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Axios
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Axios
Murkowski leaves door open to scenario of caucusing with Democrats
Sen. Lisa Murkowski is leaving the door open to caucusing with Democrats if they managed to produce enough midterm upsets to create a 50-50 tie in 2027. Why it matters: The Alaska Republican is serious about putting her state first, and takes pride in practical wins for her constituents — and bucking her party when necessary. "There is some openness to exploring something different than the status quo," she told the GD Politics podcast. She called caucusing with Democrats as an independent an "interesting hypothetical," but added she has plenty of disagreements with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) conference. Zoom in: Murkowski is on a book tour for her memoir that goes public tomorrow, Far From Home. "I call myself a Republican because of the values I hold, such as personal responsibility, small government, a strong national defense, and the individual's right to make her own choices," she writes in the book's epilogue. In an interview with Axios, she dismissed the self-imposed July 4 deadline the White House and Hill leadership are gunning to meet as "arbitrary." "I don't want us to be able to say we met the date, but our policies are less than we would want." "Why are we afraid of a conference? Oh my gosh," she added. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) are wary of going to conference negotiations with both chambers' tight majorities and the upcoming debt ceiling "X-date." Between the lines: Murkowski also shares some eye-catching personal anecdotes in the book, which spans from before her historic write-in 2010 Senate win through her 2021 vote to convict Trump of impeachment and the overturning of Roe in 2022. Trump once referred to her as "that bitch Murkowski" in a phone call with her late colleague Rep. Don Young, Murkowski writes. "You have nice hair," Trump told her after a 90-minute meeting about Alaska priorities in the Oval Office during his first term. Zoom out: Murkowski shares — in almost agonizing detail — her reasoning and internal debate behind some of the biggest moments of her career. That includes: Choosing to face nepotism charges to accept her initial appointment to the Senate from her father, who was governor at the time. Working with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to allow the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to have his iconic thumbs down moment, preserving the Affordable Care Act in 2017. Joining multiple bipartisan "gangs" to pass legislation with important wins for Alaska. Voting against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Her decisions to first acquit and then convict Trump of his two rounds of impeachment charges. The bottom line: The timing of the book is not meant to signal anything, Murkowski told Axios. She just finally got around to telling the story, with the help of Charles Wohlforth, of when she won a write-in campaign for Senate 15 years ago after losing in the GOP primary. "We joke many times that we tried to stop the book at multiple points," Murkowski told us, "but then, you know, you've got an impeachment or you have an insurrection. And it just seemed like there was not an ending point."
Fox News
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Democrats need their ‘own Trump,' podcaster urges in NY Times
A recent opinion piece in The New York Times said that the key to the Democratic Party succeeding again is having their own version of President Donald Trump. "If the next Democratic nominee wants to build a majority coalition — one that doesn't rely on Republicans running poor-quality candidates to eke out presidential wins and that doesn't write off the Senate as a lost cause — the candidate should attack the Democratic Party itself and offer positions that outflank it from both the right and the left," Galen Druke, host of the "GD Politics" podcast, wrote in a Monday guest essay in The New York Times. "It may seem like an audacious gambit, but a successful candidate has provided them a blueprint: Donald Trump," Druke added. Druke noted that the Democratic Party is "historically unpopular," citing a 2025 Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel and saying that "The Democratic Party's favorability rating is 22 percentage points underwater — 60 percent of respondents view it unfavorably, 38 favorably." He cautioned that Democrats should not look for their own Trump figure who would "violate democratic norms and destabilize American institutions, but rather the one for resetting how Americans view a party and its leaders." Secrets behind Trump's success, Druke said, included the president bucking his own party's stances from both sides of the spectrum. Druke also hinted at the trust Democrats need to rebuild within their base after they "stood by a deeply unpopular president despite clear signs that Democratic voters did not think he was suited to another term." Druke mentioned a recent CNN poll that showed the Democratic Party's favorability rating at a record low among Americans, with 52% to 48% of Democratic-learning voters saying the party is going in the wrong direction. The poll also showed the favorability rating for the Democratic Party at 29%, calling it a "record low" that goes back to 1992, and saying that it was a 20-point drop from January 2021. Druke also said that Democrats should take a page from former President Bill Clinton's playbook and be liberal in terms of healthcare policy, where he says the candidate should push for universal healthcare "far more progressive than the Affordable Care Act," but have more right-leaning policies when it comes to issues like government spending and crime. Democrats should treat social issues similarly, Druke said, adding that the party should "assert that the goal is for all people to be treated with dignity and that Democrats got carried away with ideas that ultimately didn't further that goal." "To be truly successful, the next Democratic nominee will transform how Americans view the Democratic Party as a whole, leading the way to winning voters not currently viewed as 'gettable' in states that have been written off," Druke wrote.
