Note: On many Tuesdays for a while there will be Gubernatorial or senatorial primaries. Once we know the winners, we will update our Senate and governors pages, which list the candidates and discuss the races. If you see something there we missed, please let us know.

The "Victims" Are Lining up for a Payday

Donald Trump made a deal with desperate-to-become-AG-but-currently-just-acting-AG Todd Blanche that gives a board of Trump's cronies $1.776 billion and the right to do anything they want with it, except (ostensibly) to give it to Trump directly. And do it in secret. Trump will probably arrange to give large chunks to organizations that he controls completely, like The Trump Organization, one of his many companies, or give it to cronies to buy Trump crypto. He could also start a new foundation in Florida after courts ended the corrupt one he had in New York and give payouts to cronies to "donate" to his foundation, possibly in return for lucrative government contracts.

But there is a good chance he will disburse some of it to "worthy" organizations and other people. In fact, they are already lining up with their begging bowls out. One segment of Trump's base that feels neglected is the anti-abortion movement. He hasn't done anything for them. But now he can do something under the radar that will score him some points. Many anti-abortion protesters have been arrested and imprisoned for disrupting abortion clinics. Now they want not only pardons, but also cash for their efforts. The new pot of money could be an easy way to funnel money to anti-abortion individuals and groups without anyone finding out. Presumably Trump will set up a shell company in the Bahamas he can pay and it can send money to a shell company on the Cayman Islands that will shovel money to a shell company in Panama that will make the actual payments in a way a future Democratic AG won't be able to trace.

Many Trump allies who helped plot the Jan. 6 coup attempt are sure to apply. John Eastman and Ken Chesebro, both of whom were disbarred, will surely be high on the list, as well as Jenna Ellis, who also lost her law license, and many others. Maybe even Rudy Giuliani. The foot soldiers, the rioters themselves, may get small payouts, more as a signal to future rioters than to compensate them for their punishments for breaking the law. However, Joseph McBride, a lawyer who represented many of them, is skeptical. He said: "Do I think any of this is real? I'll believe it when I see it."

Groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers that have supported Trump and took part in the riot are probably busy writing their grant proposals already. Probably every right-wing group in the country is going to smell the money and apply.

Democrats are furious. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said: "Rewarding individuals who committed crimes is obscene. Every American can see through this illegal, corrupt, self-dealing scheme." Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) said: "This all seems to be an obvious abuse of power by the Department of Justice, by the president." Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said the fund is "an absolute violation of congressional spending power."

Where will the money come from? Trump (or, more likely, OMB Director Russell Vought) found a fund created in 1957 called the Judgment Fund. It is a permanent uncapped appropriation that was approved by Congress that can be used by the government when it loses or settles a lawsuit. It will come from that. Whether Trump's deal fits the requirements for using the fund will likely be litigated for years. Back in 1957, no one was thinking of a president suing the government, reaching an immense settlement with himself, and using this pot to pay it. A future AG might take a dim view of this and see it as stealing. (V)

Trump Isn't the Only Grifter in Town

Donald Trump's grifting is so big and so in-your-face that it tends to suck all the oxygen out of the air so mini-grifters don't get as much attention as they should. Case in point: Sean Duffy, a former Fox News host and now secretary of transportation. After all, he knows how to drive a car and a car is transportation, so he is clearly qualified.

Duffy said that promoting summer road trips as a civic experience is part of his job. He collected some money, got in his car and drove around the country in several short trips from September to April. Most of those months are not in the summer, according to the staff calendarist. He is going to make a YouTube series about his travels and post it in June.

So what's the deal here—other than Duffy not realizing that when Kristi Noem made herself the face of her department and upstaged Trump, she got canned for it? The problem is the funding. Duffy created a nonprofit company, The Great American Road Trip, Inc., and began selling sponsorships for his trip. After all, gas is expensive and you can't expect a lowly cabinet official making only $246,400 to pay for his own travel. Besides, cars suitable for himself, his wife and their nine children don't get great mileage.

