Democrats are now in a reasonably strong position to hold the Senate and perhaps expand their majority. A major reason for that is that Donald Trump took it upon himself and was largely allowed to pick the candidates. Almost all of them are terrible candidates: Oz, Vance, Masters, Walker. These are simply terrible candidates. They could win. But it will be in spite of their terribleness not because of it. Kelly, Warnock, Fetterman, Ryan are all pretty good candidates. In some cases, in terms of their fit for the state in question, they are near-perfect candidates. Tim Ryan may be the best example of that even though he’s the least likely of the four to win. But all would be in much more challenging contests if they were opposed by even generic, non-crazy-sounding Trumpite Republicans.

Since we started talking about Roe and Reform, the Democrat’s prospects in the Senate have improved significantly. Dems holding the Senate now seems a more likely outcome than not and a two-seat pick-up seems increasingly plausible. (The 538 polls-only forecast now lists a two-seat pick-up as the most likely outcome of the midterm.) But what about the House? I’ve had a number of people tell me about Roe and Reform, “well, that was a great idea for the Senate but what about the House?” … No, no, no. And no. While holding the Senate has always been within closer reach for Democrats, Roe and Reform has always been a more powerful tool for the House. The senators who are avoiding questions or holding back on Roe and Reform to avoid awkward moments with more hesitant colleagues are greatly reducing the odds of Democrats holding the House. This is especially so now that a two-seat Senate pick-up looks like an increasingly plausible election outcome.

You’ve probably seen the news that Kyrsten Sinema has signed on to the Schumer/Manchin climate and inflation deal. She did so in exchange for nixing the carried interest loophole fix, an almost comically mercenary demand — a payoff to working families in the venture capital and private equity businesses. She also ramped back the corporate minimum tax with some depreciation tweaks. On the plus side, they seem to have made up the revenue and added a bit more with a small surtax on stock buybacks. A modest additional amount of spending goes to drought mitigation, which is of course a big deal for the Southwest.

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.

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.

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.

Months after my father died unexpectedly in 2006 I had most of his belongings shipped to me in New York where I had them delivered to a storage unit several blocks from my home. Most of my father’s possessions, at least the ones that mattered most to me, were his archive of tens of thousands of photographs and his collection of cameras, the ones he used — SLRs, TLRs and various large format cameras — as well as a large collection of antique cameras. I went to check on everything shortly after it was delivered. There it was, in standard moving boxes, packed into a 5 by 10 foot space. I took a few albums of photos and left the rest there for 15 years.

Until last week.