Playbook PM: Redistricting ruffles the 2026 race

Politico

15-07-2025

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THE CATCH-UP
2026 ON THE BRAIN: President Donald Trump spoke with Texas Republicans this morning, ominously writing on Truth Social that 'with the right Candidate, Texas isn't 'going Blue' anytime soon!' The point of the call? To mobilize the GOP to get five new red seats through the mid-decade redistricting process — a massive undertaking that could have big 2026 implications, as Punchbowl's Jake Sherman notes.
The looming redistricting conversation has been growing since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested it last week. Finding five new red seats in an already GOP-tilted Texas could mean moving Republican voters out of some incumbents' districts, complicating their reelection path in 2026. But there's a bigger target that some Republicans, including Trump, are hoping to capitalize on.
'Hispanic voters in Texas have rapidly shifted in favor of the GOP, in large part thanks [to Trump], so a mid decade redistricting will mean significant gains,' Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — currently battling it out in a heated primary against AG Ken Paxton — wrote on X.
Not having it is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who together with Texas Democrats at a presser this morning slammed the 'aggressive and egregious gerrymander' as rigging the map 'to disenfranchise millions of people in Texas,' per POLITICO's Nick Wu. DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) also pointed to the possibility that Republican incumbents will lose voters: 'It's basic math.'
More eager to play ball is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been floating an equal and opposite redistricting response in light of Texas' proposed moves. 'Two can play this game,' Newsom, a widely speculated 2028 hopeful, wrote on X today.
The messaging war: As Republicans reimagine an even redder Texas, they're still figuring out the right message to sell the sweeping megabill — and beat back Democratic attacks. Republican strategists are pushing a new tack on tax cuts, branding them as 'Trump Working Family Tax Cuts' and hammering how policies like no taxes on tips could benefit new elements of Trump's 2024 coalition, NBC's Peter Nicholas and colleagues report.
The speaker's side: 'Every citizen in every zip code in every pocket of America will benefit from the One Big Beautiful Bill,' Speaker Mike Johnson said at today's weekly House Republican Leadership news conference. New numbers out today show Johnson raised more than $50 million for House Republicans this cycle, and he's already transferred more than $14 million to the NRCC, per Punchbowl's Andrew Desiderio and colleagues.
On the flip side: Democratic strategists are piloting new programs that would overhaul the old style of Democratic politicking to avoid repeating 2024's sweeping losses, NYT's Ken Bensinger and Shane Goldmacher write. 'That mind-set will be on display on Tuesday in Washington when many of the party's keenest number-crunchers are gathering for a closed-door meeting of the Analyst Institute, a progressive nonprofit that focuses on data-driven campaign tactics, to discuss where the party went wrong in 2024.'
Other hot-button issues are likely to be on the table, such as stories like the latest from USA Today's Sarah Wire, who writes how states are trying to mitigate the impact of the megabill's cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food assistance, and how voters are mobilizing to town halls, some for the first time, out of concern.
Reminder: Another piece of the 2026 puzzle will slot in tonight after 10 p.m., when the results roll in from the Arizona primary for the special election to fill the late Rep. Raul Grivalja's seat. The three-way race has become a litmus-test for the old guard vs. new guard of the Democratic party, as Playbook noted this morning. To little surprise, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has placed her bet on the old guard — in this case former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, per Fox News' Chad Pergram. 'She happens to be [Grijalva's] daughter, but she's made her own mark. I've watched her career carefully in Arizona,' Pelosi said.
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7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
1. TICK TOCK: OMB Director Russ Vought is meeting with Senate Republicans during their lunch today ahead of Friday's deadline to pass the all-important rescissions package. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is still negotiating with Republicans about potential amendments to the bill, telling POLITICO's Jordain Carney this morning that 'we're working on something, but I don't think it's quite ready yet.' Johnson's holding firm that Friday is the deadline and urged senators to pass the bill as-is at his weekly presser, POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill reports. Thune still expects the first Senate votes to happen later today, per Jordain.
