Could a Shutdown Really Happen?

Doomsday is Sept. 30. Today is Sept. 25. You do the math. In order to get a deal through the Senate, the two leaders, Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have to agree on the deal. Not only is there no proposed deal and no agreement, but the two gentlemen aren't even talking to each other, despite their having known each other for decades. Each one thinks the other one should take the initiative, even though both of them understand the stakes.

Thune is miffed at Schumer for trying to make an end-run around him. Instead of negotiating with Thune, Schumer tried to arrange a meeting with Thune's boss, Donald J. Trump. Trump said he would do it until he decided not to do it. The meeting never happened. Schumer's view is that Thune needs Democratic votes, so he should reach out. Thune's view is that he offered a clean bill to kick the can down the road for 7 weeks, so Schumer should accept that and they can talk turkey later on. Kick the can is Congress' favorite game, even more popular than the annual congressional baseball game, which raises money for local charities. At least for the baseball games, the players get to wear uniforms of professional or college baseball teams from their home state, so it is fun.

It is not even clear what would happen if they talked, since neither one is budging from his stated position. Thune is accusing Schumer of being hostage to his base. Schumer is accusing Thune of being hostage to Trump and stuck in go-to-hell mode. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said: "I don't think they have been sharing hugs." Not only that, but they actually haven't had a meeting since Thune was chosen as majority leader. They don't have a history of a working relationship. In contrast, Schumer and former leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had a good working relationship. They didn't agree on many issues, but each one respected the other one as doing what his caucus wanted. These days, by contrast, when something absolutely has to be done, Thune and Schumer have their top staffers work it out. Actually, Thune has ceded most of the talks about the required government funding bills to the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Susan Collins (R-ME). She is optimistic that something will be worked out. At least that is better than being concerned.

A key calculation that both leaders have made is who will get the blame if the government shuts down. As long as each one thinks the other party will get blamed, they will continue to play the game of chicken with a steely determination to win at all costs.

Schumer has an additional problem that Thune doesn't have: his own base. The last time this happened, in March, he caved and his base was furious with him for not putting up a fight. He doesn't want a repeat performance. He is also getting a message from Democrats running for the Senate. In Maine, for example, there are seven Democrats running against Collins, the most endangered Republican, and four of them have pledged not to support Schumer as leader if they win. The other three are keeping quiet on this. In Illinois, three Democrats are running for the seat Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is vacating. None of them are willing to commit to voting for Schumer. In Iowa, where Sen. Joni "Well, we all are going to die" Ernst (R-IA) is retiring to go back to castrating hogs, two of the Democratic hopefuls said they would not support Schumer. One of them, Nathan Sage, even said "Hell, no."

Politico spoke to 18 Democratic challengers in Senate races. Ten said they would not vote for Schumer as leader and eight refused to answer the question. That's not much of a vote of confidence.

Schumer also has to keep in mind his own future. If he blows this one and his base becomes furious with him, the pressure on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to challenge him in 2028 will be enormous. In one poll, she is leading him 55% to 36% in a theoretical Senate primary. She is a very savvy politician and will very likely get in if he stumbles. Most likely Schumer will then "retire" to avoid an ignominious defeat by a young woman. On the other hand, if he can win the Battle of the Shutdown and force Trump to give him a major policy win on something his base cares about, he might survive in 2028. But Trump hates him and getting a win won't be easy. We think Schumer's days are numbered. (V)

Voters Think the Country is on the Wrong Track

Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill may have been right in his day when he said "All politics is local." It sure isn't true anymore. The majority of Republicans would vote for Jack the Ripper (R) for Congress and the majority of Democrats would vote for the Boston Strangler (D). All that matters for true partisans, at least in House races, is the party label. For the Senate, it is less so because Senate candidates are much better known than House candidates and quality matters somewhat. When the president is underwater, independents tend to have a "throw the bums out" view and vote for the other party. When most people think the country is on the wrong track, it is the president's party that gets blamed. That is why pollsters ask: "Is the country on the right track or the wrong track?"

In this light, the September Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll does not look good for the Republicans right now. It shows that 28% of adults think the country is on the right track and 60% say it is on the wrong track. That is net -32 points, not a great showing for the party holding the trifecta. On the generic House ballot, among likely voters, the Democrat is ahead 50% to 45%.

