Gov. Sununu of New Hampshire has just announced he won’t be running for Senate in 2022. That is a big, big relief for Democrats who need to hold Sen. Maggie Hassan’s seat to have any hope of holding on to the chamber next year. Hassan isn’t out of the woods. But Sununu is popular and his family has all but monopolized state-wide office in the state for a couple generations. He was their best shot at picking up that seat.

Guest hosted today by TPM reporter Kate Riga.

In an election post-mortem, the Terry McAuliffe gubernatorial campaign in Virginia highlighted some of its findings in the immediate wake of Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory.

The outcome of elections in 2022 and 2024 are tied in large part to events the President can influence but not control: the state of the COVID pandemic, the health of the US economy and in particular the mix of price hikes and supply shortages amidst COVID exhaustion we’ve seen increasingly in 2021. But there are already steps Democrats can and really must start taking to lay the groundwork for strong showings. One really critical one comes out of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Biden Infrastructure Bill passed late Friday evening. It goes without saying that Democrats should run on the contents of the bill. There’s tons of funding for repairing roads and bridges, replacing all the country’s lead pipes, broadband and much more. But just as critical is using it as a cudgel against Republicans – something GOP fury at the 13 representatives makes crystal, crystal clear.

To understand this you don’t have to go any further than looking at the announcements Republicans put out announcing their decisions to vote against the bill.

Let me explain.