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Inside Democratic Fundraiser ActBlue’s Big Spending and Internal Drama
The group faces investigations from the Justice Department and congressional Republicans six months before the 2026 midterms.
Kemp won't seek to change Georgia's congressional map this year
There will be no changes to Georgia's congressional map before the 2026 midterm elections are held, Gov. Brian Kemp said on Friday.
Ted Cruz warns of high stakes during Iowa visit as 2026 midterms loom
As Republicans gathered at a conservative event in Clive ahead of a pivotal midterm election, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, warned that what happens in Iowa could help determine the direction of the country.
The politics of Trump's ballroom
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — President Trump was about a half-hour into his second speech of the day, musing about the danger he faced last week at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “Saturday night, it was good for one thing. People are loving my ballroom now,” Trump told a crowd last night. “That’s the only thing. They love my ballroom.” Ever since he was hustled off stage at the Washington Hilton last week, after an attempted shooter breached the dinner’s security perimeter and sent guests diving to the floor, the president has argued that the incident is proof for why his White House ballroom is needed. Only his planned $400 million, 90,000-square-foot project, Trump has reasoned, can keep a president truly safe at major events. It’s true that a bunch of GOP lawmakers have jumped on board with new legislation and words of support for Trump’s project. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Sen. Rand Paul and other prominent Republicans went on TV to talk about the need for a ballroom. But as we reported at The Washington Post this week, “people” aren’t really changing their minds on Trump’s ballroom. A new Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that most Americans still oppose the ballroom project: 56 percent against it versus 28 percent in favor. The numbers are the same as a poll from last year, the Post’s polling whiz Scott Clement found. Other new polls have found similar margins, too. “I’m just not a giant fan, especially of extravagance,” one independent voter told me. “I mean, in the era we’re in right now, given how much people are struggling, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to spend $400 million on a ballroom.” How we got here The Washington Post has followed Trump’s ballroom project very closely. (My colleague Jonathan Edwards may have written the most total words of any reporter about the project; I may be second.) The project exploded as a national issue after Trump tore down the White House’s East Wing after initially promising not to touch it.1 Historic preservationists sued, and about a month ago, a federal judge ordered a halt to ballroom construction.2 The only way the ballroom could proceed, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled, was if Congress explicitly authorized Trump’s plans. (An appeals court has stayed Leon’s order for now.) The judge’s ruling raised an obvious question: would Congress authorize the project? Keep in mind, “authorization” doesn’t mean that Congress needs to necessarily fund the planned $400 million project; they could just sign off on the private donations that Trump has solicited to pay for the ballroom.3 But GOP lawmakers really didn’t want to talk about the ballroom, we reported at The Post just a few weeks ago. One major reason was the ballroom’s bad polling — not a small detail with many of their own midterm elections looming. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner incident, and Trump’s advocacy, may have changed the political conversation around the ballroom. As this week’s polling shows, it doesn’t seem to have affected the fundamental questions surrounding the project. To put it another way, voters still say that cost-of-living concerns are top-of-mind heading into the midterms. Some Republican and independent voters have told me that they see the ballroom as a vanity project that will help Trump but do nothing for their own lives. It might not help Republicans that Trump has dismissed some of the cost-of-living concerns. He’s described “affordability” as a buzzword manufactured by Democrats whose policies helped cause inflation. “They’ve got one good line of bullshit,” Trump said in his first speech yesterday, delivered at a Florida retirement community known as The Villages. Thanks for reading Dan Diamond's newsletter! Subscribe for free to stay up-to-date on my work. Subscribe Speaking of Trump’s speeches… I’m down in Florida because it’s my “duty week” as a White House reporter — basically, I follow the president wherever he goes. (And then hand the baton off to one of my Washington Post colleagues next week.) As part of my duty week, I’ve spent a few days covering the White House’s reaction to Saturday’s attempted shooting, including officials’ review of the security protocols to protect the president. Trump was restrained in the wake of the incident, addressing the nation from the White House briefing room about the need for peaceful dialogue and trying to lower the temperature. But he’s clearly been itching to get back out of the White House, and I was curious to hear how his Florida speeches would go. And — to my ears — it was an unburdened Trump. Not the one we saw Saturday night in the White House briefing room, but the one we witnessed on the campaign trail in 2024. Loose, dropping profanities, mocking everyone, including members of his team. “We have a man here who knows more about Medicaid, Medicare, medical crap than any human being. Where’s Dr. Oz? Where the hell are you, stand up,” Trump said, referring to Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “It’s the most boring trip I’ve ever made. He’s telling me about Medicare, Medicaid. All I want to do is take care of you, I don’t care. I said, ‘You work out the details.’” I wrote up the speech, as Trump headed to West Palm Beach to deliver more remarks a few hours later. The White House didn’t like my story. Their rapid-response team called it the work of a “total loser”4 and “a miserable TDS-ridden moron.” You can be the judge of whether it’s a fair story or the product of someone afflicted with “TDS.” (The White House’s shorthand for “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”) I’ve pasted the story below with a gift link, meaning that you don’t need to be a Washington Post subscriber to read it. It might prompt you for an email address, though. Meanwhile, I’ll be down in Florida for the rest of the weekend, covering the president. It’s TBD whether those stories will be deemed TDS-afflicted, too. 1 Jonathan details the past six months of ballroom fallout, reactions and the implications for executive authority here. I also had a great time talking about Trump’s ballroom and other projects with Australia’s ABC News Daily on a podcast this week. 2 The judge allowed underground construction and national security-related work to continue. But that hasn’t been enough for Trump, who says the ballroom itself is essential for his protection. 3 The ballroom donors include companies like Palantir, Google and Amazon. For transparency, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, where I work. No one has ever interfered with our team’s coverage of the ballroom or our mentions of Amazon or Bezos, and if that changed, I’d speak out. 4 To be fair, I’ve spent the morning working on stories and writing this Substack post rather than enjoying the beautiful Florida weather. So they may be onto something about who’s winning and who’s losing.
