The founder, Paul Renshaw, created this midterms page that shows prediction market odds from Polymarket and Kalshi on who is likely to control Congress. — Read the rest
Josh Marshall has been chronicling the many ways that Trump world is descending into petty feuding ahead of the midterms — and how, in the midst of that, Trump is starting to cut loose those hangers-on who look too much like dead weight. Josh has dubbed stories in this vein “‘Layla’-coda updates” which, TPM publisher Joe Ragazzo eventually explained to me, is a reference to the scene in Goodfellas when Robert De Niro’s character has his crew members killed off, one by one, to avoid sharing the cash from a successful heist. The coda of Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla” plays in the background as the bodies are discovered.
Anyway.
This dynamic of escalating intra-MAGA feuds and score settling has now come to involve Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has usually managed to hover above it all, studiously going about the work of prosecuting Trump’s enemies. Dragging Blanche into the muck is Laura Loomer.
The dispute between the two improbably involves the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, a 2022 law that allows members of the military, their family members, and others who were exposed to contaminated water on the North Carolina military base to seek compensation from the federal government. Wells on the base are believed to have been contaminated with toxic chemicals, a problem that went on for more than three decades; residents developed a wide range of conditions including cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
Loomer has, for some reason, turned up advocating for these military families, and on X accused associate attorney general Stanley Woodward of “sending these veterans insulting lowball offers designed to insult and belittle their suffering.” She described Woodward as “a lifelong Democrat at the DOJ” and suggested he was plotting to hand North Carolina to the Democrats in the midterms. “He has got to be one of the WORST hires of the second Trump administration,” she said. “But, I tried to warn people.” The message seemed intended to capture Trump’s attention.
Blanche shot back last night. “Laura, you should be transparent with your followers, and you are dead wrong about Stanley,” he wrote on X. “He is a patriot who is fighting for POTUS and the American people every day.”
Blanche went on to take personal responsibility for the Camp Lejeune cases, saying that the DOJ has been “consulting with and keeping the White House counsel’s office and DOW updated along the way.”
“Find a different obsession other than going after one of DOJ’s best fighters,” he concluded.
This dispute does appear to be on Trump’s radar. At a rally in North Carolina last night, Trump cast any DOJ offers that victims found unsatisfactory as part of an effort to keep the money from going to “trial lawyers.” “We want it to go to the families, not to the lawyers,” he said, per a local NPR station.
Trump then grotesquely told the crowd they better vote Republican if they wanted to see the veterans get their money.
“If we don’t win, there’s no money,” he said. “If we do win, you’re getting it.”
It’s not yet clear whether it’s time to cue the “Layla” coda in this story, but it does appear to be yet another example of the brutal midterm environment — Democrats are favored to win up and down the ballot in North Carolina — causing accusations to fly among the president’s allies.
The ‘Manosphere’ Falls on Hard Times?
WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 18: Podcast host Joe Rogan, right, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. look on as U.S. President Donald Trump makes an announcement on researching the effects of psychedelic drugs in medical treatment for veterans, on Saturday, April 18, 2026 in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Allison Robbert/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
No one ever found the “Joe Rogan of the Left,” and maybe it doesn’t matter.
As I noted in July, the New York Times recently conducted a fascinating analysis that found traffic to and engagement with various right-wing media personalities — such as Benny Johnson and Steven Crowder — to be falling.
Puck this week reports on research from the Democratic-backed Speaking With American Men project that finds male voters holding increasingly negative opinions about a range of male, Republican-aligned influencers, from Joe Rogan to Tucker Carlson to the recently arrested Tate brothers.
Axios flags research from Cygnal’s 2026 Young American Men survey also finding Trump and Vice President JD Vance to be unpopular with this demographic.
It is, of course, unclear that the podcasts were ever truly the problem — or even a significant part of the problem. I still have not heard a convincing explanation that fully captures how to think about voters post-COVID, anti-incumbent angst, and the role various media play in either inspiring it or piggybacking on it. That angst can be seen prompting instability worldwide, not just in the U.S. — sometimes empowering reactionary parties, but sometimes working against them.
Don Jr. disagrees with his dad about the Iran war, two unnamed people tell The Atlantic for an article that sure reads like the younger Trump trying to distance himself from one of the administration’s least popular decisions.
Elena Kagan denounced a series of recent Supreme Court decisions during an appearance at Catholic University, in particular casting Rucho v. Common Cause, which effectively greenlit partisan gerrymandering, as “deleterious” to our democracy, with its impact on display this year. She also criticized decisions like Citizens United that have opened the doors for a deluge of money in politics. “The people of America look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare,” she said. “And they’re right.”
Woman of the Hour
Alina Habba at Amazon MGM Studios’ film, “MELANIA” World Premiere held at the Trump-Kennedy Center on January 29, 2026 in Washington, D.C.. (Photo by Craig Hudson/Variety via Getty Images)
It’s Alina Habba, already locked in a damaging feud with fellow Trump world operator Ric Grenell, and now the subject of a New York Times investigation that finds a Venezuelan billionaire set her up with a gig through which she’ll make $50 million. In exchange, the billionaire, Julio Herrera Velutini, finally got the pardon from Trump he had long been seeking.
