DoJ Claims It Will Allow Congress to Review Unredacted Epstein Files

The dump of 3 million Epstein documents did not quell the demand for transparency, in no small part because many pages were completely blacked out—in violation of the law that states only the names of Epstein's victims may be blacked out. Donald Trump has undoubtedly noticed that people are still demanding the uncensored files. Consequently, the DoJ made what might be a concession, namely that starting today, members of Congress will be allowed to view the unredacted files.

It remains to be seen how this works in practice. Trump has opposed releasing the files for so long that it seems reasonable to assume there are things in there he really, really, really does not want to let out. Will he now reverse course and let people like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), whom he despises, actually see the unredacted files? Not likely.

The details are still not final, but the DoJ's first offer is to let members who want to see the files do so if they give 24 hours notice in advance. They will be led to a reading room within the DoJ headquarters where they will be given access to a computer on which the files can be viewed. They will not be permitted to bring in any electronic devices. They will be allowed to take notes, though. Of course, if a member finds something that reflects badly on Donald Trump and later reports that, the DoJ will probably deny it. Without photographic evidence, who will people believe? The letter from the DoJ specifically said "electronic devices." Technically, a disposable mechanical film camera that does not have a built-in flash is not an electronic device and should be permitted under the rules, but we suspect as soon as a member tries to bring in a nonelectronic film camera, the DoJ will change the rules.

Another hot issue here is that the DoJ itself has said that it has identified 6 million Epstein files but has released only 3 million of them. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has informed the DoJ that it is not in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R. 4405) recently passed by Congress. The DoJ hasn't responded yet, but the ultimate response is likely to be "So? What are you going to do about it?" If the Democrats capture the House in November, then the answer might be the impeachment of DoJ officials who are refusing to comply with the law. Until then, the DoJ seems unlikely to change its mind, although it might look at the missing files and release those that don't implicate any Republicans in any crimes.

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal published a list of famous names it has found in the Epstein files. Here is the list so far:

Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem     Steve Bannon Mohammed bin Salman Richard Branson Børge Brende Sergey Brin Noam Chomsky

Bill Clinton Bill Gates Reid Hoffman Brad Karp Howard Lutnick Peter Mandelson Princess Mette-Marit

George Mitchell Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor       Elon Musk Nathan Myhrvold Brett Ratner Terje Rød-Larsen Marc Rowan

Kathryn Ruemmler Steve Tisch Donald Trump Melania Trump Jide Zeitlin Mark Zuckerberg

Note that inclusion in the list may indicate only poor taste in friends and business partners rather than criminal activity. Actually, it might even indicate less than that. Because the FBI included all of Epstein's e-mails in the collection, there are names of people who, for example, were writers for [WEBSITE X], and who appear because Epstein signed up for daily e-mail updates from [WEBSITE X]. So, don't reach too many conclusions until there is a smoking gun or two. (V)

Bad Bunny for President?

Yesterday was the Super Bowl, which means that the latest battle in the culture wars has concluded. We refer, of course, to the halftime show featuring Bad Bunny. If you did not see it, you should consider watching it, because it was bangin' (you'll have to click through, because the NFL has blocked embedding for this particular video).

(Z) has seen at least 30 or 40 halftime shows, all the way back to when they were a low-budget sideshow featuring such "A-list" acts as Up with People. This one outdid all the others, leaving even Bruno Mars (2014) and Bruce Springsteen (2009) in the dust. And if you don't believe us, maybe you will believe soon-to-be-NFL-Hall-of-Famer J.J. Watt:

Did I understand a single word of it?
I did not.

Was it a vibe?
It was.

That tweet was liked more than a quarter-million times by the end of the game.

For those who did not watch, the show was a tribute to Bad Bunny's native Puerto Rico. It started with a shot of jíbaros (rural workers), followed by the artist walking through a set decorated to look like a sugar cane field. There were elderly men playing dominos, there were Latin dancers, there was a low-rider truck, and there was even a wedding, in a tip of the hat to "family values." What was not widely known until after the show was that the wedding was real; the couple sent an invite to their (modest) nuptials to Bad Bunny, and he and his team invited them to be married in front of 100 million people instead. They even got a free (and very large) wedding cake out of it. Among the surprise guests were Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin and Pedro Pascal. Keep in mind that it is a law of the universe that any project involving Pedro Pascal must be good.