Iran deadlock: is Trump now ‘stuck’?
The president may be ‘trying to look relaxed’, but upcoming midterms and rising oil prices are ramping up pressure
Capitol Recap: Proposal to tax high earners stirs debate over policy, and politics, in Montpelier
The House Committee on Ways and Means has spent the last three weeks crafting proposals that would raise income taxes on households that earn more than $586,000 a year. Though the legislation has no chance of becoming law this year, some Democrats hope the debate will resonate with voters heading into the midterm elections.
As Iran War Reaches 60-Day Mark, Republicans in Congress Grow Impatient With Trump
Months into the operation and with midterms looming, some lawmakers are calling for Congress to restrain the president’s war power or set terms for bringing the conflict to a close.
'Do you want the crazies back in charge?' Rep. Jim Jordan talks elections
As the November midterm elections approach, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is looking ahead to what could be a tough race for Republicans, but said the GOP’s campaign message should be simple.
The Real Reason Republicans Are Dropping out of Midterm Races Before They Even Begin
November can’t come soon enough.
Florida legislature approves new congressional map intended to boost Republicans in midterms
The vote came just two days after Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled his proposal and the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Supreme Court ruling will reshape American politics. The only question is when
The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority on Wednesday handed Republicans their biggest victory yet in the perpetual battle to control the House of Representatives and statehouses across the country — but it may have come too late to have much of an effect on this year's midterm elections.
Florida legislature approves new congressional map intended to boost Republicans in midterms
The Florida Legislature approved a new congressional map intended to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the state as part of the national redistricting battle that President Donald Trump launched ahead of this year’s midterms.
KFF Health Tracking Poll: Health Care Costs and the Midterms
This KFF poll finds that health care costs continue to top the public’s list of affordability worries, even as concerns about gas prices have risen in recent weeks, with two-thirds of the public expressing worry over affording health care costs.
“Political Disaster for Donald Trump”: Jeremy Scahill on Stalled U.S.-Iran Talks
Negotiations between the United States and Iran to end the war are at an impasse as the conflict enters its third month. The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday that Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iranian ports to ramp up the pressure on Tehran. Iran is saying it will enter into direct talks with the U.S. “when President Trump lifts what Iran considers to be the illegal military naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz,” says Drop Site News co-founder Jeremy Scahill. “Iran has maintained that it’s not shut down the strait, but that it’s just shut it down for any vessels that are linked to the U.S. war in any way.” Scahill says a disorganized Trump administration is pushing a “total propaganda narrative” that it has the upper hand in negotiations, while Iran believes it has the “three M’s” on its side: munitions, markets and the midterms.
Prosecutions of Trump’s foes add to GOP’s headaches in midterms
Charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and others take focus away from the economy and other issues voters care about, many Republicans say.
DeSantis' Florida redistricting map advances — but draws GOP no votes, legal scrutiny
Florida is seen as the last possible place before the November midterms for Republicans to gain seats in mid-decade redistricting, a process kickstarted last year by President Donald Trump and the White House.
For Democratic veterans making midterm pitches, the Iran war is personal: From the Politics Desk
Plus, King Charles addresses Congress. And why another assassination attempt isn't likely to change Trump's approach to public events.
Republicans Brace for Brutal Midterms as Trump’s Popularity Slips
The elections are still six months off, and some within the G.O.P. say there is still time to right the ship.
GOP candidates revive anti-Islam attacks as midterms approach
Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country have escalated their anti-Islam rhetoric in recent months, warning their constituents that Islamic law could gain a foothold in the United States.
