Trump Starts a Trade War

After months of threatening new tariffs, Donald Trump finally pulled the trigger yesterday. He declared a national economic "emergency" and used his new emergency powers to impose the tariffs. Somewhere, Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley are smiling since some of the new tariffs will hit 1930s levels. There will be a baseline tariff of 10% on all countries, along with extra high tariffs on some specific countries. Over 60 countries will be hit with tariffs above the 10% baseline.

China will be hit the hardest, with a new 34% tariff on top of the 20% tariff Trump already imposed. If you want a new iPhone, get it before Saturday, when the new tariffs kick in. The total tariff on India will be 26%, on Japan will be 24%, and on the European Union 20%.

Economist Justin Wolfers noted that the U.S. will now have the highest tariffs in the industrialized world. They will literally be off the charts:

Trump is arguing that the tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs, but that is very unlikely. It might help somewhat in industries that the U.S. already has, like car manufacturing. If Japanese cars go up in price, Ford and General Motors could sell more cars (unless they get greedy and raise their prices to match those of the Japanese cars). On the other hand, they import a lot of the steel used in their cars, so their costs may go up, canceling out the tariffs on Japanese cars. Even worse, though, is that many industries depend on (imported) steel, and their costs will go up and make their finished products even less competitive, causing them to shed jobs. Could U.S. steel production go up? Maybe for specialty steels that are already being made in the U.S. but building a new steel factory is neither cheap nor easy—and nobody wants it in their backyard.

However, for products that are not made in the U.S. at all, or barely, will companies rush to build new factories to make them when the tariffs might be gone by the time the factories are finished? It's very risky and many companies are risk-averse. Is some company going to build a factory to make shoes in the U.S. because the price of cheap shoes from Asia has gone up maybe 20%? Most CEOs will see that as too risky, especially since the Trump tariffs might disappear at any moment, depending on Trump's mood, or else as soon as a new administration takes power. In some cases, like semiconductor chips, a new factory costs tens of billions of dollars. Companies aren't going to make that kind of investment unless they have a strong business case separate from mercurial tariffs. Intel is building one in Ohio and TSMC is building one in Arizona, but those are being subsidized by Joe Biden's CHIPS and Science Act; tariffs don't play any role there.

The situation for pharmaceuticals is even worse. Many generic drugs come from India, which was hit with a 26% tariff. But even if U.S. drug companies wanted to spend tens of billions of dollars building new factories, they would have to contend with the fact that many of the raw materials they need also come from abroad. In the short term, and maybe in the long term, they will just increase prices.

Tariffs will cause pain. How will the pain be distributed? Certainly, the tariffs will raise the cost of living for everyone, but the hit will be much greater for lower-income people because they use most of their income to buy things (other than stocks) and the cheapest things often come from overseas and thus will be hit by tariffs. Axios crunched some numbers and came up with this graphic showing the expected effects on different income groups. It assumes an average tariff of 20%. This is just an estimate, since it depends on how much stuff a person buys from China at 34% tariff vs. 24% for Japan, and 10% for some other countries:

In this model, the poorest 20% of Americans will see their disposable income be reduced by 5.5%, on top of the inflation unrelated to tariffs. For people in the middle, the hit is 3.3%, but will still amount to $3,800/year. The top 20% will suffer more if there is a tariff-induced recession and stock prices fall.

The tariffs will hit groceries (some of which come from Mexico), cars (which come from many countries), and housing materials (also from many countries). Some people will make that up and more from the tax cuts Trump is trying to get through Congress, but most likely only very high income people will be so fortunate.

Trump is already making a pitch that people should expect some pain, but it is for the greater good. Historically, Americans are not keen on doing things for the greater good if it hurts them personally. Jimmy Carter strongly believed that the climate crisis was one of the most serious challenges the U.S. was facing. He called it the moral equivalent of war. He famously gave an address in front of a fire wearing a cardigan sweater to try to convince people to set their thermostats a degree or two lower and put on a sweater. In later speeches, he used the word "sacrifice" hundreds of times. He was rewarded by being defeated for reelection. George W. Bush, on the other hand, got this. After 9/11, he didn't call for sacrifices to catch the perps and rebuild. No, he told people to go shopping. They liked that.

