Is This the Oddest Democrat in Congress?

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Inside Washington

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has made quite the reputation for herself in Congress. She wanders the halls in outfits noticeably more stylish than those of her colleagues and crusades for issues like removing Red Delicious apples from school lunches, allowing pictures to be used in legislation, and culling sea lions. She’s also drawn the ire of Democratic leaders for siding with Republicans on key votes.

Now, Gluesenkamp Perez is facing a tight race in one of the most important districts for Democrats to hold this year, Washington’s 3rd congressional district. She was just one point behind her Republican opponent, state Senator John Braun, in a recent poll of 500 likely voters—well within the poll’s margin of error. Five percent of those surveyed remain undecided. The swing district voted for President Donald Trump in all three of his elections, while also voting for Gluesenkamp Perez in two of those elections. A plurality of voters surveyed, 35 percent, consider themselves more independent than aligned with either party. 

In the state’s open primary in late August, Braun received 39.7 percent of the vote to Gluesenkamp Perez’s 36.4 percent. Gluesenkamp Perez’s progressive challenger, Brent Hennrich, garnered 16.7 percent of the vote. Experts say that Hennrich voters are likely to vote for Gluesenkamp Perez, though some could stay home if they strongly oppose some of her more controversial votes—like her support for Israel or her “yes” vote on the Trump-backed SAVE Act.

“In some ways, I would call her a throwback,” said Mark Stephan, an associate professor of political science at Washington State University, about Gluesenkamp Perez. “It used to be that representatives around the country, going back 30, 40, 50 years, were Democrat, Republican, but they were also really tuned into their district.” 

Braun, he said, reflects this same district-focused governance. “In some respects, he is the slightly conservative reflection of MGP,” Stephan said. If elected, “I think he would do basically what she’s done but be slightly more conservative about it.” 

Before facing Braun, Gluesenkamp Perez twice beat Republican Joe Kent, who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center from 2025 to 2026. But, said John Horvick, a senior vice president at DHM Research, “John Braun is not Joe Kent.” Stephan echoed that. Kent, he explained, “tried to run what I would call a national Republican campaign, meaning that he just tried to appeal to Republicans as Trump voters, as Republicans writ large, and didn’t focus as much on the local stuff.” Braun’s focus on local issues makes him a more competitive opponent for Gluesenkamp Perez.

The local issues that Braun and Gluesenkamp Perez focus on are as varied as the district itself. The district covers the southwest corner of the state, just across the river from Portland, Oregon. Its biggest city is Vancouver, which is surrounded by the Clark County suburbs. But the district also includes rural apple orchards and industrial communities. One such community, Longview, suffered a major industrial disaster in May, when a chemical tank at a paper mill imploded during a shift change. Eleven workers died. In the aftermath of the disaster, Gluesenkamp Perez was present in the community at press conferences and conversations with local leaders. She also spearheaded a bill to restore funding for the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which is the agency in charge of identifying the cause of the deadly implosion. It’s unclear how the disaster and its aftermath will affect the race, Stephan said; it depends on whether Longview residents think Gluesenkamp Perez did enough to support their community. 

Another example of Gluesenkamp Perez’s focus on local issues is her crusade against sea lions. Killing these animals, she says, is necessary to protect endangered salmon and steelhead runs in the area. She has pushed for the district’s Native American residents to kill sea lions directly, rather than relying on expensive federal removal programs. She’s also focused on supporting right to repair policies and played up her work in an auto shop.

Experts stressed that the district could swing either way, particularly with a strong Republican candidate like Braun. But Gluesenkamp Perez’s ability to buck the party when necessary could be a major boon to her reelection. “She is willing to throw some mud and poke her finger in the eyes of the Democratic Party,” Horvick said. So far, that’s been a winning strategy in southwest Washington.

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

A KFF poll released on Tuesday finds voter trust of Democrats over Republicans when it comes to managing health care costs has grown since its last survey in April. Back then, 37 percent said they trusted Democrats and 26 percent said they trusted Republicans. Now those numbers are 42 percent and 22 percent. It’s reasonable to assume that the effects of the Obamacare subsidies that Republican lawmakers opted to let expire, as well as projected premium increases next year, are affecting those numbers. Also interesting is that 66 percent of respondents said they support Medicare for All, although that number can change depending on whether they’re presented with arguments for or against this type of policy. 

