Good evening. President Trump is weighing whether to intensify the military assault on Iran. We’re looking at how this escalating conflict might shape the midterms.
A summer of war could shape the fall elections
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated the cost of the Iran war so far to be $37.5 billion, and the Trump administration has requested billions more. On Wednesday, President Trump watched in Dover, Del., as the bodies of four soldiers killed overseas returned to American soil. On Thursday, global oil prices hit $100 per barrel for the first time since May. And today, the United States and Iran traded fresh attacks across the region. The increasingly unpopular war in Iran — a conflict Trump has repeatedly sought to declare over — has become a stubborn fixture of the summer, forcing Republicans into the unenviable position of playing defense on the issue with only three and a half months before Election Day. “We got to wrap it up,” Speaker Mike Johnson said this week. Trump has swung between attempts to minimize the war — he called it a “skirmish” during a rally in Atlanta on Wednesday — and threats to ramp it up further, saying yesterday that he is considering launching a “massive attack.” Today, we’ll look at the political dimensions of a war the president is struggling to end. The war is unpopular, even among Republicans.A poll released last week by The Washington Post and Ipsos found that only 29 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the war in Iran. A poll this week from Politico found that enthusiasm for the war is waning even among Trump’s MAGA base. In May, a similar poll found that half of self-identified MAGA voters wanted the war to continue, even if it increased costs in the United States. That figure had fallen 13 percentage points by mid-July. “The administration had hoped that this would be a quick and decisive operation, and clearly it’s now dragging on,” Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist, told me. “It is a liability for the party.” Republicans are likely to hear from their constituents about the war as they head back to their districts for summer break. Democrats are going on the attack.Democrats are eager to turn the war into a centerpiece of their messaging in the midterms, in part by highlighting its cost and its effect on gas prices as they work to hammer home a message focused on affordability. That strategy is already taking shape across the country:
Republicans say those attacks won’t stick. “Democrats ignored Iran for years, emboldening a terrorist regime that wants to decimate our country,” Natalie Baldassarre, the national press secretary for the Republican National Committee, said. “Despite Democrats’ attempts to deflect, inflation is lower than under Biden. While the left flounders on messaging, Republicans are laser focused on the midterms as we cut taxes, strengthen our national security, and keep our communities safe.” Republicans are divided.Perhaps more alarming for Republicans than the Democrats’ attacks is the fact that the war appears to be fracturing their own coalition. In Washington this week, four Republicans — Representatives Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voted in favor of the war powers resolution that Lawler and most other Republicans rejected. It was a rare show of defiance by Barrett, Davidson and Fitzpatrick, who will all face voters this fall; Massie lost his primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed opponent. The war has also angered far-right figures like Tucker Carlson who are deeply opposed to foreign intervention. “It’s been kind of civil war-y over on the conservative team since this whole thing got launched,” Megyn Kelly told Vice President JD Vance on her YouTube show last month. Some Republicans worry that those divisions will dampen the enthusiasm of their base voters, potentially keeping them home for the November elections that have seemed to fire up Democrats. “You’re always worried about having an enthusiastic base heading into a midterm election,” Williams said.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “As you can clearly see, I wasn’t exactly my party’s pick.”That’s Amish Shah, a moderate Democrat who prevailed in his Arizona congressional primary on Tuesday over a different moderate Democrat who was heavily backed by the House Democratic campaign arm. Shah’s victory, my colleague Katie Glueck writes, was the third primary defeat since June for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has intensified its interventions in high-profile contested House primaries. His win freshly illustrated the limits — and drawbacks — of Washington’s attempts to wield influence at a moment of fierce anti-establishment sentiment. Got a tip?
Democrats vote for South Carolina to vote first in the 2028 primaryA Democratic National Committee panel has voted to make South Carolina the first state to vote in the 2028 presidential primary, after a lobbying push that at times fractured Democrats along racial, geographic and ideological lines. Party officials voted today for six states to hold primaries before Super Tuesday, which will be held in early March 2028. The preliminary calendar would go as follows:
My colleagues Shane Goldmacher and Aishvarya Kavi have more.
SOUTH CAROLINA DISPATCH Behind the scenes of Trump’s Darline Graham endorsementIt surprised the political world when President Trump endorsed Darline Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, to run as a permanent replacement for her brother. An uncharacteristically emotional meeting at the White House was a key turning point, my colleague Emily Davies reports. I asked her to tell us what happened. Until the meeting, President Trump had his eye on a little-known House member, Russell Fry, whom he saw as a loyal MAGA foot soldier. The White House was considering endorsing Fry for the special Republican primary election, which is scheduled for Aug. 11. But then Darline Graham, the late senator’s sister, walked into the White House less than a week after her brother’s death. She asked the president, who has been unusually emotional about the sudden loss of Graham, what he thought about her running for the seat. Trump held in his hand a list of people eligible to run for the Senate seat in South Carolina. Then he told those gathered in the Oval Office that he hated some people on the list, liked others, but loved only one candidate, and that was Graham, two people familiar with the conversation said. He endorsed her the next day. Read the rest of Emily’s report from Columbia, S.C.
ONE LAST THING Trump’s culture czar is an ‘artist first,’ conservative secondMatthew Taylor is a Marcel Duchamp devotee with a degree in sculpture. He is a filmmaker behind right-wing documentaries produced by Steve Bannon and Kash Patel. He is a campaign strategist who hosts podcasts and makes music videos. And now, he is responsible for helping fulfill Trump’s desire to overhaul the capital’s cultural institutions. “An artist first and then he is a conservative,” Bannon calls Taylor. “We don’t have enough of those people on our side.” Read more from my colleague Zachary Small. Taylor Robinson contributed reporting. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up |
