By Chris Stirewalt | Friday, February 27 |
By Chris Stirewalt Friday, February 27 |
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A gusher of turnout in Texas, but who will benefit? |
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week's political news and answer questions from a live online audience.]
The midterms start in earnest on Tuesday, and they're beginning with a bang: Texas has a double-barreled Senate primary that has been expensive and ugly. How the parties move forward next week will significantly shape the question of whether the Republican Senate majority really is in jeopardy or not. And nobody knows what's going to happen — on the Democratic side, at least. The Republicans have been replaying the siege of the Alamo for the past year, as incumbent Sen. John Cornyn has tried to outlast the siege by state Attorney General Ken Paxton. The arrival of a third high-visibility candidate, Houston-area Rep. Wesley Hunt, meant that a May 26 runoff between the top two was always going to be the likeliest outcome. President Trump has stayed out of the race so far but is scheduled to campaign in Texas at the end of next week. Will he clarify his preference among the top two finishers or let them continue to fight it out and spend bales of cash? If the runoff features ads like the ones we've seen in the first round, front-runner Paxton could emerge into the general election more damaged than any Texas statewide Republican candidate in memory. It's not unlike the story playing out along the Rio Grande as Democrats hope Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales survives his primary amid a jaw-dropping scandal involving the suicide by self-immolation of a staffer who claimed to have been having an affair with the congressman. While losing a House race would be an embarrassment for Texas Republicans after their audacious mid-decade redistricting, very few people in politics expect Republicans to remain in the House majority after the midterms. The Senate, though, still favors Republicans, but only slightly, and only if Republicans avoid candidates with heavy baggage, like Paxton, whose history of scandal is matched by his penchant for polarizing politics. Of course, it's hard to say much with great confidence. Not only is there essentially no reliable, fresh polling in Texas this cycle — when a YouGov survey conducted over a two-week period online is the best you've got in the last week of the campaign, you ain't got much — it would be hard to know how to even set the parameters for a poll given the huge turnout so far. Today is the last day of early voting, but by Thursday, some 270,000 more Republicans had already voted early than in 2022. That's not so surprising, given that there wasn't a hot Senate race on the ballot that year and Gov. Greg Abbott was easily weathering a slew of primary challengers to his right. Could Paxton win outright Tuesday? Yep. Could Hunt sneak into the top two? Sure. With turnout this high, it's hard to say. But on the Democratic side? Wowzers. As of Thursday, 868,118 ballots had already been cast in Democratic primaries, almost triple the number from four years ago. To have Democratic turnout running nearly 140,000 votes ahead of Republicans in a state where the GOP holds every statewide office and huge majorities in both houses of the Legislature is really something. Part of that surge is due to the fact that Democrats everywhere are fired up to vote, winning special elections from coast to coast. But part of it is also that Texas Democrats have stumbled into a hornets' nest of a primary between Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the trash-talking progressive from Dallas, and state Rep. James Talarico, the moderate-sounding liberal from the Austin area. The aforementioned junky poll has Crockett trouncing Talarico by a dozen points, but he has his own internal poll that puts him 4 points ahead. Both polls were taken before the imbroglio over Talarico's scheduled appearance on Stephen Colbert's TV show, and neither inspires much confidence in their predictive power. Even good, nonpartisan pollsters would struggle with a turnout surge like this. Republicans are hoping for Crockett in the same way Democrats are rooting for Paxton, as evidenced by Abbott's mischievous interference in the Democratic race, dumping a bunch of money to elevate the polarizing congresswoman for her similarities to progressive icons like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Abbott is a shoo-in for his own race, so why not try to boost the weaker candidate for Senate? Crockett v. Cornyn would be basically no race at all. Crockett v. Paxton is a race Republicans still believe they can solidly win. Talarico v. Cornyn is probably also a solid Republican rating. But Talarico v. Paxton? That one has some real Roy Moore energy and rightly has Republicans frightened to think about what it would take to get their damaged nominee over the finish line. Even if Talarico ends up being just another Beto O'Rourke, Paxton isn't nearly as good of a nominee as even Sen. Ted Cruz was in their 2018 match-up. And right now, the political climate looks even worse for Republicans than it did at this point in the first Trump midterm. High turnout and high stakes — that's a Texas-sized start to the 2026 midterms. [Programming alert: Watch "The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt" — Midterm season is finally here, as primary voters in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas head to the polls on Tuesday. Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters and Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder weigh in. Plus, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) on his push to increase domestic ship production. And, as always, we'll be sure to cover all the latest political news with expert analysis from our best-in-the-business panel of journalists. Be sure to catch us on NewsNation at 10 a.m. ET / 9 a.m. CT or your local CW station.] |
Holy croakano! We welcome your feedback, so please email us with your tips, corrections, reactions & amplifications: WholeHogPolitics@TheHill.com. If you'd like to be considered for publication, please include your name and hometown. If you don't want your comments to be publicized, please specify. |
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| Net Score: -21.8 Change from one week ago: ↓ 1.8 points (- 20 points) Change from one month ago: ↓ 1.6 points (-20.2 points) |
[Average includes: Reuters/Ipsos 40% approve - 58% disapprove; Emerson College 43% approve - 55% disapprove; American Research Group 36% approve - 62% disapprove; CNN/SSRS 36% approve - 63% disapprove; AP/NORC 36% approve - 62% disapprove] |