So, Duffy created four levels of sponsorship for his company. Platinum went for $1 million, gold went for $500,000, silver went for $250,000, and bronze went for $100,000. Duffy conveniently made up a pitch deck to show to companies that have business before his department and would like favorable treatment. Unfortunately, the deck leaked out and Politico published it yesterday. Here it is.

Were there companies in the transportation business who were interested? In the immor(t)al words of Sarah Palin: "You betcha."" Here is a partial list of "sponsors":

• Boeing and Toyota were in for platinum status.
• Shell was apparently also in for platinum status.
• The Electronic Payments Coalition, a financial lobbying group, was in but wouldn't say at which level.
• Google, Royal Caribbean Cruise line, and CRH, which supplies material for highways, were in.
• The American Bus Association said it was a bronze-level sponsor.

There were no doubt other sponsors who preferred to keep mum. Bunim/Murray Productions produced the videos but when asked, declined to say what the budget was. Did the sponsorships cover the production costs? Who knows? What happened with the excess money, if any? Duffy isn't talking.

Duffy may be an amateur when it comes to running anything, but he knows how Washington works. After being a prosecutor and then serving four terms in Congress, he became a lobbyist for the airlines. Oh, and in Aug. 2021 he bought a home in New Jersey and claimed it as his principal residence on his mortgage application. In Feb. 2025, he bought a home in D.C. and claimed IT as his principal residence on his mortgage application. This is precisely the "crime" the DoJ used to go after New York AG Letitia James.

On Tuesday, Duffy testified before Congress about the "road trip." The senators were not all pleased. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said "I don't like the fact that this 'Great American [Road Trip]' reality TV show took days and days of filming. I don't like the fact that it was paid for by companies that you have to oversee, companies that you work with, and in our jobs that would be pay for play. It would be 100 percent illegal. It would be inappropriate on every level and not tolerated." Duffy responded: "Do you have jurisdiction over law firms? So, you received $7 million in political contributions from the trial bar." They ended up yelling at each other. For the record, Gillibrand is on the Armed Services, Appropriations, and Intelligence Committees, none of which have jurisdictions over law firms. But even if she were on a committee with jurisdiction over law firms, the core of his argument is "Politicians are corrupt so it is perfectly acceptable for Cabinet members to be corrupt, too." Only Cabinet members don't need to run for reelection. (V)

Bad News Bill

Donald Trump got a double whammy from the Senate yesterday. First, the Senate is not going to allow the $1 billion for a giant eyesore ballroom attached to the White House. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough said it wasn't allowed in a reconciliation bill. Furthermore, the votes weren't there. Trump will be furious about this. The ballroom was a top priority for him.

Second, Democrats have proposed an amendment that targets the giant slush fund Trump wants to create to shower himself, his cronies and selected supporters with money. Anonymous sources say the votes for the amendment are there. Of course, how would Congress enforce that? Suppose the amendment says that the president cannot spend funds that Congress has not appropriated? Actually, that would just repeat words that are already in the Constitution. But what if Trump just orders the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to wire $1.776 billion to some bank somewhere in the world and Bessent does it?

Then what? What could Congress do? It could impeach and try to convict Bessent, but even if that succeeded, Trump would still have the money. The Constitution really doesn't have any self-enforcement mechanisms. The only thing Congress can do if the president is openly breaking the law is impeach him. And Trump's recent demonstration that he will end the career of anyone who opposes him (see Massie, Thomas) is a pretty clear message to all Republicans in Congress not to get in his way. (V)

Gas Is above $4 in All 50 States

It is now official: Gas is averaging over $4/gal. in every state, according to the AAA. As we have noted, the price of gas varies from state to state due to distribution costs, local taxes and other factors. But now every state has crossed the $4/gal. threshold. According to GasBuddy.com, the national average is $4.55/gal, up 53% since the war in Iran started.

