| | | | |  | | By Eugene Daniels and Ryan Lizza | | | With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross
|  Over the last few weeks — amid a spate of legislative movement, falling gas prices, stumbling Republican Senate candidates and the sense of a growing backlash to efforts to restrict abortion — the fight for control of Congress seems to have tightened. | Andrew Harnik, File/AP Photo | | | | |  | DRIVING THE DAY | | THE WEEK — Today: U.S. and South Korea begin largest joint military exercises in half a decade ( more from Reuters ). … Tuesday: Statewide primaries in New York and Florida. … Wednesday: One-year anniversary of House Dems passing a $3.5 trillion framework for the ill-fated Build Back Better package. … Thursday: Jackson Hole Economic Symposium opens. … Friday: New inflation numbers (the personal-consumption expenditures price index, which is the Fed's preferred inflation measure) come out at 8:30 a.m. Fed Chair JEROME POWELL addresses Jackson Hole later in the day ( Bloomberg has a preview ). FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Former President BARACK OBAMA is launching his midterm efforts by headlining a National Democratic Redistricting Committee fundraiser Aug. 30, along with the organization's leader, former Attorney General ERIC HOLDER. The Martha's Vineyard event will include dinner and a discussion about democracy. The money will support the NDRC's legal actions, its voting rights work and its support for candidates in November. THE SHIFTING CENTER OF ATTENTION — It's been a long time (months? years?) since we've seen national Democrats in such a good mood about their electoral chances. Over the last few weeks — amid a spate of legislative movement, falling gas prices, stumbling Republican Senate candidates and the sense of a growing backlash to efforts to restrict abortion — the fight for control of Congress seems to have tightened. Gone are the days when pundits confidently predicted a red tsunami. The latest NBC News poll — which still shows Republicans with a lead in the generic congressional ballot — had two data points that stuck out to us: 1. Democrats have almost eliminated the enthusiasm gap with Republicans. "According to the survey, 68% of Republicans express a high level of interest in the upcoming election … versus 66% for Democrats," notes Mark Murray. "That 2-point GOP advantage is down from 17 points in March and 8 points in May." Per the pollsters, the biggest contributing factor was (unsurprisingly) the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade . You can expect Democrats to continue hammering the issue in the 11 weeks remaining before Election Day. As Bloomberg put it in a headline Sunday about the role of abortion rights in the election: "Democrats Sense New Optimism for Blunting GOP's Midterm Gains " 2. Voters ranked "threats to democracy" as a more important issue than cost of living. In May, high prices topped voters' list of concerns. A few important things have happened since then. (1) Gas prices have gone down substantially. (At the end of May, the national average for a gallon was $4.62, per AAA ; as of Sunday, it's down to $3.90.) (2) The first set of Jan. 6 committee hearings wrapped up, with a barrage of new revelations and allegations against former President DONALD TRUMP and his allies. (3) And then came the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, which again threw Trump into the spotlight. Democrats are hopeful that the FBI/Trump ordeal will give them an opportunity to further differentiate themselves from Republicans with voters. But it can be a mixed bag: Trump often takes up all the oxygen in the room, preventing Democrats from getting proactive attention for the issues of their choosing. Many people in Biden world insist they aren't overly concerned that they won't be breaking through. " People don't watch MSNBC and CNN all day. They watch their local news, they read their local paper," one adviser to President JOE BIDEN told us Sunday night. "No offense, but not everybody wakes up in the morning and reads Playbook." (Offense taken!) ANOTHER SIDE EFFECT OF THE FOCUS ON MAR-A-LAGO — Some Republicans are warning that the recent focus on the FBI's Mar-a-Lago search allowed Democrats' massive reconciliation bill to go largely unanswered in the public sphere, Meridith McGraw and Caitlin Oprysko report this morning . The bill passed so quickly, in the end, that conservatives had little opportunity to build grassroots opposition and outrage like they did for the Affordable Care Act and other big legislation. "Whereas conservative activism has, in past cycles, been driven by opposition to Democratic-authored policies or actions … the modern version has been fed by culture-war issues and, more often than not, Trump himself." CESAR YBARRA of FreedomWorks: "We got rolled."