On other questions, it is not much brighter for Republicans. Donald Trump's approval is underwater by 13 points, with 42% approve and 55% disapprove. On most issues, Trump is also underwater. A full 73% say law enforcement should not be able to detain people based on race, workplace, or language, with only 19% being fine with those factors. Deployment of the National Guard in cities is 14 points under water, 37% approve to 51% disapprove. Trump's policies are seen to be making the economy worse, with 53% agreeing with that and 24% saying his policies are improving the economy. His tariffs are underwater by 24 points (34% to 58%). If there is a shutdown, 34% will blame the Republicans, 23% the Democrats, and 34% both. Only on border security is Trump above water, 52% to 44%. All in all, if the House election is nationalized, it doesn't look promising for the Republicans. Gerrymandering will help somewhat, but if the electorate is D+5, the gerrymandering probably won't be enough to save the House because there are still swing districts that would go blue (see below).

A new Gallup poll tells a similar story. When asked whether they were satisfied with the nation's direction, 29% said yes and 67% said no, for a net -38%. In June it was only -31%, so the mood is darkening. The partisan breakdown is striking, with 68% of Republicans, 23% of independents, and 1% of Democrats happy with how things are going.

And then there is a new Quinnipiac University poll that says 79% of voters think the U.S. is in a political crisis. Generally, when people think there is a crisis, they tend not to vote for "more of the same."

The Senate is less sensitive to the popular mood than the House, but by a president's second term, enough grievances have accumulated to flip it. The most recent analogy to 2026 is 2014, in Barack Obama's second term. His party lost 9 seats in the Senate then, as shown below:

A flip of nine seats is unthinkable next year. Back in 2014, there were many moderate Democrats in the Senate from red(dish) states. They were all swept away. Now the only incumbent on the ballot who is the "wrong" color state is Susan Collins. Still, if all the stars align absolutely perfectly, the Democrats might be able to flip six states: Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Conceivably even Florida in a blue tsunami, because appointed senators like Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) have a poor track record. But getting even four states to flip (and thus gaining control of the Senate) would require a very big blue wave. That said, these things do correlate with one another, so if, say, Iowa flips, there's a good chance Ohio flips as well. (V)

Democratic Group Is Going after House Republicans on Tariffs and Prices

Democrats realize that if they want to constrain Donald Trump at all, they must capture at least one chamber of Congress next year. The super PAC House Majority Forward, which is aligned with the House Democratic leadership, is on the air already with a $3 million campaign running on TV and the Internet. It is focused on ten especially vulnerable Republicans and is hitting them hard on their failure to lower prices and their votes to make health care more expensive. Here are the target incumbents:

District	PVI	Incumbent
PA-08	R+4	Rob Bresnahan (R)
IA-01	R+4	Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R)
PA-10	R+3	Scott Perry (R)
WI-03	R+3	Derrick Van Orden (R)
IA-03	R+2	Zach Nunn (R)
CA-22	R+1	David Valadao (R)
AZ-06	EVEN	Juan Ciscomani (R)
CO-08	EVEN	Gabe Evans (R)
MI-07	EVEN	Tom Barrett (R)
NY-17	D+1	Mike Lawler (R)

All 10 of these could flip if the wind is blowing the right way. Although it is not emotionally satisfying to attack Republicans on the price of eggs (going after their support for ending democracy would feel much better), polls show that the voters would happily give up democracy to get the price of eggs down a dollar. So the ads are all about Donald Trump's promise to lower prices, his failure to do so, and the potential for his tariffs to raise them even more. That is what the voters care about. And you go to elections with the electorate you have, not the electorate you might want or wish to have at a later time.

The ads vary by district. The one in Wisconsin going after Van Orden features Wisconsin-based influencer Kate Duffy. It is designed to look like a social media post, even though it is airing on TV. Here it is:

The point will have to be hammered on. Even though voters don't like Trump on tariffs and know he promised and failed to lower prices, some polls show Republicans are preferred to Democrats on the economy. This could be because while voters dislike Trump's policies, they hate the Democrats' policies even more. (V)

There Are No Paper Bears

On Tuesday, Donald Trump said that Ukraine could take back all the territory that Russia has won in its 3½-year-long war on Ukraine. He also called Russia a paper tiger. If he really means it, it would be a 180-degree reverse from February, when he told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he had no cards. But maybe it was just a random meaningless bleat and tomorrow Trump will reverse his position again.