Bad Bunny himself simply radiated joy. He sang mostly in Spanish, of course, though that doesn't really matter, especially with music. Lest we forget, "Sukiyaki" (all in Japanese), "99 Luftballoons" (almost entirely in German, except for the phrase "Captain Kirk"), "Dominique" (all in French), "Rock Me Amadeus" (also entirely in German), "La Bamba" (all in Spanish), "Gangnam Style" (mostly in Korean) and "Despacito" (almost entirely in Spanish) were all huge hits in the United States. Anyhow, the man knows how to sing, how to dance, and how to put on a show.

It was clear that "don't get too political" was the order of the day. Green Day performed to open the Super Bowl, and they toned down all of the political lyrics in the songs they performed. As to Bad Bunny, his message was "unity." He avoided any overt political statements about the current presidential administration, ICE, etc. The most pointed that he got was during a portion of the dancing, which featured dancers on electric poles—a reference to the power outages in Puerto Rico during Trump's first term. At the end of the performance, he declared, in English: "God bless America" and then made clear that extended to all of the Americas, specifically naming Chile, Argentina, the United States and Canada. He was also carrying a football printed with "Together, We Are America," which he spiked at the very end. During the show, the scoreboard displayed the message, "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE." That same message was sent out on the NFL's eX-Twitter account at the very end of the show.

Of course, there are some people who are offended by: (1) Puerto Ricans taking pride in their heritage, (2) unity, and (3) rating love above hate. One such person is Donald Trump, who predictably went ballistic on his forlorn and forgotten social media platform:

The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World. This "Show" is just a "slap in the face" to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day—including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven't got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD—And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP

For the record, Puerto Rico is part of the United States. So, celebrating Puerto Rico is... celebrating the United States. In any event, think for a moment about the job of a president, which is to represent all of the American people. Then think about Bad Bunny's message, and about the kind of president Trump is (and see below for more). Hence the headline for this item.

Incidentally, we also watched the video of the alternative halftime show for MAGA supporters. Readers can view it here, if they wish. It featured a fair bit of messaging on who is, and is not, a "real American." Their definition would not appear to include Puerto Ricans, it would seem. Headliner Kid Rock sang a high-energy version of what was probably "Bawitdaba," but it's hard to be sure because all of his songs sound like "Bawitdaba." He once again fell into the bad habit that has already made him the subject of several viral clips, namely forgetting that if you are lip-synching, the music keeps going even if you drop the mic down to waist-level and stop moving your lips. If readers wish to see for themselves, click here; in the span of about 15 seconds there are at least six different instances where he's clearly not singing, and yet you can hear him over the sound system.

And now, it's onward and upward to the Winter Olympics, which Trump is already carping about. (Z)

Republicans Will Now Push Hard to Restrict Voting

Although the House Republicans generally have little interest in legislating, they do plan to push one bill very hard this week. It is the SAVE America Act, which tightens federal voter registration standards. In particular, it requires voters to show proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. If enacted, people wishing to vote would need to show a valid U.S. passport or original birth certificate. Many people, especially poor people (who skew Democratic) have neither of these and thus would be disenfranchised. Likewise, millions of women whose married name differs from the name on their birth certificate or passport would face extra steps just to make their voices heard. From the Republicans' point of view, this is a feature, not a bug.

In addition, the bill curtails mail-in voting and requires photo ID to vote in every state. There are also other provisions to make voting more onerous.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will probably bring it up for a vote this week—if a nose count shows 217 "yeas." The House is currently 218R, 214D, so two defections will be fatal. If the votes are not there, Johnson might just skip the vote. On the other hand, Donald Trump very much wants the bill passed, so Johnson might bring it to a vote even if the votes aren't there, so as to deflect the blame for it not passing from himself to the Republican defectors.

Democrats are wildly against the bill. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently said: "If you're one of the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who does not have access to your birth certificate, or if you're one of the 50 percent of Americans who don't have a passport, the SAVE Act could make it impossible for you to participate in elections." That's the idea, of course.

