THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Republicans are “panicking” about what the midterm debacle has done to their presidential map for 2028, Politico reports. Some Republicans fear Texas is now very gettable for the Democratic electoral college map. Other worry that Ohio and Iowa have reverted to true swing states. One Republican suggests the Trump “brand” has become a weapon against the party. Meanwhile, Trump seethed that if he’d b...

Donald Trump’s war on Iran was a big cause of the GOP electoral drubbing, and Pete Hegseth is in trouble. Trump told ABC News that he “has every intention” of keeping the Defense Secretary. But then came the twist. Trump said: “I get these calls” from people taking aim at Hegseth, adding: “I don’t know why.” And Trump admitted it would be easier to get a replacement confirmed before Democrats take...

Donald Trump fired quite a warning shot at JD Vance as the epic scale of GOP losses sank in. Asked about Vance and the political way forward, Trump employed his best mob-speak and declared that in 2028, maybe “a lot of people” will run for president, adding of Vance: “Maybe he won’t run.” Translation: If you distance yourself from me, your presidential ambitions are dead and others should feel fre...

In a stunning series of outcomes, Democrats won control of the House and Senate on Tuesday. They’re projected to take control of at least 244 House seats, per NBC, and as of now, they’ve flipped Senate seats in South Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, and North Carolina, with Maine likely following. That means they’ll control at least 53 seats. But what also makes these results stunning is how D...

Charlie Cook has been doing election forecasting since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign. The founder of the Cook Political Report, an institution in D.C., he recently retired from his life’s work and now writes an informative newsletter called “Charlie Cook Politics.” And he’s been declaring that he hasn’t ever seen an election quite like this one. So, now that Election Day is finally upon...

Donald Trump erupted in a deranged rant at a reporter who dared to ask why he’d cancelled several of his rallies (which he then reinstated). Trump sputtered at being pressed on his fitness and viciously insulted the reporter’s appearance. “You are disgusting,” Trump snapped. “You look like hell.” This comes as Republicans are leaking word that his rallies hurt more than help in swing areas, meanin...

Donald Trump is in a dark mood about the midterms, reports The New York Times in an epic piece. Numerous administration insiders confide that he’s raging at naysayers and negative press. And they’re also leaking that he’s “increasingly cloistered” with “acolytes” like Natalie Harp, as the Times puts it, adding this: "As the elections approach, Mr. Trump is feasting on a media diet of fawning press...

After Vivek Ramaswamy ran that vile ad attacking Amy Acton in the Ohio gubernatorial race, Donald Trump aggressively defended it. That sent out a command to MAGA to get behind the ad. But now Republicans just leaked an internal poll to Axios showing that the ad is backfiring in humiliating fashion: It is making voters more likely to pick Acton over Ramaswamy rather than less. On top of that, Repub...

In a remarkable move, Fox News just shifted numerous House races toward Democrats. Fox finds them pulling even or favored in really Trumpy places like Kentucky’s 6th district and North Carolina’s 11th district. Fox also shifted the Ohio Senate race to “Lean Democratic.” In both cases Fox cited recent polling—including its own—as the justification. These bombshell incursions into deep red territory...

Donald Trump is stewing about elections big time. He raged at Senator Lisa Murkowski for opposing his dumb effort to rig the Alaska Senate race, fumed over imagined voter-fraud in the upcoming midterms, and seethed that the right’s huge loss in Brazil was “rigged.” It’s no accident that this unraveling comes as the early-voting data looks so dubious for the GOP that even some MAGA data analysts se...

Donald Trump seethed wildly at NBC reporter Monica Alba after she asked him tough questions about his support for that vile ad attacking Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton for supposedly lying about her past. Alba pointed out that Acton’s childhood involved “serious sexual abuse allegations,” prompting Trump to bark “quiet!” at Alba, rage that she’s being “fresh,” and belittle her as a “horrib...

In dense and convoluted remarks, Donald Trump defended that disgusting ad in the Ohio gubernatorial race. The ad from Republican Vivek Ramaswamy featured the mother of Democrat Amy Acton calling her a liar. But it quickly emerged that Acton was apparently raped by her step-father, the mother’s husband. The move backfired spectacularly, as numerous Republicans, including Ohio governor Mike DeWine s...

