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“We are continuing to see polling of a chilling effect on young voters, of decreased enthusiasm,” Representative Hillary Scholten, a Democrat who flipped a Republican seat in western Michigan two years ago, said on Thursday, just after calling for Mr. Biden to drop out and before the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life rattled the presidential race further. “That’s why it’s incumbent on us to make this change now.”

House Democrats, led by Representative Jared Huffman of California, are circulating a letter, first reported by The New York Times,  demanding that the roll call vote be put off.

There’s a sense right now at this convention that Republicans are very united and that Donald Trump is at the peak of his influence, at least within the Republican Party. What’s the strategy to expand the House map? Well, the map is small. Because of redistricting, both parties have gotten really good at drawing very safe seats for themselves. And so if you look at 435 House seats, only 35 seats were won with 5 percent or less. Every one of them is going to come right down to the wire. And because there’s so few, there’s gonna be a lot of money spent on each one. It’s not going to be spread as wide. But now, things are looking better for us. The polling looks really good. And so we’re taking a look at what’s that next tranche of districts. We’ve laid down our spending. We’ve kind of put our marker out there of the races we’re going to play.

What’s the next tranche of districts that might come into play? Well, you know, we’ll see. We’re going to do some polling and see kind of where — What states? What districts? I don’t know if I want to — Ah, throw a couple out. I don’t know if I want to lift the skirt completely, but I would just say… What region? Let’s start with the region. If you’re Biden plus 10, plus 11, plus 12, we think we can win those seats now. So there’ll be some pretty deep Biden districts where the key for me all along has been candidate quality. So we went out and recruited the best group of candidates we’ve ever had. There’s a lot of places where you’ve got really tough seats, but I’ve got a really compelling candidate. I’ll throw one out for you: Josh Harder’s seat in California. We’ve got Kevin Lincoln. Kevin Lincoln is a half-Hispanic, half-African American Marine. Beautiful young family. He’s the Republican mayor of a Democrat city, Stockton, which dominates that district. He’s a fantastic candidate for us. Listen to this episode of Playbook Deep Dive on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You guys seem to be more pleased with the way that Donald Trump has inserted himself into some of these primaries than in previous cycles. And you know him pretty well. Can you tell us a little bit about how you help him insert himself into the endorsement process?

Republicans have a two-thirds chance of retaining their House majority in November, a warning sign for Democrats as President Biden struggles to tamp down concerns over the impact of his candidacy downballot, according to a Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) forecast released Tuesday. DDHQ noted that the chances of the GOP winning the House rose 1 percentage point since its forecast this week, with Republicans seen as the favorite to win 11 out of 16 toss-up races. The forecast comes less than two weeks since Biden’s disastrous debate performance against former President Trump, which has amplified concerns about his party’s chances of keeping the White House and Senate and flipping the House. “Six, seven months ago, it was a disaster for Republicans and Kevin McCarthy and all that turmoil,” said Scott Tranter, director of data science at DDHQ. “But by and large, the generic ballot for Republicans has been good, unusually good, in a presidential year, and that has really trickled down to some of these House races, which is why we see the Republicans slightly favored in 11 of the 16 toss-ups,” he continued. Tranter explained that “atmospherics” tend to drive House races during a presidential year and noted that a “fair bit” of that is being driven by Biden’s debate performance. “I think the early data is a good trend for Republicans, and if the early data continues, the trend will only get better for the Republicans,” Tranter said. The Decision Desk HQ forecast also noted that Trump has a 58 percent chance of flipping the White House in November, while Republicans have an 82 percent chance of flipping the Senate. The forecast underscores Democrats’ lingering fears that keeping Biden at the top of the ticket could impact their ability to keep the White House and hold onto the Senate majority in the fall. Seven House Democrats have called on the president to withdraw from the race, though Biden has remained adamant that he’s staying in the contest — much to the chagrin of members within his party.

Republicans have a two-thirds chance of retaining their House majority in November, a warning sign for Democrats as President Biden struggles to tamp down concerns over the impact of his candidacy downballot, according to a Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) forecast released Tuesday.

DDHQ noted that the chances of the GOP winning the House rose 1 percentage point since its forecast this week, with Republicans seen as the favorite to win 11 out of 16 toss-up races.