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Learn more about our work ahead. | | | TOP READS THIS MORNING: — LEDE OF THE DAY: "Senate Republicans' primary season is ending like it began — with a divisive contest in a battleground state that risks damaging the party's hopes of retaining control of the Senate," Natalie Allison reports. Some Republicans are worried that New Hampshire GOP Senate frontrunner DON BOLDUC would be a weak candidate against Democratic Sen. MAGGIE HASSAN, and they're hoping for a last-minute, Missouri-style consolidation behind one of his primary opponents — perhaps CHUCK MORSE or KEVIN SMITH . (Notably, the Bolduc critics include former Trump campaign manager COREY LEWANDOWSKI.) Two big questions that remain: Will Trump endorse in the race? How about Gov. CHRIS SUNUNU? — 2024 WATCH: The shadow 2024 race is on as top Republicans barnstorm the country to campaign alongside midterms candidates, as WaPo's Hannah Knowles breaks down from Des Moines. Despite Trump's likely frontrunner status if he jumps into another primary, plenty of other contenders are putting in the legwork ("It's surprisingly business-as-usual," says GOP strategist BOB HECKMAN). Knowles finds many Iowa GOP voters mad at former VP MIKE PENCE for not overturning the 2020 election; Maryland Gov. LARRY HOGAN will head to Oregon to boost gubernatorial candidate CHRISTINE DRAZAN; everybody wants Virginia Gov. GLENN YOUNGKIN (who is headlining a rally for Michigan's TUDOR DIXON on Saturday); and much more. But, but, but: AP's Tom Beaumont has a different take from the Iowa State Fair, where he reports that 2024 contenders' attendance was lighter than usual as the looming shadows of Trump and Biden partially chill their respective parties' fields. The GOP Iowa visits these days are likely to be lower-profile affairs alongside local candidates, not big appearances at the fair. Food watch: "Pence sampled a 'picnic in a cup' — pulled pork, coleslaw, baked beans and Fritos, topped with barbecue sauce and bacon." Good Monday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Would you try "picnic in a cup"? What's your favorite state fair food? Drop us a line: Rachael Bade , Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
| | | | A message from Facebook:   | | | | | BIDEN'S MONDAY — The president has nothing on his public schedule.
VP KAMALA HARRIS' MONDAY — The VP has nothing on her public schedule.
THE HOUSE and THE SENATE are out.
BIDEN'S WEEK AHEAD:
Wednesday: The Bidens will head back to the White House from Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Thursday: The Bidens will go to a Montgomery County, Md., DNC event.
Friday: Biden will head back to Delaware — this time Wilmington for the weekend. | | | | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | PHOTO OF THE DAY
|  Male giant panda Xiao Qi Ji eats an ice cake for his second birthday at the Smithsonian National Zoo on Sunday in Washington, D.C. Xiao Qi Ji is the fourth surviving cub of pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. This year the National Zoo is marking 50 years since the first giant pandas came to D.C. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | | | PLAYBOOK READS | | ALL POLITICS PRIMARY WATCH — In the heated race to win Florida's Democratic gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, Rep. CHARLIE CRIST and state Agriculture Commissioner NIKKI FRIED both focused Sunday on Black voters in South Florida, the South Florida Sun Sentinel's Anthony Man reports. "Though the Crist and Fried campaigns have been marked by increasingly negative back-and-forth in recent weeks … both presented optimistic, upbeat visions for the future on Sunday, saving their most pointed criticisms for Republican Gov. RON DeSANTIS." — Related read: "Activists in Florida say Black voters have seen their political power curtailed," NPR DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS — BETO O'ROURKE gets the WaPo Style section treatment from Jada Yuan, who charts his drive to siphon votes for his gubernatorial campaign in rural, conservative parts of Texas. Can he repeat the quixotic near-success of his hit-every-county 2018 Senate campaign — and push a few percentage points higher? "For six days and 10 events, I chased Beto from west to east across the state," Yuan writes. "And when I say chased, I mean it. The man drives as if he's a criminal trying to lose a tail, easily going 95 to 100 mph at times." She finds that O'Rourke's audiences are "rapturous and far bigger than expected" — though there are passionate opponents aplenty, too. GEORGIA ON MY MIND — A not-insignificant number of Georgia Democrats crossed party lines to vote for Republican Gov. BRIAN KEMP in his primary earlier this year as he parried Trump's attempt to dethrone him. Now STACEY ABRAMS needs to lure them back as she mounts a second bid to defeat Kemp in November, AP's Bill Barrow reports . "[S]he is unvarnished in arguing that Kemp is due nothing from voters for refusing to subvert a free and fair American presidential election. 'Let me be clear,' Abrams says near the end of her half-hour campaign pitch. 