Here is a heat map from GasBuddy.com showing prices around the country:

As you can see, It is cheapest in the South, where most of the oil is drilled and refined and where taxes are low. It is most expensive in the interior West and especially the far West, but also in parts of the Upper Midwest and Northeast.

Gas prices have been relatively stable for the past 2 weeks after a rapid climb. However, GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan expects that if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed until midsummer, the price of gas will pass $5/gal. If the price is that high around Labor Day, when many people are driving home from vacation and when early voting is about to start, it will signal big trouble for the Republicans as few voters are buying the story that it is Barack Obama's fault or Joe Biden's fault. Over three-quarters of Americans put the blame squarely on Donald Trump. (V)

"Throw the Bums Out" Is the New Normal

As Donald Trump's approval rating makes a beeline for the Bush line, the House, and maybe the Senate, are likely to flip in November, especially if Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee in Texas. This would not be at all unusual. In fact, it would continue what has become normal. In the 13 federal elections since 2000, either the House, the Senate, or the White House has changed hands in 11 of them. Only twice in that period has control of all three remained unchanged. If Democrats win the House (or the Senate, though it's hard to see them winning the Senate and NOT the House), the score will increase to 12 changes in 14 elections. In nearly every case, the new winner had a tiny majority that was vulnerable next time around. The country is so closely divided that neither party can get a serious majority on anything ever. If 3-5% of the people who gave a party power don't like what they are doing, it flips next time. Ronald Brownstein talked to people and looked at why this happens.

UCLA political science professor Lynn Vavreck explained it like this: "For most of our lifetime, politics was contested over the New Deal issues—the size and role of government. Those days are so gone. We are not (primarily) fighting over the tax rate anymore. In 2016, Trump raised these identity-inflected issues (and) now we are fighting about who deserves to be an American." This means most voters don't change their votes based on candidate qualities. They are immovable. Thus a tiny slice of the electorate, maybe 10-15%, picks the winner-of-the-year, and these people often are not really interested in politics and don't follow it. They are often dissatisfied with both parties and depending on the year and the candidates, they may vote or not vote.

Also a factor in the constant switching back and forth is presidential overreach. Newly elected presidents got there by making grandiose promises to their bases. They also know they have at most 2 years to get everything done. This leads to a huge partisan effort in year 1 to get some red meat (blue meat?) through Congress. Once it passes, that base becomes fat and lazy but the other side is enraged and determined to throw the bums out at the next election. Presidents are also using XOs far more than in the past—and in highly partisan ways that further enrage the other side.

Here is a chart showing control of the Senate, House, and White House since 1855:

As you can see, from 1855 to 1933, the Republicans were in charge most of the time for long runs of power. Starting with the 1932 elections, Democrats took over for a long run. In the House that lasted until 1994, a 62-year run with only two short interruptions in the House. What has been going on since 2000 is new. It is not the historical norm.

The voters are clearly unhappy. How could this cycle be broken? If one party could raise living standards that might help, but that would require having power for more than one election cycle. The Grim Reaper might also have a solution. Old people and young people often have different views, especially on cultural issues. If the Reaper could eliminate one of the groups, that might produce a solid majority long enough to effect change.

Prof. Sean Wilentz of Princeton pointed out that historically, sometimes the president handles a crisis so well or so badly that it begins or ends an era. The financial crisis of 2008 could have been a turning point, but neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama was willing to hold Wall Street and the wealthy accountable, so neither one ushered in a long run for his party. Maybe if the Iran war results in massive inflation and a deep recession at the same time, that could force a permanent realignment. But maybe we'll just muddle through. (V)

Cooper Now Has a Double-Digit Lead in North Carolina Senate Race

A new Harper Polling poll of the North Carolina Senate race has Roy Cooper (D) ahead of Michael Whatley (R) 50% to 39%, a lead of 11 points. Cooper is at 50%, which is important, because even if all the undecideds break against him, which is very unlikely, he will still probably win.