Will Trump be able to sell the idea that the short-term pain is worth waiting for long-term gain? He and his advisers plan to blanket the airwaves telling people to ignore the prices at the supermarket and believe in him. Maybe that will work, but people who are already hard-pressed to pay their bills are not likely going to be happy with higher bills now in return for a promise that some day there might be more jobs in Michigan—even people who live in Michigan won't be satisfied with that.

CBS released a YouGov poll on Monday. It showed that 56% of adults opposed tariffs while 44% approved of them. However, 72% expected prices to go up in the short term. Americans have no idea what "short term" means, though. Maybe steel companies and drug companies and other companies will now race to build new factories in America, but even if they have the money and plans ready to go, it will be years before cheaper products begin rolling off the assembly lines. There will be years of higher prices first. "Give it a decade" is one version of "short term," but the average pro-tariff American is likely thinking in terms of months, not years or decades. We also suspect that much of that 44% is people who don't really understand how tariffs work, and who have embraced the fantasy version of Econ 101 being pitched by Trump.

Yesterday, the Senate voted on a resolution calling for an end to the "emergency" and thus an end to the tariffs. The measure was approved 51-48, with all of the Democrats and independents being joined by four Republicans: Susan Collins (ME), Mitch McConnell (KY), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Rand Paul (KY). The bill is just symbolic, but it does suggest that if the tariffs are painful, there could eventually be Republican votes in both chambers to shut them down. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) have also been carping about the tariffs, and those two, plus the four senators from yesterday, would put the anti-tariff forces in shouting distance of a filibuster-proof majority. And once half a dozen Republicans have broken ranks, one can imagine some of the farming-state senators crossing the aisle, too. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) seems an obvious possibility, and the two Republicans from Nebraska, or from Oklahoma, or from Texas, or from Indiana could join him (not to mention Joni Ernst, the other Iowa Republican). It's also plausible that the requisite number of Republicans in the House could be persuaded to sign a discharge petition and force a vote on an anti-tariff bill; some combination of purple-district members, farming-state members, targeted-state members (e.g., from Kentucky, which is particularly easy to punish with counter-tariffs, because so much whiskey comes from there), libertarians, etc. A Republican rebellion against Trump is not imminent, especially since the members are really hoping he backs down yet again. However, if he stays the course, and if the pain is great, a rebellion is certainly possible, especially given what happened in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

Early this morning, stock markets opened in Europe. Investors there were not happy. Futures on the S & P 500, which allow investors to bet in the direction of the index, dropped 3%. NASDAQ futures also dropped 3%. Other benchmarks also dropped around 2%. The value of the U.S. dollar dropped 1%. The initial reaction suggests that nobody believed that Trump was actually going to pull the trigger and were surprised when he finally did it. Do you remember the old story of the little shepherd boy who cried "tariff" and when the villagers came, there was no tariff?

The amount each company dropped seemed to be related to how vulnerable they are. Shares of Adidas and Puma, which make shoes in Vietnam (hit by a 46% tariff) dropped 9%. Maybe going barefoot will become all the rage this summer. Maersk, the shipping giant, dropped 7%. Big banks dropped 4%.

We will learn more when the U.S. markets open, but the stock market is not really a good gauge of the economy. It is more of an indicator of mass hysteria. Also, when stocks drop, some investors see this as a bargain and buy them up, raising prices. The main reason this is even important is that Trump sees the stock market as an indicator of his value and a sinking market makes him angry. And what really makes him furious is that he has figured out how to punish newspapers, media companies, law firms, and universities, but he hasn't figured out a way to punish the stock market yet. Maybe Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent knows a trick or two he can try. So far, all he has mustered is a six-word barely concealed warning: "Doing anything rash would be unwise." Will other countries be deterred from responding? We shall see. (V & Z)

European Union Is Ready to Fight Back

In March, Donald Trump threatened Europe: Buy more American gas or I'll hit you with crippling tariffs. Europe was happy to talk about buying more gas, but then Trump hit it with more tariffs, anyway. But in truth, the European Union has long expected the tariffs announced yesterday and is prepared to fight back. It is not going to roll over and play dead. And it may stop playing small ball, like last time. During Trump v1.0, the E.U. put tariffs on specific products, like Kentucky bourbon and Harley Davidson motorcycles, so as to cause pain in specific states, and thus to get the attention of specific senators. The Europeans also matched Donald Trump's tariffs closely. If he put a tariff of X% on some metal, they did, too. All of this was symbolic and didn't cause much actual pain.

