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It's Monday morning. I'm Olivia Reingold, and this is your Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.

The score this weekend was one win for President Joe Biden and many more for former President

Donald Trump. Here was Biden's win, a new poll from ABC News and Ipsos that says just shy of 65% of Americans are, quote, optimistic about the direction of the country.

ABC News says the last time optimism in the U.S. was even close to being that high, was way back in 2006 under then-president George W. Bush. But it was arguably

a better weekend for Trump, who's proving he's still got a grip on his party, starting with

win-one, the overnight disappearance of Democrats' best chance at upping their thin House majority.

Well, election results are rolling in tonight from across Central Texas.

The polls are closed. Election results are in.

If no candidate today gets more than 50% of the vote, the race will go to a two-candidate runoff.

Let's go back to February when Representative Ron Wright, a Freedom Cau member, died after an 18-day battle with COVID-19.

At age 67, he became the first member of Congress to die from the coronavirus.

The next day, Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office announced the state would hold a special election in Wright's district, a fast-changing

House seat just outside of Fort Worth. Democrats thought that this was their shot. Support for

Trump seemed to be waning there, falling by almost 10 points between 2016 and 2020. 23 candidates

ended up running, including multiple Democrats who seemed like they could actually

pull off a win, like Jana Lynn Sanchez, who ran against Wright in 2018, losing by about

eight points.

Too many working Texans are struggling, but Washington politicians like Ted Cruz opposed

$1,400 checks for us.

But within weeks, Wright's widow Susan Wright entered the field, quickly becoming the candidate to beat.

I'll carry his legacy of protecting the unborn, securing our borders, defending our Second Amendment rights, and supporting our law enforcement.

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