This Is the Wrong Time for the Predictable Democrat Response to the Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting
A strong midterms push is the only way to start fixing the problems at the heart of this terrible act of gun violence.
A Supreme Court case over pesticides is bringing out the ‘MAHA moms’ — and threats of consequences for the midterms
When a group of mothers and wellness influencers, including surgeon general nominee Casey Means, was asked to go to the White House this month, some of them assumed a few staffers would hear their grievances about the health risks of weedkillers.
Democrat Josh Shapiro tests political muscle in swing-state Pennsylvania's midterms
Trump’s rejection of wind projects scrambles GOP politics before midterms
President Donald Trump's attempts to cancel offshore wind projects have drawn opposition not only from environmentalists but also from Republicans.
Democrat Josh Shapiro tests political muscle in swing-state Pennsylvania's midterms
Shapiro is urging Democrats in the battleground state to turn out in force as a rebuke to President Donald Trump and give Democrats control of the state legislature.
Republicans’ Likely Strategy as Midterms Near: Negative Campaigning
Republicans are likely to fall back on a tried-and-tested strategy for the midterms: Going negative.
Democrat Josh Shapiro tests political muscle in swing-state Pennsylvania’s midterms
He’s trying to persuade voters to give him Democratic control of the state legislature.
Democrat Josh Shapiro tests political muscle in swing-state Pennsylvania's midterms
Josh Shapiro may be heavily favored to win reelection as Pennsylvania governor, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot on the line for him this year.
Will Virginia be the final mid-decade redistricting battle?
Virginia’s referendum may mark the end of mid-decade redistricting, though uncertainty still surrounds its impact on the 2026 midterms.
Democrats dominate midterm fundraising, but Republicans have a huge cash advantage
The latest campaign finance reports show Democratic enthusiasm in key House and Senate races, but national Republican groups have far more in the bank to potentially spend down the road.
Kennedy’s new silence on vaccines is political — and it won’t last
Kennedy’s public messaging on vaccines has shifted ahead of the midterms. It won’t last.
Judge bars certification of Virginia redistricting results; state AG promises appeal
A congressional map approved by Virginia voters that aims to help Democrats net four US House seats in November’s midterms faces another legal hurdle just one day after its passage. Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley on Wednesday ordered that the results of Tuesday’s vote not be certified on several grounds, including that state lawmakers did not follow their own rules in passing the redistricting referendum. State Attorney General Jay Jones said his office intends to immediately appeal Hurley’s Wednesday ruling. The fate of Virginia’s referendum was already before the state Supreme Court, which stayed a previous ruling by Hurley in the run-up to the referendum and allowed Tuesday’s vote to proceed before deciding the merits of that case.
DeSantis says he's taking up Jeffries' invitation to 'F-around and find out' on Florida redistricting effort
Gov. Ron DeSantis fires back at Hakeem Jeffries over Florida redistricting, inviting the Democratic leader to campaign in the state ahead of 2026 midterms.
Is tit-for-tat political gerrymandering the future of US politics?
Virginia voters delivered a major win to Democrats on Tuesday.A narrow majority voted to allow lawmakers to bypass the state's bipartisan redistricting commission. That means the Democratic-led legislature will create a map that’s more favorable to them in the midterms.It's the latest chapter in a redistricting saga that President Trump started last year, but is the tit-for-tat redistricting battle the future of US electoral politics?We speak with Democratic Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger to hear her perspective.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at considerthis@npr.org.This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam and Matt Ozug. It was edited by Tinbete Ermyas. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
Why Virginia’s New Map Matters for Democrats in the Midterms, and What’s Next
Attention now turns to Florida, and the Supreme Court.
Trump political director on midterm outlook: ‘It’s way too soon to declare defeat’
President Trump’s political director James Blair expressed his confidence on Wednesday for GOP midterm election victories, despite falling economic approval ratings and a recent loss on a redistric…
Trump advisers privately strategize around a new midterm push: Democrats would be worse
President Donald Trump’s political team knows voters aren’t thrilled with the current state of affairs. But they’re betting they can convince them things will get markedly worse if Democrats win back power in November.
With Midterms Coming Up, G.O.P. Is Bogged Down in Congress
Republican majorities are at odds on big issues as the Senate resorts to extraordinary measures to pass homeland security funding over a Democratic blockade.
Virginians approve Democratic map targeting 4 Republican congressional seats
Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a new Democratic-drawn congressional map that could flip four Republican U.S. House seats in November's midterm elections, U.S. media projected.
Virginia approves redistricting, giving Democrats edge in midterms
The new maps in Virginia could make it easier for Democrats to take control of the US House of Representatives in November.
Virginia votes yes on proposed congressional redistricting, AP projects
Virginia voted to approve a plan to temporarily redraw the Commonwealth's 11 congressional districts ahead of November's midterm elections, the Associated Press projects.
