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    There Is Hope for Democrats. Look to Kansas.

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    Two Opinion writers on the Democratic governors who might just save the party.David Leonhardt, an editorial director for Opinion, talks to the Opinion correspondent Michelle Cottle about her recent reporting trip to Kansas. Cottle argues that Democrats should look to moderate governors like Laura Kelly of Kansas for a playbook.There Is Hope for Democrats. Look to Kansas.Two Opinion writers on the Democratic governors who might just save the party.Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.David Leonhardt: Democrats are spending a lot of time these days agonizing about what the future of their party should look like. Today we’re going to talk about one potential answer. The party’s current crop of governors: politicians who have a proven ability to win elections, including some really tough elections, and to govern as well.My colleague Michelle Cottle recently traveled to Kansas to talk with one of the country’s most impressive governors. Laura Kelly is a moderate Democrat in her second term. Kansas is so Republican that it hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932. It’s so Republican that there is a famous book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” lamenting the failure of Democrats there. Yet Governor Kelly is now in her second term.Michelle and I are going to talk about what lessons she offers for her party. Thanks for being here.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Morally Offensive and Fiscally Reckless’: 3 Writers on Trump’s Big Gamble

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Nate Silver, the author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything” and the newsletter Silver Bulletin, and Lis Smith, a Democratic communications strategist and author of the memoir “Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story,” to discuss the aftermath of the passage of President Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill.Frank Bruni: Let’s start with that megabill, the bigness of which made the consequences of its enactment hard to digest quickly. Now that we’ve had time to, er, chew it over, I’m wondering if you think Democrats are right to say — to hope — that it gives them a whole new traction in next year’s midterms.I mean, the most significant Medicaid cuts kick in after that point. Could Trump and other Republicans avoid paying a price for them in 2026? Or did they get much too cute in constructing the legislation and building in that delay and create the possibility of disaster for themselves in both 2026 and 2028, when the bill’s effect on Medicaid, as well as on other parts of the safety net, will have taken hold?Lis Smith: If history is any guide, Republicans will pay a price for these cuts in the midterms. In 2010, Democrats got destroyed for passing Obamacare, even though it would be years until it was fully implemented. In 2018, Republicans were punished just for trying to gut it. Voters don’t like politicians messing with their health care. They have been pretty consistent in sending that message.I’d argue that Democrats have an even more potent message in 2026 — it’s not just that Republicans are messing with health care, it’s that they are cutting it to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans.Nate Silver: What I wonder about is Democrats’ ability to sustain focus on any given issue. At the risk of overextrapolating from my home turf in New York, Zohran Mamdani just won a massive upset in the Democratic mayoral primary by focusing on affordability. And a message on the Big, Beautiful Bill could play into that. But the Democratic base is often more engaged by culture war issues, or by messages that are about Trump specifically — and Trump isn’t on the ballot in 2026 — rather than Republicans broadly. The polls suggest that the Big, Beautiful Bill is extremely unpopular, but a lot of those negative views are 1) among people who are extremely politically engaged and already a core Democratic constituency, or 2) snap opinions among the disengaged that are subject to change. Democrats will need to ensure that voters are still thinking about the bill next November, and tying it to actual or potential changes that affect them directly and adversely.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      When It Comes to Undermining America, We Have a Winner

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      Capitalizing on Democrats’ weakness, President Trump is winning his battle to undermine democracy in this country.But he has not won the war.A host of factors could blunt his aggression: recession, debt, corruption, inflation, epidemics, the Epstein files, anger over cuts in Medicaid and food stamps, to name just a few. Much of what Trump has done could be undone if a Democrat is elected president in 2028.But for federal workers, medical and scientific researchers, lawyers in politically active firms, prominent critics of Trump — thousands of whom have felt the sting of arbitrary firings, vanished paychecks and retracted grants, criminal inquiries and threatened bankruptcies — the 2028 election may prove too late to repair the damage.And that’s before we even begin to talk about the anti-immigration crackdown.Trump’s assaults are aimed at targets large and small, some based on personal resentments, others guided by a more coherent ideological agenda.The brutality of Trump’s anti-democratic policies is part of a larger goal, a reflection of an administration determined to transfer trillions of dollars to the wealthy by imposing immense costs on the poor and the working class in lost access to medical care and food support, an administration that treats hungry children with the same disdain that it treats core principles of democracy.Trump has succeeded in devastating due-process protections for universities, immigrants and law firms. He has cowed the Supreme Court, which has largely failed to block his violations of the Constitution. He has bypassed Congress, ruling by executive order and emergency declaration. He is using the regulatory power of government to force the media to make humiliating concessions. He has ordered criminal investigations of political adversaries. He has fired innumerable government employees who pursued past investigations — and on and on.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Texas Court Seals Records in Ken Paxton’s Divorce Case

