‘More like a blue trickle': Dems are hoping for a blue wave that might not happen
Around this time in 2017 — ahead of Democrats' monster 2018 blue wave year in which they gained a net of 41 House seats — Democrats were up about 6 percentage points in the generic ballot, noted Taglia, the Emerson pollster.
That doesn't mean the blue wave dream is dead. Election Day is still 15 months away, and that same Emerson poll shows about a quarter of voters are currently undecided on the congressional ballot. Americans could start feeling the impacts of the megabill and other marquee policies like mass deportations well into campaign season, which could offer Democrats an opportunity to win back some voters who swung right in 2024.
'If we get to March of next year and we still see Democrats at 2 or 3 points up in the generic ballot, that is alarm bells for them,' Taglia said. 'They're going to want to be at least 4 points up. For their ideal result, probably more like 6 points … Then you're starting to look a little bit like a blue wave.'
Redistricting could bite into Democrats' opportunities
Texas Republicans unveiled a new congressional map Wednesday that, if enacted, would carve out five additional red-leaning districts. Those efforts, done at the behest of Trump, could throw a monkeywrench in Democrats' plans to reclaim the House.
Now Democrats are trying to reforge relationships with voters in four newly created majority-Hispanic districts in Texas who swung right in 2024.
'Donald Trump and Texas Republicans are playing a dangerous game, and we're ready to defeat now-vulnerable Republicans next November,' said CJ Warnke, a spokesperson for House Majority PAC, Democrats' top House super PAC. 'We're bringing the full weight of our operation to the Lone Star State to make this backroom deal backfire and take back the House in 2026.'
Republicans also hope to squeeze out a few more red districts in other states. Control of the House hinges on razor-thin majorities, and those redistricting efforts alone could significantly stymie Democrats' ability to retake the chamber.
Some Democratic governors, including California's Gavin Newsom and New York's Kathy Hochul, have threatened retaliatory gerrymandering crusades ahead of midterms, though it's unclear how feasible these efforts will be because those states have ceded redistricting power to independent commissions, unlike Texas. Those states would have to rely on voter referenda or court orders to claw back this power, and they only have until early 2026 to pull it off.
Tanden says she's optimistic California can counter Texas's gerrymandering by 2026. 'If someone was like, 'while Trump is president we're going to get rid of the commission,' people would be down with that.'
Democrats are facing down messy primaries
House Democrats are facing crowded primaries across the map.
Some in the party worry that months of fighting over intraparty tactics or thorny issues like Israel's war in Gaza could splinter voters and drain resources that could be used in the general election.
Democratic infighting over the idea of challenging incumbents has roiled the Democratic National Committee, where former Vice Chair David Hogg lost his position amid consternation over his plan to primary 'asleep at the wheel' Democrats.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
13 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Vice President JD Vance to visit Indiana as Trump pressures GOP states to redistrict
Vice President JD Vance visits Indiana on Thursday to discuss redistricting with Republican leaders as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on GOP states to redraw congressional boundaries and give the party more winnable seats in the 2026 midterm elections. Vance is scheduled to hold private meetings with Gov. Mike Braun and others before attending a GOP fundraiser Thursday night in the solidly Republican state. Braun told reporters Tuesday he expects to discuss several matters with the vice president — including redistricting — but said no commitments have been made. 'It looks like it's going to happen across many Republican states,' Braun said. Vance's visit comes after Texas Democrats successfully stalled a vote there this week on a redrawn congressional map, part of a bid to secure five more GOP-leaning congressional seats at the expense of Democrats before the midterms. The White House's goal is to give Republicans an easier path to maintaining control of the House. Indiana is staunchly Republican, but opponents of any redistricting attempt are planning to make their objections known Thursday with protests and a news conference by the two Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation. Braun would have to call a special session if he chooses to start the redistricting process, but lawmakers have the sole power to draw up new maps. Braun's office has not responded to multiple emailed requests seeking more details about Vance's visit. Indiana lawmakers have been wary of the national spotlight in recent years, especially after a special session in 2022 resulted in lawmakers enacting a strict ban on abortions. Braun is a staunch ally of Trump in a state with a strong base of loyalists to the president. But Indiana is also home to Mike Pence, the former vice president and a past governor whose more measured approach to partisan politics still holds sway among many