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'The man who stole infinity' |
Quanta Magazine: "When Demian Goos followed Karin Richter into her office on March 12 of last year, the first thing he noticed was the bust. It sat atop a tall pedestal in the corner of the room, depicting a bald, elderly gentleman with a stoic countenance. Goos saw no trace of the anxious, lonely man who had obsessed him for over a year. Instead, this was Georg Cantor as history saw him. An intellectual giant: steadfast, strong-willed, determined to bring about a mathematical revolution over the clamorous objections of his peers. … Goos began flipping through, contemplating the letters with the relish of an archaeologist entering a long-lost tomb. Then he reached a particular page and froze. He struggled to catch his breath. … It was the date: November 30, 1873. … The letter that proved once and for all that Cantor's famous 1874 paper, the one that would go on to reshape all of mathematics, had been an act of plagiarism." |
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Voter ID push could backfire on GOP: The Atlantic: "For decades, the politics of voter-ID battles were based on a simple premise: The voters most likely to be screened out by such restrictions were probably Democrats. In 2024, however, that fact stopped being true. Trump beat Kamala Harris among voters who didn't regularly participate in elections. In the low-turnout, off-cycle elections that have happened since then, Democrats have overperformed dramatically, suggesting that their advantage with the most educated, plugged-in voters remains strong. In other words, the politics of voter ID have not caught up to its new partisan implications. Making voting more difficult would most likely hurt Republicans' chances, yet they're pushing hard to make that happen; meanwhile, Democrats, who insist that Trump and a MAGA Congress are existential threats to American democracy, refuse on principle to help Republicans sabotage themselves." |
Trump allies seek emergency declaration on elections: Washington Post: "Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. … Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer … is advocating for the draft executive order. Ticktin attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. 'But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,' Ticktin went on. 'That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.' The emergency would empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued." |
Panic setting in for California Democrats: New York Times: "[The] dominance of the San Francisco machine in California is coming to an end. … But the end of the dynastic dominance has also left California Democrats without a clear favorite to lead the state, the nation's most populous. … At least nine Democrats are running, with no one seizing a substantial lead. And it is unusually close to the June 2 primary for the governor's race to be this unsettled. … California has not elected a Republican to statewide office in 20 years, and registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans almost two to one. So the possibility of a Republican primary sweep has Democrats in a mild panic. … In an earlier era, a strong party boss might have hashed things out behind closed doors. But many of the candidates still see reasons to remain hopeful." |
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Dems move out to 8-point lead on generic ballot — Emerson College Polling 14-point advantage on voter enthusiasm is Dems' largest since 2006 — Washington Post Vance or Rubio? Trump plays pundit with advisers over 2028 — Axios Newsom, Buttigieg, Harris, Ocasio-Cortez and Shapiro fill out top five for 2028 Dems — Emerson College Polling Q Poll shows Pennsylvanians like Shapiro as governor, dubious about him as potential president — The Hill Shapiro ducks on Fetterman reelection endorsement — WHTM Internal poll puts state Sen. Zach Wahls way ahead in Iowa Dems' Senate primary to replace Ernst — Newsweek Candidate filing date passes, but Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) not giving up on gerrymander bid — WBFF All six Virginia House Democrats back April gerrymander amendment — Punchbowl News MAGA's bid to punish Indiana Republicans who blocked gerrymander fizzles — The Downballot Conservative Wisconsin House Speaker who fought Trump over 2020 results calls it quits — WMTV |
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"It's almost like the government has, you know, 19 elderly employees for every actual employee" — Think tank tax expert, Alan Cole, 37, to The Wall Street Journal explaining how his understanding of Social Security and Medicaid funding helped him win $128,000 by betting his life savings that federal spending would increase despite DOGE cuts. |
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Yet, no justice for Cosmo Kramer: |
CBS News: "Seth Bykofsky's #1 fight since January has been to keep his custom license plate, which reads 'PB4WEGO.' On Jan. 23, Bykofsky posted on social media [that] the New York state Department of Motor Vehicles had pulled his custom plate, calling it 'objectionable.' A letter he shared from the DMV said he 'must destroy your old plates' and replace them with new, standard plates the state provided. Bykofsky had a wee objection to the plate being called objectionable. 'Is this simple plea ... an incitement to riot? Have we inflamed the very soul of toddlers everywhere, struggling, against all odds, to hold it in? Other than to evoke a smile, a passing thumbs up, or a wink and a nod from motorists and pedestrians alike, where is the groundswell of objection to the public display of benign jest,' Bykofksy wrote on social media. His story did not whizz past [New York Gov. Kathy Hochul], who intervened on his behalf. She called his plate 'a public service.'" |
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Write to WholeHogPolitics@TheHill.com with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name — first and last — and hometown. Make sure to let us know if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, Meera Sehgal, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack! |
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Chris Stirewalt is political editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of "The Hill Sunday" on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media. |
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