Very much a feature of this moment that while Donald Trump is spending resources to upend the constitutional order he’s also expending resources on weird personal fetishes, like in this case a maniacal need to refurb a semi-run-down but comfy and convenient local DC golf course.
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As we get ready for the final days of the 2026 midterm campaign, I wanted to flag some key parts of our coverage. First, don’t miss our midterms liveblog which you can find on the front page and also at this link. We’re starting with a focus on election interference issues and then we’ll shift toward more election day and results as we move toward Monday. Next, the TPM team has done a comprehensive analysis of just who certifies election results in each of the Senate swing states and what funny business they can pull. You can see that here. Finally, join us here Tuesday night. For the first time we’re going to be doing live video coverage of election night. Think of it as comparable to what you might see on CNN or MS-Now but with more insight about how to understand the results, what’s happening in key counties and precincts rather than just the toplines and just TPM level analysis. I hope you’ll join us.
Axios reports on a new private GOP poll conducted in the aftermath of Vivek Ramaswamy’s decision to run his ad questioning his opponent’s having been raped by her stepfather when she was 12. It shows Ramaswamy falling to 8 points behind Amy Acton compared to 2 points behind in a poll conducted by the same pollster a month ago. The poll found that 86% of respondents had heard of the ad and by a 2 to 1 margin those said the ad made them more likely to vote for Acton.
Ramaswamy has always been an especially Trumpy character in the sense of leaning — both in his actions and how he describes his actions — into transgressive verging on sociopathic behavior as a signifier of Republicanness or Trumpiness. Indeed, when he released this ad he said explicitly that he was sending a message that he was ready to break rules and conventions in the context of Ohio politics just as Trump had at the federal level. All of this comes under the headline of being, as the phrase goes, “extremely online” and shaped by the aesthetics, mores and instincts of online trolling.
That’s a remarkable and a remarkably frank expression of MAGA politics and aesthetics. The problem, however, is that Ramaswamy is not Donald Trump. What’s most notable about this episode is that lots of fellow Republicans appear to have warned him not to do this — not because of some subjective sense of decency but because it seemed so obviously self-destructive. I’ve thought from the beginning that this ad might not only backfire on Ramaswamy but possibly pull down the whole ticket. Ohio has very Trumpy demographics. It’s the kind of state where, if there’s going to be a GOP-underestimating polling error, you’d expect it to be particularly pronounced. Sherrod Brown — who, remember, is a semi-incumbent — has had a very steady if modest lead for months. He’s currently about three points ahead on average. So this ad, a performance of bad personhood, could end up making a difference in that race too.
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Here’s a brief follow up on yesterday’s Israeli election now that the actual vote count and results are coming into view. We began with exit polls suggesting that the “change” bloc had secured slightly more seats than the Netanyahu bloc — 52 to 50 seats — with the two Arab parties getting a historically high 18 or 19 seats. Then the exits started to shift to the Netanyahu bloc and Likud officials were claiming he had been dramatically underestimated and would get upwards of 60 seat and perhaps even a majority. The actual results were lopsided in Netanyahu’s direction but as they’ve been counted they’ve trended down. Now with 86% of the vote counted it’s down to 53 seats Netanyahu bloc, 48 for the “change” bloc and 19 for the two Arab parties. If the trend continues, the Netanyahu bloc might fall one or two seats lower but I have no insight whether the votes that remain will continue that downward trend.
There are three major exit polls in Israel. Two of those three have now revised their estimates to a tie between the two blocs with 51 seats each. The third still has it at 52 for the change bloc and 50 for the Netanyahu bloc. That’s only a single seat difference from the earlier estimates which all had a change lead. But it’s a pretty significant single-seat difference since it gives the two blocs an equal number of seats. It remains mostly symbolic since neither side is anywhere close to 61 seats. But for the narrative, vibes, claims to the legitimacy, it shifts things at least somewhat.
Late Update – 8:33 p.m.: Likud and the Netanyahu bloc continue to improve over the initial exit polls. Of the three main exit polls, two show a 51-51 tie and the third shows a 52-49 lead for Netanyahu’s bloc. These still leave both blocs far from the minimum of 61 seats to form a government. But as I noted above, it gives Netanyahu more of an argument for a “win.” Interestingly, the exit poll that shows the 52-49 Netanyahu bloc lead shows the “change” bloc losing one of those seats to the Joint List, which in that exit poll gets 12 seats. Likud officials are reportedly telling journalists they’re expecting their bloc total to rise to 55 or 57 votes. Obviously, talk is cheap. You can spin as much as you want. But I don’t have a good feeling about this trajectory.
A D.C. grand jury has refused to vote for an indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson, the one-time first-term Trump aide who became a star witness for the House January 6th subcommittee that investigated the attack. Obviously it’s good that illegitimate attempt failed since Hutchinson is guilty of nothing more than acting honorably. It’s embarrassing for the administration since it’s hard to fail at the grand jury level where the government is literally in charge of everything. But there’s something deeper and more important here: the un-strategic, increasingly impulsive and ultimately self-defeating nature of the Trump legal retribution campaign.
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When the members of the 120th Congress take their seats come January, they will quickly have a chance to oppose — or let stand — the unprecedented changes and dramatic proposals from President Donald Trump’s administration at the Census Bureau.
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Washington State Finds Citizens on DOJ’s Purported List of Noncitizen Voters
Here’s a look at a few things TPM is following this morning.
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