'Not committing treason does not make you a hero.'" KNOWING DANA NESSEL — Rolling Stone's Kara Voght profiles the Michigan AG, whose willingness to wade into the culture wars head on belies her swing-state position as she runs for reelection. Abortion is center stage in her race against Republican MATT DePERNO, as are his false claims of voter fraud (and alleged actions to find it). "Nessel's political opponents have strived to convert her candor into an electoral liability," Voght writes, but Nessel isn't shying away from that brand of authenticity as she faces her highest-stakes battle yet: "Whatever her je ne sais quoi, it helped her come out of nowhere to win her race for attorney general in 2018." JUST POSTED — "An Unusual $1.6 Billion Donation Bolsters Conservatives," by NYT's Ken Vogel and Shane Goldmacher CONGRESS RUSH TO JUDGMENT — Senate Democrats are getting ready to ramp up the urgency on confirming judicial nominees, with the midterms looming and their biggest-ticket legislative items already out of the way, Marianne LeVine reports this morning . Advocacy groups are pushing senators to move faster, and judicial noms are expected to take up a lot of floor time in September. Biden's had more judges confirmed (76) than his three immediate predecessors had at this point in their tenures, "partially due to a 2019 rules change." But outside groups are eyeing more than 100 other current or future vacancies they want filled this year. ABORTION FALLOUT IT'S OFFICIAL — The hand recount of Kansas' abortion vote concluded Sunday, with the landslide victory confirmed. "But the recount of such a lopsided vote, rather than building credibility in the results, risks undermining trust in elections," report The Kansas City Star's Katie Bernard and Jonathan Shorman, "because the process provided fringe, diehard amendment supporters an opportunity to attempt to create an aura of uncertainty surrounding the vote when, in fact, none ever existed." IN THE STATES — OB-GYNs are playing a significant role in pushing back against red-state Republicans' efforts to restrict abortion, with many mobilizing as into political groups for the first time, Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly report this morning . "The new groups' early successes in some of the nation's most conservative states signal the power they hope to wield in the coming months — raising money for abortion-rights candidates in the midterms and lobbying lawmakers in state capitals when new sessions convene next year — as well as in years to come." MAR-A-LAGO FALLOUT KASH PATEL SPEAKS — The Trump White House alum and current informal Trump adviser tells WSJ's Alex Leary, Vivian Salama and Aruna Viswanatha that Trump had likely declassified the documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. "Mr. Patel's assertions seek to challenge a central tenet of the Justice Department's position that urgent action was needed because highly sensitive national-security secrets were at risk," they write. "There is no documented evidence of the president's verbal declassification action. Mr. Patel said that doesn't matter."
| | | | A message from Facebook:   | | | POLICY CORNER TALES FROM THE CRYPTO — "Banks, crypto lobby clash with lawmakers over Fed digital dollar," by Sam Sutton: "A bipartisan campaign is underway to push the Federal Reserve to launch a digital dollar — a crypto-friendly breakthrough that could transform payment systems, big banks and the virtual asset industry itself. But as lawmakers and the Biden administration position the potential central bank digital currency as a key tool for maintaining the dollar's global supremacy, banking and crypto powerbrokers are building a case for Washington to stay away." JUST POSTED — "Expansion of Clean Energy Loans Is 'Sleeping Giant' of Climate Bill," by NYT's Ivan Penn AMERICA AND THE WORLD DEAL OR NO DEAL — Biden discussed the negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal in a call Sunday with German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ, French President EMMANUEL MACRON and British PM BORIS JOHNSON, the White House said. The leaders also talked about Ukraine. More from Bloomberg RODMAN TO RUSSIA — DENNIS RODMAN told NBC's Jonathan Allen that he "got permission" to travel to Russia as soon as this week to try to secure BRITTNEY GRINER's release. But American negotiators don't seem thrilled: "He is more likely to hurt than help, said a senior Biden administration official." IMMIGRATION FILES — "DACA 2.0: Biden releases 250,000 unaccompanied migrant children into U.S.," by the Washington Examiner's Anna Giaritelli: "Border and refugee agencies have struggled to keep up with the constant arrivals of children … But the biggest impact of this influx may not be felt until years from now, when these children become adults and face potential deportation." HEARTBREAKING READ — A year after 13 American service members died in a suicide bombing amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the older brother of one of the fallen died by suicide over his grief, CNN's Kyung Lah and Jack Hannah report. Now their mother, SHANA CHAPPELL, mourns two children — and "blames the loss of her sons on America's disastrous pullout from Afghanistan." THE PANDEMIC GETTING A BOOST — The U.S. campaign to roll out Omicron-specific boosters of the mRNA coronavirus vaccines will begin later than some peer countries because regulators decided to target different subvariants, WSJ's Peter Loftus reports. Now, with officials eyeing a September or October start date, we'll get a real-time assessment of the promise of mRNA to speed up vaccine changes: "The effort is a new test of the plug-and-play potential of the gene-based, messenger RNA technology used in the shots from Pfizer and Moderna."
