Today’s notice: 451 days until the first Democratic presidential primary. The latest from the 2026 map. A new poll finds Republicans don’t like how the federal government is being managed. A top Rubio aide quits.
FROM 2028
Seven days from today the midterms will be in the past — and the starting gun for 2028 will have sounded. The Washington Sun’s Elena Schneider reports on how various Democratic factions are already scrambling to assemble their story of what happened in 2026 to influence what happens next. And that’s just the behind-the-scenes stuff. Would-be candidates have been building their name ID with appearances. And would-be would-be candidates are waiting to get elected.
“Everybody is going to look for a [2026] candidate to make their case for how they emulate that in 2028, whether it’s [Roy] Cooper in North Carolina, James Talarico in Texas, Adam Hamilton in Kansas, and say, ‘I’m like that person, I bring the same things to the table and I can win in these states,’” Morgan Jackson, a top adviser to Cooper’s Senate campaign, told Elena.
Trending
In New Mexico, they’re already ready for their new gig as fourth on the 2028 Democratic primary calendar. We took The Washington Sun Cast pod to the state for a weekend and ran into a passel of possible presidential nominees: Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky. We also ate everything in sight to try to get an answer to this elusive red- or green-chile question. Listen to our episode, featuring future major primary players including Sen. Ben Ray Luján, gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland and a mayor whose phone has not stopped ringing with calls from the aforementioned would-be presidents.
More: Ex-Biden Officials Want 2028 Democrats to Reject Biden and Trump Policies on Israel • Hasan Piker Hits Scott Jennings With a $72M Defamation Suit • House Democratic Whip Puts Her Money Where Her Mouth Is • Lawmakers’ Stock Selling Limited Their Exposure to Tariffs
THE MAP
Mississippi: No party-distancing for this Democrat. Senate nominee Scott Colom is running as a Democrat and standing next to as many Democrats as he can find — even in a state this red and this close to the election. We spent the day yesterday tagging along as he campaigned with potential 2028er Pete Buttigieg along the Gulf Coast. Even Colom’s GOTV signs at an extremely well-attended Biloxi rally were two shades of party blue.
In other red areas of the country, Democratic candidates have stayed as far away from the national party as possible. In South Carolina, for example, Senate nominee Annie Andrews has publicly said she doesn’t want any national Democrats to show up. But Colom has basically had them all, including Kamala Harris, who Mississippi rejected 61% to 38% in 2024. We asked Colom about his strategy: “Everybody I’m bringing out, we’re bringing attention to the issues that matter,” he told us. “And I appreciate them doing that because they know how important attention is in this moment.”
Kansas: Roger Marshall’s mayor says the senator is not a resident. “Look, it’s quite obvious he doesn’t live here anymore,” Great Bend’s mayor, Alan Moeder, told The Kansas City Star. “He lives in Florida. He has a little hunting lodge south of Great Bend in Stafford County. And I think that’s an issue for people, from what I hear.”
Nebraska: Another sleeper for Democrats? The Cook Political Report shifted the governor’s race from Likely to Lean Republican yesterday. It’s a four-way race: There’s a candidate running as more conservative than Republican Gov. Jim Pillen and one running on a pro-marijuana line to the left of Democratic nominee Lynne Walz. But Walz’s campaign tells The Sun it’s feeling momentum. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is coming to stump Friday — she’s a plains Democrat who upset a Republican, a move Team Walz says it can replicate.
Ohio: Still talking about Sen. Jon Husted’s butt. At a pair of events, Republicans almost uniformly made round-about references to his hind end. Among those were Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Sen. Bernie Moreno and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz — the latter of whom told a crowd in Lima: “I’ve never gotten the compliments he’s received from the president, even though I’ve known the president for 20-something years.”
Husted couldn’t help but joke about it himself, telling supporters at an event earlier in the day in Clyde that with Donald Trump coming to the state on Wednesday, he’s had no choice but to hit the gym. “Don’t worry, I was in the weight room this morning,” Husted said to laughter. “I don’t let him down.”
Florida: Where gerrymandering looks like it could backfire. The 22nd District, a so-called “Frankenstein district,” was supposed to be a GOP-friendly blank slate stretching from the west sides of Palm Beach and Broward counties into Republican-leaning territory in more rural areas. But, The Sun’s Oriana González writes, the candidate Republicans picked to fill that blank slate, Casey Askar, seems to be, well, leaving it blank, ceding the public spaces to Democrat Pia Dandiya, a former educator and Apple lobbyist.
Colorado: MAGA star’s cakewalk is not so cakewalk-y. Rep. Lauren Boebert was seen as a lock in the 4th Congressional District, which had only elected one Democrat since the 1970s. But the race has become a target for Democrats, and Boebert’s Democratic opponent, Eileen Laubacher, has raised $13.7 million to the sitting congresswoman’s $1.2 million, The Washington Post reports.
Alaska: Lisa Murkowski out to prove her independent bona fides. The Republican senator, not up for reelection, endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, calling him a “young Alaskan with a view and a perspective that I think Alaska needs right now,” KTUU reported. Murkowski has been critical of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Wisconsin: The STEM strategy’s race to watch. Keep an eye on the 1st District, where ER nurse Mitchell Berman is running against Republican Rep. Bryan Steil. In January, we told you about nascent efforts to recruit Democratic candidates with STEM backgrounds to run in flippable seats — the idea being that distaste with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS leadership could drive independents to cast pro-science votes. 314 Action Fund, the group behind the strategy, told The Sun’s Manuela Silva it has invested heavily in this race.
More: FEC Outage Hits One Week Out From Election Day
FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
Republican bureaucracy blues: Soon after Trump took office, some 69% of Republicans said the management of the federal government was headed in the right direction, a feeling that has now significantly soured. Only 47% say things are on the right track now, according to surveys commissioned by the Partnership for Public Service. Overall, Americans aren’t so happy: 63% say government management is headed in the “wrong direction,” with just 20% believing it’s on the right track.
More: Trump Gutted Refugee Programs. Those Already Here Feel Left Behind • Trump Unveils Plan to Relax Methane Emission Restrictions for Oil Companies
NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN
A demolitionist’s exit: Jeremy Lewin, a top aide to Secretary of State Marco Rubio who helped decimate USAID, announced yesterday he was leaving the Trump administration — just hours after Wired reported he had not signed the paperwork usually required to work at USAID while he was gutting the agency.
A recently retired State Department official told The Sun’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed that they “despise” Lewin for what he did to USAID but said his departure does not suggest the administration might reassess its foreign-aid goals, since Lewin’s former portfolio is now held by State official Andrew Veprek, known for the policy of limiting U.S. refugee admissions to white South Africans.
More: DOJ Appeals Judge’s Ban on Tree-Cutting at East Potomac Golf Course • Grand Jury Refuses to Indict Ex-White House Aide Cassidy Hutchinson • Trump’s Texas Rally Comes With New Scenery: The First Tanker of Venezuelan Oil
NOT US
- Joking aside, the Cheesecake Factory is seeing pretty good business, by Miriam Waldvogel for The Washington Post
- Inside Donald Trump Jr’s Mongolian Hunting Trip With A Kremlin-linked Businessman, by Peter Andringa, Chris Campbell and Eenee Purevdorj for the Financial Times
- The U.S. Called It Putin’s ‘Slush Fund.’ Now Trump May Drop Sanctions on It. By Anton Troianovski for The New York Times
- Bernie Sanders Thinks The Democratic Party Is Moving Toward Him, by Russell Berman for The Atlantic
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton.
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