Whole Hog Politics: What do Democrats really want? ...Middle East

On the menu: Tillis draws a top Dem opponent; Paxton, Cornyn headed for brutal battle; old is out for Dem challengers; fat suits; sign of the times 

Politics is like investing or shooting skeet: You don’t want to be on the target, you want to be just ahead of it.

In our crazy, fugazi, reverse-engineered parliamentary system, the principal questions at all times are which party will control the White House and then whether the president can eke out a bare majority in Congress to start ramming and jamming mostly unpopular items through. Through the combined effects of partisan primary elections, siloed media and legislative gerrymandering, we’ve replaced the constitutional separation of powers with the power of party unity.

That means that Democratic members of Congress, who have large enough minorities in both houses to have had a meaningful influence on governance in the traditional American system, are reduced to being bystanders and grandstanders as Republicans shoot their shot. House and Senate Democrats don’t have much to do now but wait for the seemingly inevitable midterm punishment ahead for Republicans. Then the blue team can get control of at least one chamber and again do nothing, but do it with the special verve that comes from gridlock: power without responsibility. How sweet it is.

While Democrats await their 2026 windfall, the real work of the party is figuring out who they will put forward for president in 2028, the one whom they could anoint with the power to start ramming and jamming as soon as she or he takes office. Who will lead them out of the wilderness … and then right back into it?

Eight years ago, Democrats thought they knew where their champion would rise. The answer to Republican populism, it was broadly concluded, was Democratic populism. Rather than correctly concluding that Hillary Clinton was a generationally awful candidate in 2016, Democrats mostly decided that it was the strength of the ideas of her main primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

This was the period in which 2020 Democratic hopefuls lurched to the left, embracing ideas like “Medicare for All,” the Green New Deal and intense criminal justice reform. Onetime moderate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) became a single-payer health care enthusiast. Conspicuous corporatist Joe Biden learned to love the Green New Deal. Former prosecutor Kamala Harris praised the movement to defund the police. These normie candidates were certainly following the rule that you go where the voters are, and the Democratic base, or certainly the very online version of it, looked like it was way out to the left. With Sanders running again and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) coming into the race with lots of love from hardcore progressives, the squishes were looking for ways to not get steamrolled.

They were, of course, wrong. What rank-and-file Democrats really wanted was someone who could beat Trump, not the vanguard of radical change. The same intense partisanship that makes Washington dysfunctional made Democrats inclined to act rationally about picking a broadly appealing candidate. 

The questions before Democrats today: 1) What do ambitious Democrats think that their voters want and 2) What will their voters actually want three Januaries from now.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) definitely managed to miss on the first question this week. Attempting to show that she was a real Rust Belt moderate, she got an Oval Office audience with Trump, who praised her as having “done an excellent job” and as a “very good person.” The pain was evident on her face as she stood by while Trump fired off executive actions targeting his political enemies and riffed to the press about his own genius at tariff negotiations.

Some combination of bad staff work and bad judgment on her part led Whitmer to be used as a political prop who lent some nominal bipartisanship to an episode that Democrats would very much like Trump to have sole ownership of.

She probably wanted what Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) got with his trip to Mar-a-Lago at the very beginning of Trump 2.0. “It wasn’t in any kind of theater. It wasn’t trying to get your picture taken to kind of put something out on social media,” he said afterward. “It was just, really, a conversation.” Whitmer got the exact opposite, and her fellow potential 2028 contenders won’t let her forget it.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) has made a habit of defying progressive orthodoxies in the Centennial State with a technocratic, limited-government approach, and he did not miss the chance to paint Witmer’s support for tariffs as support for Trump.

“While sanctions (Russia, Iran) can have a geopolitical national security role, it should always be considered eyes wide open that sanctions harm both ourself and others,” he said in a statement after Whitmer tried to massage her points of agreement with Trump.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has been making his own moves to the middle, and doing so more adroitly than Whitmer … but not much more adroitly. On issues from transgender rights to regulatory reform, Newsom has branded his party as “toxic” with voters. No doubt thinking of how his fellow Californian, Harris, was roasted in a general election for the pandering answers she gave with primary voters in mind, Newsom has decided to get the rebranding out of the way early.