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Herschel Walker celebrated Jews' accomplishments: "God's people do big things." Brian Stelter signed off from "Reliable Sources" and CNN: "We need to have room for media criticism and debate and discussion, and we will. So much of the media ecosystem in 2022 is garbage, but so much of it is spectacular. The hard part is sorting out the treasure from the trash." Jon Tester celebrated his birthday with his cats and his tools. Trina Edwards, former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards' widow, got engaged to former Louisiana Senate President John Alario. Neera Tanden found the premiere of "House of the Dragon," HBO's new "Game of Thrones" spin-off, to be "gut-punch timely after the repeal of Roe." Gretchen Whitmer, Jocelyn Benson and Dana Nessel struck a "Charlie's Angels"-esque pose at the Michigan Dems' convention. Sam Stein's kids forced him to listen to Lady Gaga's "Hold My Hand" 17 times during a particularly long car ride. (We loved "Top Gun: Maverick" too, but …) A team from NASA busted the misconception that there is no sound in space, posting the eerie audio from a particularly gas-filled galaxy cluster. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Jeff Solnet is now deputy assistant secretary for strategic comms at DHS. He most recently was an SVP at Precision Strategies. TRANSITION — Blake Peterson is joining Meta to work in content policy regulation. She most recently was acting digital freedom coordinator at the State Department's Bureau for Cyberspace and Digital Policy. ENGAGED — Keegan Zimprich, banking legislative assistant for Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), and Mary Kate Munro, director of government affairs at Growth Energy, got engaged Friday at the Lincoln Memorial. Their families surprised them at the memorial, and friends joined later for a big celebration. The couple met while working for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). Pic WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Erica Mason McQuade, assistant director of government relations at Northwestern Mutual, and Kevin McQuade, manager at Accenture Federal, welcomed Rory Louise McQuade on Aug. 11. Pic BIRTHWEEK (was Sunday): Jack Kelly HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NBC's Steve Kornacki … The Hill's Alex Gangitano … FGS Global's Jennifer Loven … Ken Farnaso … National Review's Rich Lowry ... POLITICO's Rishika Dugyala and Alysha Kurani …WaPo's Michael Cadenhead … NewsGuard's Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz … Tom Edsall … Steve Kroft … Meta's Jen Nedeau Helm and Sabrina Siddiqui … Luke Russert … Bill Miller of the American Gaming Association … Natalie Apsell … Nick Mildebrath of Convergence Targeted Communications … Scooter Libby … Axios' Gigi Sukin and Stef Kight … AP's Nebi Qena … former Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), Thad McCotter (R-Mich.) and Bud Cramer (D-Ala.) … Bill Cortese ... Sward Tondoneh … Chevron's Bill Turenne Jr. … CBS' Nancy Chen ... AnnaMaria Di Pietro … Selena Strandberg … Matthew Barnes … Mother Jones' Pema Levy ... Jordan Goldes ... Rob Borden … Alyssa Palisi ... Brystol English ... Hailey Arends … Zillow's Ryan Patmintra … Paul Singer … Jessica Dean … Ashley Grace Novak of the RNC … Robin Wright … Crooked Media's Shaniqua McClendon … Chris Lapetina Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and producers Setota Hailemariam and Bethany Irvine.
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