Nevertheless, Russia has reacted to Trump's remark. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "Russia is in no way a tiger. Still, Russia is more compared with a bear. There are no paper bears." Peskov also said that Trump's attempt to block the sale of Russian oil and gas is just to boost American sales.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was even worse. He said Trump had been given a dose of alternative reality. Then he added: "I have no doubt—he will come back. He always comes back. The main thing is to radically change your point of view on various issues more often. And everything will be fine. That's the essence of successful government through social media." Margarita Simonyan, head of the Russian "news" channel RT, compared Trump to a carnival huckster. She tweeted: "Trump debuts as the tarot card reader telling the thrice-divorced lady that she is going to meet that billionaire prince after all, as long as she buys the magic crystals." None of these people would dare say these things without having first cleared them with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

So it seems that Trump's bromance with Putin may actually be over. During Trump v1.0, Trump was Putin's lapdog. What happened? We don't know. Our best guess is that at the Alaska meeting Trump told Putin to end the war in Ukraine so he could get the Nobel Peace Prize and Putin said NYET, loudly and often. Trump could have been shocked anyone would dare say that to him. If the relationship between the two has truly soured (and that remains to be seen), it is of great geopolitical importance, for Ukraine, for NATO, and for Trump's relationship with hawkish Republicans in Congress. But that is a big "if." (V)

Daylight Appears Between Trump and Vance

Very uncharacteristically, J.D. Vance has taken a different position than Donald Trump on a hot issue. Trump has warned pregnant women not to take Tylenol or any other brand of acetaminophen except maybe in an emergency. Just suck it up and be in pain. There is close to no evidence that there is even a correlation between pregnant women taking acetaminophen and their fetuses developing autism and zero evidence that acetaminophen causes autism, despite what Dr. Trump said.

Vance has now taken a different position. He said that if a pregnant woman is in pain or has a fever, she should ask her doctor what to do. He said that all drugs have side effects and doctors can best determine what is best for their patients.

This is one of the few times that Vance has clearly stated something different from Trump. There can be little doubt that this has something to do with his 2028 presidential campaign. Is he going to run in the "mostly like Trump but not as whackadoodle" lane? That could be the plan. He is much more calculating than Trump and doesn't say crazy things by accident. When Vance does say something crazy, like Haitians eating cats and dogs in Ohio, he knows exactly what he is saying, why he is saying it, and what the effect will be (usually to draw attention to himself). Maybe he is expecting the other Republican primary candidates to try to out-crazy each other and he will be the one who supports Trump's policies but is otherwise more or less sane. There could be a market for that, we don't know.

Yesterday in North Carolina, Vance said that at the funeral of Charlie Kirk, when Trump said he hated his enemies, he was joking. Is this also an attempt by Vance to ever-so-slightly distance himself from Trump's position, or is Vance simply confusing Trump with Jimmy Kimmel, who rarely hates but often tells jokes? Just keep in mind that Vance is very calculating and doesn't say things without thinking about his next campaign. It will be interesting to see if there are other times going forward where Trump has said something completely nutty or unpopular and Vance comes out with a much more digestible position. (V)

The No on Proposition 50 Campaign Has Spent $30 Million So Far

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) wants to take temporary control for drawing the district maps in California from the independent commission and give it to the state legislature so it can flip five Republican House seats. But the state Constitution forbids this, so he has gotten the legislature to write a constitutional amendment to do this. However, the voters have to approve it in Nov. 2025. The initiative is called Proposition 50, even though it is the only proposition on the ballot. The official name is the "Election Rigging Response Act." Democrats support "Yes on 50" and Republicans support "No on 50." If it passes, it will cancel out what Texas has done in the way of midterm gerrymandering. Recent polling puts support in the low 50s.

Republicans are going all out to kill it. Megadonor Charles Munger Jr. has spent $30 million in the past month in an effort to defeat the measure. He was (and still is) actually in favor of "good government," although he is also a Republican. He thinks independent commissions are a good idea. Although he regrets what Texas has done, he doesn't want California to go down the same road.

Munger is unusual in that he gets down in the weeds. He has a Ph.D. in physics from Berkeley, and that's how it goes with those types. Most big donors leave the details to the pros, but Munger greatly influences the content. However, he is 69 and probably not so much in touch with how the kids think these days. His main ad shows a hand carefully carving wood blocks that spell out FAIR ELECTIONS. Then a kettlebell falls on them and smashes them.

Republican strategists don't like Munger's style. They say it doesn't grab everyone's attention, the way Newsom does. Running a boring TV ad doesn't hack it anymore, but Munger is stuck in the 1980s. His campaign, Protect Voters First, has posted on social media exactly three times this month. It has 62 followers on eX-Twitter and 11 on Facebook. The campaign spokesperson dismissed comparisons with Newsom's very online tactics and said it is not competing with Newsom. That's clearly true. (V)

Will the Supreme Court Revisit Same-Sex Marriage?

In 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruled that a man could marry another man and a woman could marry another woman, nationwide, regardless of state laws banning same. Conservatives were up in arms and have never accepted this. They think that in this term, the Supreme Court may be poised to undo what they consider depravity. They could be right. After all, the Court revoked Roe v. Wade after 50 years and Obergefell is only 10 years old.

