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The explanation we heard most often from strategists on the left, right, and center: Biden is unpopular in ways that are largely unique to him, regularly hitting sub-40 marks in approval ratings. And while Trump is still viewed unfavorably, polling also shows voters increasingly rating his presidency better by comparison.

I think this just speaks to the degree that Biden is a weak general election candidate when relatively uninspiring Democratic candidates are outperforming him so consistently across the board, Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster and founding partner of Echelon Insights, told Semafor. All former presidents get better retrospective evaluations when they leave office. We just havent had a chance to test how this would play out when one was a current candidate until now.

One of Bidens biggest weaknesses, according to polling, is the economy. Alyssa Cass, a partner at Slingshot Strategies working on Democratic messaging, told Semafor that voters across the spectrum say their No. 1 issue is costs cost of living, food, housing, and more. The disparity between Trumps polling and Senate Republican candidates, she believes, is because voters associate this key issue with Biden.

Theyre holding Joe Biden responsible for the price pressure they feel every time they go to the grocery store, but arent assigning that same responsibility to their Senate candidate, Cass said. That further makes sense when you have these Senate candidates who are, for the most part, riding on a MAGA platform and putting culture issues front and center. I dont think this is a culture war election. I think this is a how expensive are my groceries election.

Recent polling from Blueprint, overseen by Cass, backs up that theory: Data released on May 16 found young voters are prioritizing kitchen table issues and 52% of those polled trust Trump more than Biden when it comes to lowering prices.

Cook Political Reports recent swing state polling found that not only is Biden seen as inferior to Trump on fighting inflation, but 59% of voters think the president has at least some ability to control prices an expectation that could separate him from down-ballot Democrats who survived a worse economy in the midterms.

Then there are other Biden-specific problems, namely his age 66% of voters said they did not think Biden would finish another term in the same Cook Political Report survey. By a 53%-47% margin, voters also reported being more concerned about Bidens age than Trumps temperament and legal issues, two weaknesses that are more unique to him.

In conversations with Republicans, some also say the race between the two candidates looks different than other partisan contests. Trump has largely focused on playing up his record as president and denigrating Bidens in broad terms, rather than trying to make the race a referendum on policy specifics or ideological purity.

As has been the case for many years, President Trump leads the party and the ticket, and has expanded the Republican coalition to include voters that dont typically vote Republican or vote at all, Danielle Alvarez, an RNC spokeswoman, said.

And finally, some of it may just be simple name recognition. Republican Senate candidates are largely going up against incumbent Democrats this cycle, meaning they may need more time to consolidate right-leaning voters who are still not familiar with their campaign, and may face more resistance from voters who dislike Biden but have voted for their opponents before.

One generalization is that Trump is a much better known entity theres going to be a lot more certainty that people are voting for Trump right now, Natalie Jackson, vice president of GQR Insights & Action and a pollster for Democrats, told Semafor.

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Donald Trump is outrunning other Republicans. What does it mean for November? - Semafor

Republicans are pushing legislation to crack down on voting by noncitizens, which happens rarely and is already illegal in federal elections, in a move that reinforces former President Donald J. Trumps efforts to delegitimize the 2024 results if he loses.

On Thursday, House Republicans plan to vote on a bill that would roll back a District of Columbia law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, which they contend is needed to prevent Democrats from expanding the practice to other jurisdictions. And they are advancing another measure that would require states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering a person to vote.

The legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law, but it serves to amplify one of Mr. Trumps favorite pre-emptive claims of election fraud. It also underscores Republicans embrace of a groundless narrative one that echoes the racist great replacement conspiracy theory that Democrats are intentionally allowing migrants to stream into the United States illegally in order to dilute the voting power of American citizens and lock in electoral victories for themselves.

Speaker Mike Johnson recently appeared alongside Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the former presidents Florida resort and residence, to announce a pledge to get tough on migrants flowing across the border, suggesting with no evidence that they were coming in unchecked as part of a plot to vote for President Biden.

There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system and that is the threat of noncitizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections, Mr. Johnson warned during a news conference on the steps of the Capitol this month.

But he conceded that he had no evidence to support that assertion.

We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but its not been something that is easily provable, Mr. Johnson said. We dont have that number.

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House G.O.P. Moves to Crack Down on Noncitizen Voting, Sowing False Narrative - The New York Times

WASHINGTON, D.C. Eleven prominent Republicans were arraigned in an Arizona courtroom on Tuesday for a number of felonies related to their involvement to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the Grand Canyon State. All 11 people pleaded not guilty to their myriad criminal charges.