Virginia voters will approve a map giving Democrats a chance at four more House seats, CNN projects
Virginia voters will approve a map that gives Democrats the chance to net as many as four US House seats, CNN’s Decision Desk projects, in a major boost to the party’s effort to win House control in the midterms.
SBA administrator speaks to ABC13 on economic uncertainty ahead of midterm elections: 'It's a blip'
With the war in Iran and growing costs creating uncertainty, the economy is atop voters minds heading into the 2026 midterms. While data reveals Texas is faring better economically than much of the country, growth might be slowing.
Democrats win Virginia redistricting fight, threating Republican House majority
Virginia voters passed a redistricting referendum that could boost Democrats with four additional House seats ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Special edition: POLITICO Health Care Summit highlights
Republicans and Democrats agree: Soaring health care costs will be a pivotal issue in the midterms. But they have very different ideas on what to do about it.
RFK Jr.’s followers will help the GOP in midterms, Kennedy adviser tells POLITICO’s Health Summit
Calley Means said the health secretary and Trump are working in “lockstep.”
GOP strategists required to sign NDAs at meeting on midterm plans
The unusual secrecy surrounding the Waldorf Astoria meeting has frustrated some looking for funding clues as Trump’s popularity has dropped to near historic lows.
In California, Israel is emerging as a defining Democratic test
As the war in Iran stretches on, it is inflaming an intraparty rift with ramifications for the midterms and the run-up to 2028.
Virginia voters to decide on new House map with major midterm implications
Virginia is the latest front in an unprecedented coast-to-coast redistricting war, with voters on Tuesday set to determine whether to accept or reject a Democratic plan to dramatically redraw the state’s congressional maps and help shape the midterm elections.
Virginia voters to decide whether to allow a new Democratic-drawn map for the midterms
A constitutional amendment is on the ballot Tuesday that would pave the way for Democrats to enact a congressional map that’s designed to net them up to four seats.
What is President Donald Trump's approval rating? See latest polls
President Trump's approval rating has long been underwater, spelling trouble for Republicans in the midterms. Iran, high gas prices aren't helping.
For aging justices, politics of retirement looms large
Donald Trump says Justices Alito and Thomas should remain on the Supreme Court as retirement speculation grows ahead of midterm elections.
Data center fight hits Georgia politics
Data centers have become a boxy, hulking flashpoint across Georgia and the nation heading into the midterms — and the backlash is spreading fast across red and blue states.
A political vibe shift: The Senate is suddenly in play
Republicans entered 2026 all but certain they'd hold the chamber. Six months out, that certainty is fading.
Louisiana Senate showdown tests MAHA’s political power
Movement leaders' efforts to sway the midterms, starting with defeating Sen. Bill Cassidy, will help determine whether MAHA outlasts Trump
Campaigns raise money for and against girls' sports, parents' rights issues on Nov. ballot
We are already gearing up for a busy midterm election that will include at least two statewide issues on Washington’s ballot.Let's Go Washington collected signa
Curing U.S. Health Care, Part I
In 2008, much to their own surprise, leading Democrats unified around a program of major health care reform. Policy wonks had spent years developing the concepts behind what eventually became Obamacare; big Democratic victories in the 2006 midterms and the prospect of controlling both Congress and the presidency made it possible to imagine turning those ideas into reality. During the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama advocated similar plans, based on those ideas, for expanding insurance coverage. And it happened! The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. When it was fully implemented in 2014, millions of Americans got health insurance: Impressive as the raw numbers are, they don’t tell the whole story. Before the ACA, even upper-middle-class Americans often found it impossible to get health insurance if they had pre-existing medical conditions. Many Americans were trapped in jobs they wanted to leave but couldn’t for fear of losing their employment-based coverage. Meanwhile, dire predictions from the usual suspects about runaway costs proved wrong. In fact, overall U.S. medical spending has grown much more slowly since the ACA was enacted than before. But the U.S., alone among advanced nations, still falls far short of providing universal health care. As you can see from the chart above, 8 percent of the population was still uninsured in 2024, a number that is set to rise over the next two years as a result of Republican policies. True, many of the uninsured in 2024 were undocumented immigrants, who we don’t try to cover. But there are still a lot of uninsured. Moreover, a significant number of Americans who have health insurance are in fact underinsured. As a result, they are at risk of incurring devastating healthcare costs and are sometimes forced to forgo needed care. This number is set to rise sharply in the next two years as a result of Republican policies adopted under Donald Trump. And not only is the U.S. unique among advanced countries in its under-provision of health care coverage, it also incurs by far the world’s highest healthcare costs per capita. So now may well be a good time to get behind a new push for major health reform — an effort, if you like, to finish the job begun under Obama. Today’s primer is devoted to the economics of health reform. During his failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump famously complained, “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” Actually, we did know — and it’s not that complicated. Health economists understand the principles very well. And because health policy varies greatly among advanced nations, we know a lot about what works and what doesn’t. This will be the first in a series about health reform. Beyond the paywall I’ll address the following: 1. Why markets can’t be trusted to deliver healthcare 2. Routes to universal healthcare 3. What works? In a follow-up post I’ll discuss the pros and cons of different approaches, and possible paths forward for the United States.
