REPUBLICANS: GOP Plans to Stack Cash at Next Week’s Midterm Convention
Republicans plan “to raise millions of dollars during the” GOP’s midterm convention next week, “including asking donors to pay” $88,600 for a photo with President Trump and $250,000 for a roundtable with the president.
- DEPUTY LEVEL. “A second roundtable featuring Vice President JD Vance on Sept. 10 will cost $75,000 per person. Similar to Trump’s event, donors can separately select to take a photo with Vance at the event for $35,000.” (Wall Street Journal)
- POOR RECORD. Of “more than 70 GOP candidates and members” asked whether they would attend, 45 said they would not, citing prior obligations, personal conflicts, and a desire to remain close to their battleground districts. “Dozens more declined to share their plans.”
- TICKET SURGE. Some House Republicans cited “the $25,000 minimum attendee donation suggested by the” NRCC as a reason they hesitated to attend. (Politico)
- ON THE AIR. Securing American Greatness, a Trump-allied nonprofit group, booked $995,000 in ad buys starting Tuesday. One ad, called “Toughest Guy,” plays a clip of UFC CEO Dana White calling Trump “the toughest, most resilient person that I've ever met.” Another spot, called “Tax Cut Prices,” boasts that Republicans delivered “the largest tax cuts in American history,” pointing to “no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security.” (release)
MIDTERM MADNESS: House Passes Bill to Avoid Election-Season Shutdown
The House “passed a stopgap bill” in an overwhelming 370-48 vote “to avert a government shutdown” on Sept. 30, “punting a spending fight until after the midterm elections.” The bill bars “the Trump administration from transferring funds to the Border Patrol.” (New York Times)
TECH CORNER: Engagement Baiters Come for Democrats
Over the last several months, YouTube accounts attempting to rapidly rack up views “have flooded American politics with sensationalized, low-quality content, reaching millions of viewers with nearly identical videos taking aim at progressive politicians including” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D).
- A MIRAGE. “While the videos are presented as laypeople giving straight-to-camera ideological news recaps, they feature actors and spokespeople paid small amounts of money to read nearly identical scripts laced with misleading claims and outright falsehoods.”
- WORKAROUND. Researchers found about a dozen YouTube channels “that appeared to be using AI-generated or enhanced scripts, matching music, and similar websites, but had been pairing them with real actors, in an effort to escape YouTube’s AI labels.” (Semafor)
VOTING: Harmeet Dhillon Encourages DOJ Employees to Become Election Monitors
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon urged employees of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division “to sign up as election monitors, in what appears to be part of a plan to deploy 1,000 monitors to polls in November.”
- MATH PROBLEM. “Former Civil Rights Division officials questioned how the office would manage to recruit and train anywhere near 1,000 monitors in time to be sent to the field for Election Day.” Most of “the roughly three-dozen attorneys and managers who served in the” Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section prior to President Trump’s reelection “have departed, draining the unit of important institutional knowledge.” (NOTUS)
2028 WATCH: Newsom Will Avoid Ossoff in Latest Southern Swing
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) southern tour will avoid Georgia and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D). “Some Democrats say the travel schedule may suit both camps, allowing Ossoff to keep the focus on his reelection fight without the chatter of 2028—and the horse race of who’s up and who’s down—stealing the oxygen.”
- NOT THAT SERIOUS. While some Democrats say Newsom can better serve Ossoff’s campaign from afar, those close to the governor “say people shouldn’t read anything into the fact that” he’s skipping Georgia this week. Newsom has previously visited Georgia and fundraised for Ossoff and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D), the nominee for governor. He plans to return to the Peach State “to campaign for Ossoff ahead of November.” (The Hill)
- IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. Vice President JD Vance’s “closed-door speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit Monday night went a long way in alleviating top pro-Israel donors’ concerns about his support for the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and it cemented their view that Vance would be a preferable choice to whomever the Democratic Party nominee is in 2028.” But some attendees are still skeptical about Vance’s relationship with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, an outspoken critic of Israel.
- NEW IN TOWN. Vance still faces a disadvantage ahead of the 2028 shadow primary: his relative inexperience. Elected to the Senate in 2022, he’s had less time to forge connections with longtime GOP players than others, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). (Politico)