Speaking of health care, sort of: A New York City aesthetician recently pleaded guilty to a series of federal charges related to her importing “bootleg Botox” and administering it to clients, one of whom was subsequently hospitalized. It’s illegal for aestheticians to administer Botox in New York, but this is not the first aesthetician to be accused of shooting people up with a counterfeit. Incidentally, in 2025, a Republican-sponsored bill to prevent aestheticians from administering Botox without medical supervision passed the Texas House by an over three-to-one margin with bipartisan support and unanimously passed the Texas Senate, only for Republican Governor Greg Abbott to veto it, calling it “unnecessary and overly burdensome” for businesses. The most recent poll of the Texas gubernatorial race shows Abbott and Democrat Gina Hinojosa neck and neck: Hinojosa’s three-point lead was within the margin of error.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

At 5 p.m. on Wednesday, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will hold a virtual event discussing the implications of Israel’s upcoming elections. From the event summary: “What will the Israeli election reveal about the country’s changing political landscape? Might a new government represent a change in Israel’s approach to Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and the broader region, or largely continue the trajectory of recent years? And what might the outcome mean for Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, its neighbors, and the United States?” Speakers will include Maha Yahya, Aaron David Miller, Nathan J. Brown, Amjad Iraqi, and Tahani Mustafa.

On Thursday at 8 a.m., Center for Strategic and International Studies writer Jasmine Sun will join Wadhwani AI Center director Aalok Mehta for a webcast discussion about the backlash to data centers, in which the two “unpack what’s driving the opposition movement, where Washington and Silicon Valley diverge from the rest of the country, and how the AI infrastructure buildout might influence voters in November.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Book of the Week: Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State

By Michael Lewis

THE GIST: A spiritual sequel to The Fifth Risk, which explored the disruptions to the federal bureaucracy that accompanied Trump’s first term, Blockers is Michael Lewis’s look at the second Trump presidency, focusing particularly on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

PRAISE: “Blockers,” writes Tim Wu, a Columbia professor and author of The Attention Merchants and The Curse of Bigness in The New York Times, “is a warning that our politicization of everything is a tremendous curse and a reminder that, especially in a country of the size and complexity and power of the United States, there is much that government does, or should do, that ought to be quietly nonpartisan.”

CRUISING THE INDEX: “God knows the efficiency of that particular effort,” Lewis writes about DOGE’s gutting of a program that assisted refugees. “No one inside DOGE seems ever to have bothered to ask.” This is a common refrain as Lewis reports the gutting of USAID, the destruction of much of the U.S. government’s science and environmental funding (including much of its wildfire prevention capacity), and more. Everywhere you look in Blockers, there is destruction. More often than not, it is being done by people with no knowledge or curiosity about what government does, on the orders of people (specifically Musk, Trump, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick) with even less knowledge or curiosity about what government does.

TNR’S QUICK CRITICAL ASSESSMENT: This is perhaps Lewis’s angriest book—no small accomplishment given his long history of detailing the arrogance and stupidity of the U.S. financial system—and also maybe his most tragic. It’s a story about horrific damage to the U.S. government. That story is not over.

—Alex Shephard

Political Trivia Question of the Day  

A rare multiple choice question! Journalist Jacob Weisberg has just published Profiles in Cowardice, which looks at eight prominent Americans who’ve failed to stand up to Donald Trump. The book is a twist on John F. Kennedy’s 1956 Profiles in Courage, which profiled eight senators for courageous moves across history. Which of these senators is not included in JFK’s book? 

A. John Quincy Adams

B. Daniel Webster

C. Nelson Aldrich

D. Robert Taft

(Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

—Michael Tomasky

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Inside Washington

Maine’s 2nd congressional district, covering 92 percent of the state, is the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi River. And right now, the largely rural, white population is getting ready to choose between two candidates: Democrat Matt Dunlap, who is a progressive and an avid hunter, or Republican and former two-term Governor Paul LePage, who once said “tell them to kiss my butt” when asked about criticism from the NAACP. 

In the race to replace Democratic Representative Jared Golden, who isn’t seeking reelection, polling is mixed. Dunlap, a member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s, or DCCC, Red to Blue program supporting candidates in close races, was up six points in a University of New Hampshire poll from late September. Other surveys, however, show a dead heat or LePage slightly ahead.

On Monday, Dunlap held a health care–focused press conference, amid a cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by the Trump administration’s war on Iran and tariff policies. These issues are a particularly powerful weapon against LePage, who vetoed Medicaid expansion six times as governor and called last year’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act “the greatest thing that can happen to the Maine people” (LePage was referring to the bill’s “no tax on tips” provision, but the legislation also cut Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion).