One of the ideas coming out of the agonizing intra-Democratic debate about Joe Biden’s fitness to beat Donald Trump is a sort of plan B. Donors, we are told, are considering shifting resources to an effort to flip control of the House (just four seats away) in order to block a Trump-led Republican trifecta and a bacchanalia of authoritarian extremism next year. The reigning assumption is that absent a presidential win (which provides the tie-breaking vote in the Senate), maintaining Democratic control of the upper chamber will be almost impossible, since Republicans are sure to flip West Virginia, and all the other competitive races are on Democratic turf. So making Hakeem Jeffries House Speaker offers the best return on investment and perhaps relief from the agony of watching Biden like a hawk every time he’s on-camera.

It’s an interesting strategy but not terribly promising from a historical point of view. The last time House control flipped in a presidential-election year was in 1952, when Republicans benefited from a presidential landslide. The last six times House control has flipped (in 1954, 1994, 2006, 2010, 2018, and 2022), it’s happened in midterm elections featuring a very common backlash against the president’s party. You know how often a party has lost the White House and flipped the U.S. House in the same election? Zero times. There were times when Senate races (with their highly eccentric landscapes thanks to only one-third of seats being up in any one election) moved in a very different direction from the presidential election. But the House has always been harnessed to White House results in fundamental and even predictable ways, as political scientist David Faris points out:

There are roughly 30 truly competitive seats, split about evenly between Democratic and Republican-held districts, according to a POLITICO analysis based on fundraising data, candidate recruitment and interviews with a dozen party strategists, incumbents and challengers. And with just over six months until Election Day, neither Democrats nor Republicans have a clear edge in the fight for control of the chamber. Anyone expecting either party to emerge from 2024 with a significant and easier-to-govern majority should think again. “Both sides know that it’s gonna be an incredibly close election,” said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a former House GOP campaign chair. “Post-redistricting and with all the polarization in the country, both sides have a pretty high floor. Both sides have a pretty low ceiling. So I don’t think we’ll see majorities in the 240s and 50s.” The smaller battlefield is partially a product of redistricting — not only the remaps before the 2022 midterms, but a handful since that have reduced the number of seats in play even further. Democrats have sharpened a financial edge: many incumbents and candidates outraised their GOP rivals during the first three months of 2024. And Republicans are defending 16 districts President Joe Biden won in 2020. But thorny primaries, recruitment fumbles, Biden’s unpopularity and strong GOP incumbents muddle Democrats’ chances in a handful of those targets. Republicans fixed some of the candidate quality problems that plagued them in the midterms and are zeroing in on five Democrats seats then-President Donald Trump won in 2020. But the GOP has its own complicated primaries, and at least one controversial retread candidate also obscures their path. Retirements by popular Democratic incumbents in Michigan and Virginia offer additional top-tier offensive opportunities, but much of the House battlefield lies in New York and California, two Democratic bastions that could turn bluer in a presidential election year. Both parties started off the cycle with lofty target lists. The National Republican Congressional Committee named , while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee identified . But recruitment and fundraising have significantly whittled down the map. Five states have new congressional maps since the midterms, with the GOP gaining a very modest edge. Republicans picked up three new seats in North Carolina, but those gains were muted by the creation of Democratic-leaning seats in Alabama, New York and Louisiana, where the map could change yet again depending on the outcome of continuing litigation. Democrats’ remap in New York did not go as far as their initial gerrymander that the courts struck down last cycle. But it buoyed their chances in a couple of seats, especially Rep. Brandon Williams’ (R-N.Y.) in Central New York. “This map for the decade is totally different than the map of the last two decades,” said Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Mike Johnson. “There are so few true swing seats, and that likely means we are locked into pretty narrow majorities or minorities all the way until 2032.”

One of the ideas coming out of the agonizing intra-Democratic debate about Joe Biden’s fitness to beat Donald Trump is a sort of plan B. Donors, we are told, are considering shifting resources to an effort to flip control of the House (just four seats away) in order to block a Trump-led Republican trifecta and a bacchanalia of authoritarian extremism next year. The reigning assumption is that absent a presidential win (which provides the tie-breaking vote in the Senate), maintaining Democratic control of the upper chamber will be almost impossible, since Republicans are sure to flip West Virginia, and all the other competitive races are on Democratic turf. So making Hakeem Jeffries House Speaker offers the best return on investment and perhaps relief from the agony of watching Biden like a hawk every time he’s on-camera.

