Latest news with #midtermElections
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Capitol Hill reacts to Trump/Musk feud
The explosive conflict between President Trump and Elon Musk is reverberating on Capitol Hill, where the fate of the President's "Big Beautiful Bill" remains in flux. Jim Lokay discusses the feud with NOTUS reporter Riley Rogerson, plus how Musk's fortune could factor into next year's midterm elections.
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
A Look Ahead at the 2026 Midterm Elections
Most Americans aren't thinking about next year's midterm election. But leaders, lawmakers and candidates in both parties are—and for good reason. The most consequential battle across the contested arenas in 2026—the Senate, the House, governorships and state legislatures—will likely be the fight for the House. It's the most likely to flip from Republican to Democrat, putting a major crimp in President Trump's final two years.
Daily Mail
30-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Polling guru identifies 'low energy' Trump supporters as the key group that will decide future U.S. elections
New polling shows that a key group of voters who helped propel President Donald Trump to victory 2024 are not as enthusiastic about supporting Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. The polling group J.L. Partners sounded the alarm, outlining the mood of 'mid-propensity voters' (MPVs) in a political analysis memo shared with the Daily Mail. These are people who supported Trump in 2024 but are considered 'low energy;' voters who are not fully committed to voting in the midterm elections. Politically unaligned, 42 percent of these voters identify as Independent or unaffiliated, but supported Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Thirty-six percent of them backed Trump while 32 percent chose Harris and 29 percent did not even vote. The mid-propensity voters make up 20 percent of the electorate in the United States, and ranked their likelihood of voting between 4 and 7 out of ten, the memo revealed. The mid-propensity voters who supported Trump are mostly younger, 18-29 and likely to be black, according to the memo. When asked to choose the most important convincing argument for voting in the midterms, the Trump MPVs cited the importance of Republicans keeping their majorities in Congress to help a Republican presidential candidate win in 2028. 'It might seem odd, but it is intuitive when you think about it – these are presidential elections and they are thinking through a presidential election prism,' James Johnson, Co-Founder of J.L. Partners said. J.L. Partners collected a nationally representative sample of 3,041 registered voters across several polls that fielded throughout April and May 2025 reaching 564 MPVs and 229 MPVs who voted for Trump. 'If you are a Republican operative, the best way to get the message across is to make these elections about putting the GOP in the best position to carry the agenda that Trump has championed forward into years to come,' Johnson said. The party in power has historically struggled to keep voters in the presidential election motivated, as the opposition party tends to enjoy a boost in support. As Trump is technically prevented from running for a third term, positioning his successor to the MAGA movement appears paramount for the Republican Party if they want to achieve majorities in 2026. The president's team is already preparing for a likely attempt by Democrats to impeach him, if they win the House majority in 2026. They are also keenly aware that Trump has to deliver on many of his campaign promises to keep his supporters positive. 'We need to pass the tax cuts and avoid a recession,' Trump's longtime pollster, John McLaughlin said to Axios. 'That's the high stakes here. We cannot lose the midterms.'
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
How should Democrats respond to Trump's megabill? The 3 C's.
Democrats need to have a frank conversation — with themselves. We must acknowledge where we are and appreciate what we can realistically accomplish. Yes, we should oppose the MAGA agenda at every turn. But given that we control neither the bully pulpit nor any congressional gavel, we need to focus foremost on what's winnable — next year's midterm elections. At core, the 2026 campaign will be a referendum on President Donald Trump and his rubber-stamp congressional Republicans. Our task is to help the public understand what the Republicans are doing and how it affects them. That job begins with Trump's audaciously named One Big Beautiful Bill. This will likely be the most significant piece of legislation to pass during Trump's term and should be understood by the public in one phrase: tax cuts for the wealthy, health-care cuts for the many. The simplicity of that binary is its virtue. Trump is a chaos machine — a disciple of professional wrestling who will try to distract from the underlying reality — see his comment that he's 'not going to touch [Medicaid].' We can't chase every shiny bauble — we need to laser focus on points that will deliver strategic value. This is our opportunity to define Trump and his congressional enablers. Recall that we spent 2024 trying to convince Americans that our democracy was in Trump's crosshairs. That message failed. We now need to paint the reality we know and the public perceives, but which the Trump Show often obscures: The administration and its Capitol Hill minions are beacons of the three C's: corruption, chaos and cruelty. Set aside the rhetoric about fascism, oligarchies or Democratic weakness. Any utterance that fails to burnish the public's understanding of the three C's is our own distraction. The present fight over the budget bill, which the House approved Thursday morning, is the ripest opportunity we'll have to lift the fog that can define 2026. Recent history is clear. When a single party controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, as the GOP does today, the midterm political landscape adheres to a certain architecture. The opposition's base is energized. Swing voters steer clear of the entrenched party. And the incumbent party's base is depressed by comparison to the prior election. In 1994, Republicans stormed to victory by focusing the public's attention on the Clinton administration's lurch to the left, as exemplified by its health-care failure. In 2006, Democrats stormed back to power by pounding at the quagmire in Iraq and the GOP's domestic corruption scandals involving the likes of Rep. Tom DeLay (Texas) and lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In 2018, Democrats made a showcase of Trump's ruthless efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and separate families at the border. The question before Democrats is how to focus the public's attention and make 2026 a referendum on the three C's. To be sure, Trump will try to flood the zone with distractions. That's a trap. Incensed by each successive outrage, our ill-defined and unfocused reactions too often make us appear like defenders of the status quo. At heart, Americans really do want reform — but they also want