Today’s notice: Why one smart Republican is still looking forward to November. Florida, Florida, Florida. The downstream impact of bad polls. A Cornyn staffer joined Team Talarico. And: Gaza’s garbage crisis.
THE LATEST
Republicans do not believe the hype: Recent weeks have seen the whirring and chirping to life of the various election prognostication machines we’ll all be refreshing between now and November. They differ when it comes to the Senate — control there is either a toss-up or a slight Democratic advantage, depending on which you like best. But for the House, they all say the same thing: Republicans will not be in control when all the counting is over.
Behind that consensus: Donald Trump’s flatlining poll numbers, huge turnout for Democrats in primaries and special elections, generic ballot averages showing Democrats with a lead. Add the historic headwinds for the party not in the White House in a midterm.
Trending
“A midterm after you win the presidential is tough, but I think that [pundits] are ignoring some of the fundamentals of this cycle,” a senior Republican strategist told NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright yesterday.
Those fundamentals: Redistricting, money and the Supreme Court. “You’re not gonna see a 30-, 40-, 50-seat swing because of redistricting, frankly,” the strategist said. Republicans need to win “basically 12” of 18 truly toss-up seats to keep their majority, they went on. The massive Republican war chest has been well covered, but less so the impact of the court’s June ruling on party–candidate spending coordination.
This is nerdy but potentially powerful stuff. The Republican Party machine has money the Democratic machine does not have. When billionaires drop their independent expenditure ads, it’s helpful, but those folks tend to do their own thing, message-wise.
“We may be being outspent by Democrats in specific House races, but because all their money’s in outside groups, we’re actually getting more weight behind our messages with less dollars,” the Republican strategist said.
The wildcard: Voters who still haven’t tuned in. “There’s an information gap with voters,” the Republican strategist said. “I think once we are able to tell our story with that money working more efficiently, and making a good contrast between us and Democrats, these races are going to be super close.”
For the expected Democratic eyeroll at all this, look to tonight’s primaries in Florida. The state has been redistricted in a Republican image. Money is flying around. And it’s not hard to get the GOP message out in a state so wholly controlled by the party. And yet: “They thought they were going to easily pick up seats in Florida by gerrymandering, and that’s not the case,” Madison Andrus, who covers Florida at the DCCC, told NOTUS’ Manuela Silva. “They are still having to spend and compete in districts they thought they had locked up because their agenda has failed so spectacularly.”
Open tabs: 60 days after signing Iran deal, Trump stuck in quagmire as war drags on (WaPo); Deportations Are Spiking. Judges Say Their Hands Are Being Forced. (NOTUS); Mary Peltola Shakes Up Senate Campaign Staff Days Before Alaska Primary (NYT)
From Florida
Democrats have their own problems: A couple of contentious House primaries tonight could make the party confidence mentioned above a little tempered. The extremely messy one in Florida’s 20th, one of the safest blue seats left in the state, has Black leaders seething at Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is trying to stay in Congress in a new seat that has long been seen as a Black seat by Democrats.
And in Florida’s 25th, Rep. Jared Moskowitz is facing down a DSA primary challenge from Oliver Larkin. “I think if Moskowitz were to lose this primary, I think Republicans might be favored in that district,” Kyle Kondik, one of the election prognosticators at the University of Virginia, told NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright on C-SPAN yesterday.
The Republicans have their own angst-inducing primary tonight. The party establishment is hoping that incendiary outsider candidate James Fishback does not have a great showing in the gubernatorial primary. Trump has endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds. Trump, by the way, voted by mail in that race.
From the campaign trail
Bad polls make for jam-packed primaries: Get ready for a boatload of candidates to enter the 2028 field on vibes alone, NOTUS’ Christa Dutton reports. High-profile polling misses in Democratic primaries this month (you know the ones) mean basically anyone can talk themselves into believing the numbers are meaningless and run regardless of what the data may say. “We are going to enter an election season where there are a bajillion new sources of information, and no standard way to figure out which one means what,” Ben Wikler, the former chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told Christa.
Popular local eateries full of potential interview subjects, your time has returned! Wikler said Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary polls didn’t capture what he thinks is the most telling measure of a candidate’s chances: conversations with voters. Hope you like having a microphone repeatedly stuck in your face at your favorite coffee place, any given South Carolinian!
Scoop: James Talarico hires Cornyn staffer. A former top aide to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has gone to work for the Democrat trying to replace him, NOTUS’ Igor Bobic and Reese Gorman scooped yesterday. Cornyn deputy legislative director Jacob Smith has signed on to the Talarico campaign as deputy political director. Smith previously worked on the House Science Committee for Rep. Mike Collins (R-Georgia) and was a legislative aide for Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi).
First on NOTUS: The Pete Stauber bump? Alaskans picking a senator will soon be getting advice from a Minnesotan, with the help of six figures worth of ads. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s campaign for reelection is going up with a spot featuring Stauber, a Republican representing Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. In the ad, Stauber attacks the bipartisan bona fides of former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola. NOTUS’ Al Weaver got the first look at the ad, which starts running tomorrow after the primary where Sullivan and Peltola are expected to emerge for the general.
NOTUS METRO
Sign up for our local newsletter, written by Martin Austermuhle and Zara Norman.
Sports desk: He Spent Five Days With the Nats But Never Played. Is He a Big Leaguer? By Jesse Dougherty
NEW ON NOTUS
Aid workers plead for help with Gaza’s garbage crisis: “Sanitation is a chain, and all the chain has been devastated,” Gaza-based Oxfam public health officer Roba Daour Ziara told NOTUS recently. Our Akbar Shahid Ahmed and Hamed Ahmadi report that growing evidence of dire sanitary conditions for refugees packed into displacement camps has created an acute public health emergency.
The two top health problems among Palestinians stem from poor conditions of water, sanitation and hygiene, according to World Health Organization data gathered in late July. Amid shortages of clean water, families face “impossible choices” about whether to use it for drinking, cooking, bathing or cleaning, one aid official said.
To correct this, public health officials want big changes to how aid flows into Gaza. The Israeli government says it is doing enough to address the issue. The U.S. State Department told NOTUS that the agreement brokered between Hamas and Israel last year has “scaled up” sanitation help.
Aid workers tell NOTUS they fear the dangerous aftermath of the worst days of the conflict between Israel and Hamas is fading from public view. They have some allies in Congress: Earlier this month, 65 House Democrats — led by Reps. Andrea Salinas of Oregon and Kweisi Mfume of Maryland — warned the White House that continued restrictions on aid to Gaza “undermines a key component” of Trump’s plan to rebuild the region.
More: Texas Families Ask the Supreme Court to Keep Ten Commandments Out of the Classroom, by Jenna Monnin
Fake Poll Showing LA Mayor Karen Bass Leading Was a ‘Social Experiment,’ Group Says, by Jackie Llanos
Planned Parenthood Plans Its Biggest Ad Buy of 2026 Against Susan Collins, by Torrie Herrington
NOT US
- Islamophobia’s Rise in Texas: ‘I Won’t Rest Until Every Muslim Is Gone,’ by J. David Goodman, Lauren McGaughy, Jesus Jiménez and Ruth Graham for The New York Times
- Trump weighs a plan for press briefings when Leavitt leaves, sources say, by Kristen Holmes, Adam Cancryn and Alayna Treene for CNN
- We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility, by Emanuel Maiberg for 404 Media
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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr and Andrew Burton. Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/AP.
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