Now European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is thinking of doing things that will cause real pain to some U.S. companies that have actual clout and which will not be embarrassed to let Trump know about it. The E.U. runs a trade surplus in physical goods, like cars, but runs a deficit in services, like Internet services. It is thinking of hitting big banks, like J.P. Morgan and Bank of America and Internet companies, like Google and ex-Twitter.

Exactly how that would work has not been publicized yet, but there are many ways if people start thinking creatively. It doesn't have to be tit-for-tat. For example, the Digital Services Act regulates and bans illegal content and disinformation. For example, if a Facebook user posts a blatant lie, that is not a crime in the U.S. It might be a crime—with a whopping associated fine—in Europe. That would force Facebook to either vet all content, which it probably couldn't do, or shut down in Europe. If a Google search turned up a site with Russian propaganda, that could result in Google getting hit with a big fine as well. Doing things like this would not require new legislation, merely rigorously enforcing existing legislation.

Another area the E.U. could go after is banking. While U.S. banks generally don't have substantive (or any) retail operations in Europe, they are active in areas like corporate banking. There could be new fees and taxes on their operations in Europe.

If things really escalate, the E.U. has a very general regulation known as the Anti-Coercion Instrument that allows it to fight back on economic coercion, like, say, unreasonable tariffs. It would allow the E.U. to simply ban selected social media companies, prevent them from investing in Europe, or restrict their intellectual property rights in Europe. These could be extremely painful for the targeted companies, and the CEOs of said companies would most definitely make sure Trump knew about it. (V)

Trump Continues Threatening Universities and Law Firms

In his program to silence all (potential) opposition to his authoritarian rule, Donald Trump continues to go after top universities and top law firms. He has reason to believe that they "don't hold any cards" so he can bully them all he wants and bend them to his will, even if what he is doing is completely illegal.

The most recent Ivy League university to be hit is Princeton. Trump simply suspended $210 million of research grants on contracts that had already been signed. In the commercial world, this is called breach of contract and the injured party can sue for damages. That also holds for universities, but most of them feel powerless against the full force of the U.S. government, legal or not.

The nominal reason Trump is giving is that Princeton is not working sufficiently to fight antisemitism. Even if that were true, that would not be a legal basis to stop payments on existing contracts. And, as usual, Trump has presented no evidence that it is true. There weren't even a lot of pro-Palestinian activities at Princeton last year. Rabbi Gil Steinlauf, executive director of Princeton's Center for Jewish Life, said: "There are other universities, perhaps, where Jewish students might report feeling physically unsafe. That doesn't exist here on this campus." The reason Princeton was probably chosen, after Columbia, is that Princeton's president, Christopher Eisgruber, recently wrote an op-ed in The Atlantic arguing that Trump's (illegally) yanking funding from Columbia threatened academic freedom everywhere. So, Trump decided to make it personal to Eisgruber. It is all about making universities grovel in the dust and beg him to please let them continue to exist.

Thus far, the various schools Trump has targeted have made a decision that giving in to extortion is cheaper than fighting it. They would probably win in court simply on technical grounds: The president has no authority to unilaterally void signed contracts because he doesn't like the university. They could band together and sue as a group. There is a good chance a judge would place a temporary restraining order on the government ordering it to not suspend any lawful payments until the case had been fully adjudicated up to the Supreme Court, if need be. But they are all afraid. Maybe one of their distinguished professors of history could root around and see if Franklin Delano Roosevelt ever had anything interesting to say about fear.

Now onto the big law firms. As we noted yesterday, Trump has gone after another big law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Their sin? They hired former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, signing him up to work for them on cases involving reputational damages. Like Covington & Burling and Paul, Weiss, Willkie caved, even though it knew that the cost has gone up to $100 million. Yes, they have promised to do $100 million in pro bono work for conservative causes.