This wasn't necessary. It happened because Donald Trump had a temper tantrum and drove Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) out of the race. Unless something very unexpected happens now, North Carolina is lost for the Republicans, and it didn't have to be like that. Tillis could very possibly have won, even if Cooper had entered the race, which he might not have done against a sitting senator.

Here are all the other public polls since March:

Pollster	Dates	Cooper	Whatley	Net
Harper Polling	May 10-11	50%	39%	Cooper+11
Change Research	May 4-8	49%	42%	Cooper +7
Opinion Diagnostics	April 21-24	50%	41%	Cooper +9
High Point University	March 26-April 6	50%	42%	Cooper +8
Quantus Insights	March 31 - April 1	49%	44%	Cooper +5
Harper Polling	March 22-23	49%	41%	Cooper +8
YouGov	March 9-18	48%	34%	Cooper +14
PPP	March 13-14	47%	44%	Cooper +3

The NRSC now has to make a decision, although it won't make it until at least next Wednesday. Should they abandon Whatley or fight for him? The decision is partly dependent on what happens in the Texas primary next week. If Ken Paxton wins that—and with Donald Trump's endorsement, he probably will—the NRSC is going to have to spend at least $100 million, maybe as much as $300 million, to try to save Paxton. While the NRSC has a lot of money in the pot, its resources are not infinite, and there are crucial races in half a dozen other states as well. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), chair of the NRSC, could decide to cut Whatley loose and just concede the race so he can spend big in Texas. Losing that race would not only be another Senate seat, but it would give Democrats a template for winning in red states: Scour the seminaries, get seminarians elected to some lower office so they learn about campaigning, then run them for the Senate. It would also boost the morale of Texas Democrats immensely and make them contest every race henceforth.

North Carolina would be an especially tough—and expensive—race. Going negative against Cooper won't work because he has been in public office in the state since 1985. He is extremely well known and if he had any skeletons in his closet, they would have been discovered by now. The opposite approach, namely praising Whatley's achievements, also won't work because he has been a lobbyist and Republican apparatchik his whole life. He doesn't have any achievements the NRSC would want to talk about. So deciding to spend $100 million or more on a probably hopeless race when that money and more will be badly needed in Texas would be a tough call for Scott. Getting Texas oil billionaires to pony up to support Paxton (even though they secretly hate him) might be doable, but getting anyone to pony up for the hopeless Whatley might be much harder.

The Cooper-Whatley race has other implications besides the Senate seat for 6 years. The Tarheel State is purple. The governor, lieutentant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction are all Democrats. The auditor, treasurer, and three commissioners are Republicans. Both senators are Republicans. If Cooper wins, then Democrats will pull out all stops to defeat Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) in 2028 and in a presidential year, it might work, especially with Gov. Josh Stein (D-NC) on the ballot. If that seat flips, North Carolina will be on the way to becoming the next Virginia—a former deep-red state that became a blue state. Republicans really don't want that, but their bulwark (Whatley) is very weak. (V)

South Carolina House Passes New Map Eliminating Clyburn's District

Let's stick around the Carolinas for a minute. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is up, but the Democrats don't have a serious horse in that race, so Graham will coast. The action in the Palmetto State is in the House—the state House. It just passed a new congressional map that eliminates Rep. Jim Clyburn's (D) D+13 district around Columbia and Charleston. Unseating Clyburn would give the Republicans a 7-0 shutout. Clyburn is 85, pushing 86, so his best years are probably behind him. Still, the very heavily gerrymandered SC-06 district is 47% Black, so some younger Black person could be elected there when Clyburn has had it.

The bill is likely to meet some resistance in the state Senate, though. First, there are Democrats in South Carolina and they have to go somewhere and getting rid of a D+13 district could make some other members vulnerable in a very big blue wave. Second, early voting starts on May 26 for the June 9 primary. Changing the map this close to an election means members who have been campaigning for months may suddenly discover they spent a lot of time in places no longer in their district and no time in places now in their district.

