| | | | |  | | By David Siders | With help from Joseph Spector STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM — It's hard to believe, given how poorly things have been going for Democrats this year. But the midterm election landscape is suddenly looking a lot less grim. Democrats recently inched ahead of Republicans on the generic ballot , a leading indicator of midterm performance. Kansas demonstrated the salience of Roe v. Wade . And on Tuesday night, a Minnesota special election became the second consecutive contest to suggest Democratic candidates may be better positioned to compete in November than once expected. "In general, I'm feeling a lot different about Democratic prospects today, on Aug. 10, than I was on May 1," John Anzalone, the longtime Biden pollster, told Nightly. In the Minnesota House race, Republican Brad Finstad beat his Democratic opponent in a Republican-leaning district by about 4 percentage points — less than half the margin that Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by in the district in 2020. The Democratic overperformance mirrored the outcome in a Nebraska special election in June . And that's not the only promising sign for Democrats. There's the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe, which prompted a surge in turnout in Kansas and the rejection of an anti-abortion measure last week. Biden is poised to sign a major tax, health care and climate change bill . Gas prices are falling , and inflation — though still high — appeared today to be cooling off . Then there's the help Democrats keep getting from Trump. For his own political future, the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago on Monday will almost certainly go down as a positive. Republicans who had been considering challenging Trump for the presidential nomination in 2024 are now having serious second thoughts — or hanging it up altogether . But for Democrats running in the midterm elections, especially in swing districts and states Trump lost in 2020, the renewed focus on the former president is good news. "Anything that takes away from the focus on what's going on in Washington with the Democrats and Joe Biden over the next few months is not going to be helpful to Republican causes," said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist in Wisconsin who oversaw George W. Bush's 2004 campaign in the state.
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John Fetterman at a meet and greet. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images | In Pennsylvania, Trump's endorsed U.S. Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, is starting to look like a disaster for the GOP , while Republican Senate challengers in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are polling behind Democratic incumbents. Doug Mastriano, Trump's pick for governor in Pennsylvania, may be more competitive than Democrats anticipated, but he is still lagging behind his Democratic opponent there. In recent days, Republican political professionals have privately expressed concerns that the GOP may have done too little to manage expectations for November, fearful anything less than a blowout will be perceived as Republican failure. Democrats, meanwhile, have some bounce in their step heading into an election in which they were widely expected to sustain devastating losses. How much better could it be for them in November? "The headwinds are still substantial," David Axelrod, the former Barack Obama adviser, said in an email. "The probability of [Republicans] taking the House is still high, but not by the margins once predicted." Biden's job approval rating, despite ticking up marginally in recent weeks, is still dismal, after all. Still, Democrats "seem to be somewhat defying that gravity for now, as the [Republicans] come into sharper focus and it becomes a little less of a referendum" on Biden, Axelrod said. "So, what looked like a Category 5 storm and total devastation a few weeks ago," he said, "may be more of Category 3 today." Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight's author at dsiders@politico.com or on Twitter at @davidsiders .
| | | | 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 . | | | | | | | | — DOJ charges alleged Iranian operative in plot to assassinate Bolton: The Justice Department today announced charges against an alleged Iranian operative accused of plotting to kill former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton. Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, allegedly conspired between October of 2021 and April of this year to kill Bolton according to a criminal complaint released by the Department of Justice. — Buttigieg promises action on airline delays: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said today that his agency is ready to take enforcement actions against airlines that don't perform , as flight delays and cancellations continue to roil the busy summer travel season. DOT under Buttigieg has proposed a series of rules intended to better protect airline consumers, the most substantial of which, announced last week, would strengthen protections for airline passengers who want a cash refund after a flight is canceled.
