100 Days

Election Day is 100 days from today. Let's check in and see what the state of affairs is.

First up, the U.S. Senate. The good news for the Republicans here is that they can afford to lose up to three seats (or more, if they flip Democratic-held seats), and they will still retain control, by virtue of J.D. Vance's tiebreaker vote. The good news for the Democrats here is that Senate results tend to roughly correlate with each other, and a big night for one party or the other is more likely than a split decision. Also good news for the Democrats is that you can't gerrymander Senate seats.

Here's a rundown of the "battleground" Senate seats, and (up to) six different forecasts for them (* - incumbent). The Score column lists the Republican first.

State	Republican	Dem/Ind	RTTWH	RCP	270toWin	Cook	Sabato	Inside E.	Score
Alaska	Dan Sullivan*	Mary Peltola	Peltola +0.4%	N/A	N/A	Tossup	Tossup	Lean R	1-1
Florida	Pending	Pending	N/A	N/A	N/A	Solid R	Likely R	Solid R	3-0
Georgia	Mike Collins	Jon Ossoff*	Ossoff +8.8%	Ossoff +6.2%	N/A	Lean D	Lean D	Tossup	0-4
Iowa	Ashley Hinson	Josh Turek	Hinson +0.8%	N/A	N/A	Lean R	Lean R	Lean R	4-0
Maine	Susan Collins*	Troy Jackson	Jackson +1.8%	N/A	N/A	Tossup	Tossup	Tilt R	1-1
Michigan	Mike Rogers	Pending	N/A	N/A	N/A	Tossup	Tossup	Tossup	0-0
Minnesota	Pending	Pending	N/A	N/A	N/A	Likely D	Likely D	Likely D	0-3
Montana	Kurt Alme	Seth Bodnar	N/A	N/A	N/A	Solid R	Likely R	Solid R	3-0
Nebraska	Pete Ricketts*	Dan Osborn	N/A	N/A	N/A	Likely R	Likely R	Likely R	3-0
New Hampshire	Pending	Pending	N/A	N/A	N/A	Lean D	Lean D	Tilt D	0-3
North Carolina	Michael Whatley	Roy Cooper	Cooper +7.4%	Cooper +7.3%	Cooper +10.5%	Lean D	Lean D	Tossup	0-5
Ohio	Jon Husted*	Sherrod Brown	Brown +0.8%	Brown +0.6%	Brown +2.6%	Tossup	Tossup	Tilt R	1-3
Texas	Ken Paxton	James Talarico	Talarico +0.8%	Paxton +0.6%	Talarico +0.4%	Lean R	Lean R	Likely R	4-2

If the election were held today, and if you were to make your predictions based on our admittedly crude scoring system, here's what would happen:

• 0 Democratic-held seats would be flips
• 3 Democratic-held seats would be holds: Georgia, Minnesota, New Hampshire
• 1 Democratic-held seat would be too close to call: Michigan
• 2 Republican-held seats would be flips: North Carolina, Ohio
• 5 Republican-held seats would be holds: Florida, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Texas
• 2 Republican-held seats would be too close to call: Alaska, Maine

If all the "too close to call" races went the Democrats' way—and again, the results tend to correlate with each other—then the Democrats would net four seats, and would take the Senate.

That said, the real story here is that it's just too hard to tell what is going to happen. Fully 7 of the 26 candidates (27%) aren't even known yet. Many of the races are not yet being polled, or are not being polled very much. Several other races, most obviously Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio and Texas, sit on razor's edge. We've said it a million times—a week in politics is a lifetime. That means there are still a little over 14 lifetimes until Election Day.

And now, let's take a look at the generic House ballot. Here are the last 10 polls of that question, all of them from the last two weeks:

Pollster	Democrats	Republicans	Net
Ipsos	40%	38%	Democrats +2%
McLaughlin & Assoc.	46%	44%	Democrats +2%
J.L. Partners	50%	41%	Democrats +9%
Beacon/Shaw	53%	46%	Democrats +7%
YouGov	46%	41%	Democrats +5%
Emerson College	53%	42%	Democrats +11%
Change Research	46%	38%	Democrats +8%
Verasight	50%	43%	Democrats +7%
Alpharoc	42%	37%	Democrats +5%
RMG Research	47%	45%	Democrats +2%

That averages out to Democrats +5.8%.