With so many Democrats moving to the middle, they’re leaving a lot of real estate open on the far left. And over there, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is getting ready for another star turn. She’s been headlining packed rallies with Sanders and presenting herself as the heir apparent for the progressive movement that has been coming up short in Democratic politics since former President Obama, who raised their hopes but ultimately proved to be a disappointment.

Ocasio-Cortez looks very much like the candidate who could generate huge enthusiasm in a primary and then get nuked in a general election. As Democratic analyst Michael Baharaeen put it: “Democrats would be wise to ask themselves whether her economically populist rhetoric will be enough to make voters in, say, Michigan or Pennsylvania overlook her past left-wing views and proximity to the party’s professional-class base.”

True enough. But if the received wisdom among mainstream Democrats is that moderation is the key, who will be left to vie with Ocasio-Cortez for the “Feel the Bern” voters who have so much clout in so many primaries? Will former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) embrace their roles as aggressive progressives?  

As they’re getting themselves into their lanes, we know for now that Democrats are still very mindful of not getting zapped the way Harris did for her progressive journey prior to 2020. But as the actual contest gets closer, how many of them will be able to resist stampeding left if Ocasio-Cortez looks like she’s gaining steam?

Holy croakano! We welcome your feedback, so please email us with your tips, corrections, reactions, amplifications, etc. at [email protected]. If you’d like to be considered for publication, please include your real name and hometown. If you don’t want your comments to be made public, please specify.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION 

Trump job performance

Average approval: 44.0 percent

Average disapproval: 51.2 percent

Net score: Negative 7.2 points

Change from last week: Negative 1 point

Change from last month: Negative 3 points

[Average includes: Quinnipiac: 41 percent approve - 53 percent disapprove; Ipsos/Reuters: 43 percent approve - 53 percent disapprove; Wall Street Journal: 46 percent approve - 51 percent disapprove; TIPP: 44 percent approve - 45 percent disapprove; Marquette Law: 46 percent approve - 54 percent disapprove]

A tale of two issues

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the following issues?

Border security

The economy

[Fox News poll of 994 registered voters, March 2025] 

ON THE SIDE: GAME OF CLONES

The New York Times: “For more than a decade, scientists have chased the idea of reviving extinct species, a process sometimes called de-extinction. Now, a company called Colossal Biosciences appears to have done it, or something close, with the dire wolf, a giant, extinct species made famous by the television series ‘Game of Thrones.’ … In 2021, a separate team of scientists managed to retrieve DNA from the fossils of dire wolves, which went extinct about 13,000 years ago. With the discovery of additional DNA, researchers have now edited 20 genes of gray wolves to imbue the animals with key features of dire wolves. … The result is three healthy wolves — two males that are 6 months old and one female that is 2 months old, named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi — that have some traits of dire wolves. … The animals will remain in captivity. But the technology that the company has developed could potentially help conserve species that have not yet gone extinct, such as the critically endangered red wolf.” 

PRIME CUTS 

Dems agree with MAGA: Let Trump be Trump: The Wall Street Journal: “Democrats have struggled since their election drubbing in November to find a successful formula to challenge President Trump. After he put the country on an economic roller coaster this week, they are betting voters may be getting woozy. Some in the party say their efforts to win back independent voters could get a boost from a simple dynamic: allowing Trump to do political damage to himself and the Republican brand with his unpredictable and chaotic governing style. … Just minutes after Trump’s reversal, a new Quinnipiac University poll showed him on politically shaky ground. The survey said most voters think his tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the short term.”