It’s an interesting strategy but not terribly promising from a historical point of view. The last time House control flipped in a presidential-election year was in 1952, when Republicans benefited from a presidential landslide. The last six times House control has flipped (in 1954, 1994, 2006, 2010, 2018, and 2022), it’s happened in midterm elections featuring a very common backlash against the president’s party. You know how often a party has lost the White House and flipped the U.S. House in the same election? Zero times. There were times when Senate races (with their highly eccentric landscapes thanks to only one-third of seats being up in any one election) moved in a very different direction from the presidential election. But the House has always been harnessed to White House results in fundamental and even predictable ways, as political scientist David Faris points out:

We should not gloss over the legislative achievements of the past month in Congress, all made possible by large bipartisan majorities. It’s a fresh reminder that compromise can still happen in the U.S. House and Senate, even in today’s extremely political environment.

Overcoming months of gridlock, GOP dysfunction in the U.S. House, and simple election-year politics, Congress has churned out government funding bills, a foreign intelligence surveillance measure, aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, plus a plan that could force the sale of the TikTok social media app.

Yet the classic compromise today offers the best hope for political progress. The major issues in current legislative debates represent deep divisions on fundamental questions about the role of government, the nature of justice, and the liberties, rights, and responsibilities of citizens. The broad issues on which many Americans generally favor legislative compromise – taxation, government spending, health care, cost controls, job creation, immigration – are unlikely to be addressed at all if legislators hold out for common ground.

So if compromise is to be achieved on these major issues, we must value agreements that are less morally coherent and less politically appealing than those that rest on common ground or an overlapping consensus. The Tax Reform Act of 1986–the most comprehensive tax-reform legislation in modern American history, passed with bipartisan support under the Reagan presidency – was a classic compromise. It combined some measures (eliminating loopholes that favor the wealthy) that reflected liberal principles and others (lowering the marginal rates on top incomes) that violated those principles. The same measure also created a conflict with conservative principles, but in reverse. The Affordable Care Act of 2010–the most comprehensive health care reform in recent American history – was also a classic compromise. Though it was forged within a single party, the compromise displayed conspicuous tensions – between whether the reform should or should not offer a public option, for example.

Mutual respect and negotiation gave birth to the Constitution—and will preserve it today.

We live in a time when elected officials have become less willing to seek common ground. Some resist the very idea of government and scoff at the principle of compromise. But government is necessary because people need it to resolve their conflicts, and compromise is the tool by which governing officials hammer out such conflict resolution. If we all agreed with each other, we would not need government.

Last week, when President Joseph Biden signed bipartisan legislation to suspend the federal debt ceiling until January 2025, the United States narrowly avoided a default that would have devastated the American and global economies. But the near miss also highlighted the contradictory reality of US politics: even as partisan polarization fuels a cycle of institutional dysfunction and public mistrust, many in Congress continue to work across the aisle—and often below the radar—to mitigate the damage and address genuine policy challenges.

The peaceful reconciliation of competing ideas is a core feature of democracy. By imposing checks and balances on political power, democratic systems require elected officials, and the citizens they represent, to consider multiple views, negotiate differences, and accept mixed outcomes. The results of policymaking rarely please everyone, but participants who engage in the process can at least make their case, advance shared interests, and help prevent grave errors.

Which is understandable, but let me tell you why, far from applauding that line, I shy from politicians who use it. In a democracy, being able to compromise — and knowing how — is a core skill for governing. Shouting “No Compromise!” may fire up the crowd, but it’s a recipe for failure when it comes to getting things done in office.

Legislative bodies do need members who set out pure ideological positions as part of the public dialogue. But if they’re allowed to control or dominate the process, nothing gets done. When pushed, most politicians understand that cooperation and working together to build consensus have to prevail in the end.

While legislators are often confronted with challenges in a divided government, they are also provided an opportunity to prioritize bipartisanship for the greater good of the nation. The strength of government is tested when Congress is divided, but history has repeatedly shown our exceptional ability to overcome partisanship to make a divided government work: in our nation’s history, divided governments have often been the most productive and successful.

Here’s a look at some of the greatest bipartisan achievements that have occurred during divided governments in modern history:

So why do American voters choose people of different political persuasions to run different parts of the government? Abramowitz says it’s a function of a very close divide among Americans between the two parties. And he points out that while some voters chose candidates based on their party, many independent (“swing”) voters choose based on the particular candidates in their district. “The party balance is the outcome of so many different elections,” he says.

