August 11, 2025
THE TOP
Breaking down the 2026 Senate map
Happy Monday morning. We’re only publishing AM editions this week. We’ll send a text alert or breaking news edition if something big happens.
The House and Senate are in recess until September. President Donald Trump is in Washington to start the week. Trump is then scheduled to head to Alaska to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday for a summit over the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may attend as well.
Trump will also make an announcement today about new federal efforts to fight crime in D.C.
Speaker Mike Johnson and a group of House Republicans are in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for an annual big-donor retreat. We reported on some of the speakers last week.
Senate 2026. Senate Republicans will be defending their majority next year amid a relentless Democratic onslaught over Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Fifteen months out from the midterms, Republicans remain the heavy favorites to retain control of the chamber thanks to a good map, despite some high-profile setbacks. Senate Democrats still need to net four seats to reclaim the majority, a huge hurdle.
Recent political shifts have moved several key races in Democrats’ favor, giving the minority party an outside chance to pull off a shocker. GOP Gov. Brian Kemp isn’t running in Georgia, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper jumped in the North Carolina race and Republican infighting in Texas could prove disastrous.
The Big Four:
Georgia: Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.), the cycle’s most endangered Democrat, is raising loads of money. Kemp is throwing his weight behind former college football coach Derek Dooley, an untested political novice locked in a messy primary with Georgia GOP Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter.
Trump’s team isn’t happy with Kemp for boosting Dooley. Ossoff could squeak out a general election win, but it won’t be easy in a state that went for Trump last November.
Michigan: The Wolverine State is almost the mirror image of Georgia. Republicans lined up behind former Rep. Mike Rogers, who narrowly lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) in 2024. Meanwhile, Democrats have a messy primary to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) with no clear favorite.
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) hasn’t cleared the field like Slotkin did last cycle. Stevens is battling against state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and progressive darling Abdul El-Sayed in a primary that won’t be settled until August 2026. Republicans haven’t won a Senate seat in Michigan since 1994, but Trump carried the state in 2024.
North Carolina: The general election will likely be Cooper against RNC Chair Michael Whatley. Democrats feel great about nabbing a top-tier recruit in Cooper, the popular two-term former governor. Republicans are relieved they’ve all coalesced quickly around Whatley and averted a primary.
Cooper’s impressive electoral track record statewide could make him the favorite, especially because Whatley is so unknown. But Republicans note that North Carolina backed Trump three times in a row. The question is how Whatley — the ultimate political insider — will fare in a statewide race.
Maine: There are tons of unresolved issues in the Pine Tree State, mainly whether Democratic Gov. Janet Mills will run. Mills, 77, is a well-liked executive in a state that has a long history of electing Democrats statewide — except when they’re running against Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Collins, 72, has said she intends to run. And she’s raising money. But at a time when the White House is thumbing its nose at Congress and the Appropriations Committee that Collins chairs, this isn’t a guarantee.
Senate GOP leaders believe Collins is the only Republican who can win in Maine. So they’re willing to let Collins freelance when she needs to — like voting against the reconciliation bill and the rescissions package.
The Stretches:
New Hampshire: Trump only lost the Granite State by three points in 2024 while Republicans nabbed the governorship. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) is in a strong position to succeed retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). Republicans are targeting the state and believe former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown can win.
Minnesota: Republicans could compete in a state where Trump only lost by four points in November. But no viable GOP candidate has emerged so far. On the Democratic side, Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are vying for the nomination in a high-stakes primary.
Texas: Everything in the Lone Star State depends on who wins the GOP primary. If polls are accurate, Attorney General Ken Paxton is the favorite. That would grant Democrats their best opening yet, given Paxton’s scandal-plagued history.
But if Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who’s backed by GOP leadership, wins the primary, Republicans remain favored to hold the solidly red state. 2024 candidate Colin Allred is running again, and state Rep. James Talarico could also jump in.
Ohio: Recent reporting suggests former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is gearing up for another run. Brown lost in 2024 to GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno, but he still out-performed national Democrats and would give Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) a run for his money. Republicans remain heavy favorites.
Iowa: Trump won Iowa by 13 points in November, so any statewide Democratic victory would be a minor miracle. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) might not even run for reelection, however. A number of Iowa Democrats are vying for the nomination, including state Sen. Zach Wahls, outsider Nathan Sage and former congressional candidate J.D. Scholten.
— Max Cohen, Andrew Desiderio, Ally Mutnick and John Bresnahan
REDISTRICTING WARS
Holder to huddle with House Democrats
Eric Holder, the former attorney general who chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, will hold a call with House Democrats on Wednesday.
The call, hosted by the DCCC, comes as the nationwide redistricting war is dominating the national political discussion.
Republicans are readying to push through new maps in Texas, Missouri and potentially Florida. The Trump administration is leaning on Indiana to redraw as well. But not all states that can easily redistrict this year are willing to do so.
It’s more difficult for Democrats to respond in kind. California offers one of their best chances.
Texas. Statehouse Democrats from the Lone Star State are entering week two of their residence outside the state in order to starve Republicans of the quorum they need to conduct business.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will hold a news conference with Texas Democrats in the morning, followed by an afternoon event featuring Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.).
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told the hosts of the “Ruthless” podcast that state law enforcement is working with federal counterparts to find the Democratic lawmakers.