Dunlap said that the cost of health care is one of the main issues he’s heard about from Mainers. In a conversation with The New Republic, he described a conversation with a resident who was considering selling their home to afford health care costs and another person whose insurance costs went from $560 to $2,700 per month when Affordable Care Act subsidies expired in December.

Mainers are also worried about the cost of gas and heating oil, which could hurt LePage like it hurts every other Republican candidate in 2026. Maine is more reliant on heating oil than any other state in the country, and prices have skyrocketed this year. “The first frost warning for much of the state is tomorrow night, maybe tonight,” said Mark Brewer, the chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Maine, which is located in the second district. “It’s cold here. Winters are long here.”

LePage has tried to distance himself somewhat from President Trump’s agenda. He came out against Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods and has emphasized his focus on affordability as governor. The district is historically conservative, and voted for Trump all three times he was on the ballot. But, said Amy Fried, a retired professor of political science at the University of Maine, “This district is one where people are OK with splitting their tickets.” She explained that, in election years past, it wasn’t unusual to see houses with signs for Trump, GOP Senator Susan Collins, and Democratic Representative Jared Golden together in one yard. “Or pretty much any combination you could think of,” she added.

Republicans in past elections have typically portrayed their opponents as out-of-touch leftists. So far, LePage has struggled to apply that playbook to Dunlap. “He doesn’t look like a wild-eyed radical in any way,” said Fried of Dunlap. “His personality is extremely even-keeled, and a friend of mine said the other day that he looks like an insurance salesman.” 

Asked about LePage recently telling Fox News Digital that the race is about “common sense versus crazy,” Dunlap seemed unfazed: “That’s what they say when they don’t have anything else to throw at you,” he told The New Republic. “MAGA Republicans,” Dunlap said, “are very good at demonizing and bringing up the wedge [issues] about the woke agenda and the Democratic Socialists of America.” But, he added, “I’m less susceptible to that because I hadn’t heard of the Democratic Socialists of America until we heard about the Mamdani campaign.”

Dunlap has also played up his experience as a fisherman and hunter. He’s a founding board member of the Maine Youth Fish and Game Association, and the former executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine. One ad shows him fishing, boating, hunting, and shooting a rifle. At the end of the video, he puts down the gun and turns to the camera, saying: “I’ve always defended our Second Amendment rights, and in Congress, I’ll do the same.”

“You can’t question his bona fides on outdoors kind of stuff, or guns,” said Brewer. “He can go toe-to-toe with any Republican on those issues.” Golden, who won this district four times, is a Marine Corps veteran who has similar credibility on guns, an important issue in the district.

Both Brewer and Fried echoed what polls have suggested: This is a tight race that could go either way. Brewer said that much could hinge on the support that Dunlap gets from national Democrats in the next month. He pointed to the DCCC’s apparent hesitancy to add him to the Red to Blue program—Dunlap beat out the DCCC’s preferred candidate in June, but wasn’t added to the program until late August—as a potential issue. “The support still, to me, doesn’t seem like what it would be, or what it could be, or maybe should be in this tight of a race,” he said. “I think he could use some more money.”

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

Early voting is now in progress across multiple states, having started on Monday in Maine, California, Nebraska, and Montana (although there it’s technically called a “late registration” period for absentee voting). New Mexico, Indiana, Wyoming, and Ohio begin on Tuesday, and Arizona starts on Wednesday. Early voting and early absentee voting (differentiated by whether a ballot is cast directly into a ballot counter) has been underway in Illinois and Minnesota for weeks. Several other states join next week. Pennsylvania technically doesn’t have early in-person voting, but it actually sort of does, since you can show up, get a mail-in ballot, and then hand it back. Voting rights advocates have typically urged people to vote early if possible, in part for convenience and to avoid lines, and in part so that there’s time to sort things out if there’s a problem. On Saturday, President Trump urged Republicans to vote early or by mail—measures he has previously opposed and tried to restrict.

