If you get value from this newsletter, please consider making a voluntary contribution to support my work.
You can contribute ANY amount you wish via ANY of the following routes:
* Buy me a cocktail (at Miami prices….), tax and server tip included, by clicking here.
* Buy me a cup of coffee (or a week’s worth) by clicking here.
Or use one of these methods:
* Check. Send a simple email to markhalperintalk@gmail.com and ask where you can send a piece of paper.
• PayPal. markhalperinnyc@gmail.com
• Venmo. Mark-Halperin-4 (telephone number ends in x3226)
• Zelle. markhalperinnyc@gmail.com
Remember: I don’t write this newsletter for fun (although, oh, what fun it is!).
There are no ads, sponsors, investors, staff, or corporate backers.
It is just me doing this, seven days a week.
To become a voluntary paid subscriber, click this blue button and sign up to be a monthly or annual subscriber – or, if you are feeling super generous, a Founding Member:
Thank you for your support!
****
It would have been a victory for Democrats if they’d even kept it close. Instead, Democrat Pat Ryan beat Republican Marc Molinaro in a district that Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020, but that would have appeared to favor Republicans in a normal midterm climate.
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis:
Gang of 500 chatter: The ball is now clearly in the court of the Republican campaign committees and the campaigns of all these pro-life candidates — if they think that “inflation, border, crime, inflation” insulates them from a potentially historic failure and that they can just pretend what’s happening with abortion as a midterm issue isn’t happening, then they might spend November and beyond pointing fingers at plenty of people besides Rick Scott (and Donald Trump).
****
Henry Olsen with an essential read that is a less bullish take on the Democrats and the midterms:
Democrats in the House and Senate would need to massively outperform historical trends with Biden’s weak approvers (currently 24 percent of voters) and weak opponents (13 percent) to have a prayer of running close to Republicans….
data also show how hard it will be for Democrats to hold on to their current momentum in the midterm campaign. Unless Biden’s job approval ratings tick up appreciably, his party will need to win a plurality of the vote among weak Biden disapprovers to have a shot, both nationally for the House and in each closely contested Senate race.
The president’s party, however, has lost among this group by at least 20 points in every midterm House generic ballot exit poll since 2006. And in Senate exit polls, the president’s party normally loses by similarly large margins. Repeating anything close to that performance in November would doom Democrats across the board.
Democratic hopes of keeping their Senate majority rest on nearly every one of their candidates in swing states and districts having the bipartisan appeal of a Jon Tester or a Joe Manchin. That’s pretty unlikely.
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis: History suggests this analysis is right.
Gang of 500 chatter: With the Supreme Court taking the unprecedented step of taking away a right, the strangest economy in memory, and a bunch of private Republican polling showing Democratic Senate and gubernatorial candidates running well ahead of Mr. Biden’s job approval numbers, we might need to throw history in the trash.
****
Charlie Crist is the Democratic nominee to take on the heavily favored, super-well-funded Ron DeSantis.
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis:
DeSantis holds a nearly six-point lead over Crist, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polling, but the governor has not yet gotten fully engaged. He spent little from his war chest during the primary and only recently went on television with his first ad.
Gang of 500 chatter: If abortion plays just right for the Democrats, and if DeSantis makes some errors by flying to close to the sun, and if Val Demings keeps the Senate race close by swelling non-white voter turnout, and if Crist brings back some of the magic and determination that made him governor in the first place – if all that happens, then the DeSantis re-elect could go from White House springboard to…something more like the opposite.
****
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis:
The 75-year-old Nadler’s defeat of the 76-year-old Maloney, a triumph of age and experience over age and experience, brought a close to a nasty rivalry between the two that began after Democrats’ botched gerrymander smashed Nadler’s Upper West Side and Maloney’s Upper East Side fiefdoms into a single district — and climaxed with Maloney accusing her onetime colleague of being “senile.”
Gang of 500 chatter: Curious to see if Representative Maloney is done with her rhetorical war with Nadler – or only just beginning.
****
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis: None.
Gang of 500 chatter: Amazing and not amazing.
****
The Wall Street Journal news section:
As he vacationed with his family in South Carolina and Delaware, Mr. Biden ignored questions about the investigation, largely avoiding the pack of reporters who trail him everywhere he goes. Following an event at the White House last week in which the president signed into law Democrats’ climate, healthcare and tax legislation, White House staff drowned out questions about Mr. Trump by blasting music through the speakers.
Now, with midterm campaign season getting into full swing, Mr. Biden plans to make criticizing Mr. Trump’s agenda a key part of his message as he seeks to paint a contrast with Republicans, aides said. But he has no plans to wade into the political minefield of the Mar-a-Lago search. Mr. Biden will deliver a speech on Thursday at a rally in Maryland with Democratic officials.
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis: The Wall Street Journal ed board is on the warpath against DOJ leaking and the probe is dividing Red and Blue in a way that Joe Biden’s silence won’t ameliorate.
Gang of 500 chatter: Holman Jenkins is right:
It is simply a metaphysical impossibility for Mr. Garland to make the decisions he’ll have to make in these cases uninfluenced by political considerations as long as Donald Trump and Joe Biden are the anticipated presidential candidates in 2024.
Garland and FBI topper Wray better have thought through the next seven steps here – and there is no indication that they have.
****
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s rejection of supervised drug use in three California cities angered backers of the approach. But it didn’t surprise them….
It’s not hard to see why Newsom was unwilling to touch the issue: Every move he makes is now being scrutinized nationally. He’s quickly become a Democratic contender for president, without ever saying he has any interest in the job. His veto has become the latest evidence of his national ambitions as he shows a wariness of swinging too far left and a willingness to anger the progressive wing of a party that helps keep him in office.
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis: Newsom is too timid to challenge his “friend” Kamala Harris for the nomination and too liberal to win a presidential general election.
Gang of 500 chatter: Neither of those is true.
****
Conventional morning tip sheet analysis: Surprising but not shocking.
Gang of 500 chatter: Donald Trump’s current relationship with Georgia is more complicated than his marriage to that gal from Dalton was.