The Democratic win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was huge: 10 points (55% to 45%, with 98% of the vote, or 2.3 million votes in).

• In Florida, Republicans won both their U.S. House special elections but Democrats cut Trump's margin by 22 points in Matt Gaetz's old seat, and 16 points in national security adviser Mike Waltz's district.

Why it matters: The three results show real midterm danger for Republicans.

• This is the jolt Democrats needed to juice money and hope in an otherwise very dismal year. If they perform in next year's midterms like they did last night, 2026 would be yet another change election, with Democrats winning back the House. Imagine House Dems with subpoena power.

The big picture: There's no positive spin on this for the GOP: It's an early verdict on President Trump and Elon Musk — and that's before this afternoon's imposition of tariffs that economists fear will gut growth.

• Extrapolate those House results across competitive 2026 races — and you're likely to get a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and lots of close races on a very favorable GOP Senate map.

⚖️ The Wisconsin loss — which preserves Democrats' 4-3 state Supreme Court majority — has major ramifications for voting and abortion rights, along with future House redistricting, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

🌴 The GOP survived a late scare in the Sunshine State's U.S. House specials:

• In Waltz's seat, Republican Randy Fine beat Democrat Josh Weil, 57% to 43%.
• In Gaetz's seat, Republican Jimmy Patronis defeated Democrat Gay Valimont, 57% to 42%.

3 takeaways

1. 2026 looks scary for MAGA without Trump on the ballot. The GOP's Florida candidates fell far short of Trump's performance in November. The margins of victory for Patronis and Fine were about half the margins for Waltz and Gaetz.

• National Republicans waged an 11th-hour blitz, and Trump hosted a tele-rally, to get Fine over the finish line. Republicans were deeply frustrated with Fine, who they criticized for running a lackluster campaign.

In Wisconsin, Republicans were drubbed even with $25 million poured in by Elon Musk.

• He campaigned in Wisconsin and cast the race in apocalyptic terms: "A Supreme Court election in Wisconsin might determine the fate of America," he tweeted last week, later topping that with saying it "might decide the future of America and Western Civilization."

2. Democrats are flooding cash into races. In FL-1, Patronis was outraised 3-1.

• In FL-6, Fine was outraised by nearly 10-1.
• In Wisconsin, Crawford outraised Schimel nearly 2-1.

3. Republicans kept their current (narrow) House majority. Last week, Republicans were sweating the race for Waltz's seat, where a poll conducted by Trump strategist Tony Fabrizio showed Fine narrowly trailing. Fine won by 15 points.

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Joe Rogan, the podcaster MAGAworld can't ignore, warned his listeners about "people who are not criminals ... getting lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons."

• Why it matters: As the Trump administration "has rushed to carry out deportations as quickly as possible, making mistakes and raising concerns about due process along the way, the [right's] unified front in favor of President Trump's immigration purge is beginning to crack," the N.Y. Times notes (gift link).

Case in point: A Salvadorian national living in Maryland legally was wrongly deported to El Salvador, the Department of Justice has admitted in court papers, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

• The erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was first reported by The Atlantic. He hasn't been convicted of gang-related crimes.

Vice President Vance tweeted that a court document shows Abrego Garcia is "a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here."

• Keep reading.

Rogan calls this case "horrific":

• Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer for The New Yorker who has reported extensively on immigration, dives into the ordeal of Andry José Hernández Romero, "The Makeup Artist Donald Trump Deported [to El Salvador] Under the Alien Enemies Act."

Blitzer draws on interviews with Andry's American attorneys, his mother, and members of his home community in Venezuela, where he had been a cherished part of the local theatre scene and, as one resident notes, a "great talent of our town."

• "There was something painfully desperate in their insistence," Blitzer writes, "as if seeing images of Andry for myself would help correct an otherwise stunning cultural misunderstanding."
• "One key misunderstanding seems to center on tattoos — the kinds that Andry, and many of the other deportees, have."

Full story ... Newsletter précis.

The new consensus among business owners and economists is that President Trump's colossal tariff announcement, after markets close today, is just the start of global economic uncertainty, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes.

• Why it matters: Many once hoped the much-hyped reciprocal tariff announcement would settle worldwide economic confusion.

Now the fear is that recent weeks' trade drama — tariff flip-flops and policy hanging in the balance — will stick around for the next four years.

• It's a backdrop that makes long-term planning impossible, a separate risk for a teetering economy.
• Today's tariff news "will not bring the level of certainty that businesses need to make hiring and investment decisions," Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at accounting firm RSM, wrote on "Liberation Day" eve.