If the bill passes the House, Democrats will try to filibuster it in the Senate. Some Senate Republicans want to require an actual Jimmy-Stewart-style filibuster. Democrats tend not to read the Bible in these things, but could find something else interesting to read. Shakespeare's King Lear is about a mad king who gives his kingdom to his two treacherous daughters who flatter him all the time and banishes the one who speaks the truth to him. That might do. It is very unlikely Democrats would give up without a fight and a true showdown might go on for weeks, with other Democrats reading Macbeth, Hamlet, and everything else Shakespeare wrote, and then some. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has not said what he will do in the event the House passes the bill. He is no doubt secretly hoping the votes aren't there in the House, which gets him off the spot. (V)

Trump Invents Another Grift

You have to hand it to Donald Trump. He has found more ways to corrupt the presidency than all the presidents before him combined. So far, the biggest grift has been the golden room where he wants to hold his balls, which resulted in unaccounted for "gifts" of at least $300 million. So is Trump content with that haul? Of course not. It merely whet his appetite for more.

His new gig is collecting money for America's 250th birthday party. People and companies with an interest in getting some favor from him can pony up and buy access to Trump. For $1 million, the donor gets an invitation to a thank-you reception hosted by Trump and a photo with him. For $2.5 million, the donor gets a speaking role at some event on July 4th. Bespoke packages for bigger players are definitely on the menu. For details, one can contact Meredith O'Rourke, Trump's top fundraiser.

Needless to say, there is no accountability for where the money comes from or where it goes. Trump has announced a few events already, like an Indy 500-type car race that will tear up the streets of D.C. Maybe this is Trump's reimagining of Paul Revere's famous ride with modern technology. He hasn't explained its connection to the events of 1776. He is also planning an Arc de Trump patterned after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It will be near and overshadow the Lincoln Memorial.

It didn't have to be like this. Years ago, Congress created a nonprofit group, America250, to plan for the birthday party. Trump has pushed it aside and put his own group, Freedom 250, a limited liability corporation, out front. Its chief executive is Keith Krach, a former Silicon Valley executive who served in the Trump v1.0 subcabinet. At last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Krach was there hawking "packages" for companies, states, and even countries. China produces a lot of tea. Maybe it could "sponsor" a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party.

Members of the America250 commission, like Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), are worried that there is a dual track going on. She has said that one of the lanes, the America250 lane, wants to get America's story during the past 250 years out there. The other one, Freedom 250's, is there to downplay the country and glorify Trump. Although Trump has said that Freedom 250 will be privately funded and not cost the taxpayers anything, some of the funding Congress appropriated for America250 has been quietly redirected to Trump's group. (V)

Donald Trump Is Definitely President of the Red States of America...

Presidents before Donald Trump generally acted like they were president of the entire country, even if their policies worked out better for certain communities and states than for others. Trump has pretty much dropped all pretense of that. He is interested only in being president of the Red States of America. Many of his actions make this clear that he cares not a whit about blue states. In fact, he actively hates them.

His most recent action on this front is a directive last Thursday from OMB that orders the CDC to claw back $600 million from blue states. Trump also wants to claw back $940 million in contracts and grants from the Department of Transportation. All of these funds were awarded to the states based on various laws. Trump has said they don't deserve the funds because they are too woke.

Among the funds to be clawed back after having been sent to the states are monies sent to Colorado to address COVID-19 disparities among racial groups, monies sent to Illinois to pay for increasing HIV PrEP use among straight Black women, and monies sent to California to evaluate state laws about sexual violence among sexual minorities, among many other projects.

The states being targeted on the transportation funds are California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota. They involve things like electric vehicle chargers, green buses, and other climate-related items funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. As far as Trump is concerned, any laws signed by Joe Biden are prima facie invalid, so he can cancel any portion of them he wishes just on his say-so. There were no attempts to claw back any funds from red states.

On a different front in the same war against blue states, Trump has snubbed two of the Democratic governors. Traditionally, every winter, the president meets with all 50 governors, regardless of party, to discuss policy, followed by a black-tie dinner in the evening. This year, only Republicans are invited to the policy discussion, and two Democratic governors, Govs. Wes Moore (D-MD) and Jared Polis (D-CO), were not invited to the dinner. Moore is Black and Polis is gay. Just mentioning it. The former point did not escape Moore, who mentioned it on CNN yesterday. Some other Democratic governors are now rethinking their plans for attendance. Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) is not going. Other governors haven't stated their plans yet.

In January, Trump attempted to illegally freeze billions of dollars in funds Congress had appropriated for child care programs. He did this only in blue states. A district court quickly ruled he couldn't do that. He also illegally canceled more than $7 billion in clean energy projects. Trump basically admitted that the decisions were made based on whether a state had voted for him or not. The laws that appropriated the funds used formulas that did not take partisanship into account, but those formulas are of no interest to Trump. What is of interest to him is rewarding states that voted for him and punishing those that did not, the law be damned.

