Hi there. Jess here. What’s going on?
Since you last heard from me in late December, I had a baby and spent many blissful months getting to know him. It was the first time in my career that I took a step back from the daily onslaught of the news. I am deeply grateful to The New York Times for providing the paid parental leave that made this possible, and to Katie Glueck for helming this newsletter during that time.
And I have to be honest: As I return to covering politics, I feel a little bit like Rip Van Winkle (minus all that sleep), making sense of an uncanny new world.
When I left, a guy named Graham Platner was electrifying Democrats across Maine and the nation. Republicans, chastened by the off-year elections last fall, insisted they were pivoting to the economy. The United States hadn’t started a war with anyone in a while.
Today, I invite you to join me in my fugue state. Here are the preternatural twists and turns of 2026 — each of which is likely to shape the midterm elections in less than four months’ time.
The mess in Maine
So. Six months ago, a gravelly-voiced oysterman was ascendant, hailed as a working-class hero who could beat the Republican senator Susan Collins and the Democratic establishment, too. Now, Maine Democrats are scrambling to find a replacement for Platner, who survived controversy after controversy until last week, when a former girlfriend accused him of rape. He denied it but dropped out, his campaign in shambles.
This leaves us with the major question of who is going to run against Collins, the Republican widely seen as her party’s most vulnerable incumbent. Democrats will sort that out at a special convention this month, but it will probably take the party a lot longer to reckon with why things got so chaotic for them in this race.
Trump becomes an interventionist …
I was awake late one January night when I saw a news alert about explosions in Caracas. Several hours later, the public learned that U.S. forces had entered Venezuela and captured its president, carrying out orders from President Trump. By the end of February, Trump and Israel had begun a second, wider operation, attacking Iran and kicking off a monthslong war that has ricocheted through the Middle East and destabilized the global economy.
It was, to put it mildly, a surprising turn by a politician who promised he would not start new wars. It has also driven the price of gas and other goods higher — ever stopped to marvel at how many people are suddenly wildly knowledgeable about the Strait of Hormuz? — in a year when Republicans were hoping for a stronger economy.
… with a weird midterm strategy
Generally speaking, any president wants his party to win midterm races, and he tries to elevate candidates who can do that and stick to a message that will help them. This is not what Trump has been doing.
Instead, he has repeatedly minimized the financial pain of the war he started, while boasting about his luxurious vision for a White House ballroom and reaping a windfall of more than $2 billion himself. He’s brushed off affordability concerns as a “hoax” by Democrats.
He has also denigrated Republicans with a record of winning difficult races if they cross him (see: Collins and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania) and prized loyalty over electability by throwing his support behind Ken Paxton, a scandal-prone loyalist, in Texas’ marquee Senate race.
This has already stirred rare signs of dissent from Republicans, but we won’t know until November whether Trump has really hurt his party’s candidates with a deeply divided electorate.
The cast is changing
It’s been a rough year for incumbents of both parties, albeit for different reasons. Trump has led a top-down purge of anyone in his party he deems insufficiently supportive. Democratic voters are bucking their party’s leadership and dispatching sitting members of Congress in favor of progressive challengers.
And more change is coming to an aging Washington. The death of Senator Lindsey Graham over the weekend has set off a scramble for his seat, while stalwarts like Senator Mitch McConnell and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi are preparing their exits from office after decades in power.
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s … Democratic optimism?
Democrats have spent nearly two years locked out of power in Washington, disagreeing over their path back to control and well aware that things could only get harder in the years to come. And have I mentioned that they don’t have a Senate candidate in Maine?
So the oddest thing might be that they’ve actually found a few things to smile about.
That control of the Senate is up for grabs at all represents a remarkable turn of fortune for Democrats. Party strategists on both sides believe Democrats have a fairly good shot at reclaiming the House. And, perhaps most encouraging of all for the party, its candidates seem to have a fighting chance in governor’s races in solidly red states like Iowa and Ohio as voters there express dissatisfaction with Trump.
The map is being redrawn
When I left, the Voting Rights Act was still protecting majority-Black districts across the South. In April, the Supreme Court further narrowed that law, setting off a scramble by Republican lawmakers in states like Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee to redraw their congressional maps in real time.
It’s another advantage for Republicans as the Trump administration uses its power to reshape the midterm elections — and those beyond — in its favor.
I’ll be here, eyes wide open, to guide you through whatever twists and turns still await us between now and Nov. 3. Who knows what else could happen?
Who will replace Lindsey Graham?
After the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s politicians and strategists are mobilizing to figure out who will fill his seat.
For the rest of the year, it will be Darline Graham Nordone, the late senator’s sister, Gov. Henry McMaster announced at a news conference this afternoon. His appointment of her came after Trump suggested on social media this morning that it “would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey.”
But a scramble is taking shape to run in an Aug. 11 special primary election to replace him on the ballot in November. Here are some of the potential candidates:
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Mark Lynch, a businessman who finished second behind Graham in the Republican Senate primary this summer, has said he plans to run.
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Representative Nancy Mace hasn’t yet announced a bid for the seat, but four people familiar with her thinking told The Times that the congresswoman was considering a run.
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Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, an ally of McMaster.
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Representatives Russell Fry, a Trump ally, and Ralph Norman, a hard-line conservative, are also being mentioned as possible candidates.
quote of the daY
“They can do terrible things but then go, ‘Oh, but I support Medicare for all.’”
That was Paige Loud, who is vying to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine and who is now accusing the left of being too forgiving of men in politics who mistreat women.
Loud, 29, worked on the Platner campaign before running unsuccessfully for Congress. She told my colleagues Patricia Mazzei and Kellen Browning that she raised concerns about Platner while on his team. Read more here.
Graham’s unexpected death, combined with his colleague Senator Mitch McConnell’s lengthy hospitalization, Annie writes, offered the latest reminders that the Senate is run by a geriatric class of lawmakers — some old, and some very old.
ONE LAST THING
The university where Charlie Kirk died grapples with the spotlight
Utah Valley University doesn’t want to be defined by Charlie Kirk’s killing. But ever since his assassination there last year, the campus has become a destination, both for tearful Kirk supporters and conspiracy theorists.
As hearings began last week on whether to try Tyler Robinson, 23, for Kirk’s killing, the school faces a new dilemma — how to commemorate the shooting that thrust a commuter college little known outside Utah onto the world stage.
Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.