🖼️ The big picture: Trump could announce tariffs as high as 20% on almost all imports, The Washington Post's Jeff Stein and David Lynch report.

• That, along with other tariffs implemented this year, would bring the effective U.S. tariff rate to almost 33%, the highest since 1872, according to the Budget Lab at Yale.

The previously announced tariffs on foreign-made cars, as well as levies on goods from Canada and Mexico, are also set to take effect.

• Economists expect swift retaliation from trading partners.

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Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) now holds the record for the longest Senate speech ever: 25 hours and four minutes, Axios' Stephen Neukam writes.

• Why it matters: Booker's marathon speech stands out as one of the starkest acts of defiance by Democrats in their resistance to the second Trump administration.

Booker surpassed the record of former Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.), who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 with a 24-hour and 18-minute speech.

• The speech turned attention back to Democrats as the party tries to find the most effective way to counter Trump.

⏳ Between the lines: The speech is both a physical and mental accomplishment.

• Booker wasn't allowed to leave the Senate floor for any reason during the speech, including to use the bathroom, eat and drink. He also wasn't allowed to sit.

Booker was allowed to field questions from Democratic senators. But that was his only reprieve from speaking for over 24 hours straight.

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Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Thurmond was a Democrat when he set the record.

The White House is so frustrated by the lack of clear and fast communications by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s agency that it has set up a parallel press shop, Axios' Marc Caputo and Brittany Gibson report.

• Why it matters: The dysfunction at HHS has crucial political and policy ramifications. The department oversees disease response, so public communication is at a premium.

The problem surfaced in February, after it took two days for HHS to acknowledge — by tweet — that a West Texas child had become the first person to die in the measles outbreak.

• "The White House was like: 'Where the f**k is the statement?'" said a White House official who was involved in the measles response. "CNN was blaring this chyron about how Kennedy was silent, and there was just nothing from the department because of Stefanie."
• White House officials blamed Stefanie Spear, a Kennedy adviser for more than a decade who RFK Jr. has empowered as his deputy chief of staff and gatekeeper.

🔬 Zoom in: Since the measles debacle, the White House communications team has handled more press relations on behalf of HHS than any other department, and often has acted as a contact between reporters and the agency.

• "This shouldn't be the White House's job, but here we are," a White House adviser said.

Spear was unreachable by reporters last Friday after top vaccine regulator Peter Marks resigned and blasted Kennedy in a scathing resignation letter.

• The White House was left to approve the department's response, the adviser said. Pharmaceutical stocks plummeted as the industry grappled with Marks' departure.

Keep reading.

The White House is seriously considering an Iranian proposal for indirect nuclear talks, while at the same time significantly boosting U.S. forces in the Middle East in case President Trump opts for military strikes, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

• Why it matters: Trump has repeatedly said he'd prefer a deal, but warned that without one, "there will be bombing."

His timeline is tight: Trump gave Iran a two-month deadline to reach a deal, but it's not clear if and when that clock started ticking.

• The White House is still engaged in an internal debate between those who think a deal is achievable and those who see talks as a waste of time and instead back strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.
• In the meantime, the Pentagon is engaged in a massive buildup of forces in the Middle East. If Trump decides the time is up, he will have a loaded gun at the ready.

👀 Behind the scenes: Over the weekend, Trump received Iran's formal response to the letter he sent Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei three weeks ago, a U.S. official said.

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Some Canadians are ditching their winter homes in the U.S. as tensions between the two countries simmer, Axios' Sami Sparber writes.

• Why it matters: President Trump's tariffs and taunts may be the last straw for snowbirds who are already finding it more expensive to live south of the border, real estate agents say.

The big picture: America's northern neighbors make up 11% of foreign homebuyers on average over the past decade, according to National Association of Realtors data shared with Axios.

• Florida attracts the most Canadian buyers, followed by Arizona and California.

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Alexander Ovechkin has eight games left this season to score four times and become the NHL's all-time leading goal scorer, Axios' Everett Cook writes.

• Why it matters: The current career record of 894, set by Wayne Gretzky, was one of those sports records that many thought could never be broken — and Ovechkin's on the verge of doing it at age 39.

Ovechkin's been a model of consistency over his 20 seasons playing for the Washington Capitals (charted above).

• The Russian winger has never scored less than 30 goals in a full, non-pandemic or lockout season, and prior to this year, had missed just 35 total career games due to injury.
• He likely would've broken the record weeks ago had he not missed 16 games due to a broken fibula.

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