In addition, OMB has issued a memorandum demanding that 14 blue states provide a detailed list of all federal funds that go to state and local governments, universities and nonprofits in the state. Presumably this is to use these congressionally mandated appropriations to blackmail the states into obeying Trump. The memorandum did not list any red states that need to supply the information.

It all fits into Trump's model of "If you aren't my friend, you are my enemy and I will punish you any way I can." For the next 3 years, the rule of law is a dead letter. (V)

...However, Not All of Trump's Decisions Help His Base

While Trump operates from a general principle of "red states good, blue states bad," he sometimes makes decisions that partially undo this. One recent decision is a deal he made with Argentina to allow $800 million worth of Argentinian beef to be imported and sold in the U.S. He made this deal with Argentina's strongman, Javier Milei, whom he admires.

This deal will help lower food costs in states that don't raise much beef on their own, like the blue states of Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. But it will hurt ranchers in beef-producing red states like Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Either Trump didn't think this through carefully (likely) or his love of foreign strongmen got the best of him.

Other things he has done also negatively impact his voters, even in blue states. He illegally withheld funds for the $16-billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River that will connect New York with New Jersey, the biggest infrastructure project in the country. This punishes two states he hates. Take that, New York and New Jersey. He said he would restore it if they renamed Penn Station and Dulles Airport Trump Station and Trump Airport, respectively. While Penn Station is indeed in New York, Dulles Airport is in neither of those states and neither state has any say in what it is called. It is in Virginia.

One problem here is that the 1,000 people working on the rail project who will lose their jobs if funding is killed are largely working-class men, the core of his base. They are none too happy about this. Fortunately for the workers, on Friday, federal Judge Jeannette Vargas ruled that Trump has no authority to freeze the funding just because he wants two transportation hubs (one not even in the states involved in the project) named after him. (V)

Virginia Democrats Reveal Their Proposed Congressional Map

Virginia legislators were none too happy when red states began redrawing their congressional maps to favor Republicans. Currently the Virginia delegation to the U.S. House is 6D, 5R. Here is the delegation:

District	PVI	Incumbent
VA-01	R+3	Rob Wittman (R)
VA-02	EVEN	Jen Kiggans (R)
VA-03	D+18	Bobby Scott (D)
VA-04	D+17	Jennifer McClellan (D)
VA-05	R+6	John McGuire (R)
VA-06	R+12	Ben Cline (R)
VA-07	D+2	Eugene Vindman (D)
VA-08	D+26	Don Beyer (D)
VA-09	R+22	Morgan Griffith (R)
VA-10	D+6	Suhas Subramanyam (D)
VA-11	D+18	James Walkinshaw (D)

Clearly, the seats of Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans and John McGuire are easy pickings. Ben Cline's district could be made competitive so that in a blue wave, he would go under. If that happened, the delegation would become 10D, 1R, with Morgan Griffiths' district in the rural southwest part of the state being the only remaining district to be represented by a Republican.

The Democratic-controlled state legislature liked this idea very much and has now published the map it thinks could lead to this. Here it is:

Some of the gerrymandering is subtle, but some is pretty blatant. In particular, the tan counties in southwest Virginia (Griffith's district) are pretty red, except parts of Montgomery County (which is blue due to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg) and carefully selected parts of Roanoke and Bedford Counties. These are the green bits poking into Griffith's territory that make Cline's seat competitive.

A county judge ruled that Virginia can't redistrict, but it will ultimately be up to the Virginia Supreme Court to decide. The legislature does appear to have met all the constitutional requirements for drawing the map. If the state Supreme Court agrees, there will be a referendum on April 21, much like the one in California last year. The referendum will not approve this specific map. It will simply empower the legislature to draw a new map. The legislators thought it would be polite to tell the voters in advance what the map will look like, but they didn't have to do this.