In late April, 18 people were indicted on a number of alleged crimes surrounding a plot to overturn the states presidential election results and falsely declare former President Donald Trump the winner of the key battleground state. The scheme involved 11 state Republicans falsely declaring themselves electors and cast their electoral votes for Trump.

All 11 of the fake electors were indicted along with a number of top Trump officials, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, campaign staffer Michael Roman and former campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Ephystein and Christina Bobb.

Among the people to be formally charged on Tuesday include nine of the 11 Republicans who falsely claimed to be electors and submitted documentation to Congress declaring Trump the winner of the presidential election in Arizona. They include former Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward, state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern and RNC Committeeman Tyler Bower.Giuliani and Bobb were also arraigned on Tuesday.

All the people indicted for their involvement in the scheme were charged with a myriad of alleged crimes, including nine felony counts for conspiracy, fraud and forgery. Trump himself was not charged, but he was referred to as a unindicted co-conspirator in the 58-page indictment.

Eastman, one of Trumps former attorneys who was the author of two notorious memos outlining how Trump could refute the election results and stay in office, was the first of the indicted Arizona Republicans to be arraigned. On Friday, Eastman was formally charged on Friday and pleaded not guilty to the crimes.

Giuliani, another one of Trumps former lawyers, was one of several people unnamed in the original indictment because he had not yet been served a notice of indictment. After nearly a month, authorities were finally able to locate Giuliani who was in Palm Beach, Florida celebrating his 80th birthday and serve him his notice of indictment.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) announced on Monday that Giuliani had been served indictment papers after the former New York City mayor posted a since-deleted picture to X of himself at his birthday party, writing If authorities cant find me by tomorrow morning they must dismiss the indictment.

Read the indictment here.

Learn more about the indictment here.

This post was updated on Tuesday, May 21 at 4:50 p.m. EDT to reflect that all 11 defendants, not 12 as was originally reported, were arraigned and pleaded not guilty.

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Prominent Republicans To Be Arraigned in Arizona for Election Subversion Plot - Democracy Docket

Mother Jones; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA; Tim Mossholder/Unsplash

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of a South Carolina congressional map that a lower court had previously found diluted the power of Black voters. In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the Courts conservative supermajority wrote that the Challengers provided no direct evidence of a racial gerrymander, and their circumstantial evidence is very weak.

The courts ruling protects the seat of GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, a onetime relative moderate who has veered sharply to the right after Republicans redrew her district following the 2020 census to make it more GOP-friendly. She was one of eight House Republicans who voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and she subsequently endorsed Donald Trump despite once saying that she held him responsible for the January 6 insurrection. Mace defeated Democrat Joe Cunningham by one point in 2020, but she won reelection in her redrawn Charleston-based district by 14 points in 2022.

A GOP state senator from the area said he wanted to give the district astronger Republican lean. Republicans accomplished that goal by moving nearly 30,000 Black voters in Charleston County (62 percent of the countys total Black population) from the swing 1st district to the safely Democratic seat of longtime Rep. James Clyburn, one of the most powerful House Democrats.

A federal court ruled in January 2023 that the map was a stark racial gerrymander. But the Supreme Court disagreed, finding that South Carolina Republicans were motivated by politics, not race, and acted in good faith. The conservative justices rejected the factual findings of the lower court, which the high court is only supposed to do if the findings are clearly wrong. The courts delay in issuing a ruling (civil rights groups had asked the justices to rule by the beginning of the year) already forced the lower court to allow the disputed map to stay in place for this election, handing Republicans another House seat for 2024.

In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said that the decision would make it much harder to strike down racially gerrymandered maps. The majoritys new evidentiary rule is meant to scuttle gerrymandering cases, she wrote. Going forward, plaintiffs now need to show extremely clear evidence of racial gerrymandering because courts are now supposed to give legislators the benefit of the doubt. This will make it easier for white Republicans to dilute the votes of communities of color. As Kagans dissent points out, Alitos majority opinion places uncommon burdens on gerrymandered plaintiffs that will make it very difficult to bring successful racial gerrymandering cases in the future. This Court is not supposed to be so fearful of telling discriminators, including States, to stop discriminating, Kagan wrote.

The Roberts Court has already made it very difficult to strike down gerrymandered maps, ruling that partisan gerrymandering cannot be challenged in federal court. The court has routinely sided with Republicans in other voting rights disputes, as well, gutting the Voting Rights Act on multiple occasions. The courts opposition to voting rights has become a key part of the GOP strategy to enshrine conservative minority rule. In a concurring opinion in the South Carolina case, Justice Clarence Thomas went so far as to suggest that racial gerrymandering and vote dilution claims could never be struck down in court. The Constitution, Thomas asserted, contemplates no role for the federal courts in the redistricting process. The Supreme Court, however, has frequently intervened in the redistricting process throughout US history, most notably in the one person, one vote cases from the 1960s.

