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The nonpartisan Cook Political Report projects Democrats will most likely flip between 12 and 22 seats in November — potentially giving them bigger majorities than the ones they won during blue waves in the 2006 and 2018 midterms.
On Friday, Cook shifted 19 more races into Democrats’ favor — including six districts shifted from “toss up” to “lean Democrat.” Out of those six, four are held by Republicans.
Some of the new races shifted into Democrats’ favor includes Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colorado), which moved from “solid Republican” to “lean Republican,” and Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin), which moved from “toss up” to “lean Democrat.”
While Democrats picked up dozens of seats in the 2006 and 2018 midterms, election prognosticators initially expected their gains to be more modest this year because Republicans only hold a slim majority and many districts are drawn to favor Republicans. But now Republicans and Democrats are ramping up spending in red districts, signaling they are suddenly competitive.
Erin Covey, Cook’s analyst for the House, said Democrats are now favored outright in 218 seats they need to win control of the chamber. An additional 17 House races have been left as pure toss ups, giving Democrats room to build a comfortable majority.
A good soup is like a favorite sweater — always comforting, always there for you and versatile enough to go with just about anything.
Now that the leaves are turning and the air is getting crisper, I’m incorporating more such soups into my weekly rotation. I suspect you may be doing the same thing.
If you’re looking for new ones to try, allow me to nominate a few personal and reader favorites from our archive of more than 10,000 recipes. (Tip: You can filter by course and select “soup” to narrow your search.)
Family Favorite Minestrone. Pictured above. This Ellie Krieger recipe is the soup we make the most in my house. Don’t just take my word for it. Readers say, “This is my absolute favorite minestrone — been making it for years,” and “I’ve been making this regularly since I first saw the recipe in the Washington Post. It’s just total comfort food.” Chock full of vegetables, pasta and beans in a tomato base, it’s full of belly-warming, nutritious goodness. Don’t be afraid to swap ingredients as needed.
Ginger Garlic Chicken Noodle Soup. Readers praised this boldly flavored 35-minute recipe from the Smitten Kitchen’s Deb Perelman. Among the plaudits: “This soup is scrumptious.” “Everyone loves it and it’s easy to make.”
Caldo Verde. This hearty Portuguese classic with potatoes and kale takes well to riffing, whether you choose to switch up the sausage or greens. Reader props include “Top notch soup!”, “Very flavorful and definitely a keeper” and “Good and easy recipe.”
With Election Day less than two weeks away, political polls released this week showed approval of President Donald Trump at another record low and that voters most likely to cast ballots strongly prefer Democrats.
Details on the surveys’ methodology, sample sizes and margins of error can be found in the links below.
The president’s approval hits a new low
Only 36 percent of likely voters approved of Trump’s performance, and 59 percent said they disapproved, a poll from the New York Times and Siena University found, marking the president’s lowest approval rating recorded in that poll’s history.
The results show a deepening frustration with the president over the economy, with a majority of voters disapproving of how Trump has handled the cost of living, the Iran war and gas prices.
Likely voters also preferred Democrats over Republicans in their congressional districts by 11 percentage points, according to the poll.
Young voters prefer Democrats
Young Americans are most likely to vote for Democrats, according to a poll from the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. Of likely voters ages 18 to 29, 63 percent said they would vote for Democrats and 26 percent for Republicans.
The economy was also their top concern, and nearly 50 percent said their personal finances have worsened in Trump’s second term.
Another big concern was government corruption: Nearly 90 percent said it was a consideration in how they would vote in the midterms. Young people also worry about artificial intelligence, with 64 percent saying that AI replacing jobs is a threat to their financial security.
Your browser or password manager offers an easy way to dodge one common data request: when a site invites you to save your credit card for future purchases. That eases one worry for the site — that you won’t have your wallet handy later on — but adds one worry for you, that the site won’t take sufficient care with your saved payment mechanism.
And as the exhausting history of credit-card fraud and data breaches suggests, too many sites and merchants still don’t understand their assignment.
If, however, you let your browser or password manager save your credit-card data, you benefit from much better security. Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, Microsoft’s Edge and Mozilla’s Firefox all protect these details with such security measures as requiring a biometric or other real-time confirmation to auto-fill a card — or requiring you to type the card’s “CVV” security code yourself.