As key Senate and House races in Texas, Maine, Iowa, Michigan, Alaska, Ohio, and more continue to dominate headlines, fewer people are watching California. But over the weekend, Bernie Sanders stopped by California’s conservative Central Valley to give Democrat Randy Villegas a boost in his attempt to unseat David Valadao in the race for California’s 22nd district. Ever since Villegas’s victory over moderate, DCCC-backed Jasmeet Bains in the primary, part of the narrative in this race has focused on whether Villegas is too far left for this “historically conservative, low-turnout area,” as CalMatters puts it. But as Sanders’s visit shows, Villegas isn’t running away from his progressivism. Dems have been fixated on beating Valadao for years, so if a progressive is finally the one to do it, it’ll be quite the story. While public polling in the 22nd has been almost nonexistent this cycle, a Democratic PAC poll in June showed Villegas up four points.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

The Natural Resources Defense Council issued a statement on Suncor v. Boulder, the big climate case the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for on Monday. Suncor Energy is asking SCOTUS to throw out the suit from the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, over the devastating damages of climate change, including from the Marshall fire in 2021. “Coal, oil, and gas companies have made trillions of dollars in profits from the sale of fuels that are driving the climate crisis. They have knowingly misled the public for decades” and lobbied to delay climate policies, said NRDC senior vice president for environmental health Matthew Tejada. “Now a staggering bill is coming due.… The fossil fuel industry has a responsibility to help pay for the damage its products have caused.”

On Wednesday at 4 p.m., the Center for Strategic and International Studies will host a webcast looking back at the anthrax postal attacks 25 years ago. Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Friedrichs will moderate a discussion between Wendi Kuhnert of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former GOP Senator Richard Burr.

On Thursday, the Institute for Policy Studies will hold its 50th annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards, honoring Unidos MN and La Liga Sindical Obrera Mexicana for their work mobilizing “communities” to “defend their rights.” Unidos MN gained widespread recognition training people to document ICE abuses in Minnesota, and in recent months has shifted to getting out the vote for the midterm elections. La Liga, also known as the Mexican Workers’ League, is a relatively recent independent union—as opposed to the dominant so-called “protection unions” in Mexico that tend to favor employers’ interests.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Four Questions For: Aaron Eisenberg, political director for United Auto Workers Region 9A

Q: Who are you, and what are you working on right now?
A: Region 9A represents 50,000 active and retired members across New York, New England, and Puerto Rico. After notching some amazing victories in New York this year, right now, our priorities are electing our former member Troy Jackson to the U.S. Senate in Maine, training our members to run campaigns and run for office, passing local and state legislation to strengthen worker power, winning unemployment for striking workers, and making it easier to unionize.

Q: The UAW backed insurgent—and ultimately victorious—candidates like Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York primaries this year, while many established unions supported their opponents. What did the UAW understand about this political moment that others missed?

Political Trivia Question of the Day  

With Trump having visited Nebraska: A Nebraska Republican senator once defended a Nixon Supreme Court nominee criticized as mediocre by saying: “Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance?” Who was he? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

—Michael Tomasky

You’re reading The TNR Blue Book. Get daily scoops, strategy, and developments inside the liberal ideas factory delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for free.

Inside Washington

How worried should Dems be about the GOP’s huge cash advantage?

Late Wednesday night, the Senate adjourned until after the midterms, officially kicking off the final sprint of the campaign season. Republican candidates are heading home to constituents who are concerned about President Trump’s war in Iran and the high price of essentials. Democratic candidates are meanwhile heading into November with a massive cash disadvantage. The question remains: Will floods of money be enough to overcome the anger American voters are feeling?

The Democratic National Committee had $16 million in cash on hand at the end of July, compared to the Republican National Committee’s $130 million on hand. That staggering cash gap is only compounded when you factor in the DNC’s nearly $18 million in debts owed, putting them firmly in the red.

What’s more, a Supreme Court decision in June means the Republican Party cash advantage goes further than ever before; the justices lifted the cap on coordinated donations between political parties and candidates. 

Republicans’ money advantage is particularly stark in the frontline Senate races like Texas, where party money, outside PAC spending, and individual donations are fueling unprecedentedly expensive contests. By the end of September, the race between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton had seen almost $259 million in total ad spending for the general election, which was already higher than the $202 million spent in 2024, when Democrat Colin Allred faced off against Senator Ted Cruz. In September alone, GOP spending groups pumped $122 million into the state to counter Talarico’s increasingly high polling numbers.

In the first three weeks of September, Republicans outspent Democrats by more than $100 million in the seven Senate races rated as a “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report. In total, AdImpact estimates that a staggering $11.6 billion will be spent during the 2026 cycle, which is more than both the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential cycle.

But it’s less clear what that spending will actually buy. “Money is important, but it’s not everything,” said Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability. “Public angst, deep public concern, can offset the type of money advantage—or at least mitigate some of the money advantage—that you’re seeing today.”

Some Democratic candidates are using the GOP’s cash advantage to ring alarm bells among supporters, hoping to pull in cash from small-dollar donors. “The GOP outspending us 3-to-1 is working, and now this race is within their reach,” a fundraising email from Chris Pappas’s campaign on Thursday read. Pappas is running for Senate in New Hampshire against Republican John Sununu. The race is surprisingly tight, experts told The New Republic in early September, and new forecasting confirms it: The Cook Political Report shifted the race toward Republicans—from “lean D” to “toss-up”—on September 15.