One exception to the courts hostility to the right to vote came last June, when it invalidated Alabamas congressional mapbecause it did not include a second majority-Black district in a state that is 27 percent Black. That led to the drawing of a new majority-Black district that is expected to send a Democrat to the House in November. A similar result followed in Louisiana, where that state also drew a second majority-Black district.

But the courts sympathy to Black voting rights did not extend to South Carolina, and the outcomeis a significant win for Republicans hoping to retain their narrow House majority. Given the GOPs tiny edge in the lower house, a swing of just a few seats in November could be enough to decide who controls the chamber this year.

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The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier for Republicans to Get Away With Racial Gerrymandering Mother Jones - Mother Jones

TOPEKA As the dust settles on the legislative maneuvering of the chaotic 2024 session, disability rights advocates applaud a budget provision meant to shorten wait times for disabled Kansans who need services.

Lawmakers overrode Gov. Laura Kellys veto to implement a provision that puts caps on the wait times for Kansans who want to receive state-funded disability services. Included in the state budget, the provision would forbid the waiting lists from exceeding 6,800 people during the fiscal year that begins in July.

Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, said the change is incredibly positive.

It tells me the Legislature takes a waiting list seriously, Nichols said. This is going to have a huge impact. Hats off and I really want to commend the Legislature for coming up with these provisos, because its a very innovative way to ensure that youre actually going to reduce the waiting list. You set a cap.

The latest data shows 7,698 Kansans currently waiting for services, with 5,342 people on the intellectual and developmental disabilities waitlist and 2,356 people on the physical disability waitlist.

The Legislature set aside $45.8 million, available for fiscal year 2025, to fund services for 1,000 Kansans who are currently on the states waiting lists, divided evenly between people with intellectual and physical disabilities and those who have physical disabilities.

If enrollment trends continue along the same lines as last year, when 561 new people enrolled in the intellectual disability waitlist, the proposed new funding would not be enough to lessen the waitlist on its own.

During the veto override debate Monday, Sen. Rick Billinger, a Goodland Republican, said lawmakers couldnt continue to kick this down the road.

Folks, we put $38 million into a soccer tournament, Billinger said. If we cant put dollars in here for the IDD and the PD, we better refocus. And I believe that this is a step to try to get us to do better, because we must do better. Were failing this community.

The law requires KDADS by January to provide the Legislature with an estimate on the costs of keeping this cap in place. The Legislature will have to pass a supplemental funding bill to cover the costs of keeping the lists below the caps of 4,800 for the IDD waitlist and 2,000 for the PD waitlist.

The waitlists have been a long-intensifying problem. Kansans with intellectual or developmental disabilities are eligible for Medicaid-funded support waivers that cover a variety of needed services. People who want to receive this assistance are placed on a waiting list supervised by KDADS.

But wait times can last more than 10 years, and more and more Kansans have been added to the slow-moving lists. Kansas Reflector examined this issue last year in the series On the List.

The veto override works to ensure 500 new Kansans with intellectual and developmental disabilities are eliminated from our historic, record-high IDD waitlist, and will start receiving essential HCBS waiver services, said Sara Hart Weir, executive director of the Kansas Council on Developmental Disabilities. Moreover, this veto override caps the IDD waitlist in Kansas at 4,800, which is another long-term step toward eliminating our IDD waitlist in the Sunflower State.

Kelly said she supported finding a solution to the wait times. But she vetoed the caps because of concerns about capacity if they were implemented.

By instituting a cap on the number on the waitlists, the agency will be unable to maintain reserve capacity intended for specialty populations such as children coming into DCF custody, Home and Community Based Service, Kelly said in a veto explanation. In addition, continually adding slots to these waivers haphazardly or thoughtlessly capping the waitlist number will not be sufficient or sustainable unless provider capacity is also addressed.

The Senate voted 28-12 and the House 116-9 to override the governors veto.

Im not concerned about creating new problems. The problems continue to be there, said Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg. And they continue to be ignored by the agency. I support this veto override effort. And I urge the governor to have her secretary get the work done that needs to be done so that we as a legislature can clearly address the needs of the kids that are on the waitlist.

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'Incredibly positive': Disability advocates commend Kansas Republicans' effort on waitlists Kansas Reflector - Kansas Reflector