Editors’ Blog

Senate Democrats appear to have a deal that all 50 members of the caucus will support — including Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).

Here’s Sinema in a statement a few minutes ago:

We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation. Subject to the Parliamentarian’s review, I’ll move forward.

Yesterday TPM Reader NN wrote in to ask what exactly it makes sense to say if you’re calling a Senate office about Roe and Reform. I thought others might be interested too. So here’s the gist of what I told her.

First, whenever I’m operating in this mode there’s always a balance between journalism and advocacy, one in which I’m leaning a bit out of my comfort zone. In a case like this I’m not trying to convince you to do one thing or another. It is rather one of a handful of cases over the last couple decades where I believe my experience and knowledge of American politics gives me some insight into how a lot of people’s very strongly held beliefs can be applied successfully to the mechanics and idiosyncrasies of American politics. There’s no shortage here of passion or intensity of belief. But how to work the levers of our political and electoral structure can be less clear.

Another probabilistic nugget. As of today, the polls-only version of the 538 Senate forecast has 52 Democratic seats as the most likely outcome of the election. That’s enough to pass a Roe law in January 2023 if Democrats hold the House. The House is almost certainly the bigger challenge at this point. But the two equation is firmly locked together. House candidates need the Senate pledges completely nailed down to run on Roe and Reform in their races, even though the filibuster itself has nothing to do with the House.

I consider 538 the canonical average for the congressional generic ballot. Just in the last hour it clicked to dead even after a group of new polls came out showing Democrats in the lead. The RCP average, which benefits from some pro-GOP fiddling, moved to a .3 point GOP advantage. Whichever measure you go by this is a move of between two and three points since the leaked version of Dobbs dropped in May. It is always important to remember that tied isn’t tied. Because of embedded geographical and districting advantages Republicans can win the House handily with a tied generic ballot. I would say you would want to see Democrats ahead on this number by 3 points to have some rough confidence they would hold the House. But the movement is all in the right direction. There’s been a shift of a point or so in just the last week.

Just a reminder for podcast listeners: no podcast today. We’ll be back next week, same time, same channel.

While vote counting slowed overnight with about 96% of the Kansas anti-abortion referendum vote counted, “No” (pro-abortion rights) is steady at 59% of the vote. It is unlikely to tick down more than a point or two further, at most. This was considered a too-close-to-call race with the advantage to the “Yes” vote. When a result is this lopsided and this unexpected for most political observers it’s not only a political earthquake but a sign many political professionals have seriously mistaken the political environment. When there is a backlash as strong as the one against Dobbs and one party is as firmly tied to it as Republicans are here, clearly the opposing party needs to grab on to it with both hands. You jump right into the slipstream of that political tide.

It’s not officially called yet. But I’ve been watching the returns closely and it appears that the anti-choice referendum in Kansas is going down to a decisive defeat. Anti-abortion forces in the state planned this referendum to fall on what should have been a low turnout primary election day, an electorate that would strongly favor their side. Then Dobbs happened. There was big turnout. And now it appears the amendment is going down to defeat. This should be and will be the story of the night. Anti-abortion politics suffered a big defeat in a very red state. This is a test case for the power of Roe and Reform nationwide.

Look what TPM alum Tierney Sneed is up to. Turns out Trump DOD officials also got their texts wiped clean after Jan 6th, Tierney reports.Who knew the Secret Service phone reset had such a wide impact?

As you know, tonight is another primary night. A number of key Senate contests will be decided. One big one is in Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly will get his challenger. Probably Blake Masters, a pro-authoritarian, anti-semitism-curious candidate endorsed by Trump and Peter Thiel. Another is Missouri where we’ll find out if Eric Greitens gets the chance to enter the Senate. We’ll also see whether a handful of impeachment-voting Republicans will survive primary challenges. If you’re interesting in the deep, deep dives on key local races around the country, my go-to guy is Daniel Nichanian who publishes these lists. Perhaps the most interesting contest is a referendum in Kansas where voters will get the chance to vote on whether to outlaw abortion in the state.

TPM Reader SB checks in from Georgia …

In Georgia, we’re not seeing much “Roe and Reform” talk from Sen. Warnock (he supports that path, it’s just not an integral part of his stump speeches). We are, however, seeing a big push from the Democratic AG candidate Jen Jordan that she’ll challenge the constitutionality of Georgia’s newly enacted heartbeat bill (SB 481) if she’s elected. Here’s a clip of her talking about that. Her line “If Alito wants to bring it back to the states, I say bring it” is resonating with Georgia Democrats.