Panic Week

Today’s notice: Felt like an inflection point this week. Who got the coveted state dinner ticket. The district to watch this November. A new poll shows a real Senate race in Nebraska. And: Check out our No. 1 story.

THE LATEST

This was not the week Republicans were looking for. Something feels different about the midterms at the end of this week than at the start. It’s like everyone suddenly got on the same page.

“I don’t want to say the bottom is falling out yet, but I feel like we are in this place, and the realization is setting in, that some tough decisions will need to be made,” a Republican consultant told our Elena Schneider. “You can’t get around the fact that Democrats have the advantage on the economy, on gas prices. There’s no choice in this election. It’s a referendum on Trump.”

We asked our colleagues covering the midterms for The Washington Sun what this week meant for November.

Our Alex Roarty pointed out that it’s not as if the reality of the political situation changed all that much — polls this week weren’t much worse than they had been in past months — but Republican candidates seemed to realize all at once that they might be stuck with a difficult climate all the way through November. “Republicans say there’s still time for their ads to blunt Democratic momentum but acknowledge that the window to do so shrinks every day,” he writes.

Donald Trump made the election to be about him in Dallas, the idea being that rallying around the president would be helpful for Republicans. But all over the battleground map, they’re trying to get distance from him. Candidates we never imagined wanting space from the president are out there being critical — the proto-MAGA Paul LePage is knocking the White House’s immigration enforcement efforts?? Yikes.

The panicked post on X by MAGA-aligned radio host Steve Deace on Wednesday — sure to go down as one of the all-time election freakouts — summarizes the widening realization. (“GOP Is BLOWING IT” was the title of his Thursday podcast, in case people hadn’t picked up what he was putting down on X.)

Articulating issues near and dear to the electorate in general has proven challenging for Republicans this week. Our Igor Bobic reports that the Senate is sticking around the Capitol to stay hard at work on … a college sports bill. Barring something really surprising happening, there will be no new affordability-focused legislation before Election Day. Trump, meanwhile, has been tied up all week with foreign leaders. Can’t be helped, the calendar is the calendar. But also: pretty terrible timing.

There’s a lot of time on the clock still, and Republicans are outspending Democrats thanks to MAGA Inc.’s endless money spigot. The ads “still need some time to sink in for voters,” goes the thinking among some Republicans, according to Alex. The Democratic brand is bad, they note, and Republicans bet working-class voters will tune in late and are more up for grabs than the polls indicate. Just chill out a little, they suggested this week. Stick with the program.

But this is the week where any remaining chill was officially retired. The Sun’s Oriana González was chatting with one Republican House member about the idea the House might get called back from recess to work on some kind of affordability bill. The notion is “tough” to imagine, the lawmaker said — everyone is scared to leave the campaign trail now. The “environment is way worse than many probably thought.”

More: Inside the Freakout Over AI Testing in Government Websites • New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill Calls for Her Lieutenant Governor to Resign • A Watchdog Says ICE Wasted Millions in Its Detention Expansion • Netanyahu, at the U.N., Calls Accusations of Genocide in Gaza the ‘Biggest Lie of the Century’

Open tabs:

• ‘Love Me’: White House airs government-funded ad praising Trump (CNN)
• Trump Administration Presses China on Suspected Nuclear Tests in Confidential Talks (WSJ)
• Trump-backed Nevada Republican exaggerated Bronze Star award in two campaigns (WaPo)

FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

State dinner highlights: Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in the East Room last night, with the two leaders toasting each other over glasses of Schramsberg Blanc de Noir, the same wine served during Richard Nixon’s famous 1972 “Toast to Peace” in Beijing, The Sun’s Gavin J. Quinton and Jasmine Wright report.

The lengthy guest list included tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Most reporters were not welcomed into the East Room for the meal, with the exception of a group of Fox News personalities, including Laura Ingraham, Bret Baier and Jesse Watters.

Classifying the emerging tech: The federal government classifies water systems, emergency services and energy infrastructure as critical, so what about AI? Some researchers of the technology are discussing whether it should be defined as “critical infrastructure,” a move that would allow coordination with federal agencies on safety, The Sun’s Mara Hoplamazian reports. The discussion has reached the Trump administration, which is keen on AI these days.

More: Chinese Press Corps Scuffles With U.S. Media and Secret Service • Mark Carney Says He Has Prepared for the Possibility of a U.S. Invasion • Trump Administration Asks SCOTUS to Let It Restart Its Third-Country Deportation Push

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Watch Virginia’s 1st District, advises The Sun’s Paul Kane. Republican Rep. Rob Wittman is a lawmaker from the old era when voters often told pollsters they disliked Congress but liked their own representative, Paul writes. But those days might be finished. Wittman is in a real race, and a smart one to tune into — since Virginia finishes its ballot counting quicker than most states on Election Day, how this seat goes could show how the nation is going.

First on The Sun: Internal polling shows a real Senate race in Nebraska. Independent Dan Osborn is up by 1 percentage point against Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, 47-46, in the survey. The internal poll, conducted by a pro-Osborn super PAC and obtained first by The Sun’s Elena Schneider, found independent voters backing Osborn by a 45-percentage-point edge. Trump is also underwater, with just 44% approving of his job performance to 49% who did not.

More: Tom Tiffany’s Campaign Bars a Reporter From Entering Campaign Event

FROM THE HILL

Little help on the legislative front: Locked in a tough reelection race, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) would love to get her bill lowering the cost of insulin through the Senate and head home to campaign on helping Americans grappling with higher costs of living. “It’s completely bipartisan and it would make a big difference to a lot of people,” Collins told The Sun’s Avani Kalra. Alas, that bill and many others aren’t on the final agenda right now for the upper chamber in the days before it adjourns before the midterms.

“It should have been brought up a long time before now,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) said of the insulin bill. Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia) backs the bill and wants it passed. But, he adds, “everybody here is running to get home.”

More: Gary Peters’ Last Act: One More Push for the Pentagon to Clean Up PFAS

NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN

It’s the only way to go: Flanked by two portraits of long-gone, deceased speakers, these House bathrooms are the answer to nature’s call — and reporters hoping for a quote. Many an impromptu press conference develops near this unhallowed spot. The Sun’s Emily Kennard takes us outside the restrooms just off the House floor. “Duly elected members of Congress are constitutionally required to be human, and all humans are biologically required to pee,” Emily writes in what is likely the best sentence of her career.

And fair warning: One House Democrat, granted anonymity to speak candidly about his colleagues’ hygiene, told The Sun that many male members who use the restroom by the chamber — generally, like men using any bathroom — don’t wash their hands.

“I wouldn’t shake hands with anyone that comes out of the bathroom,” the lawmaker said.

More: California Supreme Court Orders Riverside County Sheriff to Return 650,000 Seized Ballots • Survivor Wounded in Trump’s 2024 Assassination Attempt Has Died • Maryland Residents Voice Concerns Over Proposal to Build $1.4B Sphere

NOT US

• Backlash builds to GOP chairs clinging to power, by Mia McCarthy for Politico
• The AI Build-Out Is Becoming the Biggest Economic Bet in U.S. History, by Konrad Putzier and Justin Lahart for The Wall Street Journal
• The big, unseen factor in how voters decide midterm elections, by Scott Clement for The Washington Post
• The Deferential President, by Jonathan Lemire for The Atlantic

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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton.