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IN THIS EDITION

Our last trail lap from Madison Square Garden via Va., to Nevada

The ebbs and flows of a battleground Senate race

On the campaign trail with the Ways and Means chair

Inside the battle to take back a GOP-leaning Wisconsin district

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Our last trail lap from Madison Square Garden via Va., to Nevada

Welcome to The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week. We bring you a quick roundup of all our scoops, analysis and Capitol Hill insight you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve also included a few of our favorite outside reads from the week.

NEW YORK — This week, I got to cover an event at the iconic Madison Square Garden, the world’s most famous arena. The stuff cub reporters dream of one day doing. But it wasn’t a Knicks game or Rangers game. It was a rally for former President Donald Trump.

It sure felt like a sporting event, though.

Now, I’ve watched a lot of Trump’s rallies online and on TV. But being there in person was a totally different experience.

The massive crowd, which lined up for blocks to get into the stadium, was decked out in Trump gear, including MAGA caps and red visors affixed with Trump’s infamous blonde pompadour on top.

People were breaking out into U.S.A. chants. A playlist of country and rock jams pumped through the stadium. Kids excitedly ate their hot dogs and popcorn. The jumbo screen had Trump’s face plastered all over it.

Then there was the ugly side to the event. As I was preparing to do a live shot for MSNBC, a comedian took the stage and delivered a racist stand-up set. Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” made extremely vulgar comments about Latinos “making babies” and said he “carved watermelons” with a Black audience member.

The crowd seemed to be eating it up. I almost couldn’t believe my ears.

And it didn’t stop there, with other speakers referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as the “anti-Christ” and “the devil” and suggesting she’s a prostitute with “pimp handlers.” At another point, one speaker said “we need to slaughter these other people.”

Trump finally took the stage about two hours late. His wife, Melania Trump, who has been largely MIA on the campaign trail, introduced him.

Trump spoke for almost an hour and a half, going through his usual stump speech mixed in with random musings. By the time he walked off stage — to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” — a lot of the crowd had already ducked out.

According to Trump’s advisers, there was a strategy behind the decision for him to deliver his closing argument in a deep blue state. They believed it would get wall-to-wall coverage. It also doubled as a massive fundraiser for the campaign. And of course, there were also bragging rights for Trump, a native New Yorker who had talked about doing an MSG event for years.

The rally certainly drew headlines. Just perhaps not the ones his campaign would have wanted in the election’s final stretch.

What I’m listening to: I’m driving all around New York right now covering some of the key House races here, so I’ve started the third season of the podcast “In the Dark.” The latest season explores the murder of 24 Iraqis by a small group of U.S. Marines in 2005.

— Melanie Zanona

You can find The Readback in your inbox every Saturday at 8 a.m. And don’t hesitate to reach out to readback@punchbowl.news with feedback. Enjoy The Readback.

The ebbs and flows of a battleground Senate race

HENDERSON, Nev. — Sam Brown has had quite the journey.

The Nevada GOP Senate candidate has gone through pretty much every potential stage of a campaign you could think of — hope, rejection, popularity, dejection. And now he’s on the verge of a potential upset victory.

If you had told me a few weeks ago that I would be returning to Nevada for a third time this campaign cycle during the last gasp of the grueling 2024 slog, I would’ve thought you were crazy.

By early October, Brown’s once-promising and much-touted run for Senate looked flat-out bleak. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) had maintained a steady lead in the polls, and Brown wasn’t giving GOP leaders reason to believe he could win.

But Senate Republicans suddenly have a renewed sense of optimism about this race and about Brown in particular — that he could help the party flip a state that’s trended ever so slightly in Republicans’ direction over the past few elections.

Early rumblings: I started hearing chatter about Brown from GOP senators and operatives in early 2023. He had run in the 2022 primary but lost to Adam Laxalt, who ended up losing by just 8,000 votes to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.).

What made Brown stand out was his inspiring backstory. The former Army captain was gravely wounded in 2008 in a roadside bomb explosion, setting his entire body on fire and leaving permanent burn scars. His appearance was unmistakable and a constant reminder of what he had been through.

Sitting Republican senators hosted fundraisers for Brown early on as the NRSC made clear it was backing him, too — a departure from the organization’s much-maligned 2022 strategy of not meddling in primaries.

When I first met Brown 15 months ago, I could see why Republicans were so high on him. But for the next year, Republicans’ level of excitement about Brown had more ups and downs than your typical rollercoaster ride.

The Trump factor: We wrote Friday morning about how Brown has handled former President Donald Trump throughout his run. This is obviously a challenge for any Republican running for Congress these days, but Brown was seen as the poster child for the NRSC’s newfound Trump strategy led by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the NRSC’s chair.

By all accounts, Brown handled it as best he could. He was careful not to criticize Trump early on even when it seemed like something he should do given that Nevada is a purple state. Amazingly, Trump waited until literally hours before the primary to endorse Brown over his two main rivals, both of whom were election-denying Trump loyalists.

Brown won the primary comfortably and, like other GOP candidates in the marquee Senate races, spent months working to build up his name ID and trying to close the gap between him and Trump in the Silver State.

Fast-forward to the autumn months and Republicans seemed like they were about to cut Brown loose altogether. Rosen had proven to be a formidable opponent and was blunting any chance for Brown to gain momentum.

GOP leaders had signaled by early October that they wanted to focus their resources on the Midwest battlegrounds — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin — because they believed those states represented the best pickup opportunities in the final sprint.