Third, several Republican mayors, including the mayor of Charleston, don't want a new map. Fourth, due to Clyburn's prowess, South Carolina has been showered with goodies during Democratic administrations. If a Democrat is elected president in 2028 and 100% of the South Carolina congressional delegation consists of Republicans, the federal faucet will be abruptly shut off because there will be nobody in the delegation the president listens to. That will be a big shock.

State Rep. Robert Reese (D) summed up how South Carolina Democrats are likely to campaign up and down the ballot in November: "By all means, let us continue this great march of progress by redrawing the congressional maps. Because nothing lowers a power bill like redistricting." (V)

Conservative Incumbents Hang on in Georgia Supreme Court Races

After the blowout victory for the "Democrat" in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April, Democrats were hopeful they could flip two Georgia Supreme Court seats on Tuesday. It didn't happen. All three of the conservative incumbents won their races (one of them unopposed). Incumbent Charlie Bethel beat attorney Miracle Rankin by 2 points. Incumbent Sarah Warren beat state senator Jen Jordan by 19 points. Incumbent Ben Land won all the votes in his race because no one else was on the ballot for his seat.

Both of the incumbents in competitive races were appointed by former governor Nathan Deal. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) endorsed them. They will serve another 6 years before the next election. The conservatives will continue to hold eight of the nine seats, with the other seat held by John Ellington, who was elected rather than appointed, and who appears to be nonpartisan.

Georgia is a swing state, so there are bound to be many election cases in 2026 and 2028. This year alone, there is a race for governor and also for senator. No doubt there will be lawsuits in either or both. There always are. Voting is only round one these days. Round two is the courts.

Also on the agenda for 2027 or 2028 is Kemp's plan to draw new congressional maps and legislative maps. The idea is to eliminate majority-minority distracts in order to disenfranchise Black voters. Those maps will surely make it to the Georgia Supreme Court, with a predictable outcome. (V)

Upcoming Supreme Court Decisions

While we are on Supreme Courts, the U.S. Supreme Court is due to release some blockbuster decisions in the next few weeks. Here is a brief roundup of some of the bigger cases.

• Birthright Citizenship: On Day 1 of Trump v2.0, Donald Trump signed an XO ending birthright citizenship for babies born in the U.S. of parents in the country illegally. The Constitution clearly states that everyone born in the country is a citizen. Will the Court rule that the Constitution is unconstitutional? Our guess is that the justices will uphold the Constitution because this issue is not important to them and throwing the Democrats an occasional bone lets the justices pretend to be umpires, just calling balls and strikes, while still giving the Republicans the important stuff, like elections and voting.
  
  
• Transgender Athletes: Twenty-seven states have banned trans girls and trans women from competing on girls and women's sports teams. Cases from Idaho and West Virginia made it to the Court. Opponents of the laws say that they violate the equal protection provisions of the Constitution. While these cases are not very important and affect only a microscopic number of people, the majority likes to throw some red meat at its base once in a while, so probably it will uphold the states' rights to enact such laws.
  
  
• Independent Agencies: Federal law allows members of independent agency boards to be fired, but only for cause. Trump has fired some just because he doesn't like them, law or no law. He claims Congress has no power to restrict him firing anyone because the president is like a king. If the Court rules he is right, that would upset a precedent going back 90 years. This case is important, so Trump will probably win. On the other hand, if he does, on Jan. 20, 2029, if a Democrat is inaugurated, he or she will fire hundreds of Trump appointees. Then none of the agencies will be independent, which is not what Congress wanted. Every time there is a party switch, there will be a full housecleaning. Somewhere, Andrew "Spoils System" Jackson is smiling.
  