Senate hopefuls aren’t the only ones facing high levels of spending. A handful of House races have racked up massive price tags too. All in all, the GOP has spent or booked $454 million on House races to Democrats’ $381 million. In swing districts, that spending disparity is heightened. In New York’s 17th congressional district, GOP Representative Mike Lawler has benefited from $20 million in spending since the start of August, compared to a meager $3.8 million for Cait Conley, his Democratic opponent.

The real impact of Republicans’ cash advantage will only be clear when polls close on November 3. But until then, we have one clear indicator that money might not be everything in 2026: the generic ballot. And signs point to a potential tsunami for Democrats. In August, Democrats had an eight-point lead on Emerson College Polling’s generic congressional ballot, which measures which party voters might vote for, regardless of the specific candidates. Come September, that lead widened to a whopping 11 points.

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

A new poll shows Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in a dead heat with her Republican challenger, John Braun, in Washington’s swingy 3rd congressional district. Interestingly, 11 percent of likely voters still appeared to be undecided in the survey, commissioned by Oregon Public Broadcasting. Gluesenkamp Perez has broken with Democrats on more than one occasion recently to advance a GOP agenda that would have otherwise failed—a move that embarrassed and angered other Dems but was widely seen as reflecting her challenging reelection position. A lot of her home-district Democratic voters, however, are also frustrated with Gluesenkamp Perez: 16.7 percent of them voted for progressive challenger Brent Hennrich in the August primary.  

On the other hand, The Washington Post reviews the prospects of Scott Colom, running for Senate in Mississippi against Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. It’s a “long shot” in a state Trump won by 23 points, write Dan Merica and Gregory S. Schneider, but “top Democratic officials and donors [are] increasingly hopeful that he could pull off the inconceivable,” given “this year’s poor political environment for Republicans.”

The DataOne data center in Vineland, New Jersey, that will reportedly be supplying Microsoft with computing power may have emitted 140 tons of nitrogen oxides over the course of “nearly a year before state regulators stepped in,” Floodlight’s Evan Simon reports at The Guardian. This is a follow-up to a piece from last week in which Simon and Brad Racino revealed that the data center had been running “at least 45 gas generators” without a permit. Nitrogen oxides have been linked to respiratory problems and heart attacks in humans, and Rutgers University’s Xiaomeng Jin calculates that the data center ranks as one of “the state’s top five NOx polluters of 2025.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

In case you missed it: Data for Progress released a new survey on American social activity this week, and the results are a mix of sobering and fascinating. From 1995 to 2026, the percentage of people who say they’ve entertained at home in the past year dropped from 88 percent to 67 percent, while the percentage of people who say they’ve finished reading a book in the same time period dropped from 80 percent to 62 percent. But staying late at work has dropped too, while going to a concert or an exercise class has gone up. Going out to breakfast, giving or attending a dinner party, picnics, communal worship, clubs, and a class are all way down, while internet use, unsurprisingly, has skyrocketed.  

“Can a clean economy be built at the speed and scale that this moment demands?” At the Center for American Progress, Jessica Keller reviews the “lessons” from New York City’s Climate Week in late September. No real surprises here: Keller highlights the importance of “forward-looking policies that invest in emerging technology and industrial emissions reductions,” union jobs, and “clean, abundant power” that doesn’t increase households’ utility bills. But all of this, Keller writes, requires “bold, progressive leadership.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Good Week: James Talarico

Democrats have been disappointed before in Texas, but reports keep rolling in suggesting that Talarico is defying all expectations. He’s outraised Republican opponent Ken Paxton in rich Republican neighborhoods, Newsweek reported on Wednesday. New data seems to show that he has erased Trump’s 2024 gains with Latino voters, TNR’s Greg Sargent observes. And crucially, an Axios analysis of 2026 versus the 2018 Beto O’Rourke flameout shows 2026 looking much more favorable for Democrats in Texas on several key metrics, especially based on primary turnout.