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      The order meant details in the case, which involves allegations of adultery, would not be public as the Texas attorney general challenges Senator John Cornyn in the 2026 primary.A state court on Friday ordered records in the divorce of Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas to be sealed, a day after his wife, State Senator Angela Paxton, filed a petition that accused Mr. Paxton of adultery.The order to seal the records in the case, in the 429th District Court in Collin County, north of Dallas, came after a request from Mrs. Paxton’s lawyer. This means that further details of the high-profile split would not be available to the public in a case that could significantly affect the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas.Mr. Paxton, a firebrand conservative who is popular among Republican voters, is challenging Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary in 2026. Mr. Paxton has been leading in public polling.In a statement on Thursday, Mrs. Paxton said that she had filed for divorce “on biblical grounds” and “in light of recent discoveries,” suggesting that new events in their relationship had prompted her decision. The divorce petition said that the couple had not been living together since June 2024 and that the grounds for divorce included that Mr. Paxton “has committed adultery.”Mr. Paxton said the couple’s relationship was strained by the pressures of public life and “countless political attacks” in his own statement on Thursday. He asked for privacy.The divorce announcement came as a shock in Texas. Mrs. Paxton had remained at her husband’s side through years of criminal investigations, a state court indictment for securities fraud and an impeachment at the State Capitol in which Mr. Paxton was accused of abusing his office by doing favors for a real estate investor who helped him conceal an extramarital affair.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Schumer Says Trump Bill Boosts Democrats’ Hopes in 2026 Midterm Elections

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      The top Senate Democrat said the law would lead to widespread pain for voters, imperiling Republicans who supported it and allowing his party more openings to contest control of the Senate.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said Thursday that the passage of President Trump’s domestic policy agenda had boosted Democrats’ hopes of claiming the Senate majority in the 2026 midterm elections, handing them a winning economic message as they seek to contest an expanded map of states around the country.“The three issues we’re going to most campaign on: costs, jobs, and health care,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters, across the street from the Capitol. “Those affect average people and every state.”He argued that the sweeping law to extend tax cuts and slash social safety net programs would hurt not just those who rely on Medicaid — which will be cut by nearly $1 trillion — but by a broad swath of Americans. “It’s going to raise insurance costs even if you don’t have Medicaid,” he said. “Your electricity costs will go up by 10 percent. Even not poor people, it goes across the board. And it’s hitting at the same time that your costs are going up because of tariffs.”As they search for ways to connect with voters ahead of the midterm elections, House and Senate Democrats have been poring over polling and research that shows their likely best bet is focusing on the Republicans’ cuts to health care and food assistance programs for working people in order to help pay for tax cuts that provide the biggest benefits to the wealthy.A recent poll conducted by Blue Rose Research on behalf of the Senate Majority PAC, an outside group aligned with Democrats, found that 50 percent of voters said they were less likely to support their representative in the upcoming election if he or she had voted for the bill. That number included 49 percent of swing voters and 17 percent of voters who supported Mr. Trump in the 2024 election.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Musk’s Third Party Starts With a Good Idea

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      Elon Musk has finally done something predictable (for a gazillionaire with a political itch, that is): He says he’s launching a third party devoted to the cause of deficit reduction. Instead of the quadrennial dream of No Labels, in which high-minded donors put up the money for an imaginary white knight who never materializes, we may get the “America Party,” in which the world’s richest man puts his fortune behind, he says, “extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield.”If you parse Musk’s postings and re-postings, that seems to mean a third party strategy that targets a handful of close Senate and House seats, trying to create a legislative faction that exerts control over both bodies by preventing anything from passing without their crucial votes.Credit where due: This is a somewhat better plan than just backing a doomed third-party presidential bid in 2028. The most compelling suggestion for would-be third partyers during Joe Biden’s presidency was that they should persuade a clutch of discontented senators to caucus as independents, creating a potent Joe Manchin-Mitt Romney-Lisa Murkowski-Susan Collins-Kyrsten Sinema bloc. Musk’s concentrated-force idea, presumably, would be an attempt to create this kind of bloc from scratch, discovering the next Murkowskis and Manchins and making it possible for them to fund and win a race without an R or D beside their name.Before the travails of DOGE, I would have said that it was a mistake to automatically bet against Musk; now it seems safer to just acknowledge up front that this plan is unlikely to work out, and that Musk will probably find it too difficult to seriously pursue.But in the spirit of possibility, and because the House-and-Senate plan is an advance on most third-party fantasias, let’s consider the things that would need to happen for Musk to succeed.First, the America Party couldn’t just target the tightest swing states. You’ll notice that of the independent-minded senators and former senators listed above, only Sinema comes from a hotly contested state. That’s because under polarized conditions, a true swing state is usually the place where both parties make the strongest efforts at persuasion, where the stakes of each election seem highest and the fear of the other party’s rule is sharpest among partisans on either side.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Faces the Biggest Test Yet of His Second-Term Political Power