University of Baltimore Law Professor Kimberly Wehle has written an opinion piece explaining how and why this might happen. The bottom line is this: There is a case being appealed to the Court now that it could take and use as a vehicle for repealing Obergefell and the votes might be there. In 2015, the votes for the decision came from justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. The latter three are no longer on the Court. The no votes were John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Antonin Scalia. Of these, the first three are still on the Court. Assuming no one has changed his or her mind, there are probably two votes to keep Obergefell and three votes to repeal it. Since then, there has been one Democratic appointee (Ketanji Brown Jackson) and three Republican appointees (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett). If everyone votes the party line, there are probably six votes there to repeal Obergefell.

There is another change since 2015 besides membership in the Court. Back then, the standard for deciding cases was always the actual words in the Constitution, not the intent of some law or what Congress had in mind. Since Dobbs, the standard is now history and tradition. If something has always been done a certain way, then that is how it should be done, and vice-versa. Since abortion has been illegal in most states for most of history, that is how it should be, and Roe was tossed aside as a weird outlier.

If the history and tradition test is applied to same-sex marriage, it is likely to fail because same-sex marriage was illegal in most states for most of U.S. history. There is no history or tradition for it, so it can't possibly be a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Thus, it will be easy for the Court to rule, there is no federal right to same-sex marriages. In that case, it will be up to the states, the same as abortion, and there will be a patchwork of conflicting laws. A key issue will then become whether states that don't allow such marriages will be required to honor marriages done in states that do honor them. Art. IV of the Constitution does require states to honor each other's laws and institutions, but that has never been tested the way it will be if Obergefell is cast aside. Also, will a same-sex couple in California be able to file a joint federal tax return? What happens if they move to Texas?

The vehicle that the Court could use to upend Obergefell could be a case filed by former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because that violated her religious beliefs. Lawsuits followed, including a $100,000 judgment against her. She is asking the Court to overturn Obergefell and thus the judgment. The Court could easily determine (by a 6-3 vote), that Davis' First Amendment right to practice her religion in the workplace is more important than anything else.

There are some precedents here. In 2022, the Court held that a public-school football coach had the right to pray with his players after a game. Also in 2022, it held Maine's offer of tuition assistance to nonreligious schools in remote areas violated the rights of parents who wanted money to send their kids to religious schools, even schools whose explicit mission was to get each unsaved student to "follow Christ as Lord of his/her life." In 2023, Gorsuch wrote a majority opinion saying that a Colorado law banning discrimination against gay people was unconstitutional because a website designer was worried that some day a gay couple would ask her to design a wedding site for them and that would violate her religious beliefs. That is so wrong on many fronts, especially since the Court almost never rules on cases that haven't even happened yet. Normally such a case would happen only when a gay couple asked her to design a website and she refused and they sued. In any case, the point is that there is reason to suspect that the Court is just itching to get rid of Obergefell.

The stakes here are enormous, and not just for gay couples. If this one goes by the wayside, then precedent no longer matters and the next time the Court has a Democratic majority (for example, if a future Democratic Congress decides to expand the Court), the Court could reinstate Obergefell. Then the next Republican majority could throw it out again. In effect, the whole concept of the rule of law goes out the window. All that matters is which party currently has a majority on the Supreme Court. We don't know for sure, but we suspect this is not exactly what James Madison had in mind when he wrote the Constitution. Especially since the courts were kind of an afterthought (Art. III). (V)

Generational Change May Get Tested in the Massachusetts Senate Primary

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is 79. He wants another term, at the end of which he would be 86. Democrats are yearning for new blood and may get their chance to vote for it in deep-blue Massachusetts. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) is a 46-year-old Marine Corps veteran who is gearing up to challenge Markey in a primary next year. He is now busy interviewing and hiring campaign staff. If he just wanted to stay in his D+11 House district, he wouldn't have to do anything. Just show up in the House, help constituents, and coast to another term easily.

In a Markey-Moulton race, generational change would be the main issue, but not the only one. Markey was a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Moulton is liberal but deviates from party dogma on at least one issue. He has said: "I have two little girls; I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I'm supposed to be afraid to say that." For some Democrats, the issue of trans athletes is a litmus test. The problem is that, like it or not, polls show that almost 70% of U.S. adults agree with Moulton on this subject. In a Moulton-Markey primary race, the issue would surely be a major one, but it might not be the deciding issue, since Democrats are roughly evenly split, with 45% being for athletes playing on the team of their current gender and 41% being for birth gender being determinative. In that case, the generational issue might be the tiebreaker. (V)

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