If this goes through, Florida is almost certain to redraw its map as well. That could cancel out the Virginia map and then some. The net result of all this exercise in cartography could be a net gain of around 3-5 seats for the Republicans. However, one really big unknown is when the Supreme Court will gut the last bit of the Voting Rights Act. That will set off a feeding frenzy in which a dozen or so southern states will try to eliminate all their majority-minority districts. That could be a huge win for the Republicans. If the Court waits until June to render a decision, there will not be time for all the states to redraw the maps in time for the 2026 elections, but it certainly will be in time for 2028. Of course, the Court knows this, and since it truly wants to do whatever the RNC and Donald Trump want it to do, it might issue its decision in the next month or two to make it possible for the Republicans to yet save the House in 2026.

In neighboring Maryland, the state House has passed a new map as well. It is the mother of all gerrymanders, but hey, that's the way it goes these days. The president of the Maryland state Senate, Bill Ferguson, doesn't want to bring it up for a vote. Maybe he is just embarrassed because it is so awful. However, Wes Moore went on CNN yesterday and told Dana Bash that Ferguson has an obligation to hold a vote because that is what Marylanders want. If he finally does, the blue team will probably pick up one more seat.

One other point is worth making. Voters from both parties hate this stuff. If another dozen states each try to grab one more seat for the Republicans in 2026 or 2028, cartography could suddenly become a hot political issue and it would favor the Democrats, who would promise legislation to get rid of gerrymandering. One way would be to have independent commissions draw the maps, but more radical options are also possible, like having all House candidates run statewide and using proportional representation. That way, if a party gets [X] percent of the House vote statewide, it also gets [X] percent of the seats. Congress could mandate this by just passing a law. (V)

A YUGE Primary Battle is Brewing in Kentucky

Very few Republicans in Congress dare criticize Donald Trump in any form and those who do are quickly silenced by him. Some are forced to leave Congress as a result of incurring his wrath (see Tillis, Thom and Greene, Marjorie Taylor). However, there is one House member who hasn't crumbled under Trump's thumb, despite Trump's doing his best to crush him: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).

So naturally, after Plan A (trying to intimidate Massie) failed, Trump has switched to his usual Plan B: endorsing a primary opponent and making sure the opponent is well funded. In this case, the opponent is former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who served in the Navy for 30 years before retiring to his destination farm, complete with a petting zoo and U-Pick strawberries. In 2024, Gallrein ran for the state Senate and lost. He is otherwise a complete unknown in KY-04, an R+18 district that includes the wealthy southern Cincinnati suburbs, the eastern suburbs of Louisville to the sparsely settled rural Greenup County in the East. Here is the district:

Although it looks highly gerrymandered, it is not really. The northern boundary is the Ohio River, which is the state line. The southern boundary follows county lines so as to avoid breaking up counties.

Massie is not giving up and not shying away from taking on the full force of Trump and MAGA. Trump is attacking Massie every way he can, both above the belt and below it, including attacks on Massie's new wife, whom Massie recently married after his high school sweetheart and wife of 31 years died of an autoimmune disease in 2024. Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) has endorsed Gallrein rather than his House colleague, Massie, because Barr needs to suck up to Trump to get his endorsement for his Senate campaign. The state's junior senator, Rand Paul (R-KY), a fellow libertarian, is with Massie, however.

Massie is definitely a self-made man with no shortage of self-confidence. He was born in West Virginia and raised in Kentucky's Appalachian culture. He made it to MIT, where he got a bachelor's in electrical engineering and a master's in mechanical engineering. While a student, he helped design and race solar-powered cars. After graduating, he formed a company based on his master's thesis work, got $32 million in venture capital, hired 70 people, obtained 24 patents, and sold the successful company in 2003. Then he was elected Judge Executive (i.e., county executive) in Lewis County, near the eastern part of the district. He was elected to the House in 2012. Due to his representing the district for almost 14 years, he is well known and liked there especially in the affluent Cincinnati suburbs he represents. Those voters are more conservative than MAGA and may not be swayed so easily by Trump's endorsement. Gallrein may possibly do better in the MAGA-loving rural eastern part of the district, but that is Massie's home base, so maybe not. Gallrein's farm is in Shelbyville, in the far western part of the district, about 25 miles east of Louisville. The district is about 160 miles from east to west.

Gallrein's campaign will have to be based on his long Navy service and Trump's endorsement. Running a tourist farm is not an automatic qualification for the House. He won't be able to get much mileage from attacking Massie's voting record, since the congressman has a very conservative record. The main area where Massie has crossed Trump is demanding full transparency about who was involved with Jeffrey Epstein. Massie is making that a major issue and knows it is popular with the MAGA base. What is Gallrein going to do? Say it is time to forget Epstein and move on?