Here is how the various aggregators have it:

Aggregator	Democrats	Republicans	Net
Nate Silver	48.3%	42%	Democrats +6.3%
Ballotpedia	48%	43%	Democrats +5%
Race to the White House	47.4%	41.4%	Democrats +6%
RealClearPolling	48.4%	43.2%	Democrats +5.2%
FiftyPlusOne	49.2%	43.6%	Democrats +5.6%
DecisionDesk HQ	46.6%	42.5%	Democrats +4.1%

That averages out to Democrats +5.4%.

There are two bits of good news for the Republicans here. The first is that it would generally take a 3-4 point Democratic advantage to flip the House, but this year's gerrymandering might make it more like a 5-point Democratic advantage to flip. And so, by that metric, the GOP has a puncher's chance to hold. Also, at this point in 2018 (i.e., the other Trump midterm), the Democrats were up about 7.5 points in the generic House ballot. Donald Trump may be more unpopular than he was back then, but so are the Democrats.

And now the good news for Democrats. What the topline numbers are hiding is that Democrats are much more enthusiastic this year about voting than are Republicans. That will start to show up in the topline numbers, to an extent, once the various pollsters switch from tallying registered voters to tallying likely voters. So, don't be terribly surprised if, once primary season is over, the Democrats' average jumps a couple or three points. If that does happen, it almost certainly means the House is lost to the GOP.

And finally, here's how the three main U.S.-based betting markets have it right now:

Market	Dems to take House	Dems to take Senate
PredictIt	78.5%	46.4%
Kalshi	84%	45%
Polymarket	86%	51%

So, by all available indicators, the House is looking good for the blue team, even if it's not quite a done deal yet. The Senate, by contrast, is going to be a barnburner. (Z)

White House Admits to What Everyone Already Knew

Maybe this would have been a big scandal in some other era, but maybe not. Richard Nixon did it, and while he did get brought down by scandal, this wasn't the one. Barack Obama did it, too, sorta, and while the Republicans tried to make hay out of it, it didn't go anywhere.

What we speak of is impoundment, particularly impoundment of a partisan nature. Congress, over the past several years, has allocated a lot of money for research into green energy and other climate-change-fighting technologies. Donald Trump and his minions hate green energy, they hate egghead scientists, and they hate blue states. So, it is no surprise that the White House canceled $7.5 billion in environment-focused research grants that had already been awarded to scholars in blue states.

It was already obvious that blue states were being targeted, but it's now an undisputed fact, as the Trump administration admitted to the behavior in a court filing that sharp-eyed reporters for The New York Times just happened to catch. The lawsuit in question was filed by a group of California scientists who are trying to get their research money back, and in the linked document, administration officials concede the decisions were based on "political criteria," with that criteria being "Did this state vote for Kamala Harris and does it also have two Democratic senators?"

This is quite clearly against the law, as it violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. But don't hold your breath waiting for Donald Trump or OMB Director Russell Vought or anyone else to be held accountable. There likely isn't a criminal act here, especially now that the Supreme Court has made clear that Trump is above the law when he is performing his official duties. Flagrantly disregarding the Impoundment Control Act is most certainly an impeachable offense, and the Democrats might just prove that if they do well in the midterm elections. But neither Trump nor Vought nor anyone else is going to be convicted or removed by the Senate.

It is also improbable there will be any political fallout. Impoundment is pretty wonky and, besides, most voters don't see why it's their problem if a bunch of guys and gals in lab coats don't get their money. The voters care about gas prices, not Bunsen burners. As we note above, voters didn't care when it was Nixon or Obama, and Trump has a considerably thicker coating of teflon than either of those two men. It is true that the amount here is much larger than in the cases of the two previous presidents, but what's a few hundred million (or billion) dollars here and there?

Pretty much the only justice is that the scientists will be able to sue to get their funding restored, and most or all of them will probably win. One can only hope their labs and/or their research are not completely thrown off kilter by not having enough money to operate for a year or two. (Z)

DNC Is a Mess

We made brief allusion to it yesterday, but there was a damning report about the DNC and its chair, Ken Martin, from The New York Times over the weekend. As to the Committee, it's in the red by a couple of million dollars, and has had to take out a $15 million loan, secured by its headquarters. By contrast, the RNC has nine figures in the bank. As to Martin, he's apparently got Troy-Jackson-style temper issues (though Martin throws phones rather than water bottles), and he's not liked or respected by... anyone, it would seem.