Finding the Texas Democrats isn’t the real issue, however. Abbott and Texas Republicans may not have a legal way to force the Texas Democrats to return home by the end of the session. But Abbott has vowed to call another session if needed – or more than one.
California. Gov. Gavin Newsom held a press conference Friday with the Texas Democratic legislators. Also in attendance: former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation.
Newsom confirmed his plans to hold a November election, asking voters to pause the independent redistricting commission and allow the legislature to draw a new map.
As we’ve reported, the new map aims to give Democrats five pickup opportunities and will target GOP Reps. Kevin Kiley, Ken Calvert, David Valadao, Doug LaMalfa and Darrell Issa.
Lofgren said at the presser that every Democrat in the California delegation agreed to a redraw of the map.
California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said he expects proposed maps to be released to voters this week.
New Hampshire. Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte told WMUR she remains opposed to any mid-decade redistricting in New Hampshire. This won’t sit well with the White House, which has been leaning on Republican governors to redraw maps to benefit the GOP.
Republicans in the New Hampshire legislature initially drew a map that would target Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas only to see it vetoed by GOP Gov. Chris Sununu. In her gubernatorial primary, Ayotte said she disagreed with Sununu’s decision.
But Ayotte later said she believed the time to redistrict had passed, and she reiterated that again in this latest interview: “The timing is off for this because we are literally in the middle of the census period.”
– Heather Caygle, Ally Mutnick and Jake Sherman
The Vault: Warren, a16z share ‘ancillary asset’ crypto worries
Scoop: There’s a quiet civil war happening in the crypto sector over its legislative future. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is wading into it and finding herself some unlikely allies.
We obtained a memo drafted by Democratic staff on the Senate Banking Committee outlining several concerns with the Republican market structure legislation. A top Warren worry is that the Responsible Financial Innovation Act would take a “hammer” to federal securities law by creating the concept of an “ancillary asset,” which would be exempt from securities law.
That concern happens to be shared by Andreessen Horowitz, the prominent venture capital firm with ties to industry titans like Coinbase.
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Read the document here.
The memo from Warren’s staff warns that the current definition of an ancillary asset creates “a superhighway for traditional assets to escape the SEC’s authority simply by converting stocks and other non-crypto securities into tokens.”
Likewise, policy advocates at a16z crypto warned the Senate Banking Committee in a letter dated July 31 that the definition of ancillary assets needed “significant modifications.”
“[T]he ‘ancillary asset’ definition as currently constructed would either enable issuers of traditional securities to circumvent investor protections or would introduce new ambiguities that compound the problems resulting from the Howey test,” they wrote.
Senate response: A discussion draft of the RFIA was introduced by Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) in July. One of the group’s first questions for the public about this draft was whether the legislation should “rely on the concept of ancillary assets.”
The House version of market structure reform, dubbed the CLARITY Act, doesn’t contain the concept of an ancillary asset.
“We’ve reviewed over 200 federal court cases interpreting Howey and woven those concepts into our legislation,” Lummis said in a statement. “Ancillary assets draw the clearest legal line between securities and commodities and provide consumers with the disclosures they need to make informed decisions.”
Of course, this treatment does have its industry proponents. Paradigm, another crypto-heavy VC firm with Washington ties, led a letter with other big names in crypto last week urging the Senate to stick to its vision.
More worries: Warren’s memo also criticizes the RFIA for making it easier for banks to work with crypto, introducing lackluster anti-money laundering controls for decentralized finance and failure to “rein in presidential crypto corruption.”
– Brendan Pedersen
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HEALTH POLICY
Democrats sound alarm on new Medicare pre-approval requirements
First in Punchbowl News: More than a dozen House Democrats are demanding additional information about the Trump administration’s expansion of prior authorization requirements for traditional Medicare.
Traditional Medicare typically didn’t require pre-approval before patients can access services or medication. Democrats, led by Reps. Suzan DelBene (Wash.) and Ami Bera (Calif.), expressed concern that the new program will be burdensome on patients, according to a letter sent to CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz.
“Traditional Medicare has rarely required prior authorization,” the Democrats wrote to Oz. “While prior authorization is often described as a cost-containment strategy, in practice it increases provider burden, takes time away from patients, limits patients’ access to life-saving care, and creates unnecessary administrative burden.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration touted a voluntary pledge from major health insurers to simplify the pre-approval process for Medicare Advantage. But now CMS is planning to roll out a prior authorization program in six states starting in January.
The Democrats wrote that the administration’s celebration of the insurers’ pledge shows a public recognition of “the harm of prior authorization.” The lawmakers urged CMS to cancel the new program and requested information about the implementation.
– Samantha Handler
… AND THERE’S MORE
Effective Governing Coalition, a nonprofit aligned with the New Democrat Coalition, is launching a $600,000 digital ad buy boosting six Democratic incumbents.
The spots, which will run in 15 and 30-second versions, warn that the new Republican tax law boots “almost 17 million Americans off health insurance” to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.
The incumbents getting support all represent swing districts: Reps. Kristen McDonald Rivet (Mich), Josh Harder (Calif.), Derek Tran (Calif.), Gabe Vasquez (N.M.), Laura Gillen (N.Y.) and Janelle Bynum (Ore.).
“Janelle Bynum is fighting back. She says it’s working people who deserve a tax cut,” a narrator says in one of the spots.
EGC was formed in 2024. This is its first-ever ad buy.
– Ally Mutnick
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