  
• Lisa Cook: Lisa Cook is a member of the Fed's Board of Governors. Trump fired her because he wanted to replace her with his own choice. Bill Pulte of the FHFA dug up two mortgage applications that Cook field before she was on the Fed Board and she claimed a primary residence for two houses. Trump claimed that was sufficient reason to fire her. As we note above, Sean Duffy did the same thing and he wasn't fired. Odd. This one is similar to the item above, only the Fed is so important, the Court may twist itself in knots to let the president fire members and head of agencies except the Fed. The Court knows that if the firing stands, the markets could freak out and that could hurt the Republicans in November.
  
  
• Late-arriving Ballots: Many states allow absentee ballots postmarked on or before Election Day, but arriving later, to be counted. One of them is Mississippi. The administration wants ballots arriving after the close of the polls on Election Day to be thrown out. Governors and Senators from rural states are not with the administration on this one. Since rural areas often have: (1) many Republican voters and (2) slow mail service, banning the grace periods could actually hurt the Republicans more than the Democrats. After all, urban voters can just bring the ballot to a drop box or election office more easily than a voter dozens of miles from any box or office.
  
  
• Temporary Protected Status: The Biden administration granted temporary protected status to 356,000 immigrants from Syria and Haiti. Trump wants to deport them. The legal issues are complicated, but in the end, the justices will just vote on whether they like immigrants from Syria and Haiti. Most of them probably don't.
  
  
• Election Spending: Federal law allows independent super PACs to spend as much money as they can collect. However, they are banned from coordinating their messaging with the candidates they are supporting. Candidates get around this by putting their goals on their websites or giving speeches listing their goals. The super PACs see these and get to work. The Republicans want to get rid of the barrier altogether and allow open coordination as it saves them the trouble of putting their message on their websites. The nominal argument is that the law restricts the free speech of the super PACs. They want to talk to the candidates they support and aren't allowed to. This is a hugely important case so it will probably go 6-3 for the Republicans.
  
  
• Guns: Federal law bans people who use controlled substances from owning a gun. A Texas man who occasionally used marijuana was charged with felony gun possession. His lawyers, from the ACLU and the NRA, not a common alliance, say the law is unconstitutional. The administration is defending the law.

We should know the outcomes on all of these before the calendar turns to summer. (V)

ACA Enrollment Plunges

While the Republicans don't seem to have the votes to kill off the ACA on a straight vote (remember John McCain's famous thumbs down sign in the Senate?), they have put up many barriers to enrolling in the hopes of saving money—and more important, denying healthcare to "undeserving people," like poor people. It is working. Enrollment this year looks to be down by 20% from last year. That means 5 million fewer people will have health insurance than in 2025. This is a feature, not a bug.

According to data from the KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation), many people who are covered will pay more for healthcare. The average deductible will grow this year by $1,000 and the average monthly premium will go up by $65. People will get worse insurance and pay more for it due to expired subsidies.

Another problem is that for middle-income Americans, those making too much to qualify for subsidies, but not making enough to pay for health insurance on their own, health insurance is now impossible. All they can do is pray they don't get sick or have an accident.

Healthcare is something the Democrats should be talking about day and night. You lost your health insurance? Blame the Republicans. Your premium shot up? Blame the Republicans. You have a $7,000 deductible now? Blame the Republicans. It is pretty straightforward and could work well. (V)

Government Incompetence Leads to Massive Security Leak

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) is supposed to protect U.S. computer infrastructure from foreign attacks. After the 2020, election, Donald Trump asked CISA to produce evidence that the election was hacked and he won. The agency concluded that it wasn't hacked and he didn't win. So he thanked the director and moved on. He didn't like that report and fired the director.

In Trump v2.0, he has had two acting CISA directors, neither confirmed by the Senate, and he has cut CISA's budget drastically. He has a pretty good memory for some things. So everything is now running smoothly?

Well, no. It has been discovered that the agency's secret keys, which allow anyone who knows them to log into secure government sites, have been lying around in plaintext (i.e., not encrypted) on a widely used public server. It is not known who might have found and used them and seen all manner of top secret information. This is not a good thing.

If you want to get into the weeds on this, this article has more detail. (V)

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