state lawmakers. The GOP would likely target Indiana's 1st Congressional District, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses Gary and other cities near Chicago in the state's northwest corner. The seat held by third-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan has been seen as a possible pickup in recent years as manufacturing union jobs have left the area, said Laura Merrifield Wilson, a professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis. Lawmakers in Indiana redrew the borders of the district to be slightly more favorable towards Republicans in the 2022 election, but did not entirely split it up. The new maps were not challenged in court after they were approved in 2021, not even by Democrats and allies who had opposed the changes that also gave a boost to the GOP in the suburbs north of Indianapolis. Mrvan won reelection in 2022 by a respectable margin and easily retained his seat again in 2024. In a statement Tuesday, Mrvan said the Trump administration knows its policies are 'wildly unpopular.' 'They know that their only hope to maintain control is to pressure the Indiana General Assembly to violate the Indiana Constitution and redistrict U.S. House of Representative(s) seats mid-decade,' he added. The more dramatic option would be to zero in on Indiana's 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis. Indiana's legislative leaders, House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, held their same positions four years ago when the Legislature finalized the new maps. Both expressed approval of the final product and said the borders fairly reflected the makeup of the state. 'I believe these maps reflect feedback from the public and will serve Hoosiers well for the next decade,' Bray said at the time. Both leaders have been quiet on the possibility of a special session. Bray and Huston's offices did not respond to multiple messages left over the phone and email Wednesday. Republicans hold a supermajority in the Indiana House and Senate, meaning Democrats could not stop a special session by refusing to attend. Julia Vaughn, director of Common Cause Indiana, said a costly redistricting process will not look good for Republicans who tightened the belt on the state budget this past legislative session due to revenue forecasts. Common Cause is one of the leading groups nationally opposing Trump's push to redistrict. 'I don't think there is any way they could rationalize spending taxpayer dollars to come back to Indianapolis to redraw maps that were just drawn four years ago for purely partisan purposes,' Vaughn said.
USA Today
13 minutes ago
- USA Today
RFK Jr. defunds mRNA vaccine research. His anti-vax policies will kill people.
It's ridiculous that Kennedy is in this position following a lifetime of gargling conspiratorial and dangerous health nonsense, but his actions are now deadly serious. In his ongoing crusade to make America sicker and dumber, Health and Human Services Secretary (I bristle every time I type that title) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has axed about $500 million in vital mRNA vaccine research funding. It's the latest salvo in Kennedy's war against science, and it's about as predictably stupid as any of the Neanderthal-brained things he has done since President Donald Trump foisted him on the American public. (My apologies to any Neanderthals offended by the comparison.) You might recall being fortunate beyond measure to receive mRNA vaccine shots during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Nobel Prize-winning vaccine development saved millions of lives globally and was hailed by Trump himself as a 'medical miracle.' 'This may be the most dangerous public health judgment that I've seen' Messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines are far more nimble and easier to produce and alter than traditional vaccines, so continued development is seen as crucial ‒ not just for future pandemics but for everything from responding to bioterrorism attacks to cancer prevention. Michael Osterholm, head of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told NPR this when asked about Kennedy's mRNA funding decision: 'This may be the most dangerous public health judgment that I've seen in my 50 years in this business. ... It is baseless, and we will pay a tremendous price in terms of illnesses and deaths.' Every day RFK Jr. is in charge is a bad day for science In a New York Times report, University of Pennsylvania immunologist Scott Hensley, who has been researching an mRNA flu vaccine, said: 'This is a bad day for science.' That can be said about every day as long as we have a wholly unqualified anti-vaccine nutter like Kennedy in charge of America's health. And remember, as with all things RFK Jr., his 'concerns' and 'fears' about mRNA vaccines are wholly unfounded and not supported by science. They are safe and have been studied for decades. It's ridiculous that Kennedy is in this position following a lifetime of gargling conspiratorial and dangerous health nonsense, but his actions are now deadly serious, and they're often cloaked by the daily insanity spun up by Trump himself, from tariffs to migrant cruelty to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Out go the smart people, in come the vaccine skeptics In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with people he handpicked (that's a red flag if I've ever seen one), including several vaccine skeptics. Now they're reexamining your children's vaccine schedule and echoing baseless fears heard in anti-vax circles for years. Kennedy is also reportedly considering getting rid of all members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which gives guidance to doctors and health insurers on preventive medicine. Dr. Thomas Lew, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and frequent contributor for USA TODAY Opinion, told CBS News: "This will greatly damage all the work we've done in preventative care, making people sicker, and driving up costs and premiums. To put it mildly, this is extremely concerning ‒ and doing the opposite of making America healthy.' Kennedy is so bad for health that he's being sued by major medical groups Kennedy has removed the COVID-19 vaccine from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women, prompting a lawsuit from leading medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physicians. At the end of March, the highly respected top vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration was forced out, and wrote in his resignation letter: 'It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.' Food inspections? Hand washing? What's next to come under RFK Jr.'s ax? Whether through Trump's magical branding skills or Republican malpractice or both, Kennedy was able to take on enough of a veneer of credibility to become health secretary. But he is still the same raw-milk-guzzling, roadkill-eating, vaccine-alarmist dipstick he was for all those years when his gibberish was nothing more than a punchline for jokes about conspiracy-addled loons. And he is now doing things that are making us fundamentally less safe, whether by sowing doubt about vaccines, derailing medical research or curbing food safety inspections. Kennedy's policies are almost certainly going to kill people A year ago, if you asked me and many other sane people to come up with the most irresponsible public figure to put in charge of America's health, we would have said RFK Jr. And here we are, staring down radical changes inspired not by science but by suspicion and opportunistic hearsay. The ineptitude and absurdity of the Trump administration can be almost laughable at times. But I'm convinced people will die because of Kennedy's policies, weirdo worldviews and actions. And I'm not laughing a bit. Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @ and on Facebook at
Boston Globe
13 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
More Ukrainians now want a negotiated end to the war with Russia, new Gallup poll shows
Advertisement Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia's relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. On the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line snaking from northeast to southeast Ukraine, where tens of thousands of troops on both sides have died, Russia's bigger army is slowly capturing more land. The poll came out on the eve of U.S. President Donald Trump's Friday deadline for Russia to stop the killing or face heavy economic sanctions. In the new Gallup survey, conducted in early July, about 7 in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month renewed his offer to meet with Russia's Vladimir Putin, but his overture was rebuffed as Russia sticks to its demands, and the sides remain far apart. Advertisement Most Ukrainians do not expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it's 'very' or 'somewhat' likely that active fighting will end within the next 12 months, while about 7 in 10 think it's 'somewhat' or 'very' unlikely that active fighting will be over in the next year. Approval of US falls, approval of Germany rises Ukrainian views of the American government have cratered over the past few years, while positive views of Germany's leadership have risen, according to Gallup. Three years ago, about two-thirds of Ukrainians approved of U.S. leadership. That's since fallen to 16% in the latest poll, reflecting new tensions between the two countries since Trump took office in January. But although the dip from last year was substantial — approval of U.S. leadership was 40% in 2024 — positive views of U.S. leadership were already dropping before Trump took office, perhaps related to the antipathy that prominent Republican politicians showed toward billions of dollars in U.S. support for Ukraine. Germany has grown more popular among Ukrainians over the past few years, rising to 63% approval in the new poll. Hope for NATO, EU acceptance has fallen Ukrainians are much less optimistic that their country will be accepted into NATO or the European Union in the next decade than they were just a few years ago. In the new poll, about one-third of Ukrainians expect that Ukraine will be accepted into NATO within the next 10 years, while about one-quarter think it will take at least 10 years, and one-third believe it will never happen. Advertisement That's down from 2022, when about two-thirds of Ukrainians thought acceptance into NATO would happen in the coming decade and only about 1 in 10 thought it would never happen. Hope for acceptance into the EU is higher but has also fallen. About half, 52%, of Ukrainians now expect to be part of the EU within the next decade, down from 73% in 2022. Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