Bad Week: Eric Schmitt

No need to belabor this one: You really don’t want the first reports that you might be on the 2028 presidential ticket to hit the internet at the same time as viral videos of you screwing up sports team names and getting owned by Amy Klobuchar in a congressional hearing.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

Political Trivia Question of the Day  

The Oval Office didn’t exist when the White House was built in the 1790s. Under what president was the first Oval Office built? Hint: It coincided with the construction of the West Wing—in other words, at a time when the size of the president’s staff began to grow. (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

—Michael Tomasky

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Inside Washington

On Wednesday, a party line vote of 47–41 confirmed Keith Sonderling as the head of the Department of Labor. To Democrats, it’s one step closer to advancing the Trump-era Labor Department’s anti-worker agenda.

Sonderling has served as acting secretary of labor since April, when President Donald Trump’s then–Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in disgrace amid allegations of—among other things—travel fraud and creating a toxic workplace environment. (In September, the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General released a detailed report confirming the misconduct.)

Since Sonderling took over, he’s taken a number of actions that Democrats see as anti-worker. In May, the department rescinded an overtime rule adopted under former President Joe Biden. The department is currently trying to rescind a different Biden-era rule that addresses the classification of independent contractors. When Sonderling sat before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, in July, Democratic senators grilled him on these issues and other controversies, such as Trump’s purge of federal workers and the firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in August 2025 after a weak jobs report came out.

“You are not a bystander to this administration’s anti-worker policies and agenda,” Senator Patty Murray of Washington told Sonderling at the time.

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who also sits on HELP, told The New Republic on Wednesday that he wasn’t impressed with Sonderling and didn’t get the sense that he would steer the department away from its overall anti-worker bias under Trump. “I’ve been very disappointed with the first flameout of the first secretary,” said Kaine. “I think the Trump administration’s Department of Labor is not really great for labor or for working people. I think it’s like a second secretary of commerce rather than a secretary of labor.”

Senators are particularly concerned about how the potential secretary of labor would approach AI in the workplace in a moment of skyrocketing anxiety about AI and AI-related job replacement. “Part of what we want to see from them is understanding what the real impact of this is on job loss [and] job transitions,” said Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who served as her state’s secretary of labor in 1998. Data on how AI is affecting the workforce have been slim, and some lawmakers are trying to push the BLS to collect more. “How we do things at the Department of Labor needs to be modernized” to meet the AI moment, Blunt Rochester said. Meanwhile, Kaine told The New Republic on Wednesday that he wants to see the department focus on apprenticeship programs and workforce training for workers who could be affected by AI. 

So far, the Department of Labor has done a handful of things to address AI. In his HELP committee hearing, Sonderling told Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that the department had asked the BLS to examine data on AI and the workforce, but it appears that little has yet emerged from that effort. The department launched a “Make America AI-Ready” mini course, ostensibly to teach AI literacy to workers. Labor advocates were skeptical: “Does this [training] make workers’ jobs better or safer? Will it help people who want to find a job access high-quality, union jobs?” Lauren McFerran, executive director of AFL-CIO’s Tech Institute and a former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, said to NPR in April. 

There are plenty of reasons why Senate Democrats weren’t eager to confirm Sonderling. His lukewarm response to current AI concerns appears to be just another drop in the bucket.

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

The rush to enact statewide policies to lower fuel prices continues. A limited rundown of some of the happenings this week: In Indiana, Republican Governor Mike Braun on Wednesday extended a suspension on the state’s gas use and excise taxes through November 4, and suspended restrictions on what dyed diesel could be used for on farms. Only two days earlier, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom ended summer gas-blend requirements over a month ahead of schedule, while Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp temporarily suspended the state gas tax and Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a 30-day disaster declaration in order to suspend various diesel restrictions on Texas roads. Ohio lawmakers voted Wednesday to suspend the state gas tax for 90 days, which both Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy have said they support. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that Wall Street banks’ estimates for gas prices in the coming months have risen, given the dwindling chances of a peace deal with Iran. Republicans are increasingly worried that voter frustration over gas prices could fuel the so-called “blue wave” in November.

Elsewhere:

• Amid a wave of optimistic analysis and polling for Dems nationwide, Chris Pappas’s Senate race against John Sununu in New Hampshire continues to look a bit dicey. Pappas tends to maintain a narrow lead in most polls but is being wildly outspent. AP reporters Steve Peoples, Holly Ramer, and Steven Sloan see it as a sign of broader issues: “For all the Democrats’ confidence, the party’s brand remains deeply unpopular and fundraising is lagging,” they write. “The Republican advantage isn’t as egregious in New Hampshire as some other states, but it is significant. AdImpact finds that Republicans are outspending Democrats in New Hampshire $41.2 million to $35.4 million statewide.” The TNR Blue Book’s Emma Janssen previously reported on the jitters surrounding this race back in early September. 

