The problem with going more than a month between blog posts is that, even in the dog days of summer, there’s more to write about than I can possibly do justice to. Still, all one can do is try…
Primaries. I believe the 2026 primary season is done at last, with Massachusetts finishing things up last week.
When I last wrote, I was eagerly awaiting the upcoming election here in Minnesota, and particularly the Democratic primary to replace retiring Senator Tina Smith. That primary pitted my Representative, moderate Angie Craig, against the sitting Lieutenant Governor, the more progressive Peggy Flanagan. My view going back several months was that while I had supported Craig as a very suitable nominee for her largely exurban 2nd District, Minnesota Democrats needn’t settle for someone that moderate in a statewide race. The party establishment agreed with that view, and Flanagan was poised to win the party endorsement at the state convention in late May. Which, according to the way party politics has always worked in Minnesota, ought to have been the end of it; primaries are a recent innovation in Minnesota, and the expectation was that losing candidates would drop out after the convention, making the primary a coronation rather than a contest.
Craig saw things differently. Shortly before the state convention, foreseeing that she would lose she announced that she would not be seeking the party endorsement at the convention and would instead contest the primary. Which she did, outspending Flanagan 4-to-1 (although honestly it felt like more of an edge than that, based on the advertising I saw). While Governor Walz remained officially neutral, his decision to not endorse his own running mate was suspicious, and in the last week of the campaign his wife endorsed Craig. It all turned to out to be for nought, however, as Flanagan managed a 59-39 victory. Her opponent in the fall will be former sports broadcaster Michelle Tafoya.
There was a surprising Senate primary result in Florida. I had thought that moderate Alex Vindman, a central figure in the first Trump impeachment trial, was facing only token opposition in the Democratic primary and could make a compelling (albeit long-shot) general election candidate. I’d never even heard of his opponent, Black progressive Representative Angie Nixon, until she beat Vindman, 56-44.
Alaska held its jungle primary, to which 4 people advance to the general. The two leading candidates are former Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, and incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican. Peltola won 49.5% of the vote to Sen. Sullivan’s 41.4%. I would be remiss in failing to mention that one of the two minor candidates who advanced is a different Dan Sullivan, also purportedly a Republican; however, it is not looking like the potential voter confusion here will be dispositive.
In South Carolina, recall that Sen. Lindsey Graham would have been on the ballot this fall, so when he died a second primary was hastily scheduled for August. Contrary to many people’s expectations his sister Darline, who had been appointed to the seat, decided to run in the primary and received Trump’s endorsement. In a field where 5 different candidates got at least 5% of the vote, she got a 33% plurality, advancing to the runoff against Rep. Ralph Norman. Graham’s debate performance attracted much criticism, particularly when she admitted she was pretty ignorant about foreign policy. Nevertheless, Trump’s coattails got her across the finish line, as she beat Norman 52.4 – 47.6. With Tommy Tuberville likely to be elected Governor of Alabama this fall, the U.S. Senate may have a new “least qualified member” come 2027.
Finally, votes in the Massachusetts Senate primary faced an unusual choice, where the 80-year-old progressive incumbent (Markey) faced a challenge from a much younger but more moderate Representative (Moulton), forcing many voters to choose between policy preferences versus protesting the gerontocracy. Progressive policy won out, 65-35.
Canada. Well, things here have fallen apart more quickly than I would have thought possible.
Recall that back in 2018, the Trump administration negotiated a replacement for the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The new agreement, which the U.S. calls USMCA (although Canada calls it CUSMA), took effect on July 1, 2020 for an initial 16-year term. Under the original agreement, six years in there would be a trilateral joint review process. That process could result in the countries agreeing to extend USMCA for a further 16 years or, failing an ability to agree on that, in the countries having a series of annual reviews until a 16-year extension is reached, or until the agreement expires. On July 1, 2026, the U.S. announced it was not willing to renew USMCA for another 16 years, leaving the agreement intact but triggering the process of successive annual reviews.
Then, later in July, the Trump administration announced that it would impose 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian products effective August 19th, citing Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 as its authority to do so. That section of the law had never been used, and a compelling argument can be made that this authority was implicitly repealed with the passage of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
The new tariff threat brought Canada and the U.S. to the negotiating table. I was in Canada on vacation on August 18th when Trump announced a 3-day postponement of the new tariffs on the grounds that the two countries were on the verge of reaching a deal. But three days later, an hour before midnight Canadian PM Carney pulled his negotiators away, allowing the tariffs to take effect. The next day he announced that Canada would impose retaliatory tariffs, scheduled to take effect tomorrow, and explained in his speech that “in recent days the U.S. proposed new terms that were uneconomic, unfair, and undermined the net benefits to Canada, calling into question the reliability of any deal.”