protection against Trump's chaos. Once voters understand that congressional Republicans are a rubber stamp, they'll be looking explicitly for a check on his chaotic corruption. That's why the One Big Beautiful Bill is target rich. Trump and the GOP Congress want to cut taxes on well-connected billionaires by slashing health care for working families. That might not be corruption the way Washington good government groups define it, but it's how the public sees a corrupt system at work. Democrats have yet to make this the signal through the noise. If we want to win, we need to narrow our critique — to hammer home the notion that Trump is rewarding his inaugural donors and friends by immiserating everyone else. On the political front, a focus on the three C's would harness three benefits for 2026. First, it would pull Democrats and independent voters into a singular bloc. Second, it would drive a wedge between independent voters and the GOP. Most important, it would cleave MAGA populists from the (very few) fiscal conservatives that remain in the GOP. The populists understand the Medicaid cuts will close rural hospitals and cut the MAGA faithful's health care — the fiscal conservatives, meanwhile, see pain as the sole purpose. This is the binary choice we need to sharpen. Set aside Trump's crypto schemes and his solicitation of Qatar's 'free' plane — that's baked into the electorate's deep-seated cynicism. As recent polling has shown, the public is poised to believe they're being fleeced by the Trump 'system.' That's what the rubber-stamp Republicans will have done when this bill cuts more people's health care than any other in history. The goal of a Democratic counterproposal is not to bring peace among the Democratic factions — it is to bring disquiet to the GOP. Which brings us to the last point: In this situation, less is more. Democrats don't need to produce a whole budget plan. The counterproposal is not going to become law. They simply need to compel Republicans in swing districts and states to take a vote that raises taxes on the well-to-do and restores health care for the many. Raising taxes on people making more than $2.5 million, eliminating the tax break for carried interest and restoring the corporate rate to the previously proposed 27 percent would give Congress enough money to leave the nation's health-care system harmless — no cuts to Medicaid, to the Children's Health Insurance Program, or to the premium support for coverage purchased on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. This is how we put marginal GOP members at grave political risk, forcing them to choose between their districts and loyalty to Trump. For 2026, we need to burnish the three C's in the public's mind. Trump's agenda is unchecked and out of control. We need to hound that narrative until it becomes the essential question animating voters casting ballots in November next year.
Jordan Times
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Jordan Times
Sweltering Philippines votes with Marcos-Duterte feud centre stage
MANILA — Millions of Filipinos braved long lines and soaring temperatures on Monday to vote in a mid-term election largely defined by the explosive feud between President Ferdinand Marcos and impeached Vice President Sara Duterte. With temperatures hitting 34 degrees Celsius (in some places, George Garcia, head of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), said some voting machines were "overheating". "It's slowing the voting process," he told reporters at a prison in southern Manila where inmates were casting ballots. "Due to the extreme heat, the ink [on the ballots] does not dry immediately, and the ballot ends up stuck on the scanners," Garcia said, adding officials in some areas were resorting to aiming electric fans at the machines. Monday's election will decide more than 18,000 posts, from seats in the House of Representatives to hotly contested municipal offices. It is the battle for the Senate, however, that carries potentially major implications for the presidential election in 2028. The 12 senators chosen nationally on Monday will form half the jury in an impeachment trial of Duterte later this year that could see her permanently barred from public office. Duterte's long-running feud with former ally Marcos erupted in February when she was impeached by the House for alleged "high crimes", including corruption and an assassination plot against the president. Barely a month later, her father -- former president Rodrigo Duterte -- was arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to face a charge of crimes against humanity over his deadly drug crackdown. On Monday, 53-year-old Roland Agasa, one of the country's 68 million registered voters, said the feud had taken a mental toll heading into election day. "The government is getting stressful," he said outside a Manila elementary school where the polling station was on the fourth and fifth floors. "I hope we choose the deserving, those who can help the country," Agasa said, adding he planned to wait until the day cooled before braving the stairs to cast his vote. "There was no pushing, but it was cramped. It was difficult, but we endured so that we could vote," Rizza Bacolod, 32, said at the same location. Marcos cast his vote at an elementary school in his family's traditional stronghold of Ilocos Norte province. His mother Imelda, 95, was at his side. Numbers game Sara Duterte, who cast her vote at a high school in her family's southern bailiwick of Davao, will need nine votes in the 24-seat senate to preserve any hope of a future presidential run. Heading into Monday, seven of the candidates polling in the top 12 were endorsed by Marcos, while four were aligned with his vice president. Two, including the president's independent-minded sister Imee Marcos, were "adopted" as honorary members of the Duterte family's PDP-Laban Party on Saturday. The move to add Marcos and television personality Camille Villar to the party's slate was intended to add "more allies to protect the Vice President against impeachment", according to a party resolution. Despite his detention at The Hague, Rodrigo Duterte remains on the ballot in Davao city, where he is seeking to retake his former job as mayor. Election violence As polls opened on Monday, two men were killed and seven wounded in the central Philippines when men fired on a group outside a local party headquarters from a moving vehicle. The Philippines has a long history of election violence, with armed groups of political rivals routinely fighting over positions that control local government spending. A day before, at least two people were killed in a clash between supporters of rival political camps in southern Mindanao Island's autonomous Muslim region, the Philippine army reported. National police have been on alert for more than a week, and around 163,000 officers have been deployed to secure polling stations, escort election officials and guard checkpoints. Comelec last week said it had recorded 81 acts of "politically related" violence between January 12 and May 7. Police told AFP that 16 of those had resulted in death.
