Good afternoon! I’m coming to you early today with a special update on the state of the midterm races. You’ll get one of these in your inbox every Monday between now and Election Day. I’ll be back Wednesday evening. — Jess Bidgood
36 days to go
Five weeks out from the midterms, Republicans are panicking over prices — and apparently over the president, too. In Iowa, Michigan and Ohio, the party’s Senate candidates have urged President Trump to bring an end to the Iran war. In Kansas, an incumbent senator in an unexpectedly tough re-election fight has admonished the administration over immigration raids. Just about every Republican wishes Trump would just focus on the economy. Instead, he spent last week threatening to escalate the war — a move that could further drive up the prices of gas and diesel fuel. He wined and dined President Xi Jinping at the White House and heaped praise on Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, complicating his party’s efforts to take a hard line on China abroad and to vilify democratic socialists at home. Republicans hoping for an October turnaround see promise in one area: money. For all the problems Trump might be causing his party, campaign cash isn’t one. New filings show that the leading Republican super PACs are significantly outspending Democratic groups — a gap powered in large part by Trump’s political operation. So if the issues are pummeling Republicans, the spending is pounding Democrats. And nobody’s resting easy. The battle for the Senate
The state of the Senate map was the talk of the donors and operatives who decamped over the weekend to tony Sea Island, Ga. There, at a retreat hosted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, attendees focused on how much work the party has to do. Republicans are reeling in Midwestern states such as Iowa, Michigan and Ohio, where Trump is set to hold a rally this week. The N.R.S.C. last week told donors in a private memo that it needs $7.7 million to shore up the party’s nominees in Iowa and Ohio; the group wants another $1.2 million for Alaska, too. Republicans’ troubles don’t end there. A group with ties to the party’s main Senate super PAC has plowed nearly $10 million into the Nebraska Senate race. A key Democratic group, meanwhile, is preparing to conduct new polling in Kansas, according to a spokeswoman for the group. The poll by Senate Majority PAC could be a precursor to new spending on the tighter-than-expected race. The biggest single drain on Republican resources, though, is Texas. The main Republican Senate super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, has already reserved $125 million worth of advertising in the race, and Trump’s super PAC has poured in another $20 million. But even that gargantuan sum is most likely only a down payment. A person familiar with the internal discussions said the full total could easily reach $200 million. The race for the House
The map just keeps getting bigger and better for Democrats. Over the last week, The Cook Political Report shifted 15 races toward Democrats, creating three new “tossup” districts in conservative swaths of North Carolina, Texas and Florida. It made another 10 red districts a little less red. One notable development: Cook moved a Republican incumbent running for re-election in a seat not redrawn by redistricting to the lean Democratic column for the first time. He is Representative Thomas Kean Jr. of New Jersey, who was absent from the House for months this year, which he said was because of depression. Have a question about the midterms? We have answers. Times reporters are following candidates, fund-raising, polling and advertising across the country. If you’re curious about any aspect of this year’s election, let us know at onpolitics@nytimes.com. ONE KEY METRIC $4.48 per gallonThat’s the average price of gasoline, as of Sunday, per AAA. That’s almost 40 cents more per gallon than a month ago.
Inside the Air WarsNo surprise: Republicans are set to spend more on TV ads for Senate races this week than Democrats. But there are surprising details about exactly where they are putting their cash. The party has $51.9 million booked in Texas and Ohio — compared with $10.2 million for Democrats in those states — on TV and radio, according to AdImpact. Democrats have reserved more than Republicans for the upcoming week in two Southern Senate races in states that Trump won in 2024: Georgia and North Carolina. Republicans claim they are not abandoning ship there yet, but the numbers reveal the diminished relevance of the two states. Republicans have $3.1 million and $3.7 million reserved in those states, respectively, as of Sunday — less than in Alaska, a state that has only a fraction of their populations. Democrats are planning to spend nearly $6 million in North Carolina this week, and $4.2 million in Georgia. One note: Ad buys are fluid, and campaigns can and do add money for new ads day by day. ONE POLL NUMBER 66 percentThat’s the share of voters who disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war in Iran, according to the NYT/Siena poll released last week — a figure that has alarmed Republicans.
The MoneyTrump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC is spending in deeply Republican territory in an apparent effort to hold down the size of a Democratic wave. The group is investing in two districts in Texas — the Ninth and the 15th Districts — which Trump would have won by nearly 20 points, if they had existed in their current shape in 2024. This strategy isn’t limited to Texas. Trump’s group has spent nearly $2 million on the open seat in the 11th District in North Carolina, which the president won by 9.5 percentage points in 2024. Democrats, hungry for a pickup, are also spending big there. QUOTE OF THE WEEK “I was trying to warn people that if they actually wanted to hold the seat, that I would be a safer bet.”Senator John Cornyn of Texas speaking to Punchbowl News, essentially saying: Told you so. Cornyn lost his primary to Ken Paxton after Trump threw his weight behind the Texas attorney general; now he’s watching his party spend nine figures to help Paxton keep a seat that Cornyn handily won four times. IN OUR MAILBOX
This weekend, The Times’s Texas editor Fernando Alfonso, who is based in Houston, went to the Texas Tribune Festival to talk about the future of journalism in the state. When he got home, he found a Senate campaign mailer using the Tribune’s logo and a quote from its reporting to promote Paxton, the Republican nominee for Senate. The other side attacks James Talarico, a Democrat, as “Tax Man Talarico.” It was a reminder of how quickly reporting can become campaign material. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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