Today’s notice: Data centers’ day in the Senate. Gun violence and abortion advocates try to get in on the midterm conversation. Inside Jeffries’ effort to turn his Democratic haters. Missouri as a redistricting omen. And: At the MAHA Summit.
THE LATEST
Today is for data center political theater. The Washington Sun’s Elena Schneider and Igor Bobic have all the details on what is sure to be a fun day in the Senate, depending on how you define “fun,” of course.
Republicans are planning to advance the Ratepayer Protection Act, a bill sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who has come under withering attacks in his general election fight against former Sen. Sherrod Brown over data center development. The bill, in theory, answers those attacks by directing state public-utility commissions to consider making data centers responsible for their own energy costs. Husted is casting this as an opportunity for data center critics to put their money where their mouth is. “It is the only game in town,” he told reporters yesterday. “It is the only bill that has a chance to get to the president’s desk before we get to the election.”
Trending
Democrats’ response is we’ll pass, thanks. “It’s just fakery to try to fool voters into forgetting that Republicans spent the entire term trying to stop states from regulating AI (as requested by the AI companies),” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) posted on X, reflecting the general take from his caucus. Republicans need seven Democrats to get cloture on this bill, and that does not seem likely.
That’s the theater. As is often the case in the Senate, there will be floor action but probably no surprise outcome. On the one hand, Congress is actually responding to swiftly shifting voter opinion on AI infrastructure. On the other, members know nothing will happen other than rhetoric.
Here’s the politics: Can voting for the bill help Republicans — already on the back foot over AI out on the campaign trail — blunt this potent Democratic political attack? They really need it to, strategists told The Sun. “It’s a tailor-made, perfect shitstorm, combining affordability and corporate corruption and greed,” said one GOP pollster.
More: DOJ Inspector General ‘Declined Further Action’ on Todd Blanche Cryptocurrency Matter • Trump Says the AI Industry Will ‘Self-Police’ Under a New Accord • Hegseth Bars Civilian Faculty Tenure at Military Academies • Karoline Leavitt Discloses Family Investments in Trump Media and Tesla
Open tabs:
- Americans Want Populist Policies That Defy Traditional Political Labels (WSJ)
- Officials cast doubt on Trump’s plan for drones, snipers at proposed arch (WaPo)
- US forces exit Iraq, emboldening Iran’s proxies and Islamic State (Reuters)
- OpenAI Ignored Employees Who Warned It Wasn’t Doing Enough About Security (NYT)
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
First on The Sun: The down-ballot issue play. Gun violence and abortion access have not rated as central topics this cycle, to say the least — some pollsters have not even listed them among the key questions facing voters. But advocates focused on these issues say they can prove that they matter, flexing their political networks in the final month before the midterms in close races across the country.
Giffords PAC is going live today with three new ads, part of the gun-safety group’s $10 million spend this cycle. Each is designed to move a battleground race: a $1 million effort focused on Republican Mike Bouchard in Michigan’s 10th District; another is part of an $850K spend against Republican Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania’s 8th; the third is part of a $700K spend against Republican David Valadao in California’s 22nd. All the ads directly mention gun policy, but place it within a context familiar to anyone following ads this cycle — corruption and cost of living.
Reproductive Freedom for All, the abortion-rights group formerly known as NARAL, is out today with endorsements in 21 races, including six where Democrats are trying to flip Republican-held seats. The group says it’s mobilizing Americans who support abortion rights and want to vote on the issue.
New polling gives that idea some merit. Fresh polling from abortion-rights group Abortion Access Now found 59% of voters disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, including big majorities across key groups like independents, swing voters and suburban women. The poll was conducted to mark the 50th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment, and found 67% of registered voters support Medicaid coverage of reproductive care including abortion — that’s a five-point bump from a similar poll taken in 2019.
More: ‘Love Me’ Artist Threatens Legal Action Over Taxpayer-Funded Trump Ad
FROM A POTENTIAL FUTURE
Hakeem Jeffries’ bridge-building: If Democrats win the House, their majority will include a decent number of progressives who have publicly promised never to vote for a Speaker Jeffries. There is already an effort underway to change their minds, The Sun’s Stephen Neukam reports. Jeffries has now spoken with all the progressives who won their primaries, and has met with or plans to meet with them all in person, Stephen writes. Reps. Joe Neguse of Colorado and Lauren Underwood of Illinois, two members of Jeffries’ leadership team, have also been reaching out.
Is this effort working? Progressive upset primary winner William Lawrence, now the Democratic nominee in a swing Michigan district, recently backed off his public skepticism toward Jeffries and said he would support him for speaker.
THE BIG ONE
No lessons from Missouri’s misery: “If Republicans do it, the Democrats are going to respond, and if the Democrats respond, then the Republicans respond again,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver — the Democrat whipsawed by the back-and-forth-and-back-again redistricting fight in the state — told The Sun’s Manuela Silva of what he learned from the experience. “Everybody then begins to fight fire with fire, but in the end, nothing is left but silt and ash and burnt cinders.”
Cleaver is not a fan of this, and does not recommend others try it. Manuela has covered the legal fight over Missouri’s congressional lines extensively, and has a big story up today about what it means for the next month in the state: Cleaver and other lawmakers saw their lines get changed multiple times, and voters who cast ballots in one district in the August primary will cast them in different districts in November. It’s pretty messy.
It’s also what the rest of the country can look forward to. No one on either side sees a quiet end to the mid-cycle redistricting the Trump team kicked off. “I think people will continue to do it,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) told Manuela yesterday. Democrats said the same thing.
THE WASHINGTON SUN CAST
From your favorite podcast app: “It might be that people are just so fed up that they want to toss their incumbent out,” congressional reporter Paul Kane says about the state of this year’s midterms and candidates who could be in trouble.
NEW ON THE WASHINGTON SUN
What the MAHA Summit was like: Senior Trump administration officials mingled for hours with health and wellness industry officials and MAHA activists who are concerned over vaccines, processed food and chronic illness, The Sun’s Paige Winfield Cunningham reports from her day at the D.C. event celebrating the movement Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brought to Washington.
There were some signs MAHA still doesn’t feel entirely comfortable in the mainstream GOP. Corporate partners were everywhere. Leaders of UnitedHealth and AHIP, the insurer association, participated in a panel about affordability. Standard politics stuff — that did not sit well with some.
“I think it’s a little bit of a challenge that the presentations on the stage seemed to be about bureaucracy being big business,” Florida nurse Kate Johnson, who attended the White House event last year announcing its MAHA report, told Paige yesterday. “That’s not the core of what the MAHA movement is.”
More: Appeals Court Rejects Trump Effort to Stay Sanctions in IRS Lawsuit • Lithuania ‘Ready’ to Foot the Bill to Permanently Host U.S. Troops, Prime Minister Says • Some Judges Sound Open to Restarting Contempt Probe in El Salvador Deportation Case
NOT US
- Inside the Texas courtroom where toddlers face immigration judges, by Priscilla Alvarez for CNN
- “A Massive Power Grab”: White House Proposal Threatens Funding That Helps Disabled Americans Vote, by Lisa Song for ProPublica
- Democrats are running pastors for office. Republicans are attacking their religious comments. By Samuel Benson for Politico
- How the Pentagon Is Escalating Trump’s Drug War in Latin America, by Shelby Holliday, Vera Bergengruen and Lara Seligman for The Wall Street Journal
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton.
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