The holdouts: The latest to come around is Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who secured an agreement to reallocate Green New Deal money to power emergency alerts for tribal communities usually served by public media, Meredith reports. But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is chief among those who've been pushing for amendments, and said there might not be 'openness' to changes, per Punchbowl's Samantha Handler. More on Republicans to watch from Axios' Stef Kight
Also on the Hill today: Mike Waltz had his confirmation hearing to become U.N. ambassador, where he said he has plans to make the United Nations 'great again,' AP's Farnoush Amiri and Matt Brown write. Democrats laid into Waltz over his role in Signalgate — saying he lied about aspects of the leaked chats, POLITICO's Cheyanne Daniels writes. … And the presidents of Georgetown University, the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley were slammed by House Republicans with questions about antisemitism on campus, per NYT.
Today's must read: 'PBS and NPR's Last-Ditch Fight to Save Funding,' by NYT's Benjamin Mullin
2. ON TRUMP'S AGENDA: Trump is on his way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the Energy and Innovation Summit sponsored by Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.). There's around $90 billion in investments expected to be announced today, per McCormick's office. Among them, a $25 billion investment from Google to build AI data centers and a $3 billion deal with Brookfield to upgrade local power plants, Semafor's Liz Hoffman scooped. Expect a gaggle of the country's biggest CEOs to be spotted. More on the summit from AP's Seung Min Kim and Marc Levy
3. THE ECONOMY, STUPID: Inflation grew slightly in June as the weight of Trump's wide-ranging tariffs started to materialize in the U.S. economy, POLITICO's Sam Sutton reports. The Consumer Price Index rose 2.7 percent compared to last June — which is a bit higher than expected and is higher than the previous pace of 2.4. And 'core' inflation, which doesn't include shifting food and energy prices, also slightly rose. Wall Street shares opened higher after the news, per Reuters.
What Trump won't like: 'With new, higher tariff rates threatened to kick in starting in August, economists said the June inflation report was unlikely to push the Federal Reserve into cutting interest rates sooner rather than later. Interest-rate futures continued to show odds-on chances of the Fed resuming rate cuts in September,' Bloomberg's Chris Anstey writes.
Speaking of the Fed: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants Chair Jerome Powell to also step down from the Federal Reserve's board when his term expires in May 2026, per Bloomberg's Daniel Flatley and colleagues. In the meantime, top contenders to be the next fed chair like Kevin Warsh are calling for cutting interest rates — a move sure to curry favor with Trump, Bloomberg's Catarina Saraiva writes.
It's always sunny: 'While many industries have been upended by the president's topsy-turvy trade and immigration policies, Wall Street is quietly humming along just fine,' NYT's Rob Copeland and Stacy Cowley report this morning. 'JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the country, exceeded forecasters' expectations for the second quarter, earning about $15 billion …Citi and Wells Fargo also reported earnings on Tuesday. Wells Fargo announced a profit of $5.5 billion, up 12 percent from a year ago.'
4. FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE: Trump may have taken his most decisive step yet putting the screws on Russia, but President Vladimir Putin is not fazed and has no intention of backing away from the fight, Reuters' Guy Faulconbridge and Darya Korsunskaya scoop this morning. His territorial demands over Ukraine may get even more ambitious as Russia's ground offensive advances — and Putin believes Russia can withstand any potential sanctions from the West. The Kremlin rewarded a U.S. citizen, Daniel Martindale, with a Russian passport after he helped them target Ukrainian troops, per Reuters.
Standing firm: 'We first and foremost note that any attempts to make demands — especially ultimatums — are unacceptable for us,' Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, per Bloomberg's Jennifer Dlouhy and Natalia Drozdiak. Still, Trump's turn toward Ukraine are sparking concerns among some in Russia's top ranks 'that an opportunity may have been missed,' WaPo's Catherine Belton and Robyn Dixon report.
5. CRACKDOWN CENTRAL: 'The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers' Data With ICE,' by ProPublica's William Turton and colleagues: 'ProPublica has obtained a blueprint of the system, which would create an 'on demand' process allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain the home addresses of people it's seeking to deport. … Last month, in a previously undisclosed dispute, the acting general counsel at the IRS, Andrew De Mello, refused to turn over the addresses of 7.3 million taxpayers sought by ICE. … De Mello said he had identified multiple legal 'deficiencies' in the agency's request. … Two days later, on June 27, De Mello was forced out of his job.'
