Yesterday evening, as we were starting to make our plan for today’s taping, Jon Slacked us a link to a tweet thread from data analyst Lakshya Jain, of Split Ticket and The Argument, 𝕏reacting to the results from a poll he’d commissioned. “All I can say,” he wrote, “is: JFC, this is one of the worst environments I have ever seen for Republicans, and literally all of it is just due to Trump.” Jain went on to 𝕏describe how the war with Iran is “literally up there with the Iraq War in terms of radioactivity among voters.”
This morning, alongside a batch of new polls of key Senate races, the New York Times published a piece headlined “‘Survival Mode Time’: Republicans Accelerate Their Break With Trump” that helpfully rounds up all the examples from the last few days of MAGA candidates sprinting away from the president: Mike Rogers saying “The war with Iran needs to end — and end quickly,” Ohio Sen. Jon Husted saying the war “needs to come to an end as quickly as possible,” and Florida gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds scrubbing Trump’s endorsement from his website. My own running tally includes Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, who may be in real trouble, 𝕏expressing concern about ICE raids in his state, and Speaker Mike Johnson saying “Operation Epic Fury was an epic success … but now we’ve got to bring that to a resolution.” And then there’s conservative radio host Steve Deace, an Iowa native, in a 𝕏long twitter missive that rocketed around the office yesterday: “This might end [up] being an even worse midterm environment than 2006 … Iran/Hormuz has become a 2020 Covid lockdown level of political albatross. This is approaching TARP bailout levels of unpopular in my home state.” There are lots more examples.
We have reached that moment where the “wave” in “wave election” suddenly feels like it’s hitting the beach. For Democrats, that should be a great feeling. In reality, it’s terrifying. Pollsters get it wrong all the time. We’re only 23 months removed from the infamous Register Poll showing Kamala Harris leading in Iowa three days before the election. Babies born that day are still in diapers. And there are concerning data points out there for this cycle. One example: The Times/Siena polls out today have Abdul El-Sayed up five in Michigan but Troy Jackson down three in Maine. “Is That an Outlier or an Omen?” Nate Cohn asks in the accompanying analysis piece.
This is your periodic reminder that it doesn’t matter. Public polling serves no useful purpose, other than to provide a temporary and false balm for our unending craving to know what’s going to happen. I grant that there’s good reason to feel good: midterms are more thermostatic than presidential elections, and the real-life fundamentals point to big gains for the minority party. But fundamentals can be wrong, too. Just ask Allan Lichtman and his 13 Keys.
Ask yourself: if you truly knew that Democrats would romp to a massive win, what would you do with that information? Stop contributing to campaigns? Cancel your plans to volunteer? Tune out? Would that help anything?
Better to pucker hard, treat every poll and “Republicans in Disarray” roundup piece as a deliberate psy-op, and live out the next 40 days in a state of paranoia and action. It can only help. And besides, it’ll be great practice for 2028.
Dan will be in-studio with Jon — two weeks in a row! — before the hosts head off to Austin for a special taping of Pod Save America at the Texas Tribune Festival, which you’ll hear in the feed on Sunday. For tomorrow’s show, though, we’ve got Tommy’s interview with athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick, which was such a good conversation that it ran way over the allotted time. We will spend most of the show on the politics updates, the cases for optimism and pessimism, and some specific updates on individual Senate races. Here’s what else we’re thinking for news blocks:
**State welcome.**Today is the main event for Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington. Artificial intelligence “will be a big topic of discussion,” Trump posted, “but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China’s position also.” So… they’ll discuss, and change nothing? We’ll find out. Thethree-day visitwill feature a formal state dinner at the White House tonight withprominent tech CEOs, plus jet flyovers and a visit to the National Archives. Don’t hold your breath for splashy news, though: Trump and Xi used their press conference this morning to announce a student exchange and the imminent arrival of some new pandas, but took no questions.**Press ban.**Overnight,a Trump-appointed federal judgeorderedthe White House to restore, temporarily at least, the press credentials of CNN, Politico, and MS NOW, ruling that that organizations were likely to succeed in their lawsuit alleging that the White House didn’t follow the standard procedure for revocations, which involves giving outlets notice and allowing them to respond. The judge also said he was skeptical of the administration’s facially idiotic claim that the outlets were harming national security. Probably not helping:a reportin Status that one of the supposedly harmful leaks cited by Trump’s lawyers came from none other than JD Vance. Still, as of this morning, reporters from the offending outlets werestill being denied entranceto the White House, and wereback in courtseeking an emergency hearing.**Flying furries.**Sen. Tommy Tuberville has an𝕏urgent warning for the American public: airline pilots, flight attendants and air traffic controllers are joining thefurry communityin droves. Or at least, so says the good senator from Alabama, who used actual time on the senate floor to bring this supposedly grave danger to our attention. Willyournext pilot have a secret fursona? Make sure to ask before boarding.
This week’s open tabs are variations on the theme of troubling, important stories that I’ve delayed learning more about, plus a bonus entry in tribute to one of my literary heroes, Annie Dillard.