Former Rep. Wiley Nickel announces North Carolina Senate bid: The Hill: “Former Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) is running for Senate to try to unseat North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis (R) next year in the Tar Heel State, he announced Wednesday. Nickel, who previously represented North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District in the House for one term, is the first Democrat to get in the race. Tillis’s seat will be a top target for Democrats to flip in 2026. … Nickel was first elected to the House in 2022 but chose not to run for reelection last year after the Republican-led North Carolina Legislature revised the state’s district map and made the 13th District considerably more friendly to Republican candidates. … Nickel may face competition for the Democratic nomination if former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) chooses to run for the seat as he has expressed interest in doing. … The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report rates the North Carolina race as ‘lean Republican.’” 

Paxton launches long-awaited primary challenge to Cornyn: The New York Times: “Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, officially announced on Tuesday that he was challenging Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary next year, setting up what is likely to be the most contentious and expensive intraparty contest of 2026. … Mr. Paxton, a firebrand conservative litigant who has sought to strongly align himself with President Trump, had been teasing a run against Mr. Cornyn for weeks. … Mr. Paxton has tried to position himself as the preferred candidate of the Republican primary base in Texas. … In response to Mr. Paxton’s announcement, the Cornyn campaign pointed to the senator’s voting record, which it said aligned with President Trump more than nearly every other senator. The campaign referred to Mr. Paxton as ‘a fraud.’ … Mr. Paxton survived an impeachment trial in 2023, initiated by Texas House Republicans, over allegations of corruption and abuse of office.” 

Dems well-positioned to flip House despite small battleground: University of Virginia Center for Politics: “Typically in midterms, the non-presidential party improves both their share of seats and share of the popular House vote compared to the previous election. The Democrats’ path became clearer once all of the 2024 races were called and they captured 215 seats to the Republicans’ 220, meaning they only needed to do 3 seats better in 2026 to flip the House. … Since then, Trump has taken office and governed much more aggressively than he did at the start of his first term. … Electorally, Democrats have been punching above their weight in special elections much like they did in 2017. … The competitive map, at least as it stands at the starting point, is not that large, and our initial ratings show a competitive race for control. We have 209 seats rated Safe, Likely, or Leans Democratic, 207 seats rated Safe, Likely, or Leans Republican, and 19 Toss-ups. Democrats would need 9 of the Toss-ups to win the majority, Republicans would need 11.

SHORT ORDER 

After Biden debacle, Dem primary challengers focus on age of incumbents — Politico

House passes bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote — The Wall Street Journal

Father of Red Sox star launches campaign for governor in New Mexico — Albuquerque Journal

Dems launch PAC to recapture Latino voters — The Washington Post

TABLE TALK

Hands-on leadership“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” — Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) gets tough with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer during a Tuesday hearing on tariffs. 

Ka-boom

“The Golden Age is coming. We are committed to protecting our interests, engaging in global negotiations and exploding our economy.” — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik in a statement on trade policy. 

MAILBAG

“I did a little spit-take reading your description of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, ‘who has an obvious appetite for even higher office.’ As an older, plump American, I thought, ‘Yeah Governor Pritzker’s got an obvious appetite for a lot of things, mostly involving carbs.’” — Allan Rutter, Prosper, Texas

Mr. Rutter,

How could I, plump and old-ish myself, make jokes about the girthsomeness of any politician unless she or he had joked about it themself? Pritzker, who seems to stand about 5 feet, 9 inches in this photo with the 6-foot-2-inch former President Obama, has tried to own the issue of his weight, which looks to be at least 250 pounds. 

The story of overweight and obese politicians has been mostly an unhappy one since the arrival of television. The most notable exception being President Trump, who has learned a variety of tricks to disguise his form, most notably wearing structured business suits that make him look like he’s wearing a navy blue refrigerator box. Seldom does Trump allow himself to be photographed out of uniform, and in media appearances avoids ever being shot in profile. Trump also enjoys an advantage over Pritzker in that the current president seems to be about the same height as Obama, which is a much larger frame on which to carry a weight probably similar to Pritzker’s.