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

Reviewing the new personal consumption expenditure, or PCE, report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, released Wednesday, Groundwork Collaborative chief economist Breyon Williams says in a statement on the organization’s website that “the bleak economic picture offers little hope for Americans desperate for relief.” The report showed PCE inflation increasing 3.4 percent from August 2025 to August 2026, with the economy growing at a 2.4 percent rate so far this year.

The Natural Resources Defense Council released a statement on Wednesday coinciding with court day for the water utilities challenging the Biden EPA’s rule requiring the removal of lead pipes. “Water utilities fighting the lead rule are on the wrong side of history,” says NRDC senior strategic director for health Erik D. Olson. Members of Earthjustice, the Newburgh Clean Water Project, and the Sierra Club chimed in, as well, with NCWP’s Gabrielle Burton-Hill calling the case “outrageous and disappointing” and others pointing out the vast number of households and children that the rule will help protect from lead poisoning if allowed to continue.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Here’s Why That’s B.S.

Watch TNR’s Edie Olmsted dive into Senator Eric Schmitt’s bizarre faceplant in the Jack Smith hearing this week—all while Axios was reporting “buzz” that he might be JD Vance’s running mate in 2028.

Political Trivia Question of the Day  

An actually smart Missouri senator, a Democrat, was known as a vocal foe of Joseph McCarthy; was the first secretary of the Air Force; and refused to speak to segregated audiences in the Southern U.S. during a brief presidential run in 1960. Who was he? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in Tuesday’s newsletter.)

—Michael Tomasky

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Inside Washington

Katie Hobbs is holding the line in Arizona. Now, she’s under attack.

With midterms that could shift control of Congress rapidly approaching, the gubernatorial election in Arizona might not be high on the average Democrat’s radar. But incumbent Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs is facing a potentially hard race in a state Democrats don’t want to lose. 

Hobbs is “the person who is keeping the legislature at bay,” explained Thomas Volgy, a professor at the University of Arizona and the former mayor of Tucson. The governor’s veto power is currently the last line of defense against right-wing legislation passed by the Republican-controlled state Senate and House of Representatives. On one Friday in late June, for example, Hobbs vetoed 88 bills, including a bill that would have banned the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion measures in hiring and another that would allow people who detransition to sue the medical providers who aided in their gender transition care. As of mid-July, Hobbs had signed 993 bills into law and vetoed 541 since assuming office. “Her responsibility as a Democratic governor is to make sure the legislature does no harm,” Volgy added.

Since she took office in 2023, Hobbs has also presided over a number of crucial policy fights, and is making the pitch that she needs four more years to see them through. 

“In my second term, I will continue to prioritize lowering costs, creating good-paying jobs, protecting water, and investing in public education,” Hobbs wrote in a statement to The New Republic. “I want to put Prop 123 on the ballot to secure much-needed support for Arizona’s public schools without raising taxes, while continuing to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in the ESA program,” she said, referring to a proposition to raise money for public education and the state’s “Empowerment Scholarship Account,” or ESA program, which is a school choice funding program.

Arizona’s ESA program was established in 2011 and became universal in 2022, giving students public funding to spend on private education. The program is, unsurprisingly, controversial among state Democrats. “Enacting meaningful reform to Arizona’s out-of-control ESA program is critical,” said Stacy Pearson, a state Democratic strategist and co-founder of Lumen Strategies. “We’ve got districts across the state closing public schools” because state funds are used for the ESA program instead.

Arizona is one of seven states in the Colorado River Basin. The next negotiations for water rights in the region will take place in 2028. The governor plays an active role in those negotiations, directs the state Department of Water Resources, and, of course, holds veto power over legislation that could threaten the state’s water supply. As governor, Hobbs has focused on conserving the state’s groundwater resources, even if it means blocking housing development in some cases. Early in her term, she canceled the land leases of a Saudi Arabian farming company, Fondomonte, which her administration said was excessively pumping groundwater to grow alfalfa. While Hobbs has focused on conservation, Biggs is a proponent of desalination efforts, which Hobbs hasn’t focused on as governor. 

Polling throughout the summer showed Hobbs leading her opponent, Representative Andy Biggs. Some of those leads were more significant than others: In a mid-August poll, she was up 15 points, while a different poll conducted at the same time showed her only up two points. But public polling has been limited since mid-August, and there was a significant development at the end of that month.

