Donald Trump used to buy TV ads to lure gamblers into his casinos and bolster his brand. Now he’s just using your taxpayer dollars.
For two years, the House has been ruled by fear of one man. Surveys show that’s about to change.
I spent years as a House staffer and have watched it operate under presidents of both parties. Never until Donald Trump have I seen the chamber so slavishly devoted to one person, so scared to cross him, and so willing to forfeit its constitutional duties for fear of that boogeyman.
On issues of breathtaking corruption — from the Trump family’s self-enrichment to his relentless revenge against his perceived foes — Republicans have kept their mouths shut. The reason for that silence isn’t a mystery. Republicans who cross Trump get primaried, threatened, and smeared.
Just ask Thomas Massie, who lost his primary in May to a Trump-backed challenger after leading the charge on the Epstein files. Or Marjorie Taylor Greene, once the president’s loudest cheerleader, who resigned from Congress after Trump turned on her over the same issue. Every Republican in the chamber watched what happened to them, and they got the message. It’s why it’s become a place where GOP Members almost tiptoe down the halls hoping not to run into a reporter who will ask them about Trump and who pretend not to see what’s happening in plain sight.
But a burst of fresh data show that’s very likely to change.
Charlie Cook has been handicapping congressional races since before most of today’s House Republicans could vote, and he isn’t hedging anymore. He told Forbes this week that the House has been “kind of a done deal for a good while.” His Cook Political Report moved 15 races toward Democrats in a single week. Of the 22 races it now rates as toss-ups, Republicans hold 15 of them. Remember, Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to take back the chamber.
The national numbers explain why. Nate Silver’s average of likely voters has Democrats up 9.6 points on the generic ballot. Emerson has them up 11, and Reuters/Ipsos has them up 8. For a sense of scale, Democrats won the House popular vote by about eight and a half points in 2018 and walked away with 40 new seats. Their numbers are better than that right now, though gerrymandering will make a 40-seat pickup much harder this time.
Even traders on the online betting platform Kalshi give Democrats about a 90 percent chance of winning the House, and their odds of taking the Senate jumped 14 points in two weeks, from 49 percent to 63 percent. Silver puts it down to “a combination of good Democratic candidates, an unpopular president, and inflation,” and the result is that the fight has moved deep into Trump country. Democrats now lead Senate polling in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska and Maine. In Texas, James Talarico leads Ken Paxton 50 to 44 in a Marist poll.
This morning as I was diving into the latest numbers, the best evidence seemed to come from Trump’s own schedule. He promised to barnstorm 35 competitive districts this fall, but his first rallies are in Durant, Oklahoma and Mobile, Alabama. Yikes. When the president of the United States has to spend his time shoring up Alabama, Republicans in swing districts should be shaking in their boots. Nobody’s coming to save them.
That’s what makes this moment so important. For two years, the fear that ran through the U.S. House flowed in one direction. Cross Trump and you lose your seat. Very soon the logic will flip, because the man they were afraid of can’t even protect them anymore, and some of them are already starting to figure that out.
I’ve written a lot about what a Democratic House might mean (to say nothing of a Democratic Senate). The House will roar back to life with subpoenas, sworn testimony, and aggressive oversight of Trump. That includes the Trump family’s self-dealing, the revenge campaign against his critics, and the corruption scandals like the Epstein files coverup. Committees that have been asleep will finally wake up, and the Members who tiptoed past reporters will have to start answering their questions on the record.
That said, a month is a long time in politics. Republicans have redrawn maps in Texas and elsewhere to blunt exactly this kind of wave. And Trump has made clear he’ll try to cast doubt on any result he doesn’t like. Polls don’t win elections; voters do. But for the first time in a long time, the numbers say that the Haunted House in Washington, D.C. is about to get burned down.
Your friend, in defiance,
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DEFIANCE DAILY
In case you missed it, last night’s episode of DEFIANCE Daily is below. Catch our next episode tonight at 5 pm ET!
TRACK THE TRUMP-EPSTEIN READING ROOM & BOOKMOBILE
Get ready, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania! The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile is heading your way today. If you’re in the area, try to stop by, view the files, and meet up with Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard and Janelle Stelson, congressional candidate for Pennsylvania’s 10th District.
Plan a visit and share with others. Check out the tour schedule and RSVP HERE.
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