Donald Trump just unleashed a panicky string of posts—see here, here, here, and here—in which he frantically urged Republicans to vote by mail early. Amusingly, this comes after he told Republicans for months that mail-balloting is fraudulent to pass his SAVE America Act. Now that his efforts to nix vote-by-mail have flopped, he’s prodding Republicans to adopt it—effectively admitting his attacks...

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Michigan Senate race is more or less on a knife’s edge. Amid all this, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has had some hugely viral moments lately, tangling with a MAGA plant over a question about the Muslim Brotherhood and battling with JD Vance over the vice president’s vile attacks on him. We think El-Sayed is developing an interesting way of doing politics...

Donald Trump’s approval just sank to an abysmal 33-66 in the new Washington Post poll, a record low in Post polling. The survey also finds Democrats leading in the battle for the House by eight points. Meanwhile, the new NBC poll also finds Trump below 35 percent and puts the Democratic lead at 10 points. The polling averages also suggest a Democra...

In recent days, Donald Trump has exploded over James Talarico’s Senate candidacy in Texas. In a long, tortured tirade, Trump repeatedly called him “James TalaFREAKO” and raged at Karl Rove for supposedly wanting Ken Paxton to lose. He even ordered Fox to stop airing Rove. In another tirade, he fumed that Paxton is the “greatest attorney general” in Texas’s history and angrily wonder...

The new national poll from Fox is absolutely awful for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It finds Trump at a record low approval, shows him absolutely cratering with independents and Latinos, and even finds him underwater with noncollege whites and non-MAGA Republicans. It also finds Democrats expanding their lead in the generic ballot matchup to nine points and shows them with comm...

Earlier this week, Donald Trump made some audacious claims. He insisted at length that his rallies are having a “tremendously positive impact” on Republicans’ chances in the midterms, because it causes their support to “go up.” He also insisted costs are plummeting. But on Wednesday, the new Consumer Price Index report demolished that claim by showing inflation getting worse. M...

In a remarkable piece, The Atlantic reports that Donald Trump is privately furious over his inability to force Iran to stop the war. As one adviser notes, he is “used to snapping his fingers” to control Republicans and the media, so he is now “losing his mind that Iran won’t listen” to him. This comes as his new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, turned in a debut performance&nbs...

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark recently held a focus group with people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 that took an extraordinary turn. After being shown Trump’s vile taxpayer-funded ad, in which he rages about expelling “globalists” and “Marxists” and the “fake news media,” they were revolted. They called Trump “despicable” and “power hungry” and a “narcissist” who spew...

Donald Trump rages regularly at Fox News. But Axios now reports that there’s more behind this than meets the eye: White House and GOP operatives have privately pressured Fox for months to change how it’s covering Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. The problem? By giving El-Sayed airtime and covering him in a somewhat factual way, it’s made it harder for Trump and the GOP to smear...

In today’s episode, nonpartisan political forecaster Kyle Kondik makes some critical points about Donald Trump’s approval rating. First, it may be so low that he’s even underwater in House districts that he carried by double digits. Second, unlike in 2018, his approval is underwater in red states with big Senate races. Indeed, the latest polling averages have him sinking below 35 percent...

Donald Trump unleashed a long, crazed tirade this week about Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina. He attacked her with the vicious slur “tranny” not once but twice. He smeared her with numerous lies about her positions, insisting she is for “Defunding the Police” and “Transgender for Everyone.” The source of Trump’s rage is obvious: He fears the race is u...

Donald Trump has been holding rallies in red states, and in a pair of articles, The New York Times reported that his crowd sizes have been diminishing. This triggered an epic tirade from Trump: He raged that his rallies are “PACKED” and claimed they are “HOTTER” than ever. He even accused the media of dishonestly ignoring their “thunderous applause” from “thousands an...

A new Fox poll showing James Talarico ahead in the Texas Senate race unnerved Fox figures. One MAGA guest on Fox exclaimed: “Texans have to wake up!” The poll also has truly terrible news for Trump: His approval is upside down in this reliably red state, he’s cratering with Latinos, and he’s losing the working class, which is his base. He’s even underwater with non-MAGA&nb...