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      If President Trump gets his domestic policy bill over the finish line, it will be a vivid demonstration of his continuing hold over the Republican Party.President Trump has gotten almost everything he has wanted from the Republican-controlled Congress since he took office in January.G.O.P. lawmakers approved his nominees, sometimes despite their doubts. They ceded their power over how federal dollars are distributed, impinging on constitutional authority. And they have cheered his overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, even as he has bypassed the legislative body’s oversight of federal agencies.But now, Mr. Trump is pressuring Republicans to fall in line behind his sprawling domestic policy bill, even though it has elements that could put their party’s hold on Congress in greater peril in next year’s midterm elections. Fiscal hawks are appalled by estimates that the bill would add at least $3.3 trillion to the country’s ballooning debt, while moderate Republicans are concerned about the steep cuts to the safety net.Yet Mr. Trump is still getting his way — at least so far. The Senate narrowly passed the bill Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. The bill now heads back to the House, where the president can only lose three votes, and where anger among both moderates and conservatives about changes made by the Senate is running high.Getting the bill through the House may be the biggest test yet of Mr. Trump’s second-term political power. If he gets the bill over the finish line, it will be another legislative victory and a vivid demonstration of his continuing hold over the party.The process of driving the legislation forward has exposed deep divisions among congressional Republicans, as well as concern about the huge political risks of supporting the bill. In the end, fear of crossing Mr. Trump kept defections in the Senate to a barely manageable level.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares137 Views

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      Colin Allred Will Run Again for Senate in Texas

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      After losing to Ted Cruz last year, Mr. Allred is planning his second statewide run and looking for a stronger political climate for Democrats.Former Representative Colin Allred, a former professional football player who last year ran a well-regarded but losing campaign against Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, said on Tuesday that he would make another run for the Senate in 2026.Mr. Allred, a Democrat who served three terms in the House, did not hide from his 2024 loss as he announced his second statewide campaign in a video. He spoke of entering the National Football League as an undrafted free agent and then being cut after his first workouts, before trying again and catching on as a linebacker with the Tennessee Titans.“Today I’m announcing my candidacy for the United States Senate, because you deserve someone who will fight for you,” Mr. Allred said in the video. “I get it. Real change might feel impossible, but I’m not giving up.”Though Mr. Allred lost to Mr. Cruz last year by 8.5 percentage points, Democrats have renewed optimism about Texas in 2026. There is an expectation that the contest will look more like the 2018 race, when Beto O’Rourke came within 2.6 points of Mr. Cruz. Mr. Allred is a proven fund-raiser who has already financed an expensive campaign in a state with four major media markets.And Texas Republicans have just begun their own primary battle, with Ken Paxton, the state’s far-right attorney general, who in 2023 was impeached, and subsequently acquitted, by the State Legislature, challenging Senator John Cornyn, the four-term incumbent.President Trump notably has not endorsed anyone in the Republican Senate race. Mr. Paxton has long been one of the president’s fiercest supporters, while Mr. Cornyn has been viewed with suspicion by his party’s base voters.Mr. Allred will not have the Democratic primary to himself. Last week, Terry Virts, a former astronaut, announced his campaign with a video that took an unusual — for a Democrat — shot at Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader.“Trump’s chaos must be stopped,” Mr. Virts said in his introduction video, before showing a clip of Mr. Schumer speaking at a rally in Washington. “But leadership is M.I.A.”Mr. Allred, like Democrats across the country in 2024, was dragged down by the lackluster electoral performance of Vice President Kamala Harris. He received nearly 200,000 more votes than Ms. Harris and had a particularly strong showing relative to her in the Rio Grande Valley, a largely Hispanic part of the state along the Mexican border that swung heavily toward Mr. Trump. More

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      Trump May Get His ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ but the G.O.P. Will Pay a Price

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      And so will many voters.There will be many short- and long-term consequences if Republicans succeed in passing President Trump’s signature policy bill, as they aim to do before the July 4 holiday, David Leonhardt, the director of the Times editorial board, tells the national politics writer Michelle Cottle in this episode of “The Opinions.”Trump May Get His ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ but the G.O.P. Will Pay a PriceAnd so will many voters.Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.Michelle Cottle: I’m Michelle Cottle and I cover national politics for Times Opinion. So with the July 4 weekend looming, I thought we’d talk about a different kind of fireworks: that is, President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” and as always, I hope the air quotes there are audible for everybody.But that bill looks like it is on track for passage. From Medicaid cuts to tax breaks for the rich, it is a lot. Thankfully with me to talk about this is David Leonhardt, the fearless director of the New York Times editorial board, who has some very pointed thoughts on the matter. So let’s just get to it. David, welcome.David Leonhardt: Thank you, Michelle. It’s great to be talking with you.Cottle: I’m so excited, but warning to all: We are recording on Monday midday and even as we speak, the Senate is brawling its way through to a final vote. So the situation is fluid and could change the details by the time you all hear this.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More