Whether that is a real problem remains to be seen. The devil is in the details. The "settlement" statement referred to cases involving veterans, members of the military, Gold Star families, law enforcement, and combating antisemitism. Many of these things are cases the firm might have taken on pro bono anyway, so this is mostly about forcing the firm to grovel rather than defending people they despise. Also, Trump has a very short attention span and no knowledge whatsoever of how law firms work. Willkie could take up some case where a veteran was shortchanged and claim 20 lawyers spent 100 hours each @ $1000/hr = $2,000,000. Trump is not going to ask what each of the lawyers did and why it took so long. If they can find 50 cases like this, they can later show they did what they promised. It is all about a display of dominance. The point is to humiliate the firm and make it clear to them that he is the king and they are vassals who must obey their king and they must admit this in public. Once that has been accomplished, he doesn't actually care about what they precisely did. (V)

DOGE Cuts Are Predominantly Hitting Blue Districts

Why did it take so long? With one of the co-presidents a stable genius and the other an unstable "genious," they should have figured this out long ago: Make sure all the cuts the DOGEys are implementing are in blue districts and states. It is kind of the inverse of the old spoils system, where the president's friends got government goodies. In the new version, the president's enemies get all the punishments. It doesn't take a genius of either type to figure this out.

An investigation showed that only about 12% of the contracts cut by the DOGEys are in Republican districts. The Muskrats have enough data to figure out where to cut. About 7,200 contracts were terminated, totaling billions of dollars. The overwhelming numbers were in blue districts. Here is the top of the list:

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) took the biggest hit. His district, VA-08, contains the Pentagon, the CIA and Northrop Grumman. It is 49% white, 21% Latino, 12% Black and 12% Asian. It has a median household income of $125,000—that is, it is a very wealthy mixed-suburban district. Oh, and the PVI is D+26. In addition to saving money, punishing rich white, Black, and Latino Democrats is a delicious plus.

Part of the reason blue districts are being hit harder than red ones is that if a red district is hit, the congresscritter who represents it tells Trump and he most likely orders Elon Musk to leave that one alone. Some members of the House have even bragged that Musk killed a contract in their districts, then they made a direct appeal to Musk (or Trump) and the contract wasn't canceled. That doesn't work for Democrats, though.

It is also important to keep in mind that the claimed savings aren't always real. In many cases, a contract, especially a military one, puts an upper limit on the amount that the contractor can charge, but the contractor has to justify every penny actually spent. For contracts that are ongoing, some of the money hasn't been spent yet and might never be, so claiming the maximum was saved is somewhat misleading.

And again, technically, what Musk is doing is impounding federal funds. That is illegal due to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), whose district in nearby Maryland is #3 on the list above, said: "The money that we have appropriated in Congress is all part of federal laws, and the president has the obligation to spend the money that we've appropriated for particular purposes. You can't take money away from the State Department or the Defense Department or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or [US]AID as president because you don't like it."

Musk removes (and sometimes puts back) dozens or more contracts per day. Last Sunday and Monday combined, he unilaterally killed 200 contracts on which he claimed a savings of half a billion dollars. Needless to say, he never read any of the contracts and has no idea if any of them have any waste, fraud, or abuse. He just didn't like that particular agency or the contractor.

Rachael Bade of Politico is reporting that Trump is telling people in his inner circle that Musk is on his way out. Trump may have come to believe one of two things. Either Co-President Musk has come to overshadow Trump or Musk is so unpopular it is rubbing off on Trump. Whether Musk will retain any role after he is gone remains to be seen. (V)

Mass Layoffs at HHS Are Starting

Many people thought the worst thing Robert Kennedy Jr. would do as secretary of HHS was ban vaccines. He might yet get around to that, but he is starting out by firing 10,000 people. That is in addition to the 10,000 who took "voluntary" retirement to avoid being fired. But the net result is that HHS now has 20,000 fewer workers than it had in January. That is one-quarter of its entire workforce, which will drop from 82,000 people to 62,000. When a just-fired HHS worker confronted Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) and said his firing was illegal, Banks said to the people around him: "He probably deserved it."

Some people were fired by e-mail Tuesday. Others showed up for work, were told they were fired, had their badges confiscated, and told to return home as they were no longer needed. Many were from agencies that focused on helping older adults, people with disabilities, HIV, and improving health outcomes in minority communities. What do those groups have in common? Hmmmmm...