So, there is now a trade war between Canada and the U.S.; that’s lovely. Trump has threatened a further escalation of the trade war, but to date his only move has been to order the U.S. government to re-name Lake Ontario as “Lake America”. I’m not aware of any lawsuits arguing that the Section 338 tariffs are illegal, but hopefully one will emerge soon.
Iran. It’s still a quagmire, with no real movement, or path forward. The price of diesel reached an all-time high of $5.90 this week, while the price of gasoline on Labor Day is $4.14 a gallon, breaching the previous Labor Day high of $3.82 from 2012.
Ballroom. One of Trump’s major priorities over the past year has been his project, in the absence of any legal authority, to tear down the East Wing of the White House and build a new ballroom (over-top of a new security bunker). At times it feels like he cares more about the ballroom than about other aspects of the Presidency, which I suppose is what one should expect when elevating a real estate developer to that role.
In late August this situation finally reached the Supreme Court, via its emergency docket, in a case captioned National Park Service v. National Trust for Historical Preservation. Disappointingly, SCOTUS ruled 5-4 in favor of the government, granting it a stay of a lower court injunction that would have prohibited further above-ground construction. As a practical matter, this will allow the administration to complete construction before the legality of said action is fully adjudicated.
You might ask, how do we know that an emergency docket ruling was precisely 5-4? In this case, it is because Chief Justice Roberts wrote a dissent that was joined by the three liberals. Early in Roberts’ dissent he writes “[t]hat construction is likely unlawful”; and the majority opinion takes pains to note that “[t]oday, we do not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project.” The legal issues at stake in the SCOTUS opinion are entirely about whether the plaintiffs who sued the government have standing to do so, and hence whether the district court exceeded its authority in granting the injunction.
While I am not a lawyer, I am increasingly convinced that something — although I can’t specify a precise solution — needs to change when it comes to judicial evaluation of whether or not the executive branch is complying with the law. Time and time again, the Trump administration has rather brilliantly exploited a seam in our form of government whose existence I hadn’t previously appreciated: It is all too possible for the executive branch to willingly break the law, without adequate legal remedies available to prevent it.
Mail-In Ballots. This post is already too long, and I imagine this subject will be coming up again in the near future, so for today I’ll be brief. There have been Executive Orders relating to the role of the U.S. Postal Service in delivering mail-in ballots in federal elections, and very recently a final regulation implementing portions of those EOs was promulgated. Many states believe that the rule is unconstitutional, and they seek to enjoin its implementation for the November elections while further litigation continues. This issue already reached the SCOTUS emergency docket once, in an August case called Trump v. California, over dissents from the 3 liberals. At that time, the Court argued that the legal action was premature since it was taken before the final rule was promulgated, so the legal harms to the states were speculative. Now that the rule exists, the district court judge has reaffirmed her previous ruling, and this will likely get back to the SCOTUS emergency docket very shortly.
Political Landscape. I’ll end for today with a brief summary of how the national political landscape looks like on Labor Day, citing Nate Silver’s new midterms model which he has christened FLIPR:
- FLIPR thinks control of the Senate is a genuine tossup, with a 50.6% chance that the Democrats will get to 51 seats. Of course, if they get to exactly 51, then there is some risk that Fetterman, whose approval ratings are far higher among PA Republicans than among PA Democrats, could be induced to switch parties.
- In terms of specific Senate races, FLIPR has Talarico as a mild favorite to flip TX (56-44) but, surprisingly, Sullivan as a mild favorite to hold AK (54-46). FLIPR also likes Jackson’s chances to flip ME (65-35), Brown’s to flip OH (62-38), El-Sayed’s to retain MI (68-32), and the Republican Hinson’s to hold the open seat in IA (65-35). Among longer shots, FLIPR gives the Democrat Hamilton a 20% chance to flip KS, which came as a surprise to me.
- FLIPS thinks the Democrats are heavily favored to take back control of the House, with an average margin of 231-204 and an 82.7% chance of being at 218+. It appears Silver thinks that Republicans have a structural advantage in popular vote terms of about 3% in the House, thanks to gerrymandering and other factors. Having said that, it is certainly possible that the Republicans will lose some of the seats, particularly in TX, that they had gerrymandered in an effort to gain.
- Silver’s tracking average of Trump’s approval / disapproval ratings currently sits at 38.1 – 58.5, which is very close an all-time low for Trump.