Many third-party password managers such as the free Bitwarden and the subscription-only 1Password offer the same feature, further employing end-to-end encryption to ensure these companies can’t see the data you’ve saved.
In all of these cases, entering a credit card via this autofill takes much less time than typing in all those digits — which you’d have to do at a site anyway before it could make any trust-us offer to save your credit card.
The Duchess of Sussex said Friday she had been told of “disturbing allegations” about her estranged father in 2018 and had not allowed him any contact with her children to “protect them.”
Meghan said a letter containing allegations against Thomas Markle was sent to the authorities and later shared with her.
“I was given assurances that these were being investigated,” she said.
The statement comes amid British media reports Thursday that child sex abuse images had allegedly been found at her father’s former home in the Philippines.
Meghan said she was “deeply distressed” by the news, and “my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed.”
Thomas Markle has denied possessing any such images, the BBC reported. Authorities in the Philippines were reported to be investigating.
Meghan’s relationship with her father broke down in the lead-up to her wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018, and her relationship with her father attracted intense tabloid interest.
Meghan said Friday she hoped it could now be understood that the distance she had kept from her father had been to protect her children. “I trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families.”
More than 40 farmers and agricultural industry groups are warning Washington leaders that the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration is affecting the nation’s food supply, hurting farmers and risking higher grocery prices.
“Targeting immigrant workers who have not committed crimes and blocking workforce solutions for agriculture devastates agricultural producers, drives up food costs for all Americans and makes our nation more dependent on other countries,” the groups say in a letter addressed to President Donald Trump and congressional leaders, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post.
Signatories include the Milk Producers Council, the Texas International Produce Association, the Kansas Livestock Association and the Indiana Dairy Producers, among other members of the American Business Immigration Coalition, a bipartisan group of employers that lobbies for immigration changes on Capitol Hill.
The letter marks a shift in strategy for an industry that has been reluctant to publicly criticize Trump’s campaign of immigration raids, detention and deportation targeting its workforce, preferring generally to lobby the administration behind the scenes. About 66 percent of the country’s farmworkers are foreign-born.
But the group decided to publicize its warning after recent sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents near major meatpacking plants delayed cattle livestock operations, shipments and harvesting in southwest Kansas; led to arrests of farm workers in California’s Central Valley; and threatened poultry production in Pennsylvania farm country, industry leaders say.
“We’ve been at odds lately with [the Trump administration], especially when folks … suddenly become the targets of ICE raids,” said Christian Herr, a signatory of the letter and president of the PennAg Industries Association. The group represents farmers, as well pork and poultry producers, in Pennsylvania. “You couple that with pressures from tariffs, high fertilizer costs and supply chain disruptions [and] some of the president’s most loyal supporters are fading fast.”
The letter also comes a little more than a week before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, which the group hopes will revive discussion of immigration legislation on Capitol Hill. Specifically, it calls on Congress to provide work permits for long-term agriculture workers, citing a bill introduced this year by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-Pennsylvania).
Correction
A previous version of this article misnamed a group as the American Immigration Business Coalition. It is the American Business Immigration Coalition.
A first-time mother of the bride writes to our advice columnists: If she’s contributing money to her daughter’s upcoming nuptials … does she get any influence over whom they invite?
Not much has been said about the wedding plans, the letter-writer reports, except that her daughter does not want to invite one of her uncles. Their relationship seemed to strain more than a decade ago, when her daughter fought with the uncle and he “said some things he shouldn’t have.”
So can this MOB ask for an invite for the estranged uncle?
“I don’t mean to laugh or minimize it when you have a relative who’s being excluded. That’s really hard,” columnist Carolyn Hax says on the new “Life Hax” podcast. “But the couple controls the guest list, and they’re throwing the party, and you’re giving the money as a gift.”
Co-host Shane O’Neill adds: “There’s a statute of limitations. If you wanted to somehow help foment forgiveness between your brother and your daughter, you had 10 years to do that.”
To hear more, follow the “Life Hax” show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have your own question to ask, email [email protected].
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