The elections on Trump's mind

Washington Post

01-04-2025

Good morning, Early Birds. It's April Fools' Day. Be careful out there. Send tips to [e-mail]. Thanks for waking up with us.
In today's edition … Daughter of recently deceased Rep. Raúl Grijalva announces campaign to fill his seat … but first …
Voters in Wisconsin and Florida head to the polls today in what is expected to be the first major electoral test of President Donald Trump's second term.
In Wisconsin, voters are set to fill a seat on the state Supreme Court that will determine whether the majority remains liberal or flips conservative. In Florida, special elections are being held for two House seats in deep-red territory where Democratic candidates have outpaced their Republican opponents in fundraising.
Trump has endorsed Republican-aligned candidates in all three races and repeatedly urged support for them with virtual campaign rallies and social media posts. His top adviser Elon Musk has been especially involved in the Wisconsin contest, campaigning for the GOP-backed candidate, Brad Schimel, on Sunday in Green Bay. Meanwhile, Democrats hope strong fundraising could indicate that the Florida seats are more competitive than a few months ago.
'The whole country's actually watching this one,' Trump said Thursday at a telerally for Republican Jimmy Patronis, who is running for Matt Gaetz's former seat. 'It's a very big one.'
'This is the most important race in the country right now,' conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said during a telerally yesterday evening for Randy Fine, the GOP candidate seeking to fill the Florida seat vacated by national security adviser Michael Waltz. Democrats, Shapiro added, are 'pouring the money in because the Republican margin in the House is simply too narrow. The Republican margin is really, really close, and that means President Trump's agenda is hanging by a thread.'
Republicans were so concerned about their slim margin that Trump pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations so she could keep her seat in New York. In Wisconsin, the potential redrawing of congressional maps has emerged as a focal point in the state Supreme Court race.
That's why it's not an overstatement to say these three races are very much on Trump's mind. The elections serve as a referendum on Trump's first two months in office — and particularly the drastic efforts by Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service to downsize the federal government.
Let's take a look at the three pieces of Trump's agenda that have factored prominently in the special elections:
Entitlement programs are among the most contentious issues in the special elections in Florida, where the Democratic candidates are accusing their GOP rivals of wanting to undermine Medicaid and Social Security. The latter program is especially relevant in Waltz's former district, where 28 percent of the population is 65 and older.
Ads by Democratic candidate Josh Weil seek to tie Fine to the House budget resolution that Democrats are warning will lay the groundwork for steep Medicaid cuts to help pay for Trump's agenda. A Weil commercial also claims Fine 'supports the idea that Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,' apparently trying to yoke Fine to Musk's criticism of the program during a podcast interview in February.
Fine has denied wanting to harm Social Security and pointed to his 76-year-old father as an example of the older adults he wants to protect.
'I'm not going to do anything to threaten my Dad's retirement,' Fine said in a statement last month. 'And I won't do it to anyone else.'
Nick Sakhnovsky, chairman of the Volusia County Democratic Party, told us he is interested to see how Weil's focus on Social Security plays with voters in Florida with no party affiliation. It's a group that has broken for GOP candidates in Volusia County before, Sakhnovsky noted, but he predicted they're more up for grabs this time.
'When push comes to shove … when you see threats to Social Security showing up on TV on almost a daily basis, those low-information voters get motivated,' Sakhnovsky said.
Even if Musk weren't pouring money into the Wisconsin race, Democrats are all too happy to make him the main character.
Democrats supporting Judge Susan Crawford have hosted a statewide tour branded 'the People v. Elon Musk' and decried Musk's government cost-cutting tactics as haphazard and cruel. Polls have shown that Musk is less popular than Trump.
About one-third of adults nationwide approved of the job Musk was doing, and 49 percent disapproved, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted in mid-February. Forty-five percent approved of the job Trump is doing, and 53 percent disapproved.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin) complained that media attention on Musk's influence has distracted from big-dollar Democratic donors who have contributed to Crawford's campaign, albeit on a smaller scale than Musk's fundraising.
'Elon Musk is like a shiny object that everyone's pointing at, but what you're missing is the entire underbody of what's really taking place,' Van Orden told us.
Tariffs are top of mind this week as Trump prepares to escalate his global trade wars, especially hitting our northern neighbor, Canada.
In Wisconsin, several manufacturing and agricultural groups have raised concerns about retaliatory tariffs pushing up costs.
That could be a worry for Republicans who counted on the state's rural vote to elect Trump last year.
Darin Von Ruden, a Wisconsin dairy farmer and the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union — which did not make an endorsement in this race — told us that farmers have expressed frustrations that cuts to Department of Agriculture programs threaten the purchase of food aid. However, the tariffs are a more abstract concern.
'It's going to take some time for the effects of tariffs to actually hit farmers' pockets,' he said. 'There's certainly going to be a percentage of citizens that are going to change their minds because of the actions over the last month.'
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), who has warned that tariffs could increase costs, told us it remains to be seen how much voters use the election to protest those higher prices.
'To the extent that the tariffs could contribute to inflation … to which it freezes investment and keeps our economy from taking off, I have a concern,' he said. 'It's a really high-risk strategy.'
Trump and Vice President JD Vance are scheduled to have lunch at 12:30 p.m., and the president is expected to sign executive orders at 3:30 p.m. without reporters present. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is set to brief reporters at noon.
First lady Melania Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are scheduled to host the 19th International Women of Courage Awards Ceremony at 1 p.m.
The House is scheduled to meet at noon for legislative business and vote on bills starting at 1:30 p.m., including one that would overturn a Biden-era rule capping banks' overdraft fees that the Senate has already passed.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has promised to go after what he has characterized as 'activist judges' who are blocking Trump's agenda, will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. titled 'Judicial Overreach and Constitutional Limits on the Federal Courts.' It will be a joint hearing with the House Judiciary subcommittee on courts, intellectual property, artificial intelligence and the internet and the subcommittee on the constitution and limited government.
The House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida), is scheduled to hold a hearing on the John F. Kennedy assassination investigation files at 2 p.m.
The Senate is expected to vote today on the nomination of Matthew G. Whitaker to be the U.S. ambassador to NATO.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to hold a confirmation hearing at 9:30 a.m. for Lt. Gen. John Daniel Caine to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Adelita Grijalva, the daughter of the late congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona), announced yesterday that she is running to fill his seat.
'I am running for Congress because Southern Arizona deserves bold leadership that will fight for working families and stand up to Donald Trump,' she said in a statement.
Adelita Grijalva, a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, entered a Democratic primary that already included Daniel Hernandez, a former state representative. She launched her campaign with the support of Tucson Mayor Regina Romero.
The special primary election for Arizona's 7th Congressional District is July 15, followed by the special general election on Sept. 23. The district heavily favors Democrats.
Raúl Grijalva died on March 13 at the age of 77.
Must reads:
From The Post:
From across the web:
Anyone want to ask him why he's not wearing a suit?
Thanks for reading. You can follow Meryl and Patrick on X: @MerylKornfield and @PatrickSvitek.