Hobbs, who only won her 2022 election by some 18,000 votes, has been plagued by an investigation into alleged pay-to-play scandal: a foster care provider who donated hundreds of thousands to her campaign, and was subsequently awarded a rate increase by the state. On August 21 this year, the state attorney general announced that there was no evidence that Hobbs broke the law, and declined to prosecute her. Though the attorney general’s investigation absolved Hobbs of any blame, Republican-aligned offices and groups like the auditor general’s office are conducting their own reviews. Republicans in the state house hired a Trump-aligned attorney to investigate Hobbs, and Republican lawmakers issued subpoenas to Hobbs, the attorney general, and others in mid-September. (One of those lawmakers, State Senator Jake Hoffman, stepped down from leading the investigation after The Arizona Republic raised questions about over $1 million received by his political consulting businesses to help elect Biggs.)

Hobbs’s campaign has argued that Republicans are using the now-closed investigation to smear Hobbs ahead of the election. “With just 27 days until early voting begins, it’s no surprise partisan extremists are launching desperate political stunts,” Michael Beyer, Hobbs’s communications director, wrote recently in response to attacks by Biggs.

Volgy doesn’t think the investigation into Hobbs is the biggest factor in this race. “The driving force behind this election is Donald Trump, and he’s doing very badly in the state,” he said, citing the Iran war and rising costs. President Trump has a net approval rating of -19 points in the state, an all-time low for the president.

“Getting reelected in a red state is going to give her an opportunity,” Pearson said, to do more of what she’s already been doing. “To just shut the system down until meaningful reform is on her desk.”

—Emma Janssen

Outside Washington

President Trump’s announcement on Monday of a plan to build a $15 billion steel mill in eastern Iowa comes amid increasingly bad numbers for him in that state. Last week, a Marist University poll not only found Democrat Josh Turek up eight points against Ashley Hinson in Iowa’s Senate race—it also found that 43 percent of respondents “say their congressional vote is mostly a vote against President Trump.” The same poll also found Democrat Rob Sand up a shocking 12 points against Republican Zach Lahn in the gubernatorial race. Voters disapproved of Trump 58 percent to 41 percent.  

News outlets on Monday widely gestured to the midterm context in reporting the steel mill news. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who’s currently either neck and neck with or slightly trailing Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan in Iowa’s 1st congressional district, announced mid-Monday that she’d be joining Trump for the announcement event—and added that the steel mill would be located in Lee County (part of her district). The Des Moines Register’s Brianne Pfannenstiel on Monday pointed readers to prior coverage “about a mysterious company buying up land in Lee County,” as well as a reported “special legislative session to address a tax incentive package for this deal,” explicitly pitched as coming “*before* the midterms.”  

Whether this gambit will pay off amid voter frustration over a lot of other problems, though, remains to be seen. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Hinson taking heat from voters frustrated over high fuel prices and Trump’s war on Iran. Meanwhile, Trump is continuing his vendetta against the Des Moines Register over a poll published shortly before the 2024 presidential election. After a judge threw out Trump’s lawsuit against the Register last week, a member of the president’s legal team told Politico that they’d be taking the case to the Iowa Supreme Court.

Elsewhere:

• The Guardian reports shocking findings from a Center for Biological Diversity review of federal records: Almost 25 percent of continental U.S. rivers contain dangerous levels of the herbicide atrazine, a potent hormone disruptor known to “chemically castrate” frogs, which can damage human reproductive systems as well as numerous other organs. (Unsurprisingly, it’s especially hazardous to developing fetuses and children.) Read Tom Perkins’s full report for more on how atrazine became so widely used in the U.S., despite being banned in dozens of other countries.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

The Ideas Factory

Tuesday at noon, New America hosts “Power at the Polls: Confronting Basic Barriers to Accessible Democracy,” a virtual discussion about factors jeopardizing voting rights for Americans with disabilities. Speakers will include Rebecca Cokley, Mia Ives-Rublee, Dom Kelly, Lee Drutman, Asim Dietrich, and Sydney Saubestre. 

Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution hosts a forum on “meeting long-term care needs for an aging United States.” Panelists will include Maggie Elehwany of Argentum, Nicole Howell from the National Council on Aging, Haeyoung Yoon of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Stanford economics professor Neale Mahoney, University Hospital CEO Carole Johnson, the Urban Institute’s Tisamarie Sherry, Jonathan Cohn of The Bulwark, and Brookings’s Aviva Aron-Dine and Tara Watson.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

In Closing

Four Questions For: Lindsay Owens, president and CEO of the nonprofit advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative

Q: How did your new book come about?

Political Trivia Question of the Day  

On this day in 1962, President Kennedy authorized the use of federal troops to integrate what public university? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)

—Michael Tomasky