To better understand Mike Johnson this week, just look at what awaits him at the end of this year.

Why it matters: The most likely conclusion to this government spending standoff is an encore that threatens Johnson's chances of being re-elected as House speaker.

• He knows he's seven votes short but will still push ahead tomorrow with a vote on his Plan A. That's the six-month spending stopgap plus the SAVE Act, the legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.

⚡️ Once Plan A fails, his deputies have no clue what happens next. Johnson says there's no Plan B, but everyone in town assumes the end result is a three-month stopgap, no strings attached.

• One senior GOP lawmaker told us there's been "ruffling of feathers" over who's responsible for rounding up the votes. They expect more leadership infighting to flare up as they navigate subsequent funding fights.

⏩ Now fast-forward to November: If Republicans keep the majority, Johnson will be negotiating a budget while actively running for speaker.

• The current best-case scenario for Republicans is keeping a narrow House majority after the Nov. 5 election. In that universe, we'd expect Johnson to survive a speaker nomination vote in November.
• But then he'd have to navigate parallel whip counts — the votes he secures for a budget in December, and how getting those votes affects his support in the House speaker election in January.
• "Speaker Johnson is focused exclusively on responsibly funding the government, protecting American elections, and defending and growing the House Republican majority," Johnson spokesperson Taylor Haulsee told us.

The intrigue: One way to view Johnson's actions is that he can have some House conservative defections, but he can't have a Mar-a-Lago revolt.

• Former President Trump has called to shut down the government if the SAVE Act doesn't get a vote, so Johnson may be inclined to take a vote he expects to lose.
• Mitch McConnell isn't being subtle in the meantime: A pre-election shutdown would be "beyond stupid" and the GOP would be blamed, the Senate minority leader told reporters today.

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— Juliegrace Brufke and Hans Nichols

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is making moves to be the next leader of the Senate Democratic campaign arm following the November elections, we have learned.

• Senate Democrats are steep underdogs to protect their majority this year. If they can't, it would be the next DSCC chair's job to lead the charge in winning it back for Chuck Schumer.

Why it matters: Unlike this year, Democrats have real pickup chances in 2026. Prime targets include Republican seats in North Carolina and Maine.

• Gillibrand is known as a strong fundraiser with relationships in both New York and California.
• She will campaign for Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in the coming weeks, a source familiar with her plans told us.

The big picture: Current DSCC Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) took on the rare task of running the DSCC for two election cycles and delivered impressive results in 2022.

• But he will be up for re-election in 2026, and he said today he won't seek the job again.

A spokesman for Gillibrand told Axios she is focused on her "re-election campaign and on helping Leader Schumer and Chairman Peters hold the Senate."

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— Stephen Neukam

Trump's surprise post on SALT deductions has forced Senate Republicans into a pickle: contradict their party's leader or their old positions.

• "We'll take a look at all the suggestions," Senate Minority Whip John Thune, who is running for leader, told reporters, noting it "got litigated extensively in 2017."

Why it matters: For Republican leaders, it's a taste of what's to come if Trump wins back the White House.

• They'll have to harmonize their own positions — in real time — with a president who is constantly changing his.

Trump posted this afternoon that he would "get SALT back."

• That's a strong indication he wants to let those in high-tax states deduct more than $10,000 from their federal taxes — a limit he championed in his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Zoom in: "I don't think we ought to be subsidizing state taxes," Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told us repeatedly, adding Republicans need to win the House, Senate and White House first before there's a real discussion on what to do about SALT.

• "I personally, at this point in time, believe we should extend the TCJA SALT provisions," said Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee. "But like I said, everything's up for negotiations."

The other side: The new Trump idea does have support from Schumer, who said he has "always been for eliminating the cap on SALT."

• Schumer called the Trump tax bill "a nasty piece of legislation," which was "aimed at the blue states."

The bottom line: Removing the $10,000 SALT caps would cost an estimated $1.2 trillion over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Government.

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— Hans Nichols and Stef Kight

We told you last week to watch the Maryland Senate race. Now look at this new poll that shows GOP former Gov. Larry Hogan defying a nationwide trend.

• Why it matters: "In most Emerson state polling, the ticket-splitting has benefited the Democratic statewide candidate — in Maryland, it benefits the Republican," said Spencer Kimball, the executive director of Emerson College Polling.

Dems are still favored: Hogan trails Democratic nominee Angela Alsobrooks by 7 percentage points in The Hill/DC News Now/Emerson College poll out today.

• But 15% of Harris voters in the deep blue state say they'll vote for Hogan.

The bottom line: "Angela is not as well known in Maryland, so we have to get her to be better known," Peters said today.