Midterm politics take shape

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MIDTERM POLITICS are moving to the forefront as Washington looks ahead to the August recess, with the Trump agenda bill, socialism, culture wars and redistricting efforts set to dominate political discourse when lawmakers return to their home districts.

The House will adjourn Friday and return in September. The Senate will stick around for an additional week, unless Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) bows to President Trump’s demand he cancel the summer break to focus on confirming nominees.

Lawmakers will be using their time back home to get a jump on next year’s elections, and Republicans will be looking to sell the Trump agenda bill to their constituents.

Democrats are already making the polarizing aspects of the bill a focus in the battleground states, with Medicaid cuts taking center stage.

The Hill’s Julia Manchester scoops that the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is targeting voters with social media ads featuring images of receipts showing how much each state is projected to lose in health care and funding, along with how much prices could go up.

This comes after the House and Senate Democratic campaign arms released their first ads of the 2026 midterm cycle attacking Republicans for passing Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

A new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found 64 percent of U.S. adults surveyed said the Republican-led tax and spending bill will do “more to help” wealthy people.

But here’s a fundraising surprise...

Despite headwinds for the GOP, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) outraised the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in the second quarter of 2025.

The DCCC typically out-raises the NRCC.

The Republican National Committee raised almost twice as much as the Democratic National Committee in June.

MEANWHILE...

Republicans plan to run on the Democrats’ leftward turn, personified by New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Some centrist Democrats are worried Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, will become an avatar for Republicans seeking to cast their party as extreme.

“Mamdani isn’t speaking for our party, any more than I’m speaking for our party. It’s a big tent. It’s a big coalition,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“We, Democrats, have a message, and we have a message to deliver," he added. "And I’ll tell you this. The mayor of New York, no matter who he is, is not going to be the leader of our party. And we still need to stay focused on those issues."

Former Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), a former Democrat who became an independent during his final term in office, said he left the party in part because he couldn’t “stomach” what he described as “the socialist trend that’s going on.”

“It’s not the Democratic Party that I knew or that I was a part of for many, many years,” Manchin said on Fox News.

Mamdani met with Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill last week, although House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have not endorsed him.

ELSEWHERE...

Most Democrats would prefer to move on from debate over former President Biden's one term in office, but Biden's son Hunter Biden is out defending his father's legacy.

Hunter Biden told YouTube personality Andrew Callaghan in a lengthy sit-down released Monday that the sleep drug Ambien was to blame for the former president's disastrous debate performance against Trump.

He also unloaded with a string of expletives aimed at actor George Clooney, who was among those calling for his father to drop out of the race.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday posted a montage of Democratic leaders vouching for the then-president's fitness for office to mark the one-year anniversary of Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.

REDISTRICTING WILD CARD

Texas state lawmakers

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