2022 midterms

Like the soft piano chords of an old time hymn underscore a fire-and-brimstone tent revival service, the chords of a QAnon ballad filled the arena at a Trump rally this weekend — as the former president angrily bemoaned just how “in decline” our nation is.

At a campaign event for Ohio Republican Senate nominee J.D. Vance Saturday, Trump delivered a speech about the perceived failures our nation has experienced in the two years since he was booted from the White House. The rally featured a speech from QAnon congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and the event was filled with standard fare MAGAworld grievances.

But toward the end, we witnessed the former President embracing the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory movement more explicitly than he ever has in the past.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and the rest of the bipartisan group of senators working on the passage of a same-sex marriage bill announced today that they’re going to table their efforts until after the election. Baldwin in a statement noted that she’s confident the group will get enough Republicans on board post-midterms for the bill to pass the Senate.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss Lindsey Graham’s new national abortion ban and whether or not Democrats can trust the polls.

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

As one of, if not the most vulnerable, senator seeking reelection this midterm cycle, Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) been staking out his policy positions on a number of issues rather publicly in recent weeks — after mid-August polling from Marquette Law School found that the incumbent was trailing 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.

And his latest remarks — clarifying where he stands on a same-sex marriage bill that could soon come before members of the upper chamber — include a few too many references to “religious liberty” to not be read as a scrambling effort to satisfy the religious right after initially appearing to be open to the bill.

In a primetime speech from Pennsylvania, President Biden plans to deliver a national address that has all the makings of a pre-midterms campaign speech.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the newest revelations in the Trump documents case, as well as Republican backpedaling in the face of Dobbs backlash.

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