We could say that it shouldn’t matter to voters how fit or fat their leaders are, but we know that physical appearance matters a great deal. That’s why politicians wear lifts, dye their hair, get plastic surgery, etc., in our image-obsessed nation. Former President Eisenhower may have defeated the Nazis, but at 5 feet, 10 inches and bald as an egg, could he get a shot at the White House today? 

Pritzker could drop 50 pounds and do as then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) did in advance of his own presidential run and make weight loss a key part of the story of his candidacy. Or Pritzker could try a Trump-like move and stop appearing in public looking rumpled and always insist on an ample suit coat. But what he can’t do is successfully ignore the issue. He lives in a nation full of William Tafts who want their presidents to look like John Kennedys.

Fulsomely,

c

“I'm a conservative independent in Wisconsin. The Schimel-Crawford [state Supreme Court] election: In a vacuum, the vote was easy. I prefer [Republican-backed Brad Schimel] over [Democrat-backed Susan Crawford]. That said, I don't like Trump's ‘leadership’ and the Elon Show isn't for me. Each time I received literature touting Schimel as the Trump endorsed candidate it made me feel ill. I was never voting for Crawford. My fear was that if Schimel won, the TrumpMusk mandate would be at a volume set at 11 (Spinal Tap) and crush the newly sprouting green roots of non-Trumpian conservatism, which would nauseate me. Doubt there were enough right-of-center, tortured souls, who stayed home who could have changed the outcome. Likely not enough to make up the 10 point gap though. Interested in your perspective.” — Russ Sohr, Green Bay, Wisconsin

Mr. Sohr,

You point to the essential conundrum for the modern Democratic Party: Can they win over enough anti-populist conservatives, or at least get them to not vote for populistic Republicans, to form a useful coalition?

Witness the debate on tariffs, in which Democrats feel the strong tug toward free trade from affluent, educated voters in the suburbs, the heart of their new coalition. But neither do they feel comfortable abandoning the protectionism that has been a generations-long connection to organized labor and working-class voters. The current preferred dodge in the party is that tariffs can be good and should be used to protect certain domestic workers, but that is not practically different from the Republican line. The only substantive disagreement is over who should have that authority.

Might there come a day when Democrats do as they did in 1964 and radically change course away from the working-class voters who made up their base in pursuit of a new coalition? It’s possible, but unlikely. The energy in the Democratic Party is just as populistic as the GOP. The activists who fill campaign coffers and turn out in droves for primary elections are not Burkean incrementalists who favor strong institutions mediating gradual change. They are Jacobins who want “big, structural change.”

Both parties are in the thrall of radical populists, nationalists on the right and progressives on the left, leaving conservatives and liberals out in the cold. The latter two groups are divided on a great deal of policy but generally aligned on questions about the Constitution, the rule of law, ethics and decorum. But without a useful voting bloc, the Burkeans remain hopelessly divided in general elections that pit populist against populist.

Where’s Henry Clay when you need him?

Whiggishly,

c

You should email us! Write to [email protected] with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, wonderful names, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name — at least first and last — and hometown. Make sure to let us know in the email if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, the multi-tasking Nate Moore, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack!

FOR DESSERT

Bus-ted: CTV News [Montreal]: “A Montreal man is fighting a parking ticket he says was given minutes after crews set up a bus stop, apparently without warning. Lino Monteleone says early in the morning of April 1, his daughter showed him a ticket she’d received on her car parked overnight on the street in front of their home. … ‘The night before, there was parking on the street,’ he said. … After looking at their doorbell camera video, the family says Société de transport de Montréal (STM) workers put up the new bus stop sign on their front lawn shortly before 8 a.m. They say the video then shows a city parking agent ticketing the vehicle at 8:05 a.m. … The agency says they do not inform area residents of the installation or relocation of a bus stop. … Monteleone confirmed he plans to contest the ticket. He adds that since the sign went up, he hasn’t seen any buses on his street.”

Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of "The Hill Sunday" on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media. Nate Moore contributed to this report.

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