Experts have said that the cuts will make the country less safe from infectious and chronic diseases. Dr. Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said: "We cannot do the complex and serious work of protecting Americans from infectious diseases amid this chaos and confusion." Of course, billionaires are immune to infectious diseases due to the wall of money around them, so this is of no interest to them. At least, that's what they were told.

The cuts hit many agencies within HHS, including the FDA, CDC, NIH, and others. Kennedy said: "We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic." He didn't explain how firing doctors, scientists, and others who study chronic diseases will help the new mission. (V)

What Will Elizabeth Do?

Donald Trump wants one beautiful giant bill with all his priorities in it. This strategy has two problems. First, the House margin is very tight. As soon as the two Florida representatives elected Tuesday are sworn in, the House will be 220R, 213D, with two vacancies in deep blue districts, one in Arizona and one in Texas. Both are required to be filled by special elections. See below for some information about the AZ-07 race. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has not scheduled a special election for the D+23 district of the late Sylvester Turner. He might just not bother, since that would cost the state of Texas money and he is keen on saving the taxpayers money. Until the end of September, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) can afford to lose only three votes on a bill and with giant bills, there is always something for some Republican to dislike. That is problem #1.

Problem #2 is that Republicans want to use the budget reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is already practicing in case he needs to filibuster again. But a bigger problem is Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian since 2012. It is her job to make sure that all bills passed using reconciliation take a Byrd bath and come out clean. This means that they contain only items that are primarily budget related. A clean bill could contain more funding for the Border Patrol but it may not increase the punishment for entering the country illegally. That would have to be done through regular order.

Her decision is not final and the Senate can overrule MacDonough (or even fire her), but Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is an institutionalist and does not really want to break the Senate, so there is likely to be some horse trading with her. The problem is that Trump wants a lot of things that are not budget related in the bill and she is going to politely, but firmly, tell Thune that no, some things in the bill aren't allowed. This is going to slow down the process quite a bit—once there is a bill. So far, there is no concrete bill because members of the House can't agree with each other and members of the Senate can't agree with each other.

One big issue is the scoring model. The reconciliation process requires that bills passed using it not add to the deficit after 10 years. Determining whether the bill adds to the deficit after 10 years requires first determining what the deficit is now. Under current law, many of the 2017 tax cuts will expire this year. Should the baseline be the deficit as it is right now or as it will be when the 2017 tax cuts expire? When the tax cuts expire, the government will suddenly have much more revenue and the deficit will be "small(er)". If the baseline is a small deficit, then any new tax cuts will have to be offset by (painful) spending cuts. Republicans don't want to have to vote on that. They would prefer MacDonough say that the deficit is huge today, so they can cut taxes willy nilly and not increase the deficit over 10 years over the baseline. Democrats claim this is cheating and it has never been done this way. So MacDonough's decision will be critical. She is a straight shooter and just applies the Senate rules, but Republicans will be very unhappy if they don't like her decision. (V)

Ken Paxton Will Challenge John Cornyn in Texas Senate Primary

Things could get exciting in Texas. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was expected to cruz to reelection easily. However Texas AG Ken Paxton (R) is apparently planning to challenge Cornyn in the primary. It could be a humdinger. Cornyn is a conservative, but he is an institutionalist and not excessively Trumpy. Paxton is a crazy, fire-breathing Trumpist.

Trump doesn't get to vote in Texas primaries, yet he could determine who wins it. He undoubtedly would prefer that Paxton be in the Senate rather than Cornyn. And if he endorses Paxton in the primary, there is a good chance that Paxton could beat Cornyn. But then there is a nonzero chance that Colin Allred (D) could run again and actually beat Paxton due to the latter's "candidate quality" problem. The big question is whether Trump can restrain himself enough to simply keep out of it and say "It is up to Texas Republicans to determine who they want in the Senate." Trump is not good at restraining himself.

Also, it doesn't help Cornyn that, in 2023, he said: Trump's "time has passed him by" and he shouldn't run in 2024. Trump responded by calling Cornyn a RINO. Trump never forgets slights and that could affect his endorsement, if any.

