What to Watch Tonight

Today’s notice: Our guide to Election Day 2025. Thune says he needs a new CR. The SNAP showdown is getting curious-er. And the first Democratic primary argument over trans rights is underway in Massachusetts.

THE LATEST

Trump the closer: The president held two tele-rallies for the New Jersey and Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidates, Jack Ciattarelli and Winsome Earle-Sears (whose name he managed not to utter), last night — and he reluctantly backed Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York.

Donald Trump is going to loom large tonight. How large? We consulted with close election watchers, including those from our Washington Bureau Initiative partners, on how they’ll be tracking election night.

New York City: Perhaps you have heard there is a mayoral election going on. Look to southeast Queens and eastern parts of Brooklyn, Haidee Chu, a reporter at NOTUS partner The City, told us.

Middle-class Black voters in those areas have been key to mayoral races. They favored Cuomo in June’s Democratic primary. Zohran Mamdani has focused on those voters since. “I’d be curious to see whether Mamdani was able to expand his base there with his army of volunteers, and if not, whether he’d be able to clinch the election without them,” Chu said.

New Jersey: “I had a Democratic county chairman over the weekend say, ‘Thank God for Donald Trump,’” the New Jersey Globe’s David Wildstein told us. “If Kamala Harris were the president, Ciattarelli would be 10 points up.”

There’s two places to look to see how Trump is playing, Wildstein says. Long lines at polling places in major cities? It’s a sign Mikie Sherrill has used Trump to her advantage. Huge turnout in Lakewood, New Jersey? It’s a sign Republicans have activated a broadened base — in this case, a large Orthodox Jewish population.

In Virginia, watch House of Delegates District 57 in Henrico County, one of the most purple Republican-held seats Democrats are targeting. “That should be the first to flip … If it fails to flip, it suggests a rough night for Democrats,” Michael Pope, the host of “The Virginia Press Room” podcast, told us.

On the other hand, if you see Harrisonburg — the reddest district Democrats are targeting — go blue, Abigail Spanberger is having a really good night.

In Pennsylvania, Maine and California, the most interesting things to watch are maybe what comes next. PA’s judicial-retention races will say a lot about money in politics, NOTUS partner Spotlight PA told us. Maine voters will decide whether the state should have one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country for 2026, NOTUS partner The Maine Monitor reports. And California’s Prop 50 redistricting push is expected to bring an announcement about Nancy Pelosi’s future.

Open tabs: Trump’s Team Offers to Keep Some Ballroom Donors Incognito (NYT); Confidential manifesto lays out Jared Isaacman’s sweeping new vision for NASA (Politico); U.S. seeks UN approval for Gaza security force with broad two-year mandate (Axios); Trump Officials Torpedoed Nvidia’s Push to Export AI Chips to China (WSJ)

From the Hill

Groundhog Day ends in the Senate: Majority Leader John Thune said yesterday that the shutdown has lasted so long that the Republican continuing resolution’s end date, Nov. 21, is now too soon and must be changed.

The new date is TBD. “The longer runway, the better,” Thune said. “The idea that we could get any appropriations bills done by Nov. 21, now, that date is lost. So it’s a question now of what’s the next one.”

In the meantime, Senate Republicans are holding the line even as expiring health care subsidies cause premiums to skyrocket, NOTUS’ Tyler Spence and Ursula Perano report. That’s partly because they don’t want to extend the subsidies at all — they want to reform the Affordable Care Act altogether.

“If you just extend the status quo, all you’re doing is putting fresh paint on rotten wood,” Sen. John Kennedy said.

From the shutdown

What’s going on with SNAP? “This is about as sick and cruel as it gets,” Sen. Patty Murray wrote on X after the USDA warned grocery sellers that the “SNAP Equal Treatment Rule” means they could get in trouble if they offer discount prices to SNAP beneficiaries who are set to stop receiving full coverage this month. “This policy is in place to stop grocery stores from OVERCHARGING people using SNAP,” Murray added. NOTUS’ Amelia Benavides-Colón reports that some grocers canceled promotions, while others, like Instacart, said they’d received waivers.

This is about the shutdown. The USDA letter came as the Trump administration announced it would comply with federal court orders to pay SNAP benefits with contingency funding by doling out partial payments to states that pass the money onto beneficiaries. But those calculations could take “from a few weeks to up to several months,” USDA officials said.

Admitting it: Several senators openly told the NOTUS Hill team that while they are relieved more Americans will have access to SNAP, the funding removes a political pressure point that might have expedited the shutdown’s end.

“I think it’s going to be a two-week reprieve from that particular pressure point,” Sen. Roger Marshall said.

NEW ON NOTUS

Maryland joins the redistricting wars: Gov. Wes Moore is announcing the creation of a redistricting advisory commission this morning, officially plunging the Democratic-run state into the partisan battle over congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms. “My commitment has been clear from day one — we will explore every avenue possible to make sure Maryland has fair and representative maps,” Moore said in a release obtained by NOTUS’ Manuela Silva.

Moulton pushed on trans rights: “I understand that some people were hurt by how I framed my comments in the past, and I take that seriously and have listened to their feedback,” Rep. Seth Moulton told NOTUS’ Oriana González of his past comments on transgender athletes.

Moulton is primarying Sen. Ed Markey, and trying to make the race a debate about generational change. Markey’s progressive bona fides appear to be forcing another conversation, though: Can Moulton’s comments on transgender Americans be a liability?

ICEd out: “We just don’t know a lot about what is going on with most of the immigration system right now,” David Bier of the Cato Institute told NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos of immigration enforcement agencies halting the publication of data under Trump 2.0. The lack of transparency is different from past administrations, including Trump’s first.

More: Senators Say They’ll Keep Pushing to Prevent War With Venezuela Without Congressional Approval, by Hamed Ahmadi

Illinois Congressman Lines Up Chief of Staff to Replace Him With Last-Minute Retirement, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

Jon Husted Likes His Chances, by Tyler Spence

NOT US

• Heritage Foundation in revolt over Tucker Carlson defense after controversial Nick Fuentes interview, by Josh Christenson for the New York Post
  
• The Super PAC Trying to Free Democrats From the Cult of the Quants, by Issie Lapowsky for Politico
  
• An undecided GOP senator holds a redistricting town hall in a swing county. 71 against, 0 for. By Kayla Dwyer for The Indianapolis Star

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