When undecided voters are asked to decide who they would support, Becerra’s support remains at 28%, and Hilton and Steyer both receive 23%.

The top two finishers will face off in the general election.

“Amy Gertner, who married Platner in 2024, told the campaign about messages she had found early in their marriage in the spring of 2025. In late August, as some aides were conducting opposition research on their own candidate, Gertner disclosed the texts to a campaign aide to make sure they didn’t pose a risk to her husband’s nascent campaign.”

“Aides ultimately decided the texts were a private matter that was being handled by the couple in marriage counseling.”

New York Times: “It was the kind of revelation with the potential to damage the political newcomer just as his campaign to unseat Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, was beginning to resonate with voters, especially in a state where female voters make up a large share of the electorate.”

“The durability of that culture-war coup is now an open question, as the GOP tries to redeploy the same playbook in a far more hostile midterm environment.”

“The U.N. relies on U.S. and Chinese money for 42% of its basic funding.”

“In some cases, extreme MAGA diehards have stepped in to fill the void, crystallizing the transformation the party has undergone under the leadership of the president. We’ll find out in November whether Democrats can take advantage of Trump’s sinking approval numbers and stop more of his loyalists from making their way into Congress.”

“The May 19 arrangement ends pending audits of Trump, his family and his businesses, and it blocks future audits of already filed returns. That creates a protective blanket that will be difficult—but not impossible—for Trump’s opponents or future tax authorities to pierce. The shield goes far beyond what other taxpayers typically get when resolving disputes with the Internal Revenue Service.”

“The lack of public comment after the Situation Room talks on Friday, despite Trump suggesting earlier an agreement was near, was the latest conflicting signal from Washington over the prospects for a deal with Tehran as the conflict drags into its fourth month.”

The latest episode of Trial Balloon is live.

When American politics stops trying to persuade and starts trying to destroy.

“Johnson bought himself time this spring by punting a series of politically difficult fights. But those deadlines are now coming due, setting up a brutal June for House Republicans.”

“Aside from MAGA Republicans, Americans are bunched at the upper left, with few people seeing the economy getting better and the vast majority seeing it as getting worse. Non-MAGA Republicans are much more similar in their views to independents, and even to Democrats, than they are to MAGA.”

“So how big is the group that believes that we have a good economy? Only 19 percent of Americans.”

“Friday’s report, written by the president’s physician, Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, gave a similarly upbeat assessment of Mr. Trump’s health, declaring that the 79-year-old president ‘remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function.’”

Washington Post: “Barbabella’s report once again suggested that Trump’s frequent handshaking and use of aspirin were behind the bruising, though some outside physicians have suggested that is unlikely, noting that the bruises have appeared on Trump’s nondominant left hand.”

Wall Street Journal: “The president weighed 238 pounds, 14 pounds more since his 2025 exam.”

“Mr. Trump has long conducted running focus groups on his closest aides, and appears to enjoy needling them and keeping them off balance as a way of asserting his dominance. Several people in the president’s inner circle have been subject to his quasi-public questioning of their performance and their future.”

“The initiative underscores the president’s ability to reshape immigration policy through executive orders and the vast power of federal regulations while sidestepping Congress. And it shows how the administration has pursued more creative — and lower-profile — tactics after Mr. Trump’s militarized deportation raids into major cities prompted political backlash earlier this year.”

“Mr. Trump had said that the $1 billion project, the priciest presidential library yet, could include a hotel and retail sales outlets. But more disturbing to historians and government watchdogs is his determination to own and control every document a presidential library would contain. Not since the Watergate era, when President Richard M. Nixon took his fight to control the incriminating White House tapes to the Supreme Court, has a president worked so hard to shield documentary evidence of his administration’s inner workings from public view.”

Trump wrote that unless he was free to decide the center’s trajectory, he had “no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey.”

“More than a dozen Republican senators have privately urged top Trump aides to drop the fund since its creation last week, said people familiar with the outreach, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is usually supportive of the president’s efforts.”

“Administration officials have grown increasingly concerned about the viability of the fund, people familiar with the matter said, which had been expected to provide payouts to an array of Trump allies.”