|  | — Pelosi denies military opposed Taiwan trip: Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today that the U.S. military never told her not to travel to Taiwan, defending her historic visit amid China's hostile response and the Biden administration's warnings . A longtime China hawk dating back to the Tiananmen Square massacre, Pelosi told reporters today that Beijing used her trip to Taiwan last week as a "pretext" for its stepped-up aggression toward the self-governing island, including live-fire military drills conducted over the past week. "I don't remember them ever telling us not to go," Pelosi said of the U.S. military. "We are very proud of our military. Their preparation actually, I think, minimized the impact of the Chinese on our trip." — White House solicits ideas on student debt relief as Biden's decision looms: White House officials plan to meet this week with student debt activists and advocacy groups ahead of Biden's self-imposed deadline of Aug. 31 for deciding whether to approve broad-based debt relief for millions of Americans . The virtual meeting, scheduled for Thursday, is the latest sign that the White House is seriously considering canceling some amount of student loan debt. A range of outside groups working on student loan cancellation were invited to participate in the event. The White House described the meeting as "an opportunity for you to share your priorities on student debt relief," according to a copy of the invitation obtained by POLITICO. — Bottling the monkeypox vaccine could take until early 2023: The Biden administration is in talks with multiple companies about bottling millions of new doses of the monkeypox shot , but it could take three to six months to get them ready for distribution, according to two senior administration officials and two other people with knowledge of the matter, because American regulators will likely have to first inspect the doses.
| | | | INTRODUCING 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 . | | | | | | | | ON OFFENSE — Blasts that rocked a Russian military airfield in forcibly annexed Crimea signal the start of Ukraine's counteroffensive in the south and a critical new phase of the war that could shape its ultimate outcome, two Ukrainian officials told POLITICO. The series of explosions Tuesday sent huge fireballs and mushroom clouds of black smoke into the sky, scattering terrified Russian vacationers who were seen in videos shared on social media scrambling for safety on a beach and fleeing by car over the Crimea bridge to Russia, writes Christopher Miller . Two Ukrainian officials who spoke to POLITICO suggested more directly that Kyiv was behind the explosions. While Ukrainian forces have in recent weeks been pushing to claw back ground toward the southern city of Kherson — which fell to the Russians in the early days of the invasion — the two officials said the explosions at the airfield indicated that this counterattack was now beginning in earnest. A successful strike against a military target far behind Russian lines, and especially on the Crimean Peninsula, a place of great significance to the Kremlin that has largely avoided the intense fighting taking place on Ukraine's mainland, would be deeply embarrassing for President Vladimir Putin who would likely view it as a dramatic escalation and a blow to his troops' morale.
| | | | | 8.5 percent The percentage July inflation climbed over the past year, a slightly slower pace than previous months due to sinking gas and energy prices, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . As our chief economic correspondent Ben White noted on Twitter , this figure is down from the 9.1 percent June figure but still "SUPER high by historical standards." | | | | | |  | FACE TO FACE — Former President Donald Trump took the Fifth today, declining to answer questions from New York Attorney General Tish James' team in a deposition related to her probe of his family's real estate business. The two have been at odds, to say the least, for years, dating back to her 2018 campaign when James vowed to run an aggressive office against the native New Yorker, Joseph Spector emailed Nightly. Trump has claimed political bias as the Democrat seeking a second term this fall has pursued a case that Trump and his company inflated real estate values in New York to land lucrative tax breaks and loans. But after a judge declined to throw out James' case based on Trump's claim that she had a political ax to grind, today Trump came to her office for a deposition in the case , another extraordinary moment for the ex-president. They were face to face, with James' office saying she was there for the questioning, which lasted from about 9 a.m. to around 3 p.m. But Trump, facing a bevy of federal and state probes, pleaded his Fifth Amendment rights, he said and James' office confirmed. Experts said that for Trump it may have been the right legal move: anything he said could hurt him in this case and others just days after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in Florida. "I once asked, 'If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question," Trump said in a statement just moments after he was spotted by a crowd of reporters and onlookers in the morning with his security detail leaving Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan toward James' office nearby. "When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice." The sit-down was long in the making for James, who has staked much of her reputation as a prosecutor and public servant on taking down Trump. She jumped into the race for governor last year on the merits of both her aggressive stance against Trump and her lengthy report detailing sexual harassment from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And though her campaign for governor was short-lived — she eventually opted instead to run for reelection as AG — the Trump case remains at the top of her docket. Observers said that Trump's sit-down with James suggests the probe is in its final stages. And remember, this is a civil case, not a criminal one, that could end with a jury deciding whether Trump should face any monetary penalties. James vowed her case will continue — and assuredly that will come with Trump's ongoing criticism of her as a "racist district attorney," as he recently claimed. "Attorney General Letitia James took part in the deposition during which Mr. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination," her spokesperson said. "Attorney General James will pursue the facts and the law wherever they may lead. Our investigation continues." Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here . | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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