Arizona midterms begin with spotlight on largest county's controversial election system
Much of the political spotlight this election year in Arizona has been focused on the office that runs elections in Maricopa County, the state’s largest. Republican Justin Heap is overseeing elections in the Phoenix-area and he's an election skeptic.
A big midterms year in Arizona kicks off with the state's largest county embroiled in election drama
Much of the political spotlight this election year in Arizona has been focused on the office that runs elections in Maricopa County, the state’s largest | WWJ Newsradio 950
A big midterms year in Arizona kicks off with the state's largest county embroiled in election drama
Much of the political spotlight this election year in Arizona has been focused on the office that runs elections in Maricopa County, the state’s largest | KNSS Radio
The Doctor Will Seek Your Vote Now
Dozens of Democratic doctors are running for office in the midterms, including some spurred by opposition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his anti-vaccine stance.
High gas prices become another midterm warning sign for Republicans
In a midterm election that will likely be decided by how voters feel about the economy, Republicans are grappling with how to discuss the war in Iran and its impact on fuel costs.
In Phoenix, Trump Eyes Lower Gas Prices and Frets About the Midterms
President Trump told a crowd of supporters that the price of oil and gas was coming down, part of an effort in recent days to present a rosier picture of the nearly two-month-long Iran war.
Republican Nerves Are Fraying Ahead of Midterm Elections
High gasoline prices, the war in Iran and recent Democratic victories are fueling the angst.
Judge sides with Arizona election official in ruling that could affect midterms voting
The top election official in Arizona's most populous county will get more authority in running elections after a judge sided with his office in a prolonged legal fight with the local board that shares responsibility for overseeing the vote.
Hundreds of Candidates Put the “Science” in “Political Science”
More U.S. scientists are running for state and federal office in the U.S. midterm elections than ever before, Nature reports.
Whole Hog Politics: A Supreme Court vacancy could remake Senate midterms
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Join us today at 9 a.m. ET at TheHill.com as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live online audie…
Zohran Mamdani reflects on his first 100 days as NYC mayor, and what else is left to do
Through his first 100 days as mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has focused on “pothole politics” — a blend of high-level legislative wins and intense focus on everyday essential services that keep the city running. The 34-year-old mayor has delivered on progressive campaign promises, from more funding for child care to new taxes on the ultrawealthy. He views his government as a model for how Democrats can deliver on policies that benefit the working class.In this episode of NPR’s Newsmakers, Mamdani sits down with host Leila Fadel at City Hall to discuss his first 100 days in office, his approach to working with President Trump and the message he believes Democrats should deliver during this year’s midterm elections.NPR's Newsmakers is where you'll find NPR's biggest interviews. We post new episodes as soon as they're available -- any day of the week. Follow or watch the show wherever you get podcasts.Newsmakers relies on supporters who value independent journalism and a free press. Join NPR+ today to support our work and get perks from the podcasts you trust. Go to plus.npr.org.
States rush to redraw U.S. House districts ahead of the November midterm elections
Redistricting usually happens once a decade, but President Donald Trump sparked a mid-decade redistricting battle last year while calling on Texas Republicans to redraw their districts for partisan advantage. California Democrats reciprocated, and other states soon followed.
Talarico Leads a Democratic Cash Surge: 7 Takeaways From 2026 Filings
Democrats in key Senate races out-raised their Republican rivals, but super PACs on the right are poised to play a powerful role in the midterms, new campaign finance filings showed.
White House sidesteps vaccine skeptics in potential CDC leadership reset
A new team could mark a shift away from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unpopular vaccine agenda ahead of the midterms.
Iran war has some Republicans worried their chances of keeping the House are slipping away
The White House had long circled Tax Day as the unofficial start to a critical midterm campaign meant to highlight how much money the administration was putting back in voters’ pockets.
House Democrats attempt anti-corruption message to gain traction against Trump
Days after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was ousted by an opposition campaign with an anti-corruption message, Democrats want to try the same playbook against President Donald Trump before the midterm elections.
In group chats and meetings, Republicans are privately petrified the Iran war could cost them the midterms
Many Republican lawmakers and strategists told NBC News they worry the party has little to run on. “Right now, the voters don’t see a message or a strategy,” a Trump pollster said.
Trump predicts oil prices will drop ‘tremendously’ despite recent surge
President Donald Trump sits down with FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo to discuss escalating Middle East tensions, his warning to Iran on nuclear weapons and why he believes gas prices will drop ahead of the midterms.
