July 22, 2025: The questions that could decide 2026

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

With no new enterprise journalism published recently on the “Epstein files” front, President Donald Trump’s allies are catching their breath. Democrats are riding what could be a sugar high, having already cost the House GOP some votes this week. But as the aperture widens, are Republicans actually finding themselves in better shape than conventional wisdom would suggest ahead of the 2026 midterms? Playbook contributing author Adam Wren and chief correspondent Dasha Burns talk through that and two other key questions just now coming into focus about 2026.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Presented by BP.
0:06.9	Hello, I'm Adam Redd.
0:08.7	And I'm Dasha Burns.
0:09.9	It is Tuesday, July 22nd.
0:12.0	And this is the Playbook podcast.
0:14.6	Without further ado, the big story driving the day is what in the world could determine the 2026 midterms. Three questions that could give us
0:23.1	insight to that are, could Republicans be in better shape than expected? R&C fundraising has been
0:29.5	beating out the D&Cs. The R&C currently has a war chest totaling 80.78 million while the D&C has
0:37.1	15 million on hand. And there's new attempts to
0:41.5	redistrict in Texas, which could mean keeping the purpling of the state at bay. Plus,
0:46.8	some blue states have districts that are drawn in a nonpartisan way. I've been talking Dasha
0:51.7	to both the NRCC and the D-Tri D triple C, and it's remarkable. Both of them
0:57.5	have a pretty Rorschach-like view of the landscape here. They both see opportunities for themselves,
1:04.8	and this midterms in some ways, even though it's historically trending towards Democrats,
1:10.3	feels like it's going to be another close one,
1:13.1	not so much 2018, but more of like a 2022 without as many bumps. What are you hearing from the Trump
1:20.1	White House, which is increasingly interested in these midterms as all this unfolds?
1:25.4	Yeah, well, look, I think that it's going to be a roar shark test for both
1:28.2	operatives and for voters, and that's going to largely depend on who wins the messaging
1:33.4	wars here. And I think the advantage that Republicans have is that they do have both a messenger
1:40.1	and a message coming from President Trump around which they can all unite, whether it is on
1:47.7	policy and how you talk about that policy or with like, hey, Texas, do some work and see if you
	...

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