Breaking: Democrats Take Largest Lead on Congressional Ballot in 30 Years

A Fox News poll bodes well for Democrats, and Trump is trapped in Iran.

Hey, Raw America family. Welcome to the Sunday Wrapup. I’m here with my cup of coffee, and for once I want to tell you about something good that happened at Fox.

Thank you again for being a paying subscriber. This week, your support won us approval from the Senate Press Gallery for Raw America to have a Congressional correspondent. It also meant we could deliver an exclusive on Havana Syndrome that no billionaire-owned outlet would touch.

Fox News Told On Itself

Something happened Wednesday that should’ve led every newscast in America, and it came from the last place you’d expect.

Fox News released its own poll. Not one Fox covered: one Fox commissioned, conducted by its own bipartisan polling team, published under its own banner. The numbers were so bad that Bret Baier and Brit Hume went on air and lamented them.

Democrats lead 53 to 46 on the generic congressional ballot. Fifty-three is the highest figure either party has recorded on that question in Fox polling since 1996. Not the highest for Democrats; the highest for anybody, in thirty years.

Democrats lead by nine on who’s trusted with the economy, the widest edge either party has held in twenty years. By 22 points on income inequality. By 21 points on healthcare. By 10 points on inflation. And Republicans are losing their advantage on immigration, a signature issue they’ve run on for a decade.

Four in ten told Fox they want “dramatic” or “revolutionary” change.

Here’s what should keep Republicans up at night. More voters now see the Republican Party as the party tied to elites. Not Democrats. Elites now means the party of Epstein, the party of corruption, the party of Trump pardons exchanged for crime.

And it isn’t just one poll from Fox. Emerson College polling surveyed 1,100 likely voters the same week and found Democrats up 11. That’s up from 10 in June, nine in May, six in January, two in December.

Five straight months of polls moving in one direction: toward Democrats.

A single poll can be noise. A series of polls is a wave.

Trump Quietly Amassing More Troops Near Iran

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published a piece that put us as a fly on the wall in the White House. The paper revealed that in a recent Oval Office meeting, Trump went off on Iran’s leaders, deriding them as scumbags and lunatics. The war is in its fifth month; he thought it would take weeks.

Every exit he built has collapsed. He announced a ceasefire in April, right after threatening to end Iran’s civilization. In June, he signed a memo to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which was worth less than the paper it was written on. A senior official now says he’s stopped believing negotiations can work at all, and describes him as being in revenge mode.

Here’s the cost. More than a dozen American service members are dead. Oil is back to nearly $100 and gas futures are approaching recent highs. On Wednesday, the Houthis fired on two Saudi tankers. The Pentagon is moving troops into the region so Trump has more ways to escalate.

Escalate?

Trump also announced new tariffs this week. The 10-year Treasury bond, which dictates mortgage rates, hit the highest point of Trump’s second term. Mortgage rates will likely break seven percent, more than double their lows after the pandemic.

Trump is trying to change the subject. On Wednesday, he attended the dignified transfer of four dead service members, then flew to Georgia to promise a high school crowd that costs were coming down (a lie). Congressman Michael McCaul put his own president’s thinking plainly: Trump figures he gave peace a chance, so he’s back to Plan A, the military operation.

That’s not a strategy. That’s a man out of ideas, a hundred days before voters get their say.

Trump’s Justice Department Just Blinked

This week, Trump’s Justice Department was humiliated in open court. After hand-delivering subpoenas to three New York Times reporters — and targeting the phone records of one reporter’s mother and two spouses — his DOJ was forced to withdraw their attacks.

The Times reporters were subpoenaed over their coverage of the Qatari-gifted Air Force One. Specifically, they reported that Trump flew home from the NATO summit in Turkey on his original jet because the new one lacked the missile countermeasures the Secret Service desired.

Then came the hearing in Manhattan federal court. Judge Arun Subramanian told the Justice Department he would quash the subpoenas himself if the government didn’t withdraw them voluntarily.

U.S. law requires prosecutors to show they exhausted every other avenue before going after journalists directly. When pressed, the DOJ admitted it hadn’t. Then they withdrew the requests. David McCraw, deputy general counsel for the Times, called it an important First Amendment victory.

Two details, though, keep this concerning. The subpoenas were issued by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, whom Trump has nominated to be director of national intelligence. They were signed off on by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom Trump wants confirmed permanently.

If the Senate confirms both men, they will control surveillance and law enforcement powers far beyond what they had when they came after three reporters and somebody’s mother.

We’ll watch and see what happens next.

Thanks for Supporting The Independent Press

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— John Byrne / Founder, Raw America and Raw Story