Divisions beget compromise

At the same time, there is hope for divided government in the Senate. There are a large number of both Democratic and Republican Senators that have proven that they are willing to work together to do the business of the nation. There are opportunities in this new Congress to work with the Administration to legislate on a few critical issues: immigration reform, controlling crime, restoring a budget process that promotes fiscal discipline as part of the answer to inflation, passing a farm bill that increases food supplies for the world, and strengthening our defense forces and our support for Ukraine. If a majority of responsible Republican and Democratic members on the House side are willing to be part of these efforts, they have the votes to isolate the extremist and pass bipartisan legislation.

Divided government has “happened before, and it usually happened after a president didn't do a real good job of providing for the country,” she said. A power split could “ideally cause them to have to get together and work things out.”

In New Britain, Conn., Gonzalo Ortega, a 19-year-old college student studying engineering, voted for Republican challenger George Logan in a hotly-contested congressional race not so much to make progress on any particular policy, but because “it keeps both sides in check. It doesn’t allow either side to do anything too extreme.”

Not surprisingly, the periods with the most significant legislative changes have occurred under a unified government, while great compromise has most often happened during times of divided control.

For example, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) were implemented when the same party controlled all three parts of government.

China's domestic economic woes are prompting fears that Beijing could compensate by escalating the risk of a war with the U.S. over Taiwan, according to experts who closely follow the U.S.-China rivalry.

And China's economic slowdown, already evident in slowing growth, plunging exports and the increasing municipal debt, unemployment and deflation, is likely to worsen if other nations follow the U.S. lead in restricting investments in China.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said he could impose a 60% tariff on Chinese imports if he returns to the White House, and a new analysis predicted it would drastically slow the world’s second largest economy and send it to the brink of deflation.

Taking into account the effects of Trump’s 2018 China tariffs, economists from UBS offered a simplified model of what a new round would do, assuming that China doesn’t retaliate, other countries don’t match U.S. duties, and some trade is diverted elsewhere.

Using aggregated annual data for 151 countries (34 advanced and 117 developing) over 1963–2014, we find that tariffs have economically- and statistically-significant adverse effects on output growth. The impact is persistent and increases with the magnitude of the tariff change. Our baseline econometric model suggests that a one standard deviation increase in the tariff rate (corresponding to a 3.6 percentage points) leads to about a 0.4% decline of output five years later. The estimated decline in output seems related to reduced efficiency in the use of labor across sectors, an appreciation of the real exchange rate which hampers competitiveness (and undercuts possible improvements in the trade balance), higher imported input costs which raise production costs, and intertemporal effects as anticipated tariffs bring forward consumption and output, only to see these macro variables collapse once the tariff is actually imposed. These different channels are fleshed out in a companion paper (Furceri et al., 2019); here, we focus mainly on the headline response of GDP growth. We use two approaches to evaluate the effect of tariffs on output (growth): (i) some simple stylized-fact charts that show the evolution of growth following tariff hikes; (ii) more formal econometrics using a VAR methodology, so that we can trace the GDP (growth) response of tariffs over time (we explore alternative approaches in our 2019 paper). We then explore some of the possible underlying channels at work. The message from the findings in this section is loud and clear: tariffs have a sizeable negative effect on output growth, with detrimental effects persisting over years. The findings suggest that tariffs have a detrimental effect on output, with the negative effect larger for higher tariff increases and persisting over time, at least over the next four years or so. The residualized growth tends to be in negative territory in all four years following an increase in protectionism. For example, after the second year, the residualized output growth is −0.4/−0.8 for one/three standard deviation(s) increases in tariffs, respectively. After four years, tariff increases are associated with an annual negative output growth of 1.5 percent when tariff increase is above three standard deviations. shows the estimated dynamic response of output to a one-standard deviation rise in the tariff rate (around 3.6 percentage points). The results suggest that a one standard deviation tariff increase leads to a decline in output growth within the first year. While the effect is not initially statistically significant, output continues to decline in the next few years, and this effect becomes both economically and statistically significant within four years. Ultimately, a one standard deviation tariff increase leads to about a 0.4% decline in output five years later. In an effort to be conservative, we end our analysis at the five-year horizon: the longer-term output-effect of tariffs are actually higher than the estimated medium-term effects.