The Maine Man

Today’s notice: Democrats have a Trumpesque candidate — how do they talk about it? Trump’s big night in New York. Democrats continue to shed voters. Paying back SBF’s donations. And: More must reads from the NOTUS Metro team.

THE LATEST

Democrats’ Trump moment is here: Few people expect Graham Platner to end tonight without the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine. While there have been some reminders in recent days from Gov. Janet Mills’ supporters that she’s technically still on the primary ballot, Mills effectively dropped out of the race weeks ago and left the nomination to Platner.

NOTUS’ Christa Dutton reports on what comes next: Democrats have to rally around a guy who has given many of them pause in the closing weeks of this primary. “In a way it’s, ‘Do you believe in redemption?’” Ann Leamon, the co-chair of the Waldoboro Democrats, told Christa in Maine.

Leamon sees attacks on Platner from Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ camp as rank hypocrisy. “I get really tired of Democrats being held to some lofty moral standard when Republicans are just ‘boys will be boys,’” she told Christa.

This is a bit of a simplification. It was Democrats like Mills who were warning most of this year that Platner had a long and disqualifying history. Now he is (most likely) their nominee and they have to do what Republicans have done for a long time: wriggle out of uncomfortable questions about their high-profile political outsider.

“His wife stands by him, and I don’t think we have any option but to trust that at this point,” one Democratic voter in Brunswick told Christa.

Others were more wary of buyers’ remorse. “There are some things that are worrisome,” said another voter at Platner’s town hall Sunday night. “There’s worry about the general election, there’s also worrisomeness about character, whether or not in six years we’ll have to mount a primary.”

Open tabs: Dems place $30 million bet on reshaping 2028 House maps (Axios); Nithya Raman Beats Out Spencer Pratt to Challenge LA Mayor Karen Bass (NOTUS); OpenAI Files to Go Public in Test of Investor Appetite for Top AI Startups (WSJ); New World Screwworm Spreads Beyond Texas (NOTUS)

From New York

Bronx cheer for the president: It’s not a bit — Donald Trump is actually a New York Knicks fan. But the city he’s long since moved out of was not happy to see him back, even in a moment of high spirits. “The pool counted two middle fingers and one thumbs down,” read the report of the motorcade’s drive into Madison Square Garden last night.

Loud boos could be heard on the TV broadcast when Trump’s face was shown on the jumbotron during the national anthem. That could be more “go home” energy, or just the New York way of saying thanks after security requirements for his visit snarled traffic, canceled a watch party and forced people to get to the arena two hours early. The Knicks also lost.

From the campaign trail

Democrats continue to lose voters across battleground districts, according to an analysis from House Republicans’ political arm, NOTUS’ Alex Roarty and Christa Dutton report.

Jaw-dropping numbers: After the 2020 election, Democrats had a 733,000 voter-registration edge on Republicans in 28 swing districts, the analysis found. But in the nearly six years since, the party has lost 737,000 voters there, giving Republicans a small 4,100 voter-registration edge. Republicans lost voters too, but the sheer scale of the Democratic losses means Republicans have the registration advantage.

What this means for 2026: It gives some credibility to the Republican argument that their candidates can outperform their historical midterm disadvantage with an assist from the public’s distaste for the Democratic Party brand.

Replacing Rep. Frederica Wilson: As NOTUS first hinted last month, Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones is jumping into the primary to replace the retiring Democratic incumbent today. “When Congresswoman Wilson said that she was retiring, what better way than her former student … to be able to pick up that baton,” Jones told NOTUS’ Oriana González. Jones participated in the 5,000 Role Models program Wilson launched while a member of the Miami-Dade school board.

From the Hill

FISAround and find out: The deadline for renewing a key piece of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is Friday. Conservatives have been demanding significant changes for months, making its prospects for a long-term renewal before Trump put Bill Pulte in charge of national intelligence slim. Two sources told NOTUS’ Kadia Goba that there are now only around 10 Democrats who would vote for an extension — a typically bipartisan affair — with most of them saying there’s no way they’d support even a short-term patch with Pulte in that role.

Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to meet with Trump today and plans on talking about Pulte and the path forward (if there is one) on FISA, NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reports.

From the White House

Trump’s AI surprise: When the president told reporters on Friday that he had “a meeting scheduled in the very short, in the very near future” with the leading AI companies to discuss plans for the U.S. government to take a stake in them, the companies in question had no idea what he was talking about, NOTUS’ Jeff Stein reports. As of yesterday, the White House had provided no details about when or where the executives of the companies would be meeting with the president.

From the fundraising world

Friends don’t let friends form PACs together: There could be trouble. NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno has all the drama from the Existentialist Republic PAC, launched by former Democratic congressional candidate Chris Armitage and his friend, Clifford Michael Pickens. There’s an accusation of theft and a lack of overall funds raised. The two men are not friends anymore.

NOTUS METRO

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D.C.’s turn to wait: NOTUS’ Martin Austermuhle reports that the results for the District’s first ranked-choice election could take days.

What Jayden Daniels needs to do: Dan Pizzuta writes for NOTUS on how the Commander’s star QB can get back on track.

The feeling is mutual: Thomas Floyd talks to Washington Spirit superstar Trinity Rodman about her love for the region — and the region’s love for her.

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

President Trump has seemed rather sulky lately, writes Dana Milbank for NOTUS Perspectives. The problem may be that the American people are failing to thank him sufficiently. If only they would show more gratitude.

NEW ON NOTUS

The slow return of SBF’s political donations: Years after his conviction, political groups are still (slowly) surrendering the money dumped into Democrats and Republicans alike by former crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, NOTUS’ Mark Alfred reports. Groups still making payments include EMILYs List’s super PAC arm, Senate Majority PAC and more.

NOT US

• What Trump Delivered for Amazon, by Josh Eidelson for Bloomberg
• How Josh Gottheimer is plotting his next act in politics, by Riley Rogerson for Politico
• What Chris Rabb’s win in Philly could mean for the 2028 Democratic battle to replace John Fetterman, by Sam Janesch for The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse, by Heidi Blake for The New Yorker

BE SOCIAL

At least they agreed on something?

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The newsletter was produced by Kelly Poe, Kate Nocera and Andrew Burton. Photo of Graham Platner by Libby Kenny/Sun Journal via AP.

Correction: A previous version of this newsletter misstated the entity that EMILYs List’s super PAC arm paid. It paid the FTX Recovery Trust. It also misstated which elections Sam Bankman-Fried contributed to, which were all prior to FTX’s bankruptcy in 2022.