GOP faces rising political tides on Iran, affordability in midterm year
Republicans are facing an increasingly difficult political environment in a midterm election year where their majorities in the House and Senate are on the line. The Iran war has been a drag on Pre…
Worried about the midterms, Republicans mobilize rural Virginia voters against redistricting
Republican groups are mounting an intensifying, 11th-hour campaign to mobilize rural voters ahead of Virginia’s April 21 referendum to redraw its US House maps. At stake are as many as four US House seats Democrats want to redraw in their favor for the midterms. To maximize Democratic advantage, the map would put wealthy Washington, DC, suburbs in the same districts as farm communities 90 miles away, including in one misshapen district nicknamed the “lobster claw.”
Young voters shun Trump, plan to vote blue in midterms, poll says
With the midterm primary season underway, a new national poll is measuring how the nation's youngest voters feel about Trump and the November election.
Trump's Iran war deepens the GOP's midterm challenges: From the Politics Desk
Plus, Trump vs. the pope.
White House says it’s boosting affordability through physician reforms
A new report distills the Trump administration’s strategy as officials jockey to shape health care messages ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Democrat-Leaning Plan Takes Aim At Health Insurers With Proposed New Regulations
Healthcare initiatives being proposed like Patients' Bill of Rights offer a roadmap for Democrats’ priorities, with midterms looming and a presidential election in 2028.
As Iran war drags on, midterm forecasts for Republicans get even worse
The GOP was already bracing for a tough election, but with the ceasefire in doubt, gas prices are likely to stay high, and voters’ economic outlook is dismal.
Trump Says Gas Prices Might Not Drop By Midterms, Highlighting G.O.P. Peril
The president has sent mixed messages on how long he expects costs to be high. Some in his party voiced fresh concern after his comments on Sunday.
Trump says gas prices could be same or 'a little bit higher' before midterms
One of the sticking points in the negotiations held in Islamabad has been Iran's stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz.
Politics: Iowa gubernatorial race shifts to 'toss-up'
The nonpartisan political prediction source Cook Political Report has classified Iowa’s 2026 gubernatorial race as a “toss-up” ahead of this November’s midterms.
“AI polls” are fake polls
A few weeks after Donald Trump’s second presidential win, I took the train up from London (where I was living at the time) to Oxford to attend a conference on polls and forecasts of the 2024 election. Most of the attendees were pollsters or academics, but I also watched presentations from Aaru and Electric Twin, two companies that do what is interchangeably called synthetic sampling, silicon sampling, or synthetic audiences. Stripped of startup jargon, that means they use large language models (LLMs) to simulate responses to public opinion polls by having AI agents take on the role of survey respondents. I had already heard of Aaru thanks to some articles with eye-catching headlines like “No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans” in the months leading up to Election Day. The founders were making some big, some might even say far-fetched claims, such as: “within two years, we will simulate the entire globe — from the way crops are grown in Ukraine to how that impacts production of oil in Iraq, trade through the strait of Malacca, and elections for the mayor of Baltimore.” When Semafor asked Aaru’s cofounders — Cameron Fink and Ned Koh — about my boss, they said “we respect all those who came before us.” Nate (as he so often does) shared his thoughts on Twitter: Fink and Koh were relatively good-natured about this back-and-forth when we spoke at Oxford. They even offered to mail me one of the t-shirts featuring Nate’s quote they apparently had made. I never took them up on the offer, which I now somewhat regret. These synthetic sampling companies fell off my radar for a while, but they do still exist. In fact, Aaru recently received a $1 billion valuation. Is what they’re doing anywhere close to the most important frontier in AI development? Not by a longshot, especially when Anthropic just developed a model so adept at exploiting software vulnerabilities that it’s only being released to 40 companies. Still, silicon sampling is increasingly finding its way into public polling. Axios reported in March that “a majority of people trust their own doctors and nurses” based on findings from Aaru — without mentioning that the “people” in that sentence were actually LLMs. Around the same time, the Public Sentiment Institute “boosted” their online sample of 373 real survey respondents with 114 AI agents.1 (Spoiler alert: even the co-founder of Electric Twin doesn’t think that’s a particularly defensible approach.) Polling companies like Qualtrics and Ipsos are also developing synthetic data panels. So, what should we make of these … “polls”? Let’s get one thing out of the way: whatever they are, they’re not polls in the way that term is usually defined. Subscribe You can’t replace polls with AI On one hand, using LLMs to essentially make up fake survey respondents sort of sounds like the dumbest idea ever, one that will at best imperfectly replicate real polls while introducing all sorts of biases. On the other hand, with LLMs improving at a remarkable, perhaps even alarming rate, maybe that means I’m a dinosaur at the ripe old age of 24 because I still want to rely on polls that talk to actual people. I’m not going to argue that synthetic samples are completely useless. In fact, as I’ll return to later, there is evidence that some techniques can replicate topline survey results quickly and cheaply. But the marketing from certain companies can be slightly optimistic. “No traditional poll will exist by the time the next general election occurs,” said Fink in 2024. We’re