new Fox News contributor Francis Suarez discusses the political landscape heading into the November elections and U.S. foreign policy challenges in Iran and Cuba on ‘Special Report.’
A Preview of the Role Health Care May Play in the 2026 Election
Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, this KFF issue brief examines the role health care has played in previous elections and what that may suggest about its potential role in 2026.
Wave of retirements and politics promise spending panel makeover
The House Appropriations Committee is set to undergo a major shake-up following the midterm elections, especially among its Republicans. With four members retiring, two running for Senate and four others in potentially tight reelection contests, nearly a third of the committee’s Republicans may not return in the next Congress. Democrats are looking at a lower […]
ActBlue May Have Misled Congress on Vetting Foreign Donations, Its Lawyers Warned
The Democratic fund-raising group is facing investigations from the Justice Department and congressional Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.
Shutdown infighting shatters GOP unity in critical stretch for Trump
What started as a shutdown face-off between Republicans and Democrats has morphed into a full display of disunity between GOP leaders just months ahead of the midterm elections
WATCH: Trump signs executive order to create national list of eligible voters
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters, a move that is sure to draw legal challenges as the president continues to demand further restrictions on voting ahead of this year's midterm elections.
MNPL Might and Political Power Meet in Georgia
The annual MNPL Conference recently took place in Savannah, Ga. About 300 IAM Union members, who are dedicated to labor politics and fundraising, heard updates from legislative leaders on the path forward ahead of the midterms. After the conference, IAM delegates participated in the No Kings rally and march in downtown Savannah by calling out
Politics & Power: Democrats expand target map, Republicans push turnout amid AI misinformation worries
Rising public anxiety about election fairness and the spread of misinformation mean both parties must confront organizational, legal and ethical challenges as they prepare for a consequential midterm season.
7+ Florida Politics Now: Discussing Florida’s Farm bill and midterm elections
This week we’re discussing this year’s farm bill and midterm elections.
The Race to Succeed Newsom Has All the Democrats’ Problems
After more than a year in disarray, Democrats finally seem to be getting it together. The party is heading into the midterm elections with an edge in both polling and messaging. Voters are energized — see this weekend’s No Kings rallies — and that has led to a string of wins in special elections, including one last week that flipped a district in Florida that takes in President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
New Political Group to Push Trump’s A.I. Agenda in Midterms
The group, Innovation Council Action, says it plans to spend at least $100 million. It will be led by a former administration official.
Tech: The scrambled data center politics
One thing is clear: data centers are an increasingly salient political issue heading into the midterm elections.
Will: What gladiatorial politics will bury in the midterms
Candidates in this year’s elections will soon be bouncing around like corn being popped. By November, the nation might long for a rebirth of political reticence.
Trump’s approval ratings just hit a new low. A Latino voter shift could reshape the midterms
Trump approval hits lows as Latino voters and young men peel away, with economy concerns and Iran war backlash reshaping 2026 midterm outlook.
Red flare for Trump: 'No Kings' rallies a show of political force
With a Revolutionary-era slogan, the protests had the deepest geographic reach in U.S. history. What does that mean for November's midterms?
How Dems are committing political suicide over anti-ICE obsessions
Democrats now risk a midterm-elections fiasco if they can’t let go of their anti-ICE obsession, and their related insistence on protecting even violent-criminal illegal immigrants from deportation.
AI deepfakes blur reality in 2026 U.S. midterm campaigns
There is no federal regulation constraining the use of AI in political messaging, leaving only a patchwork of largely untested state laws.
Democrats are trying to connect the dots on Trump’s 2026 plan
The next election is always the most important for politicians on the ballot, which in this year’s midterms will be every member of the US House and about a third of the Senate.
The idea-free gladiatorial season also known as the midterms
Never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.
Scoop: Cabinet to huddle to talk midterms, economy
The meeting comes as the Iran war has sent gas prices soaring, and after the stock market's worst day since Trump launched the war.
U.S. conservative conference aims to rein in Republican infighting ahead of midterms
Some of the biggest MAGA voices have broken with Trump over the Iran conflict as well as his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
‘Enormous cost’: GOP Rep. Nancy Mace says war with Iran could cost Republicans in midterms
Trump Calls for Law Cracking Down on Crime and ‘Rogue Judges’
Ahead of the midterms, President Trump told a Republican gathering that he wants to go after repeat offenders and “rogue judges that are criminals.”
What a GOP loss in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district says about the midterms
Including off-year elections last year, Democrats have flipped 30 Republican seats since the start of 2025.
Democrats' win in Trump's 'backyard' is another sign of midterm momentum
"If Democrats can win in Trump’s backyard, we sure as hell can win anywhere across the country," DNC Chair Ken Martin said on social media.
States Brace for a Potential Supreme Court Ban on Late-Arriving Ballots
The court’s conservatives appear skeptical of laws allowing mail ballots to arrive after Election Day. A decision could come as late as June, potentially scrambling midterm elections.
Biden political priorities impeded Iran negotiations, former secretary of state admits
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted that midterm elections complicated the Biden administration's push for a stronger Iran nuclear deal.
Brian Nathan edges out Josie Tomkow in SD 14 as she pledges a rematch in November
The race was being watched as a potential bellwether ahead of the November Midterms.