Americana

1. Crypto crunch
2. Minn. Senate matchup
3. Crockett shakes up Senate race
4. Pittsburgh’s next mayor on Dems
5. Hunt’s SCOTUS pitch
6. Economic bitterness continues

Democrats’ crypto crunch

Democratic senators who are trying to strike a bipartisan deal on major cryptocurrency legislation are also working against the clock as the industry prepares to flood the midterms with cash.

If the Senate talks don’t yield forward progress by next month or so, digital assets super PACs are likely to start spending big against lawmakers standing in the way of an industry-sought deal.

The network of cryptocurrency super PACs known as Fairshake, which played a key role in the 2024 cycle, has already amassed at least $141 million to spend in the midterms. This cycle has also seen the formation of two new crypto super PACs, Digital Freedom Fund and Fellowship, which are expected to spend at least $21 million and $100 million, respectively.

The moment is especially fraught for Senate Democrats because their party is more divided over whether to deliver the crypto industry its top priority: establishing rules for exchanges, brokers and issuers.

As a few of them work toward a potential path forward, people familiar with the talks described an unspoken tension between getting to “yes” — thus winning potential support on future campaigns — and being perceived by the Democratic base as caving to industry or failing to hold President Donald Trump, a proud crypto ally, accountable.

“Democrats thinking about running in 2028 are balancing support for the industry and unlocking the political support that comes with it with staying in the good graces of the progressive constituencies who can shape a primary battlefield,” one person familiar with the talks told me.

So far, senators and aides in both parties told me this week, the looming spending spree has not tainted their closed-door talks. They also acknowledged the current situation might not hold.

How Minnesota reflects Democrats’ big divides

Democrats are facing a primary muddle across the country in must-win Senate races such as Texas, Michigan, and Maine. Minnesota’s open seat is different — as Peggy Flanagan knows.

The lieutenant governor is campaigning as the progressive choice in her matchup against Rep. Angie Craig, a more centrist Democrat who has won tough House races and is preferred by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The primary won’t help Democrats win the Senate majority, but it will aid them in charting a path forward for the future of their party.

“This seat is going to stay in the hands of the Democrats,” Flanagan told Semafor. “This is really an opportunity to elect a progressive fighter.”

The lieutenant governor spoke to Semafor on a swing through Washington this week. She made no secret of her ambiguity towards Schumer — “I feel the same way about Chuck Schumer that he feels about me, which is uncommitted,” Flanagan said — and criticized Senate Democrats for “capitulating” in the government shutdown fight.

Crockett’s Senate campaign launch delights Republicans

Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s launch of her Senate candidacy this week thrilled Republicans, but Democrats aren’t assuming she’ll be the nominee — or that they’ll lose if she is.

“I’ve been watching Texas very carefully,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., at a Semafor event this week. “We have candidates in that primary. And I haven’t made a decision one way or the other, but they are doing things that are not the usual color-by-numbers campaign. And I’m very intrigued by that.”

Since former Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, dropped out of the race, Democrats have been left with Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico. Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn predicted Crockett will be the nominee and called her entry a “gift” to his campaign — which is embroiled in its own tough primary.

But Democrats need to flip four seats to take back the Senate, and they aren’t crossing off Texas as an option.

“I don’t think Republicans should be popping their champagne bottles yet,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a former party campaign chair.

Crockett’s progressive record and her unorthodox rollout — her campaign launch video featured her smiling over audio of Trump insulting her — is the chief reason for Republicans’ excitement. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday declared her candidacy to be “one of the greatest things to happen to the Republican Party in a long, long time.”

Beyond the stylistic differences between her and Talarico, a former seminarian who often invokes his faith on the trail, there is also a clear difference in strategy, as The Associated Press reported. Crockett is running on her image as a battle-tested Trump antagonist, while Talarico is running with less of a focus on the president.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who previously chaired the party’s campaign arm, said he feels “good about Talarico; he’s really been catching on.”

— Burgess Everett and Elana Schor

How Dems can win, according to an up-and-comer in Pennsylvania

Corey O’Connor, who defeated a progressive incumbent earlier this year to become Pittsburgh’s next mayor, has some advice for Democrats struggling to chart a path forward: Lead by example.

“I think our biggest way to show people that are maybe undecided or leaning in the other direction is governing again, producing a good product where you’re looking at the Democratic Party and saying — they’re getting stuff done,” he told Semafor in an interview.

O’Connor, the current Allegheny County controller, doesn’t have a problem with progressives like Zohran Mamdani in New York City — “We have done a lot of progressive things,” O’Connor said. But he said Democrats’ overarching goal should be to show voters that they can deliver good outcomes for constituents, especially in swing states like Pennsylvania.

O’Connor also predicted that Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., would face a primary challenger in 2028 after his positions on Israel and other issues flummoxed members of the party.

“I believe there will be a challenge,” O’Connor said. But he’s also not writing Fetterman off: “He is a good person when you put him up in front of a crowd to say what he has accomplished.” A representative for Fetterman didn’t return a request for comment.

— Morgan Chalfant

Third-place Texas Senate hopeful tries likening himself to Justice Thomas

Rep. Wesley Hunt has tried being above it all in theTexas Senate GOP primary — casting Cornyn and Ken Paxton as belligerents in a “blood feud” — but that hasn’t worked.

So in his newest ad, he’s reintroducing himself instead. Hunt casts himself here as a defiant conservative fighter in the mold of Justice Clarence Thomas, who infamously said he “would rather die than withdraw” from his bitter 1991 Supreme Court confirmation process. Hunt, by his own telling, is a pragmatic third option — MAGA enough to win the primary, but without Paxton’s personal baggage, and unlike Cornyn, unstintingly supportive of Trump.

Texans continue to report less familiarity with him than with his opponents. But this ad appears almost secondarily aimed at voters, and primarily addressed to Republican leadership, whose calls for Hunt to drop out of the Senate primary have only grown as the polling average keeps him in a remote third.

By adopting the mantle of a besieged Thomas, Hunt hopes to give the impression he’s in the thick of the battle and getting mud on his boots.

— Brendan Ruberry

Twin polls find voters still down on Trump’s handling of the economy

Voters are still not loving the Trump economy. Two new polls have found that Americans see gas, food, and housing getting pricier and don’t think the president is doing enough to bring costs down: 57% of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy in this Economist/YouGov poll, and Morning Consult found the Democrats enjoying the rare two percentage-point advantage over Republicans on which party voters trust more to handle the economy.

Ninety percent of registered voters responded that bringing down the cost of goods and services should be an important or the top priority for Trump, according to Morning Consult, while 41% of respondents in YouGov’s survey listed “Inflation/prices” or “Jobs and the economy” as the issue they care about most. Only one percent named foreign policy.

Both YouGov and Morning Consult’s polls found the generic congressional Democrat up on a generic GOP rival — by a modest five and three points, respectively — as Trump kicks off a series of economy-focused rallies.

— Brendan Ruberry

• 52 days until the runoff for Texas’s 18th congressional district
• 127 days until a special election for New Jersey’s 11th congressional district.
• 349 days until the 2026 midterm elections