Our Best Stuff on the Coming Midterm Elections
The Dispatch · RC · trust 48/100
Unlocked Dispatch Weekly Our Best Stuff on the Coming Midterm Elections Plus: Check out our new newsletter on the future of the right. Rachael Larimore / August 22, 2026 Loading Sen. Jon Ossoff during the 2026 Martin Luther King, Jr. Beloved Community Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images) Sen. Jon Ossoff during the 2026 Martin Luther King, Jr. Beloved Community Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images) = 3 && ageInMonths 3 months old . Some information may be outdated.'; } else if (ageInMonths = 6 && ageInMonths 6 months old . Some information may be outdated.'; } else if (ageInMonths = 12 && ageInMonths 1 year old . Some information may be outdated.'; } else if (ageInMonths = 12) { const ageInYears = Math.floor(ageInMonths / 12); this.message = `This post is more than ${ageInYears} ${ageInYears === 1 ? 'year' : 'years'} old . Some information may be outdated.`; } } }" { this.tooltipOpen = false; }, 200); } }" class="relative" Audio Turn any article into a podcast. Upgrade now to start listening.
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Hello and happy Saturday. It’s official: Primary season is (almost) over. Florida, Alaska, and Wyoming had their elections on Tuesday, leaving only a few states that wait until September. In Florida, democratic socialist Angie Nixon won the Democratic nomination for Senate despite raising only $1.2 million. Nixon’s victory highlights the party’s internal divisions between its establishment and progressive wings. Democratic socialists also won primaries in New York, Michigan, Colorado, and Pennsylvania.
But it's time for us to turn our attention to the general election. As we do, we’ll be watching to see how Democrats are grappling with that division, but also how they are campaigning against Republicans.
In Boiling Frogs , Nick Catoggio highlighted Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who currently leads his opponent, GOP Rep. Mike Collins, by 7 points and who has been touted as a possible presidential contender in 2028. Noting that Ossoff has been leaning into calling President Donald Trump a crook and calling attention to GOP scandals, Nick lays out what he calls the “Ossoff theory”:
The Ossoff theory, as I perceive it, is that corruption is an essential element this cycle in a broader attack on Republicans for failing to prioritize the people’s welfare. It may be true … that voters will overlook a politician’s corruption if they believe he’ll deliver more for them than the other guy on the ballot will. (That’s the lesson of 2024.) But it’s also true that if a corrupt politician isn’t delivering, the public will be primed to consider that his corruption is part of the reason why.
Meanwhile, David Drucker followed a candidate who’s doing things a little differently. Rob Sand, the auditor of Iowa, is the only Democrat holding statewide office there. The Hawkeye State hasn’t had a Democratic governor since 2011, and it hasn’t had a Democratic senator since 2014. But Sand thinks he can take back the governor’s mansion with an appeal to Republicans who are weary of Trump, Drucker writes :
Sand is running on cooperation, not confrontation, with Iowa’s GOP-controlled Legislature. He vows that “every culture war bill” would be met with his veto pen, whether pushed by Democrats or Republicans; he has repeatedly reaffirmed his opposition to transgender girls participating in female sports (although he has described the GOP’s approach to this issue as bigoted ); and he is proposing to disperse government regulatory power and decision-making from Des Moines to the state’s 99 counties and their communities. Sand’s open hands to conservatives don’t end there.
He begins campaign events by leading audiences in singing America the Beautiful and asks Republicans in attendance to raise their hands so that he can personally welcome them. He also tips his cap to the right with this riff on his decision to join the Democratic Party after initially voting as an independent: “I also remember [President] Bill Clinton balancing the budget, using the surplus to pay down the debt, and thinking, as a teenager, thank you,” Sand recalled.
Don’t worry—we won’t only cover the Democrats. We’re also going to pay plenty of attention to the Republicans. In fact, we’ve debuted a whole new newsletter by Michael Warren just for that purpose. Next Right will explore the future of the party—from the midterms to 2028 and beyond. In his introduction, Mike explains that Trump is approaching lame-duck status and the race to replace him is already underway.
For the first edition—he’ll be writing every Wednesday—Mike talked to outgoing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a great way to kick things off as Kemp is a traditional, pre-MAGA conservative who has figured out how to navigate the Trump era and is well positioned to shape the party going forward. Mike writes:
In the burgeoning discourse about potential Republican candidates, Kemp undoubtedly takes a back seat to Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, if for no other reason than that the conversation seems to be driven by the question of who will receive the all-important endorsement of Donald Trump.
Strip away the current GOP incentive structure, and on paper, Kemp looks exactly like the kind of person who would consider a White House run. He’s a successful two-term governor of a large swing state. He has gained a big national profile, not just for his fights with Trump over the 2020 election but because of controversial bills he signed into law, such as a six-week abortion restriction that sparked some brief boycotts from Hollywood and a voting law that prompted Major League Baseball to move its 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta. (Kemp can feel vindicated, since Georgia’s entertainment production industry remains…
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