This column first appeared in The Amendment, a newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to her analysis.
Most people had no idea who Angie Nixon was until a few months ago.
Maybe the three-term Florida state legislator came onto their radar in April, after her one-woman protest in a pink jumpsuit and matching bullhorn on the House floor against the special session to gerrymander the state just hours after the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act went viral.
Perhaps it was Nixon’s stunning and decisive primary win in August that made a progressive Black woman the face of the Democratic Party’s political fortunes in Florida. Or maybe it was another viral moment, courtesy of Vice President JD Vance, who suggested at a rally earlier this month that she should “get the hell out of here” and that she doesn’t belong in America if she calls herself a socialist.
But Nixon, who now seems to be everywhere, did not come out of nowhere. Her improbable rise to become Florida’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate is the result of a decade of preparation meeting political opportunity, challenging notions of electability in a state that’s increasingly moved toward Republicans. In the final weeks of the race, Nixon’s virality and scrappy approach are getting attention and may be paying off, as donors have given the campaign a much-needed boost.
“People are pissed. They’re struggling,” Nixon said in an interview. “They want to feel like they can talk to elected officials and they are listened to. But Donald Trump and Ashley Moody, they’re turning their back on folks. I believe the government should work for people, but right now it’s actively working against them. And so I am running because we need to send someone to Washington, D.C., that’s going to stand up to Donald Trump and make him listen and do right by everyday Floridians and Americans in this country.
If elected, Nixon would become Florida’s first Black senator and could be one of a record four Black women senators serving simultaneously. Her candidacy has expanded the political imagination of her state and country about who can win statewide — and who gets to claim Florida’s future.
There are a lot of variables that create an Angie Nixon moment, said Glynda Carr, president of Higher Heights for America, a political action committee that works to put more Black women in office and has endorsed Nixon.
“What makes her a compelling candidate is when she tells her personal why, and why that has driven her to be an advocate, an organizer and a legislator — that speaks to people,” Carr said. “She may be being outspent — Democrats are being outspent in most places, and Black women are always outspent. What she has said is people can’t outwork her.”
Nixon faces an uphill battle headed into November. Republicans have 1.5 million more registered voters in Florida, and President Donald Trump won the state in 2024 by 13 points. While Nixon remains competitive in the final weeks of the general election, most polls show her still trailing her opponent, Republican incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody, by several points. Only one Black woman, former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, has ever won office statewide in Florida.
The odds are not lost on Nixon, who campaigned last week in Monticello, on the Georgia-Florida border, about 45 minutes outside of Tallahassee. When she took the stage, Nixon was met with a wave of enthusiasm whose energy she matched. She made her case to the Jefferson County audience of mostly older, White voters in a city with a 43 percent Black population and a county that Trump won by 19 points in 2024.
“We’re working so hard and then they tell us, ‘You’re not working hard enough.’ Meanwhile, they’re working less and less and less and getting richer,” Nixon told the crowd as they nodded in agreement.”
“We have the opportunity to do something different in these next 250 years,” she continued as the audience clapped and cheered. “We have the opportunity to build a new vision for our country, y’all. One where everyone can be healthy, prosperous and safe, and experience rest and joy.”
Afterward, as volunteers broke down the room at the Monticello Opera House around her, Nixon stopped to chat and take pictures with the voters — old and young, moms and children, of different backgrounds and races.
“My coalition needs to be diverse,” Nixon said in an interview. “I can’t just go have conversations with Democrats. I have to have conversations with independents, with Republicans, with members of any other third party. And we have to work hard on talking to them, cutting through the noise, and letting them know we hear them, we care about them, and we’re going to help provide some relief.”
On the stump, she has been focused on affordability, centered on issues that are popular among many voters. Her platform includes paid family and sick leave, a national rent freeze and moratorium on evictions, a universal jobs program and Medicare for All — some of the same policy priorities of the Democratic Socialists of America. Nixon is a member of the progressive group but has said she is not completely aligned with all of the group’s policies.
While Nixon is a progressive candidate, she knows it will take a broad coalition of Floridians — including some who may not have been open to voting for a Democrat, a Black woman or both — to win in November. Her message aims to appeal to voters’ interests and not just their ideology, a rejection of the idea that she’s someone who doesn’t belong in this country.
“Her biggest asset is her ability to be in front of voters,” Carr said. “She’s building a grassroots, final drive that is a blueprint. We’re going to see more candidates that look, talk, and believe in the values that Angie Nixon believes in. She’s not an anomaly.”
Voters may be getting to know Nixon, but she has spent years getting to know them.
For two decades, she has been an organizer in Florida, and she was first elected to the state legislature in 2020. On her campaign website, she touts her record as the former executive director of Florida for All, a statewide coalition of progressive groups that has helped register tens of thousands of voters.
As a sitting state legislator who knows how to run local elections as an organizer and candidate, Nixon has a résumé that has prepared her for Washington, said Carr.
