Polls

Washington Post -  Republicans are eight seats closer to keeping control of the House since President Donald Trump pushed state lawmakers to redraw congressional maps, steepening the Democrats’ climb toward reclaiming any hold on federal power in November.

Democrats are still exploring whether any long-shot legal moves could save their redistricting attempt in Virginia after the state’s high court on Friday overturned last month’s referendum to approve it. Democrats and their allies are still challenging new maps in Florida and Missouri. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) insisted Friday his party will still win the chamber.

But Democrats were confronting the reality that Trump succeeded in tilting the playing field to the GOP’s advantage. Eric Holder, a former attorney general leading the Democrats’ redistricting drive, said Republicans were trying “to steal the 2026 midterm election.”

Just two weeks ago, Democrats had fought to a draw, with Virginia’s referendum adding four new left-leaning seats and some Republicans questioning whether the arms race was worth it. Then last week, Florida Republicans adopted a redrawn map hoping to turn four more districts red, and the Supreme Court opened the door for Republicans to do the same in several other Southern states.

“The critics of the White House spiked the football a little too early,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a Republican operative and former senior official in the Trump White House. “The map is more favorable to us now.”

Newsguard -   Nearly one third of Americans (30 percent) believe that at least one of the three attempts on President Donald Trump’s life over the last two years was staged, according to a new NewsGuard/YouGov poll. For each attempted assassination, a majority of Americans said either that it was staged or that they were not sure — averaging 54 percent across all three. Only 38 percent of Americans believe that all three assassination attempts were authentic.