As we have written before, it is not easy to reconcile the enthusiasm that Democratic voters are expressing in polls (and special elections) with the sea of red ink in which the DNC finds itself. Our guess remains that Republican voters are much more likely to give money to the RNC, which is the "old school" approach, while Democratic voters are much more likely to give money directly to candidates, thanks to ActBlue (which is much more effective and usable than the Republicans' WinRed).

Martin's not going anywhere anytime soon, since he thinks he's doing swell, and since it's not easy to remove a DNC chair who does not want to go. If there was a sitting Democratic president right now, they could probably lay down the law, but there isn't. So, Martin gets to stay on.

There is some talk that since the DNC has no money, and since nobody has much regard for Martin, that states might start to disregard the national party organ, and to hold their primaries whenever they damn well please. Color us skeptical. Democrats, particularly party loyalists—which is exactly the type of people who make decisions about primaries—are not known for rebellious behavior like this. Plus, no matter how broke the DNC is, it can still impose sanctions, like taking away delegates.

That said, we wonder exactly what the DNC is thinking when it comes to its plans to put South Carolina at the front of the primary line. In the item yesterday, we noted that the South Carolina legislature is not likely to go along with that, since it is controlled by Republicans. However, reader C.F. in Tigard, OR, wrote in to point out that state law (see SECTION 7-11-20, B.1) says that state party committees get to pick the dates of their primaries, the legislature does not. So, putting SC first may be doable.

That said, there is still the problem of New Hampshire. As we have pointed out many times, New Hampshirites care a lot about protecting their place at the front of the line, and state law says their primary gets to be the first one. The DNC can punish New Hampshire if it does not yield, but aggravating voters in a swing state may not be the wisest course of action.

There is another possibility, namely having South Carolina hold a caucus. This would not run afoul of the New Hampshire law, and it would also not subject the Democrats to South Carolina state law (or state interference) because the parties themselves run caucuses. Of course, a caucus tends to attract activist voters rather than median voters, and so can produce wonky results. Also, the Democratic Party doesn't exactly have the spare cash lying around to pay for such a thing.

Whatever the plan is, the Democrats better figure something out. The biggest complaint that Black voters have about the Democratic Party is that it makes big promises and fails to follow through. Coming up short here would not get the party off to a good start in 2028, that is for sure. (Z)

White House Correspondents' Dinner Is a Mess, Too

The White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) had to postpone its dinner for everyone except that one salad-eating guy, due to the sorta threat posed by an armed assailant. This weekend, with about 3 months having passed, they finally held the re-scheduled event, with Donald Trump in attendance.

This is the first WHCA dinner that Trump has attended as president. Part of the deal is that the sitting president gets ribbed a bit, and he hates to be ribbed. Another part of the deal is that the sitting president gives a funny speech, and Trump is not really capable of being funny. This year, he decided to give it the old college try. And he lived up to that, since for him, college was letting someone else do his writing for him, and then collecting a well-below-average grade.

That's right, the reviews were savage. To the extent that Trump had jokes on tap, they landed with a thud. A lof of them were fat jokes which, coming from him, brings to mind the old line about people in glass houses. Mostly, his speech was re-airing of the same old grievances, along with a bunch of insults and nasty names directed at the crowd. The President got little in the way of a positive response, and many attendees eventually tuned him out, and were milling around in the hall, or looking at their cell phones. Trump himself criticized the speech while he was giving it, blaming the weak material on "whoever" wrote it, and asking the crowd "Does anyone understand this stuff?"

However, we did not write this item so that we might criticize Trump. Everyone knows that he can't deliver a joke. And everyone knows that, since P.J. O'Rourke died, there are (apparently) no conservatives capable of writing anything funny.

We actually wrote this to criticize the people running the WHCA. Keep in mind that the whole point of the WHCA Dinner is to celebrate the First Amendment. But Donald Trump does not care about the First Amendment. He hates the First Amendment. His administration is on a perpetual crusade to curtail First Amendment rights (see Carr, Brendan). Trump is so disdainful of freedom of the press that he badmouthed a bunch of reporters (most obviously Kaitlin Collins) right to their faces at a dinner where he was THEIR guest. He is so disdainful of freedom of speech that the WHCA had to cashier the usual comedian, and instead hire a mentalist as the headliner (and the mentalist, Oz Pearlman, got great reviews, unlike Trump).

