Good evening. Tonight, we’ll look at the major political tests facing President Trump this month.
What will the May primaries tell us about Trump’s power?
Welcome to May. It’s a month of major political tests for President Trump. Tonight, with the help of my colleagues, I’ll walk you through a few of the biggest upcoming Republican primary contests we’re watching. These races are set to measure Trump’s influence, the popularity of his policies — and his ability to enact retribution. As my colleague Shane Goldmacher put it this weekend, Trump “is turning his ire on fellow Republicans by asking voters to punish those who have crossed him.” Many Republican primary voters, of course, will do just that. But are there any signs of resistance? First up, the Republican primaries for State Senate in Indiana. One might not expect intraparty squabbles over state legislative seats to be a priority for the leader of the free world. But Trump doesn’t easily forgive or forget perceived slights. And after some Republican state legislators defied him by helping scuttle a plan to redraw Indiana’s congressional districts to the national G.O.P.’s advantage, the president and his allies vowed payback. Now, many of those lawmakers face Trump-backed primary challenges. The races on Tuesday, my colleague Mitch Smith wrote from Indiana, amount to “a test of the president’s ability to bend the party to his will and exact political revenge.” Of course, ultra-local races are shaped by any number of factors beyond the national environment. Still, Mitch told me, “it’s a test of how far an established, well-known, mainstream Republican’s individual track record matters in a local race, versus the president, who remains very popular among the Republican rank-and-file.” Next is a race we’ve covered quite a bit in this newsletter, the Louisiana Senate primary. On May 16, Senator Bill Cassidy, who was one of seven Republican senators who voted for an impeachment conviction of Trump after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, will face his party’s primary voters. In the years since the impeachment vote, Cassidy has tried and failed to appease the president, who backed Representative Julia Letlow to challenge him. When I was in Baton Rouge in January, the grass-roots frustration with Cassidy was palpable. It will be interesting to see how much (or whether) his well-funded campaign has been able to turn that around in the face of opposition from Trump. In any event, the race — which also includes the state treasurer, John Fleming — is likely to go to a runoff. Very few Republican lawmakers relish disagreeing with, much less trolling, Trump. But Representative Thomas Massie seems to be an exception. Massie, a libertarian-leaning lawmaker from Kentucky who has broken with the president on all kinds of issues (and has been on the receiving end of a barrage of Trump insults), faces a serious Trump-backed challenger in Ed Gallrein. There are a lot of fascinating elements of this race. But I’m especially interested in the foreign policy angle. Massie has been a vocal critic of Trump’s interventions — first in Venezuela and now in Iran. While most voters don’t make decisions on that issue alone, the May 19 race will be perhaps the biggest opening to date for Republican voters to weigh in on the war with Iran. What message, if any, do they choose to send? Trump has also waded into the Republican primary for Senate in Kentucky, backing Representative Andy Barr over Daniel Cameron, a former Kentucky attorney general. That move cleared the field of a third candidate, Nate Morris, who had been supported by Elon Musk but failed to gain traction; Trump said he planned to appoint Morris as a U.S. ambassador. Whatever the outcomes of these races, polling shows that Trump generally remains popular among Republicans — but he is losing ground with just about everybody else.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “It would have been a good job for her.”That was Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank based in Washington, imagining how former Vice President Kamala Harris might have sailed into the California governor’s office. Instead, she is publicly pondering a third run for president. Bennett is not the only Democrat, my colleague Jennifer Medina writes, who is wondering whether Harris made the right choice of race to consider. Got a tip?
Everyone is dreading the A.I. revolution.America is polarized on issue after issue: war, immigration, even the Super Bowl halftime show. But, my colleague Tim Balk writes, Democrats and Republicans are finding common ground with their unease on one issue — artificial intelligence.
ONE LAST THING Derby style with a hint of politicsKentucky Derby day is always a whirlwind for Britainy Beshear, the state’s first lady. But this year was especially complicated, my colleague Vanessa Friedman writes, as Gov. Andy Beshear eyes a potential 2028 Democratic presidential run. For most attendees, Vanessa wrote, the Derby is “a mint-julep-fueled mélange of hats and horse racing.” For the first lady, she wrote, it was perhaps “something of an audition.” Taylor Robinson and Hannah Fidelman contributed reporting. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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