Related read: 'Republicans renew a bid to remove noncitizens from the census tally behind voting maps,' by NPR's Hansi Lo Wang
6. JUSTICE WATCH: Over 75 former federal and state judges today are calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Trump's nomination of Emil Bove for the U.S. Court of Appeals, CNN's Piper Hudspeth Blackburn and Jamie Gangel write. 'Mr. Bove's egregious record of mistreating law enforcement officers, abusing power and disregarding the law itself disqualifies him for this position,' the group wrote in its letter. They also reference the recent whistleblower report, which Bove adamantly denied during his testimony to the committee in June. Read the letter
Not just judges: It comes as all 10 Dems on the Judiciary Committee wrote to Chair Chuck Grassley in a letter asking him to call whistleblower Erez Reuveni to testify before the panel prior to its vote on Bove, our colleagues on Inside Congress report. And two dozen progressive groups have also sent a letter to the committee denouncing Bove's nomination, Semafor's Morgan Chalfant reports. 'His nomination 'threatens the foundational principles of judicial impartiality and the rule of law,' the groups — including the SEIU, Demand Justice, and Human Rights Campaign — write.'
Weaponization watch: 'Dismissals at Justice Dept. Would Bypass Civil Service and Whistle-Blower Laws' by NYT's Devlin Barrett: 'A new batch of more than 20 career employees at the department and its component agencies were fired on Friday, including the attorney general's own ethics adviser, Joseph W. Tirrell. … On the surface, the various groups have little in common. Justice Department veterans, however, see an overarching pattern: a quickening effort by the Trump administration to ignore and eventually demolish longstanding civil service legal precedents meant to keep politics out of law enforcement work, and to give more leeway to the president's loyalists.'
7. BEARING ARMS: '40,000 Troops, 19 Nations: The China Threat Unites U.S. Allies,' by WSJ's Mike Cherney: 'Artillery, rocket launchers and self-propelled howitzers opened fire at a training area in northern Australia on Monday, kick-starting three weeks of military drills here between the U.S. and 18 allies. … The biennial exercise, called Talisman Sabre, is meant to send a message to China: The U.S. and its partners are ready to respond together to aggression from Beijing … During the exercise, the U.S. and its allies plan to fire key land-based missile systems that will be crucial if Washington wants to control important sea lanes around Taiwan in a conflict.'
TALK OF THE TOWN
Elmo's X account is back to normal after it was hacked and posted profanely about releasing the Epstein files.
TALK OF THIS TOWN — Michael Schaffer pens his latest Capital City column: 'Event Planners Are Cancelling on Trump-Era Washington. Is This a Sign of Things to Come?' The gist: There's a 'giant flashing danger sign for a region already reeling from sweeping federal job cuts.' It's part of a changing perception of the U.S. and D.C., 'a city whose pitch to visitors never used to change much based on who was president. What had been a place of monuments and history is now increasingly viewed from afar as a place where your event could be suddenly canceled by authorities or your keynote speaker could be detained at the airport.'
TRANSITIONS — Thomas Boodry, Grace Colvin, Alison Anway and Scott Wagner have joined Ballard Partners' Washington DC office. Boodry was previously special assistant to President Trump and senior director for legislative affairs at the National Security Council. Colvin was previously VP of federal advocacy and strategy at The League of Credit Unions and Affiliates. Anway is the chair of Ballard's health policy advisory group, and was previously based in Ballard's Tallahassee office. Wagner is a partner at Ballard and was previously based in Ballard's Miami and Tallahassee offices.
… Sarah Pierce is now director of social policy at Third Way. She previously was a policy analyst at USCIS and is a Senate Homeland Security Committee and Migration Policy Institute alum. … Sean O'Donnell is now on the litigation team at Judicial Watch. He previously was IG at the EPA. … Santiago Gonzalez is now VP at NVG. He most recently was legislative director for Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
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