Supporters of Medicare for All now outnumber opponents by nearly 2-to-1, according to a new Axios-Ipsos American Health Index survey of U.S. adults.

• Two-thirds of survey respondents — and half of Republicans — said the federal government should be willing to spend more tax dollars to lower health care costs for Americans.

Why it matters: With three weeks to go before the midterm elections, and private health insurance premiums and prescription prices crushing voters, the findings suggest a path for swing-state candidates who embrace socialized medicine, Axios' Margaret Talev writes.

• Resistance to the idea has changed markedly since recent campaign cycles, when centrist Democrats were likelier to embrace a public health insurance option or a version of Medicare for All that still allows private insurance.

🧮 By the numbers: 43% of Americans said they support the idea of establishing a "Medicare for All" program to provide government-run health insurance to all, largely replacing private health insurance. 24% oppose the idea and 32% say they aren't sure.

• Nearly half of independents (47%) support it, as do 62% of Democrats.
• 21% of Republicans support Medicare for All, and 27% are undecided, compared with 52% who oppose the idea.

👀 What we're watching: Respondents said they'd be more likely to support congressional candidates who favor:

1. Expanding government help with health care costs.
2. Restoring the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that expired at the start of this year.
3. Expanding prescription drug discount programs.

More from the poll ... Get Axios Future of Health Care, our daily briefing on the policy moves, business trends and innovations reshaping health care.

Move over, Wisconsin and Arizona. With Democrats making Republicans sweat in a host of red-state Senate races, a new batch of swing states may be emerging, Axios' Mike Zapler writes.

• Why it matters: Some of the closest Senate races are in Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Iowa and even Kansas. Sure, this could be a blip — or a reminder that it's a 50-50 moody nation, even in a bunch of red states.

🖼️ The big picture: Democratic and Republican Senate candidates are running margin-of-error races in red states that not long ago were thought to be forbidding, or even a wasted effort, to many Democrats.

• The Senate races in Kansas and Ohio are tied. So is Nebraska, where independent Dan Osborn is trying to knock off Sen. Pete Ricketts.
• Democrat James Talarico has consistently led polls in Texas, though that race appears to be tightening as money pours into the state on behalf of Republican Ken Paxton.
• ✈️ Reliably red Alaska is also a toss-up. President Trump is flying to Wasilla, Alaska, today to campaign for incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan.
• Trump won all those states by double digits in 2024.

👀 Zoom in: Republican operatives told Axios they're far from convinced that what's happening now will create a new slate of swing states in the 2028 race for the White House.

• Democrats say better-than-expected performances by their candidates in several red states would at least open the door to an expanded map — with a big "if."
• "An opening, yes," Obama's former chief strategist, David Axelrod, told Axios. "A guarantee, hardly."

🥊 Reality check: There's no certainty that Democrats will prevail in red states this year, much less set a path for 2028.

• The polling industry has had enough misses and challenges in recent elections to raise questions about whether we're getting an accurate picture of the political landscape.

Keep reading.

Corporate America is raking in record profits, luxuriating in luscious margins and capturing the largest chunk of the country's income on record, Axios Markets co-author Matt Phillips writes.

• Why it matters: The corporate bonanza is bolstering the stock market, but it may also be fueling Americans' sour mood.

Today is the unofficial start of third-quarter earnings season. Wall Street expects S&P 500 members will continue to make it rain.

👓 Between the lines: The market is still all about AI, but the gains are extremely concentrated.

• Ben Snider, chief U.S. equity analyst with Goldman Sachs, notes more than two-thirds of total growth in S&P 500 earnings is expected to come from just 10 stocks.

Keep reading.

A top Trump political operative has been tapped to help boost Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall's campaign in the weeks before the Nov. 3 election — the latest sign of how Republicans are scrambling to defend the red-state seat, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

• The hiring of veteran strategist Chris Grant reflects the GOP's growing anxiety over Kansas' Senate race. Marshall is running neck and neck with Democrat Adam Hamilton in a state President Trump won by 16 points in 2024.

Why it matters: Republicans fear losing Kansas could be a domino in costing them their Senate majority.

🔎 Zoom in: GOP operatives have become increasingly frustrated with Marshall's reelection campaign, which they believe hasn't been aggressive enough at a time when soaring fuel prices have particularly hurt farmers in Kansas and elsewhere in the Midwest.

• Grant, who helped lead the main pro-Trump super PAC in 2024 and has remained involved in Trump's political operation, will be a senior adviser to Marshall and help guide strategy in the final three weeks.

Keep reading.

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei writes in his weekly C-Suite newsletter:

Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, has some blunt advice for AI CEOs: Apply the oil industry's strategy for winning political support for fracking to data centers and AI.

Why it matters: Data centers are the new fracking — a potential job creator and financial windfall for local communities, greeted with deep-seated, well-funded fear and loathing. It took roughly 14 years and well over $1B in ads and lobbying to win the political war and limit the public backlash.

1. Sell the bill, not the breakthrough. Fracking won on gas prices, paychecks and energy independence. The U.S. produced more crude than any country in history for six straight years. AI is selling inevitability instead, and it's landing poorly in towns burned by past industrial booms. Nobody cares about AGI or solving math problems. They care about their power bill.
2. Pay the town first. Shale country runs on a local contract: Production taxes and corporate money fund local schools, roads and hospitals. Communities need to see and feel the benefit.
3. Write the neighbor rulebook yourself. At the height of the fracking backlash, API used its clout as a standards-setter to publish a first-of-its-kind "good neighbor" standard for drilling communities, covering public safety meetings and local job training to align drilling with the community's goals. It became the norm the whole industry was measured against. AI has no equivalent. No one sets the rules for how a data center treats its town, so every company improvises, and the worst project often defines the industry.
4. Stop scaring the shit out of people. Sommers said the fracking revolution would've been screwed if the CEOs of oil companies were warning that their product could obliterate humanity while pitching its benefits. Normal people want hope, not sci-fi.

📈 Share this story ... If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Apply now to join Jim's new Axios C-Suite weekly newsletter.

Elon Musk has quietly become the biggest known donor in this year's midterm elections, doling out more than $276 million since July to try to save Republican majorities in Congress.

The money includes $158 million given to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC supporting Republican Senate candidates, one of the largest known political donations in American history, the N.Y. Times' Teddy Schleifer first reported.

• Go deeper.

Hackers raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers at hundreds of French supermarkets to as high as 122°F yesterday, causing fires and spoiling food.

• Stores in Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium were also affected.

The attacks resemble disruptions reported at about a dozen U.S. military commissaries in late August that led to food losses after fridges were affected.

• Go deeper.

A "furious" district court judge ordered a 24-hour halt to a massive tree-cutting operation at the historic East Potomac Golf Course in D.C. that President Trump plans to overhaul.

• Government lawyers said at a holiday emergency hearing that about 430 trees were cut down on Saturday. 299 more are slated for removal.

Kevin Griess, the superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, cited a 2019 National Park Service Cultural Landscape Report as the guide for the work, which he said was part of Trump's 2025 order to make D.C. safe and beautiful.

• Go deeper (WashPost gift link).