[ed.note: Since I wrote this post, all the networks have called this race for Democrat Pat Ryan.]

A fascinating story is unfolding in NY-19 — a result that looks very promising for Democratic prospects this fall in the House.

This is a special election to fill a seat vacated by Rep. Antonio Delgado (D), who became Lt. Gov. In itself the race is almost meaningless. The term is only for the rest of this year. But as an indicator of the political climate it’s much more significant. In a strong GOP year this is a district Republicans should take fairly comfortably. Cook calls it a dead even district. What’s more, the Republican, Marc Molinaro, is judged by pretty much everyone to be a perfect GOP recruit for the district. So there’s no excuse. The Republicans should be winning this.

As I write it’s too close to call. In a way, though, the final result doesn’t matter that much. It will essentially be a tie. And New York state election laws allow a week for postmarked absentee ballots to arrive. So we might not know the answer for a week. The key is that this result is not consistent with a GOP wave election, not even a mid-range one.

No big surprises so far tonight in a lightish primary night. Alt-right performance artist Laura Loomer got pretty close to knocking off an incumbent in Florida. But close isn’t enough. Maxwell Frost, a Bernie-backed 25 year old, won his primary against a bunch of veteran Democrats.

New York, which closes at the top of the hour, should provide some drama.

Just a little note to say that I think the Democrats, paradoxically, are resting a bit on their laurels after a couple weeks of solid news and very encouraging prospects in the Senate. Anger, outrage and motivation coming off the Dobbs decision is high and will remain high. But there are limits on how much that energy will translate into electoral outcomes if no specific, promised and quantifiable outcome is on the ballot, which is to say, Roe and Reform: Add two senators and hold the House and Democrats will make Roe the law of the land in January 2023. The opportunity is closing.

Let me just start out by saying this pair deserves each other — truly a dynamic coupling.

We’re covering this in other pieces today. But I want to zoom in on the issue of executive privilege, which Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly invoked in their latest court action. The filing has been mocked, rightly, for various reasons. But I want to zoom in specifically on this issue. Trump claims that many of the documents seized from his estate must be returned to him because they are covered by executive privilege.

This is not how executive privilege works or what it is. Let’s discuss.

A recent Marquette University Law School found that Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) may not be as safely re-electable as he was ahead of his last reelection in 2016.

The poll was released last week, showing RonJohn is trailing a bit behind his Democratic rival — Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has a 7-percentage point lead over Johnson with 51 percent of the vote compared to his 44 percent.

Rich Lowry, Editor of The National Review, has a guest opinion piece in the Times today, the gist of which is that Republicans are right to be “paranoid” about the search of the President’s Florida estate. We hear about Democratic criticisms of the Whitewater investigation, James Comey’s mishandling of the Hillary’s emails affair, etc. etc. All par for the course. But what I wanted to note is the central role of the Russia probe. It now serves as the baseless investigation, the hoax, the prosecutorial abuse that justifies everything from the Trumpian right that comes later.

This is no surprise from Trump himself: If Trump doesn’t like something, it’s a hoax. But here we see Trump’s relative success defining it as such not only for almost everyone on the right side of the political spectrum but in much of the journalistic world and even among many Democrats.

It’s political canon that the president’s party does poorly in the Midterms — especially if it’s said president’s first term. But the Senate minority leader is tossing bits of that conventional wisdom out the window as we get closer to the general election. And it’s not even the first time Mitch McConnell has preemptively winked in the direction of things not going super well for Republicans this fall — at least when it comes to control of the Senate.

During an event in Kentucky on Thursday McConnell suggested that it was far more likely that Republicans are able to flip the House than take back the Senate. That’s because the Senate is “different.”

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the primaries in Wyoming and Alaska, along with news that the Republican Senate campaign arm is redistributing money away from some key states.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

TPM Reader BB has his own take on JD Vance’s struggles in Ohio …

I am not the long-time resident of Ohio that RJ is, but I live outside of Cincinnati, and one thing that has been striking to me (and might explain the Senate Leadership Fund ad buy) is the degree to which Vance just disappeared from the airwaves after the primary. I have seen constant ads from Tim Ryan, both talking about himself (working class Ohioan, agreed with Trump on trade, not about parties… basically what you would expect from a smart Democrat trying to win in Ohio) and bashing on Vance (elite snobbish fake from San Francisco, does not care about Ohioans just his political career, etc.). Only within the last couple of weeks have I seen a single TV ad from Vance, basically his wife talking about what a nice guy he is and how she hopes Ohio will give him a chance, which is invariably followed by several Ryan ads with cops and military vets talking about how much Vance sucks. It has just been a remarkably one-sided affair. I assume that at least part of the problem is a lack of money on Vance’s part, though it is odd that I have not seen ads from outside groups, either. Maybe overconfidence on their part?