just 206 days away from the midterms, and based on the fact that I still have to collect a bunch of polls every day, I’d say he should have run that prediction by a sample of AI agents before the interview.2 To see why synthetic samples can’t replace polls, here’s a quick primer on how they work. The simplest version of these models involves taking a LLM (like ChatGPT or Claude), giving it a demographic profile (e.g., a white, college-educated woman who lives in Utah and makes $70k a year), and then asking it to respond to a survey question. You repeat that process a few thousand times using different demographic profiles and end up with a sample of synthetic survey responses. The actual models used by private companies are more sophisticated than this, usually because they incorporate more hypothesized demographic characteristics for each agent and provide them with extra information. Aaru, for example, feeds agents a diet of news and information they’d be likely to consume, while Electric Twin incorporates their customers’ proprietary data about the audience they’re trying to replicate. The way Ben Warner, the co-founder of Electric Twin, explained it to me was “we have a large amount of data on […] for instance, 5,000 people. Can we make an accurate prediction of how they would respond to another question?” Still, it should be obvious why synthetic samples can’t replace polls. Polling is fundamentally a data collection process. We might use surveys to make predictions by feeding them into election forecasts, but the main purpose of a poll isn’t prediction, it’s gathering new data about what people think and how they feel. Silicon sampling, on the other hand, produces no new data. It’s simply a model: you input LLM training data, demographic prompts, and a bunch of other information, and it spits out a prediction for what a poll would say. We love models here, but models aren’t polls. That difference is an important philosophical sticking point for most pollsters I talk to. “I think politics should stay away from [synthetic sampling], because we’re trying to […] represent the voice of the people,” said Natalie Jackson, a vice president at GQR Insights. Democratic pollster John Hagner told me: “I think I’m just incredibly skeptical of this idea. I don’t think it’s research. At that point, you’re asking the machine to tell you what you already believe.” Hagner has seen some presentations of early synthetic sampling experiments, but so far, “if it’s being used in a campaign, people are keeping it incredibly quiet.”3 But Eli, I hear you saying, aren’t polls themselves increasingly governed by modeling decisions? Indeed they are: pollsters’ choices on which sampling method to use, how to define their likely voter models, and how to weight their samples can and do lead to dramatic differences in the results they publish. Aaru even referenced these limitations in the methodology statement included with that maternal mortality “poll” — although I’m using the term “methodology statement” loosely here, because it doesn’t really explain how the model works at all. We can ignore the (frankly preposterous) implication that synthetic sampling isn’t subject to a separate set of biases. The important point is that there’s still a meaningful difference between using weighting and other statistical techniques on actual polling data and using a model to predict what a poll would say. The latter is far closer to election forecasts or techniques like MRP — potentially useful models, but not a replacement for polls.4 To be fair, other synthetic sampling companies are perfectly happy with the distinction between polls and models. Warner compared polling and synthetic sampling to different tools in a toolbox. “The mistake I think we make is we think that these new tools should either work in exactly the same way or somehow replace these old tools,” he said. “Rather than thinking of it as, okay, so we’ve always had the hammer, we’ve always had the screwdriver, now we’ve got a saw. But don’t use a saw to try [to] do the job of a hammer.” A quick comment from Nate Eli didn’t ask me for a comment — rather rude of him, don’t you think? But since I’m editing this story, I figured I’d add a few quick thoughts rather than putting words in his mouth. Beyond the frequently misleading marketing, what bothers me about the AI “poll” hype is that as AI tools make statistical inference cheaper and/or better (note that these are not synonyms) that actually increases the comparative value of collecting original data. You might be able to train a model to make a reasonable estimate of what some hard-to-reach poll respondent would say — say, a young Black man who voted for Trump. (Such a person checks a number of boxes for a voter who is usually hard to reach in surveys.) Indeed, this is closely related to what models like the Silver Bulletin forecast already do. They essentially smooth out the kinks in noisy survey data by making inferences based on past voting patterns or national polls or surveys of other states. But you don’t actually know what these voters think unless you’re reaching them directly. If there’s a shift in opinion among this subgroup, you’re not going to detect it. So if I were running a campaign, I’d invest more in going the extra mile to find a representative sample of those voters. And then I’d hire some smart quants — or Claude? — to figure out the implications for campaign strategy based on proprietary data that my competitors didn’t have access to. -Nate Silver Are these models any good? If synthetic surveys are just a new type of model, the next obvious question is whether the models are at least accurate. The answer very much depends on who you ask. On one end of the spectrum, you have the maximalist argument that synthetic sampling is more accurate than actual polls. “It’s an incredibly challenging problem to go to someone and say ‘hey, we’re going to be more accurate at predicting human behavior than you, even when you talk to your customers directly’,” Koh recently told CNBC. In