Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
One of Donald Trump’s highest priority bills is on life support in the Senate, and he’s now calling in reinforcements to try and force it across the finish line before the August recess. At least one Republican governor is breaking ranks with the president’s stated plans to have the federal government take over elections. Down south, new numbers show that GOP efforts to dilute Black Americans’ votes are backfiring in a big way. And one leading election forecaster just moved over a dozen races in Democrats’ favor as Republicans continue to fall behind with the midterms less than 100 days away.
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Panicking Trump Tasks His Chief of Staff with Saving His Draconian Voter ID Bill
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles doesn’t usually show up on Capitol Hill. But she recently had a private meeting with Senate Republican Leader John Thune and Majority Whip John Barrasso to try and save Donald Trump’s last-ditch attempt to disrupt the midterms.
Trump’s SAVE Act — which would require voters to bring a passport or birth certificate to the polls just to cast a ballot — hasn’t moved. Republicans still don’t have a way to get the requisite 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster, and there aren’t 50 Republicans willing to support eliminating the filibuster altogether. Aside from the SAVE Act, an Iran war funding bill is also stuck, and two Republican senators are continuing to block his pick for attorney general from being confirmed.
Wiles reportedly asked what it would take to get Trump’s priorities across the finish line. Thune was noncommittal, and has said repeatedly that he simply doesn’t have the votes to kill the filibuster or pass the SAVE Act as written.
Despite Wiles’ hail-mary attempt, there was still no breakthrough. People close to the discussions told Politico the meeting was candid but there was no agreement between the White House and Senate Republicans.
This all happened right before Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley punted the ball on Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche’s confirmation vote. Trump ended up tabling that nomination altogether, saying he’d rather wait until Republican holdouts John Cornyn and Thom Tillis are out of office. Of course, that’s assuming Republicans will still control the Senate, which is an open question as more Americans sour on Trump and his unpopular agenda.
Trump’s patience with Thune is reportedly running thin. But him calling on his chief of staff to pressure senators from his own party simultaneously shows just how much Trump wants the bill passed, and how little of a chance it has of passing.
Republican Governor Speaks Out Against Trump’s Proposed Takeover of Elections
Republican Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma is insisting that states remain in charge of conducting their own elections, without interference from the federal government.
Stitt made sure to follow up his remarks with an expression of support for Trump’s SAVE Act itself, and for the Republican goal of mandatory voter ID laws. But Stitt drew the line when it came to the bigger question of Trump federalizing all elections. He observed that small-government conservatives would likely never be okay with a Democratic president taking over elections in red states, saying “we believe in the federalist system—that’s states’ rights.”
This isn’t the first time Stitt has publicly distanced himself from Trump. In February, he pushed the Trump administration to include Democratic governors in a White House meeting, which led to Trump publicly calling him a “RINO,” or “Republican In Name Only.” And last fall, Stitt publicly criticized Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard into blue states like Illinois.
But Stitt can’t have his cake and eat it too. Oklahoma has already handed over its voter rolls, including personal data, to the Trump Justice Department. So a Republican saying they believe in states’ rights only goes so far if he’s willingly ceding his own voters’ private data over to the federal government. Still, it’s noteworthy that a sitting Republican governor is calling out Trump’s attempt to intrude on elections just months before the midterms.
Republican Redistricting Backfires as Black Voters Show Up in Droves
After the Supreme Court significantly weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act with April’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling, Republican legislatures across the Deep South rushed to redraw their own congressional maps specifically to deny Black voters adequate representation in Congress. Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama all moved fast to redraw maps that sought to weaken Black Americans’ political power. Mississippi’s governor is scrambling to do the same before the midterms.
But according to a new analysis from VoteHub, a data-focused election research group, Republicans may have bit off more than they can chew. In 78 Black Belt counties across the South, all but one shifted further left in partisan turnout compared to 2024.
Alabama experienced the sharpest shift. Greene County saw 50 percent turnout in its primary, a jump of nearly 28 percentage points. Bullock County, which is more than 70 percent Black and sits squarely inside the district Republican lawmakers targeted, had the third-highest turnout in the entire state.
Louisiana showed similar results. Black voters made up almost 36 percent of the primary electorate in the Bayou State’s primary, even though they’re only about 32 percent of the population. Nearly 31 percent of Black voters cast ballots, outpacing white turnout by more than 3 points.