Cornyn and Paxton hate each other. Paxton, whose full name is Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr., is an ultraconservative on everything and has been pushing the envelope very hard on enforcing Texas law. He is also a fanatic about prosecuting people of color for voting.

Recent polling has Cornyn with an approval rating of 48% and Paxton at 60% among Republican voters in Texas.

Paxton is more than a bit sleazy. On July 28, 2015, a state grand jury indicted him on three counts related to securities fraud. His lawyers stalled for years. On March 26, 2024, he made a plea deal in which he agreed to pay $300,000 but not admit guilt. The case was then closed.

But there is more. Paxton is too much even for the Texas legislature. On May 27, 2023, he was impeached on 20 articles of accepting bribes, pushing a donor to hire the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair, and abusing his office in many ways. The vote was 121-23, including 60 Republicans. In the resulting trial, there was a bit of a problem, since Paxton's wife is a state senator, but the state Senate voted to bar her from voting. On Sept. 16, 2023, Paxton was acquitted with 14 guilty votes and 17 not guilty votes. Will any of this bother Trump? Or will he see it as a plus? Maybe we will find out. Democrats need to pick up four seats to control the U.S. Senate in Jan. 2027. Maine and North Carolina top the list, but they need two more. If Paxton is the Republican nominee in Texas, that could be #3. If Cornyn is the nominee, he will win easily. (V)

Mallory McMorrow Is Running for the Senate in Michigan

Gary Peters is retiring from the Senate in Jan. 2027, creating an open-seat Senate election in a key swing state. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) jumped in yesterday. The fiery young (38) senator is going to attract a LOT of attention, count on it. She is a bit of a study in contradictions, a strongly pro-choice life-long Catholic who is married to a Jewish man. She has past ties to the automobile industry yet is mostly progressive, with a track record on gun control, renewable energy, and LGBTQ+ rights. This combination, along with the fact that she is a powerful public speaker will make her a very serious candidate. If she wins, both of Michigan's senators will be women. Here is her announcement video:

Another possible Senate candidate is Michigan AG Dana Nessel (D). If Nessel jumps in, we may be treated to a race between a young, strongly pro-choice Catholic who went to Notre Dame vs. an older Jewish lesbian in a state dominated by working-class white men. In any event, McMorrow's announcement will put pressure on Nessel to say if she is in or not. (V)

Lucy McBath Suspends Her Gubernatorial Campaign

Jon Ossoff is suffering due to cancer. And he doesn't even have cancer. It is more complicated than that. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) is running for governor of Georgia, following in the steps of Stacey Abrams, another charismatic Black woman who tried to get the job. Since it is an open-seat election on account of Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) being term limited, McBath might have a chance.

Now here's the problem. McBath's husband, Curtis McBath, has suffered complications from cancer surgery. She said her first priority is to help him with his recovery. This means she has to suspend her gubernatorial campaign. She might pick it up later and she might not. But this situation makes it hard for other Democrats to make a decision about jumping into the gubernatorial race, or not.

So, how does this affect Ossoff? He won in 2020 in no small part because now-Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) was on the ticket. This caused a huge turnout among Black voters, which helped Ossoff enormously. In 2026, he is on his own. If Kemp runs for the seat, Ossoff will have a tough fight on his hands. However, if McBath runs for governor, that will also goose Democratic turnout, particularly Black Democratic turnout, which will definitely help Ossoff. If McBath drops out, Ossoff will have to win entirely on his own. He has to hope that McBath's husband recovers quickly and she continues her campaign. (V)

Xavier Becerra Is Running for Governor of California

Yesterday, former California AG and secretary of HHS Xavier Becerra announced that he is running for governor of California. Here is his announcement video:

It will be a very crowded primary. Among other big name Democrats who are already in are former Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former U.S. representative Katie Porter, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and state Treasurer Betty Yee.

The big question now is whether Kamala Harris will jump in. With so much competition, she would not be a shoo-in, especially since California is so multicultural. She would probably get the Black vote, but Yee would get the Chinese vote, Becerra and Villaraigosa would split the Latino vote, and Porter would get the progressive vote. One or more Republicans would probably enter as well. Since the system is a top-two primary, heaven only knows how this might play out. (V)

Adelita Grijalva Is Running for her late Father's House Seat

Although we are normally Senate-focused in the midterm cycles, this time the House is more likely to flip than the Senate, so we will focus on House races a bit more than we otherwise would. Also, the 38 gubernatorial elections (two in 2025 and 36 in 2026). In many cases, the partisan outcome is known even when the candidates are not, but even within the parties there are differences, so primaries matter. No one would confuse Liz Cheney with Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX).

