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Good morning,
We’ve got a late entry for The Craziest $#*! I Read This Week. It’s a local story here in the Big Apple, but it’s a good one and comes courtesy of the great journalists over at The City: A close advisor to Eric Adams, our illustrious mayor, has been suspended from his re-election campaign after she gave a reporter a wad of cash tucked inside a bag of Sour Cream & Onion potato chips. The failed payoff, which she brushed off as a cultural misunderstanding, comes as even more of Adams’ associates are expected to be indicted on corruption charges in the coming days.
If you enjoy a good trainwreck election, I really recommend following the New York City mayoral race. It’s got everything. A cartoonishly corrupt incumbent polling in the single digits. A disgraced former governor attempting and failing the world’s most half-hearted political comeback. A charismatic rich-kid socialist with no experience whose first real job will be running a $2T economy. And on the GOP side, a beret-wearing perennial also-ran most famous for staging vigilante subway rescues in the 80’s, who now lives in a studio apartment with six cats. Greatest city in the world, baby!
On the topic of elections, there have been some notable developments this week while we’ve spent our time together focused on geopolitics. Today, the Texas Senate will likely pass the state’s new mid-cycle congressional map, after the House rammed it through yesterday. This kicks off a new redistricting war that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to answer with his own redrawn map. The move got the blessing from Barack Obama, who weighed in from his perch in Martha’s Vineyard that Newsom was taking a “smart and measured” approach ahead of the midterms.
If you haven’t been following, Newsom is the toast of the town at the moment—at least among liberals—for the aggressive posture he’s adopted, both in policy and style. On social media, the governor has crafted this new persona as a Trump-esque troll, posting in ALL CAPS and in Trump’s signature style, generating AI memes at Trump’s expense, excoriating MAGA as a bunch of lemmings and essentially playing POTUS’ own game against him. And it’s working. He has rocketed to the top of the (very early and still meaningless) 2028 polls with this strategy, which tells you that Democratic voters badly want a fighter.
I can see why Newsom is an attractive choice to go up against what will likely be JD Vance in ’28. He is one of the few Dems who is able to play in the mud with Trump and come out clean. Michelle Obama was famous for that saying, “When they go low, we go high” even though it was precisely the wrong political advice for the Trump era. Newsom understands that it should actually be, “When they go low, we go lower.” But he has two big problems. One is that he runs what is arguably the most dysfunctional state in the country, and that comes with a lot of baggage. The other is that he comes across as just a little too slick for his own good. As a buddy of mine put it, “Newsom looks like he’d lay off your dad and then post on LinkedIn about how difficult it was.”
Maybe I’m wrong. If Vance is the nominee, maybe Newsom is the perfect candidate to run against him. Both of them seem like they’re willing to say or do anything to get elected, with no deep or apparent convictions. Remember, Vance called Trump “America’s Hitler” not all that long ago, and now he’s his VP! That’s still crazy to me. Newsom is also a very good fundraiser, and there are reports this week that Elon Musk has already pumped the brakes on his brief attempt at building a third party and is now leaning toward backing Vance instead. That is going to be formidable: an incumbent veep, with Trump’s blessing and Musk’s unlimited cash.
But I think Democrats have a way to win in such a scenario. We’ll get into that tomorrow.
How Education and Gender Are Fueling Gen Z’s Political Divide
Thirty minutes into conversing with Ohio College Republican Federation President Spencer Mandzak, I was compelled to ask why he was a Republican instead of a Democrat.
After nearly three years in Washington, D.C., I found the answer to that question generally materialized within five minutes of meeting a politico.
Mandzak was different, however. He introduced himself by sharing an op-ed he’d written on the importance of curating bipartisanship online. He said that economics and foreign policy were his top political issues, and he offered no charged opinions on topics like religion or sexuality.
“You’re not going to get a lot of probably interesting viewpoints from me, just because I try to stay in my lane,” he responded. “But I can tell you why I’m not a Democrat.” Read more from Newsweek’s Alex J. Rouhandeh.
Also happening:
- Election 2028: Elon Musk is considering backing Vice President JD Vance in the 2028 presidential election, according to reports on the billionaire’s political movements. The tech CEO formed a new party and pledged to contest both Republicans and Democrats at the 2026 midterms, but his relationship with Vance, who considers Musk a personal friend, may not be as damaged as it seems. Read more.
- Immigration: A federal appeals court on Wednesday sided with the Trump administration in its bid to end humanitarian protections for tens of thousands of immigrants from Central America and Nepal. The ruling puts on hold a lower court’s order that had temporarily preserved Temporary Protected Status for nearly 60,000 migrants. Read more.
This is a preview of The 1600—Tap here to get this newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