Mississippi and North Carolina provide a convenient contrast, as those states held their primaries before Louisiana v. Callais. In those states, majority-Black counties only outperformed the statewide average by about a single point.
The data is clear: when Republicans go out of their way to erase Black political power, it’s lighting a fire under the very voters they’re trying to sideline, who could in turn show up in record numbers in November and throw out the Republicans who tried to silence them.
Republicans Fall Behind in 14 Crucial Races Across the Country
The University of Virginia’s Crystal Ball, which is one of the most highly regarded election forecasters in the country, just moved 14 congressional races in Democrats’ favor. Republicans are now trailing in thirteen House seats and one Senate race, as they struggle to stay in power amid Trump’s unpopular war with Iran and a lagging economy.
Three districts that used to lean Republican have now been recategorized as tossups: Pennsylvania’s 8th, New York’s 17th, and North Carolina’s 11th. That last one got downgraded partly because the incumbent posted less than ideal fundraising numbers and is currently under an ethics investigation.
Several other Republican seats didn’t flip to tossup status but got shakier anyway. Ohio’s 7th District is now more favorable for Democrats over allegations of domestic abuse lodged by Republican Congressman Max Miller’s ex-wife, which he denies. Texas’ 15th slipped too, with Democrats feeling good about the Latino-heavy South Texas district and the popularity of their candidate, singer Bobby Pulido. Even Lauren Boebert’s Colorado district got downgraded, from safe to merely likely Republican, following a strong quarter of fundraising from her Democratic opponent.
Georgia’s Senate race moved further toward Democrats as well, from lean Democrat to likely Democrat, as incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff is aiming to secure another six-year term.
National data backs this up. A recent Emerson College poll has Democrats up 11 points on the generic ballot, 53 to 42. That’s climbed steadily from the mid-40s just last summer, and is an even more lopsided margin than at this same point in 2018, when Democrats went on to flip 40 Republican seats. Trump’s approval rating remains low, dipping below 40 percent in late July polls.
Crystal Ball isn’t calling this a landslide just yet, as Republicans could still hang on if the GOP’s outside spending advantage makes a difference. But the current forecast has Democrats winning somewhere in the low-to-mid 220-seat range, which would be enough to flip the House and give the speaker’s gavel back to Democrats.
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Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris, with Raw America. Have a great weekend.
Here are a few stories you may have missed:
Trump Choosing MAGA Slush Fund Over Keeping Majorities. President Donald Trump’s stated support for withdrawing the nomination of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche until the next Congress gavels into session suggests the president is placing a higher priority on keeping his controversial taxpayer-funded slush fund for MAGA loyalists alive. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have both said their support for Blanche’s confirmation hinges on Blanche agreeing in writing that the proposed $1.8 billion fund is dead for good. Trump said recently at Camp David that he regretted the fund was all but dead, and doubled down on his stance that many of his supporters were entitled to compensation.
Georgia Republican Senate Candidate Ends Press Conference Over Questions About Aide. Mike Collins — who is the Republican nominee running for U.S. Senate in Georgia — recently ended a press conference early after being peppered with questions from reporters about his son-in-law’s role on his campaign. Collins’ son-in-law is David Scheer II, who CNN recently reported was behind a social media account that regularly posted white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. Collins is running against Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), who is Jewish.
Laura Ingraham’s Brother Mocks Her Over Her Appearance at Fauci Hearing. During Dr. Anthony Fauci’s hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week, Fox News host Laura Ingraham was seen in the background making faces while Fauci spoke. Her estranged brother, Chris Ingraham, responded to the episode by posting a Daily Show video making fun of her, and added: “There are simply no more words!” Chris Ingraham previously called his sister a “monster” in 2018.
Trump Voter Caught Off-Guard After Her Nanny Detained by ICE. Houston, Texas resident Maureen Mendrek-Laske, who is an engineer and a mother of four, is expressing anger at the Trump administration after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained her family’s longtime childcare provider, 64 year-old Joyce Basele. Mendrek-Laske, who voted for Trump in 2024, told Newsweek: “I don't think this is really what I voted for if I was voting for immigration reform,” and added: “I thought we were targeting criminals.”