“That is certainly a skill set that should be welcomed in Washington. She’s going to hit the ground running and understand the process. It’s not just like, ‘Oh, here’s this woman who is inspiring, who people are interested in what she has to say, she wears pink, she has a bullhorn.’ She has all of that — and she also has the experience.”
What can look like a surprise candidacy to some is the culmination of years spent building relationships and registering voters. In the decade that Nixon has contemplated her run, the political landscape has also changed.
In 2016, Kamala Harris became only the second Black woman elected to serve in the U.S. Senate. Her election came 20 years after that of the first Black woman senator, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois. A decade after Harris’ election, there are two Black women senators — Democrats Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware — making history as the first Black people elected as senators from their respective states and the first Black women to serve simultaneously in the Senate. In November, Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton is poised to join them, meaning at least three Black women would be serving in the Senate together. Nixon’s path is more challenging, but she could become the fourth.
“In a decade, that’s a lot of movement in the highest chamber,” Carr said. “And that Black women are starting to chip away at this thought that Black women can’t run statewide. She didn’t have permission. For all intents and purposes, she shouldn’t have even filed. It’s Florida; it’s a Black woman.”
For much of the race, Nixon’s campaign was strapped for cash and didn’t have much support from PACs or wealthy donors. She raised $975,000 during the primary, largely from small donors and social media, against an opponent who raised more than $16 million. But the latest campaign finance reports show that Nixon outraised Moody in the third quarter, with the candidates reporting fundraising totals of $7.6 million and $5.8 million, respectively. Moody holds the overall advantage, with a total haul of more than $14 million, and has so far outspent Nixon by 32 to 1.
Nixon is among the increasing number of Black women who are running for statewide office up and down the ballot. They are expanding their ambition beyond what has already been proven — the mayor’s office, seats in Congress — and running difficult races in difficult states, courting voters and challenging the institutional status quo. Slowly, they are normalizing whose candidacies should be considered by claiming their right to contest their place and power in our democracy.
“I love my state, and so I’m going to fight for it, because it’s mine,” Nixon said. “It’s everyone’s here in the state. It’s our Florida.”
Republican Rep. Thomas Kean Jr (R-NJ) may be best known on the national scene as the son of the former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean and the Republican member of Congress who piqued curiosities when he missed months of votes earlier this year, later to reveal he had been hospitalized for depression. He’s also the Republican incumbent in a key battleground House race coming up next month where he faces an increasingly popular Democratic candidate in a race that the Cook Political Report now rates as “lean Democratic.”
Projections about the race started to shift in mid-September. While Kean was able to flip New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District back in 2022 (mind you, after the seat went to a Democrat for the first time in decades in 2018) and he won reelection by five percentage points in 2024, President Trump won the district by just about 1 point the same year. So, it was hardly an exercise in bravery when he decided to aggressively break with Trump on a few key issues during debates with his Democratic challenger Rebecca Bennett last month.
But Kean was one of the first Republican candidates this cycle to break with Trump on an issue that TPM has been following closely throughout Trump’s second term, as he innovates on the idea of political retribution against his perceived political foes and those who did not vote for him for president. I wrote about Kean breaking with Trump in detail here, but, in essence, Kean, on the debate stage, stood up for the infrastructure projects that Trump’s White House decided to shut down as part of some Russ Vought-led anti-DEI retribution campaign against blue state and city officials in the New York City/New Jersey area.
“I will challenge anybody who gets in my way, including this president,” Kean said last month, when asked about the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding for the Gateway rail tunnel project — a $16 billion infrastructure renovation plan for the tunnels that connect Manhattan to New Jersey.
But the distancing from Trump may not be enough. It appears that Republican congressional leadership has all but written off his reelection campaign as a lost cause. While both House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) have traveled to District 7 to stump for Kean and Bennett, respectively, the New York Times reported last week that there is a pretty glaring sign that the Republican Party has abandoned Kean’s bid. Per the Times:
Top Republican super PACs aligned with President Trump and congressional Republican leadership are cutting off financial support for two Republican House members seeking re-election, according to three people with direct knowledge of the plans.
The decision represents the first instance this cycle of national Republican groups abandoning incumbents as the party scrambles to prevent more widespread losses in the midterm elections.
Officials with the two super PACs decided to cancel all remaining advertising booked for Representative Thomas H. Kean Jr. of New Jersey and Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa over the weekend after internal G.O.P. polling had showed their re-election chances dimming.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, the political action committee aligned with Johnson, is reportedly “redirecting $10 million from the seats it is effectively ceding in Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio and spreading it across 16 new districts, two of the people said,” in the Times’ words.
Campaign finance filings from last week show that Bennett out-raised Kean by more than $2 million last quarter, though Kean still holds a cash advantage overall. Despite signs of a potential flip, Kean’s campaign is projecting confidence he’ll hold the seat.
“This is still a very well-funded effort that will be at parity with our opponents,” Harrison Neely, a spokesperson for his campaign said. “And historically, that hasn’t been the case in this district, we’ve always been outspent.”
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