Massie has some well-heeled supporters. Billionaire Jack Dorsey, who founded eX-Twitter, tweeted that he would support Massie for president in 2028. Last summer, the current owner of eX-Twitter, Elon Musk, said he would support Massie against a Trump-backed challenger. Musk and Trump have reconciled somewhat since then, so Musk might have changed his mind. On the other hand, Musk is a libertarian, Massie is a libertarian, and Trump is not, so who knows what Musk will do in the race, if anything. Also, Musk learned from dabbling in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race last year that money isn't everything.

Coward of the House Mike Johnson, who normally strongly backs all Republican incumbents against challengers, hasn't taken a stand in the Massie-Gallrein duel. He said: "I generally run the incumbent protection program here. But it's gotta be a cooperation. I gotta have a conversation with Thomas to see if he wants to be on the team. Stay tuned on that." Indeed, stay tuned. It is going to be an interesting race, to say the least, and a real test of Trump's power against a popular conservative who is probably more in tune with MAGA than Trump himself. The primary is May 19. (V)

Interactive Map for House Compared to 2024

Axios has produced a model that shows which House seats will flip depending on how well each party does based on the new maps (excluding Virginia, Florida, and what Southern states might do if the Supreme Court kills the Voting Rights Act). The baseline is how well Kamala Harris performed in 2024. If Democratic House candidates do as well as Harris (who, remember, lost the popular vote), the new House will be 207D, 228R, greatly expanding Republicans' control of the lower chamber. It would take Democrats overperforming Harris by 3 points for the Democrats to get a majority (of 1 seat). Here are the numbers for different election scenarios from R+7 to D+7 relative to the 2024 election:

Delta	Dem	GOP	Diff
-6	175	261	-86
-5	186	249	-63
-4	189	246	-57
-3	195	250	-45
-2	198	237	-39
-1	203	232	-29
0	207	228	-21
1	210	225	-15
2	216	219	-3
3	218	217	1
4	221	214	7
5	225	210	15
6	227	208	19
7	228	207	21

For example, if the Democrats do 4-points better than Harris did, the new House will be about 221D, 214R, a 7-seat edge. The website is interactive. You can set the over/under performance to whatever value you want (rounded to 0.5) and see which seats then flip on the map. For reference, in 2018, the Democrats overperformed Hillary Clinton's 2016 showing by 6.5 points. If they were to achieve that overperformance again, that would flip 13 seats, get 227 seats and control the House with a margin of 19 seats. Note that due to more gerrymandering since 2016, however, there are fewer competitive seats now than there were in 2018. (V)

AOC Has Gone Mainstream

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been in the House for 7 years now and has learned a lot in that time. In particular, she has learned how to address moderates and how to become a major player in Democratic politics. She is a much-sought-after speaker, even in districts that are not progressive. In any district, her blue-collar bona fides are a valuable asset, especially since Democrats are making affordability a big part of their 2026 pitch.

House candidates in many districts are coming to her—not to party leaders—to get cues on how to get their message across. They now regard her instincts as sharper than those of consultants who have run focus groups. She is no longer an outsider no one listens to. She is definitely mainstream now. Even someone like Mary Peltola in Alaska, who disagrees with AOC on most issues, wants her advice.

Ocasio-Cortez doesn't have much foreign policy experience, but she is working on that. Next week she will speak at the Munich Security Conference where she will present her views on world affairs. She is expected to present a different view than Donald Trump's view that might makes right and the world should be divided into three sectors, with the U.S. bullying the Western Hemisphere, Russia bullying Europe, and China bullying Asia.

More and more Democrats are talking about what she will do in 2028. No one expects her to stay in the House. Her choices are running for president, which would give her vast publicity in what would almost certainly be a losing run, or challenging Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a race about which polls say she would be the favorite. If she were to announce a Senate run after the midterms, Schumer might even "decide" to retire rather than face an ignominious defeat by a young woman. Given AOC's young age (currently 36), she could spend a few years in the Senate to gain more experience and gravitas, and then run for president in 2032 (if a Republican wins in 2028) or in 2036 (if a Democrat wins in 2028). She is no doubt aware of the parallels with Barack Obama, who had been in the Senate only 4 years before being elected president in 2008. In any event, she has become a force to be reckoned with. (V)

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