Inasmuch as the relationship between the press and the president is at least somewhat adversarial, it's at least a little odd that any president gets invited to this thing. That blurs some lines that probably shouldn't be blurred. But at least every other president was a fan of the First Amendment, and so their attendance was appropriate on that level. Trump isn't, and so his attendance wasn't. We're well over 10 years into his political career; when are the media going to fully accept that you just can't treat him the same as other presidents? (Z)

New Jersey Provides Fuel for Right-Wing Conspiracy Theorists...

This story is actually from last week, but it took us until today to get around to it. On Tuesday of last week, Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) announced that, due to a bug in the software used by the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission, about 6,600 non-citizens were registered to vote, and 400 of them availed themselves of the privilege.

At a glance, this would seem to validate Republicans' claims about blue states allowing non-citizens to vote, thus producing fraudulent election results. And certainly, the right-wing media, and right-wing politicians, are using the revelation in that way. It is, however, important to note the following:

• This was clearly, and verifiably, a mistake.
• New Jersey officials discovered the problem, and copped to it.
• The responsible software company has been fired.
• The 400 people who voted did so because the state told them they were eligible.
• Those 400 people were registered as Democrats, independents and Republicans (and not just as Democrats).
• There is no evidence whatsoever that the 400 voters changed the outcome of any election.

In short, there is really nothing to see here.

Still, the Department of Justice is looking under rocks for evidence of voter fraud, so as to please the fellow in the Oval Office, and to help make the case for the SAVE Act. So, Trump's current former personal lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for "Civil Rights," has demanded the names of all 6,600, warning that they might all face criminal prosecution and even deportation.

Sherrill has already indicated that she will tell Dhillon to shove it. On a human level, this is the right choice, as these folks did nothing wrong. On a political level, it is also the right choice. There is little doubt that Dhillon & Co. would not only arrest and try to prosecute these folks, but that it would be done slowly, a few people at a time, so as to create the impression of a vast and unending conspiracy.

It is probable that Dhillon will sue to try to get the records. And it is probable she will lose, just as the DOJ has done, over and over, in these cases. At very least, this will take a long time to play out, which means that Dhillon won't get what she wants in time to try to help save the SAVE Act. (Z)

...And Mitch McConnell Provides Fuel for Left-Wing Conspiracy Theorists

About a week and a half ago, a single picture, one that many people found unpersuasive, was all the "proof of life" provided to show that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is still alive and functional. Though it was a little thin, it was remarkably effective at pushing the story off the front pages.

Well, it worked for a while, at least. Over the past few days, the "Mitch is dead" chatter got going again, and so the Senator, or someone in his orbit, issued another statement yesterday. It has a couple of paragraphs written under McConnell's name, and a paragraph written under the name of the Office of the Attending Physician (of Congress). According to the statement, McConnell is now in a rehab facility and is undergoing rigorous physical therapy. The statement includes a photo, which does not include a current newspaper this time, but does look to be taken in a non-hospital facility:

It remains a bit odd that McConnell has not done a TV or phone interview, since that would do more to put the rumors to rest than a couple of photos.

Among the folks who are not satisfied is Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY). Beshear isn't necessarily buying into any conspiracies, but he does think that McConnell needs to clarify if he'll ever be able to resume his seat and, if so, when. The Governor sent a letter to the Senator yesterday, demanding transparency. This demand is not likely to be heeded.

In the next week, we will reach a critical juncture, conspiracy-wise. The general belief, among the conspiratorially minded, is that the truth about McConnell is being hidden until either August 3 or 4. Depending on how you do the math, one of those dates would theoretically be the last date on which Beshear could call a special election to fill the seat. Thereafter, there would be no special election, and the appointed replacement would serve until the start of the next term.

The ostensible reason that the Republicans do not want a special election is that (depending on which conspiracy theory you believe), they are nervous that election might be won by: (1) Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) or (2) a Democrat. This would turn a reliable Republican vote (or, for now, a reliable "not present" vote) into either an unreliable Republican vote or a Democratic vote.

The conspiracy theories don't make a lot of sense to us, but what do we know? In any event, if McConnell resigns or takes a "sudden" turn for the worse and dies, on or around August 5, then that would suggest that maybe the conspiracists were on to something. On the other hand, if he keeps issuing statements and/or photos after that date, it would suggest they weren't. T-minus-roughly 7 days until we find out. (Z)

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