But a mix of strong early-voting data for Republicans and new spending on Brown’s behalf has flipped that narrative on its head. Several GOP senators have either campaigned with Brown this past week or are planning to visit this weekend. When I spoke with Brown here at Trump’s rally on Thursday, it was like he was a completely different candidate.

And once again, we’ve got ourselves a race.

What I’m reading: Jon Ralston’s daily breakdowns of the early voting data in Nevada are an absolute must-read for anyone tracking the Brown-Rosen race as closely as we are. Nobody knows the Silver State like Ralston.

— Andrew Desiderio

On the campaign trail with the Ways and Means chair

One of the fun things about covering taxes (yes, I said fun!) is that the Ways and Means Committee gavel, in particular, is a powerful post, and one that comes with a lot of political work.

We always keep an eye on money and campaign updates from Ways and Means world. So it was great to actually get out on the campaign trail in Virginia’s 7th District this week with Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.).

Smith was traveling with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise when he came through Virginia, so logistics are always a little tricky in a situation like that. I was working from a Starbucks in Stafford, Va., putting me just a quick five-minute drive from the rally that Smith was headed to next.

So Smith and I ended up sitting down outside Starbucks for an interview before the event. That took me back to my days as a reporter for local newspapers in Connecticut when I did more than a few interviews from Starbucks cafés. Some things don’t change!

Smith was chatty and quick to recall a lot of details and numbers — especially his wins. I’ve heard Smith a few times now quickly cite the percentage of House members who voted for his tax deal this year, for one. He’s quick to rattle off specifics on fundraising hauls.

From there, I was onto a get-out-the-vote rally with Scalise, Smith and GOP candidate Derrick Anderson. Read more about my time in Virginia’s 7th District here.

We’ve also got a little more for you on Smith. We wrote in the Friday AM edition about the Missouri Republican’s campaign travel and fundraising, and why it matters. We talked with Smith about how it’ll factor in with the 2025 tax fight approaching and murmurs about Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) challenging him for the gavel again. (Smith told us that’s not happening.)

Here are some more nuggets from our time with Smith:

– As we reported in AM, Smith has campaigned for more than 30 different Republicans this month. He’s been all over. Smith did stops with Scalise over the last few days in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia; with Speaker Mike Johnson in Iowa and Michigan; with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer in Nebraska and Colorado and solo for Reps. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) and Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) and New Mexico GOP candidate Yvette Herrell. That’s just to name a few.

– When we were talking about the chatter about Buchanan, Smith also threw cold water on the possibility of a shakeup among top House GOP leadership, calling the idea “garbage” and saying he expects all leaders to be reelected.

– Smith has long talked about how he tries to get to know GOP freshmen when they come to Congress. He told us that every Republican candidate this cycle has his cell phone number.

“Since economic policy is front and center this election — it’s the number one polling issue and the border’s number two — they’re always asking me tax questions,” he said.

We’ll have some more on what’s next on taxes from our sit-down with Smith in tomorrow’s Sunday Vault. Look out for it in your inbox. Or if you don’t subscribe yet, check us out!

What I’m listening to: I know it came out a few weeks ago now, but I’m still loving In The Living Room by Maggie Rogers. When I was driving around Virginia this week, that was high up on the soundtrack.

– Laura Weiss

Inside the battle to take back a GOP-leaning Wisconsin district

This week I took an in-depth look at Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s (R-Wis.) increasingly competitive race in Wisconsin’s rural 3rd District.

Van Orden is facing a tough challenge from Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who has attacked him over his conduct in Congress and has sought to paint him as an extremist.

Remember, Van Orden flipped this R+4 seat in 2022. It was an unusual GOP seat that was held for decades by longtime Democrat Ron Kind.

As I wrote on Thursday, Van Orden has been seeking to counter the narrative that he’s among the flamethrowers of the GOP conference.

The Wisconsin Republican, who has a reputation for some controversial behavior, actually has a legislative record that shows him as a pretty bipartisan member of Congress.

A nonpartisan chart put together by the Lugar Center shows Van Orden is currently the most bipartisan member of the Wisconsin delegation. He’s been sharing this chart around to make his point.

As we know, he’s also been a vocal critic of some of his colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus and the right flank. Van Orden was especially angered by eight of his GOP colleagues who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

But Democrats have used Van Orden’s behavior in Congress as a way to link him back to hardliners.

Van Orden faced scrutiny over an incident where he cursed at Senate pages in the Capitol – a story we broke last year. He also disrupted this year’s State of the Union by yelling at President Joe Biden during his address.

And Van Orden attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, but left before the violence that took place at the Capitol. Cooke has sought to exaggerate his role related to that day.

I asked Van Orden about his opponent’s attacks on his temperament. He defended his behavior, invoking his military experience. Van Orden is a former Navy SEAL.

Meanwhile, Cooke has been running as a moderate alternative to Van Orden. She is backed by the Blue Dogs’ campaign arm as well as New Democrat Coalition members. We did an interview with her here earlier this cycle.

Currently, polls show this race neck-and-neck. This week, the nonpartisan newsletter Inside Elections also moved Van Orden’s race from “Lean Republican” to “Tilt Republican.”

We will keep an eye on this one come Tuesday.

What I’m reading/watching/listening to: I’ve been rewatching the show Scream Queens from a few years ago. I pretty much love anything Ryan Murphy is behind and it was a good exit from spooky season.

– Mica Soellner