his view, synthetic sampling isn’t a saw to polling’s hammer, it’s “magic.” There’s certainly evidence that synthetic samples can replicate certain survey toplines. But if Aaru does have any examples of their approach outperforming the polls, they’re keeping those to themselves.5 Aaru’s 2024 election model, for example, had Kamala Harris leading in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on November 4th. And although they’ve since taken down their forecast page, they gave Harris a 50.5 percent chance of winning the race on November 2nd.6 After the election, Fink told Semafor he was happy enough with those results because they were “within margin of error,” a term that is completely meaningless when applied to a “sample” of AI agents. And of course, Aaru says their models have improved since 2024, so supposedly now they’d be more accurate than the polls? Still, their stronger argument is on cost: “We are significantly faster and cheaper than traditional polling, and still more accurate,” said Fink. The first two claims are undeniably true, but the third brings us to the opposite end of the spectrum. Both Jackson and Hagner are skeptical that these models are reliable for anything beyond replicating common survey toplines. “I just […] don’t think the machines are what we want when we’re looking for nuanced views. My example on this is people in Arizona and Nevada in 2024 who voted for Trump and voted for expanding abortion in their states on ballot initiatives,” said Jackson. Hagner identified another issue. Maybe the synthetic respondents, like sycophantic LLMs, are inhuman in one important way: they’re too nice. “The reports that have come through at the meetings that I’ve been at are that the early experiments on this, they cannot get respondents to be as racist or sexist or, frankly, as negative as human respondents,” he said. Academic research mostly agrees on this point. While there are some papers that show promising results when using LLMs to replicate polling data, most show that LLMs suffer from various quirks like producing too few “don’t know” responses and can seriously overpredict the favorability of politicians like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also seem to struggle with too little variation between demographic subgroups, so the difference in predicted opinion between Democrats and Republicans, for example, is too small. When I asked Warner about these studies, his response to these papers was that just because academics can’t get synthetic sampling to work doesn’t mean that the technique doesn’t work in general. “Actually, the argument is, okay, yours does not [work]. That does not mean […] for this complex set of machinery, which uses a lot of investment, a lot of time, a lot of money, you can’t get it to work.” Cards on the table, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument because academics aren’t exactly great at making election forecasts. Usually, the people with skin in the game are the most accurate. Warner’s argument is that the approach Electric Twin takes — which includes, for example, making multiple predictions for each synthetic respondent using different models and prompts and subsequently averaging those to get a final prediction in a sort of ensemble forecast — produces better results than the simpler academic models. Warner shared a comparison between his method and the method from a recent academic paper with me, and Electric Twin was indeed able to get more accurate replication. But even still, he acknowledged that synthetic sampling “is not a crystal ball.” “If you asked me, do I think using other data sources will be more accurate than asking somebody who they will vote for, I would probably say no. But if you asked me ‘would your system be useful for our turnout modeling today?’ I would say yes.” For better or worse, it looks like the method is already getting more popular in the market research world. Most of the clients Aaru touts these days are businesses like EY and McDonald’s. And AI will probably begin to pop up in other parts of the political polling process. Pollsters are already using it to code open-ended survey responses, and some firms, like YouGov, are testing using LLMs to ask survey respondents questions. More worryingly, one danger to actual polls is that AI agents can be used to infiltrate online surveys. Most online polls use various checks to prevent that from happening, but there’s conflicting evidence on how effective those filters are and how prevalent AI agents currently are in online panels. If those agents ever become impossible to detect, it might spell the end of online polling, but the solution isn’t to replace all of your respondents with ChatGPT. Silver Bulletin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe 1 That particular poll obviously doesn’t meet Silver Bulletin standards for aggregation. But we exclude all Public Sentiment Institute polls from our averages because we classify them as an amateur polling firm. 2 You could argue that Fink meant the next presidential election, but (a) I’m also confident we’ll still have real polls in 2028 and (b) in that case he should have asked an LLM to define “general election.” 3 Quick caveat: that’s reporting from a Democratic pollster. It’s possible that Republicans are more willing to use AI in political campaigns. 4 Indeed, Silver Bulletin does not include “polls” produced by MRP in our forecasts or averages, and we think it’s extremely misleading when their practitioners describe them in a way that suggests original data had been collected among a large number of states or Congressional districts. 5 A recent report from Aaru and EY did show two examples of a synthetic estimate being closer than a survey to a real-world benchmark — but I’d take those findings with a grain of salt because the report reads more like an ad and didn’t involve any sort of prediction being made ahead of time. 6 For comparison, our odds for Harris on the same day were 48.2 percent.
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