Anyway, Democrat Raúl Grijalva died last month and his seat will be filled by a special election. The district sprawls over the southern part of Arizona, from just south of Phoenix to Tucson and then covers the entire border area with Mexico. The filing deadline is April 14, the primary is July 15, and the general election is Sept. 23.

Grijalva's daughter, Adelita Grijalva, is already in politics. She is a Pima County supervisor, as her father was before he went to Congress. She has now decided to run for dad's seat. Maybe she found a big stash of "Grijalva for Congress" bumper stickers in his garage she can use. Her first statement was: "Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their gang of billionaires are destroying our nation. They're destroying our schools. They're attacking our most sacred rights. They're poisoning our environment. But together, we will stop them. This fight starts right here, right now, in southern Arizona." That pretty much sums up her platform.

If elected, she would be the first Latina elected to Congress from Arizona. The state just elected a Latino, Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), to the Senate and the district is more heavily Latino (60%) than the state as a whole (31%) so being a Latina, as well as the daughter of a popular 11-term congressman, is going to make her a real force in the primary. As to the general election, well, the district is D+15, so it would take a very special Republican to even make a race of it. (V)

Judge Fully Dismisses the Eric Adams Case

Eric Adams is a low-grade crook. He gave away favors for upgrades on Turkish Airlines flights. He really should have talked to his neighbor in New Jersey, Bob Menendez, about this stuff. If you are going to risk going to prison for many years, you don't do it for an upgrade that might cost $3,000 if you just bought it. You ask for gold bars, new Mercedes-Benz cars, and other goodies. Stupid Eric.

Anyway, point is, he is kinda stupid and got caught and was indicted. Donald Trump noticed a fellow felon and decided to help out. He offered to suspend Adams' trial for the time being in return for Adams' help in rounding up immigrants in New York City and turning them over to ICE. Adams, realizing that he had been caught dead to rights, jumped at the chance and agreed to the deal.

However, the DoJ cannot drop charges or even suspend the trial on its own. It had to ask the judge in the case, Dale Ho. The DoJ asked Ho to drop the charges without prejudice, meaning they could bring them up again later, rather than dropping charges altogether. Ho smelled a rat, recognizing that the point was to maintain leverage over Adams.

Ho then hired Paul Clement, a highly respected conservative lawyer who was solicitor general under George W. Bush. He argued over two dozen cases before the Supreme Court. Ho wanted Clement's opinion about what to do. After studying the case for a while, Clement recommended dropping the case with prejudice, meaning that it was then definitively over and the DoJ could not restart it again on account of the constitutional ban on double jeopardy.

Yesterday, Ho threw the case out permanently, even though he surely knew Adams was guilty as hell (but his upgrades!). The Judge didn't want a situation where an elected mayor would be beholden to the president, rather than to his own constituents. Clearly something is rotten in the state of Denmark (and it does not involve Greenland), because now Adams gets off scot free and can run for reelection. Of course, his constituents know all of this, so he has almost no chance of being reelected, especially not since Andrew Cuomo is running to reboot himself. But at least Adams can retire in peace and not have to worry about moving to Rikers Island, even with its great view of the magnificent new terminal at LaGuardia.

Late yesterday, Adams withdrew from the Democratic primary and said he will run as an independent. That might be smarter than trying for the Democratic nomination, but it will still be a tough slog, especially if Cuomo wins the Democratic primary. (V)

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• questions@electoral-vote.com    For questions about politics, civics, history, etc. to be answered on a Saturday
• comments@electoral-vote.com   For "letters to the editor" for possible publication on a Sunday
• corrections@electoral-vote.com To tell us about typos or factual errors we should fix
• items@electoral-vote.com            For general suggestions, ideas, etc.

To download a poster about the site to hang up, please click here.

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Email a link to a friend.

---The Votemaster and Zenger