Putting Paxton’s primary run-off victory in perspective, he got less than 886 thousand votes, compared to more than a million votes that Jame Talarico got in his Democratic primary. Adam Wren and Irie Sentner write in “James Talarico’s theory of victory in Texas” that “Recent internal polling from a pro-Talarico PAC shows the Democrat has a 7-point lead against Paxton…But Talarico faces a Texas-sized challenge to finally deliver on Democrats’ long-held fantasy of flipping the state, just two years after Trump won it by 14 points…Talarico said Tuesday night that to win in November, he must convert supporters of Sen. John Cornyn — a conservative by almost any metric, except Trump’s. After Cornyn conceded, Talarico thanked the four-term incumbentfor his service and told his supporters “you have a place in our campaign.”…“I have a legislative record that I think has a lot to offer supporters of Senator Cornyn. Ken Paxton has a criminal record. I have a legislative record,” Talarico told POLITICO (Paxton struck a deal in 2024 where he paid restitution and securities fraud felony charges were dropped). He emphasized his history reaching across the aisle “to cut property taxes and raise teacher pay and lower the cost of housing and child care and prescription drugs,” and touted his willingness to break with Democrats on issues including energy and the border that are important in Texas.” More here.
“A combination of factors including bad weather, tariffs and a dwindling cattle herd are already pushing up grocery prices at an above-average pace,” Mark Niquette and Lauren Rosenthal write in “Americans Are About to Pay Even More at the Grocery Store” at Bloomberg, via Yahoo Finance. “In April, they rose by the most in nearly four years, and economists say the impact of the Iran war and a potential El Niño weather pattern will only add to pressures into 2027…The hit to US household finances from higher grocery bills is set to intensify just ahead of the November midterm elections, amplifying affordability as a defining issue. And to a greater extent than the surge in gas prices, the slower-moving food shock will be difficult to reverse quickly because the size of autumn harvests is determined by planting decisions made in the spring…“It’s going to be a challenging year,” said Ricky Volpe, an agribusiness professor at California Polytechnic State University who previously worked at the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. “Food is going to become less affordable, and consumers should be prepared for it.”…The latest USDA food price outlook, published Friday, projected a 3.2% advance in grocery prices this year, while Volpe said he expects inflation more on the order of 4% to 4.5%…Then there’s the war, which has brought a massive shock to global fertilizer markets due to the Middle East’s role as a major supplier of inputs…Prices of fertilizer are up 20% since the war began, according to a Green Markets index for North America. That will likely mean higher prices come harvest time, and if farmers decide to scale back applications, that would also leave crops less able to withstand heat, drought or flooding…At the same time, household debt is rising, the personal saving rate is falling, and real average hourly earnings fell in the 12 months through April for the first time in three years. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published data Wednesday indicating a “meaningful” increase in measures of food insecurity between October 2025 and February 2026.” More here.
Forward Blue has an e-bast message entitled “The Flippable Five,” in which they write “there are FIVE Republican-held seats where Democrats can win. Right now, with the right resources, the right organizing, and enough people coming together to fuel the fight, Democrats will WIN…Here’s the plan:
🔴 FLIP North Carolina: Roy Cooper is one of the most popular Democrats in the South. He built a coalition that wins in a state Republicans have taken for granted for a decade. This race is winnable.
🔴 FLIP Maine: Graham Platner is running hard in a state where Democrats have been closing the gap. Independent voters are reachable here. We just have to show up.
🔴 FLIP Ohio: Sherrod Brown won Ohio three times as a Democrat. He knows how to talk to working-class voters, union households, and small towns the party has written off. Republicans know this race scares them.
🔴 FLIP Alaska: Mary Peltola has already proved the skeptics wrong once. She’s a proven winner in a state that shouldn’t be competitive. It is. She’s proof.
🔴 FLIP Texas: James Talarico is running hard, raising real money, and building the kind of ground game that turns “longshot” into “wait, did we just flip Texas?”
Republican super PACs already know these races are prime targets for us. They are not waiting. Right now, dark money groups are pulling together tens of millions of dollars to bury every single one of these candidates before Election Day. The infrastructure is already being built to poison these races before Democrats have a chance to define them…We are not going to let that happen without a fight…But here’s the honest truth: spring and summer are when these races are won or lost. June ad buys cost half what they cost in October, registration drives launched now reach the voters who actually decide close elections, and organizers hired this summer have six months to build the relationships that turn out the people who only vote when someone they trust asks them to…If we wait until fall, we are handing Republicans a six-month head start. That is not a gap we can close with October money. Here is their contributions page.
In “Trump Blurts Out Plot to Rig Midterms after Humiliating Fox Poll Hits,” Greg Sargent writes at The New Republic: “Donald Trump just got hit with an absolutely crushing poll from Fox News. Disapproval of his handling of the economy is at an all-time high. His ratings on inflation are staggeringly awful. Historically friendly voter groups—whites, rural Americans, the working class—are all turning away from him in surprising numbers. It’s no accident that on Thursday, Trump let out a rambling diatribe, demanding Republicans pass his onerous voter suppression legislation. Critically, Trump said straight out that if they do, Democrats will “never be elected again.” Trump admittedthat the whole point of his bill is to ensure one-party rule in perpetuity, in the GOP’s favor—exactly why he wants it passed before the midterms. We talked to MS NOW opinion editor James Downie, author of a piece on Trump’s deepening unpopularity. We discuss why Trump is losing his base and the new voters he won in 2024, what opportunities that offers Democrats, whether the bottom is really falling out for good, and why Trump can’t cheat his way out this time. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.”
