Can Alaska predict the midterms?

Even power needs a day off.

Oct 21, 2022 View in browser   By POLITICO MAGAZINE POLITICO illustration/AP Photos/iStock The shocking victory of Democrat Mary Peltola over Sarah Palin in Alaska's special congressional election ended a nearly 50-year Republican reign over House races in the state. It probably wouldn't have happened without Alaska's unique ranked-choice voting system. But nonetheless, Palin's loss may have revealed something alarming for Republicans about the limitations of MAGA personality politics in the post-Trump presidential era — not just in Alaska, but in the Lower 48 as well. Independents in Alaska have swung dramatically toward Peltola over Palin — who along with traditionalist Republican Nick Begich III will repeat the contest all over again in the regular November election. And while the GOP is still widely expected to win the House in November, a similar story is playing out in key midterm races where Republicans have nominated divisive Trumpian standard-bearers. Sen. Raphael Warnock is polling 15 points ahead of Herschel Walker among Georgia independents. In Pennsylvania, independents prefer John Fetterman to Mehmet Oz by double digits. And even in conservative Ohio, a poll last month showed a competitive race for independents, with Tim Ryan 2 points ahead of J.D. Vance. "Those numbers may shift back toward Republicans as Election Day nears and partisan leanings solidify," writes David Siders in this report from the North Star State ,"but the most polarizing Republicans, like Palin, have reason for concern." Read the story.   "The Right Honourable Gentleman's smile was like the silver plate on a coffin." Can you guess who said this about Sir Robert Peel, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1834 to 1835 and 1841 to 1846? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**   POLITICO illustration/Getty Images/iStock The Covert Plan to Sway a Senator … In the lead-up to the vote to authorize the Iraq War, two joggers approached Sen. Patrick Leahy on his morning walk and asked: Had he seen File Eight? What happened next was worthy of a spy movie. "I felt like a senatorial version of Bob Woodward meeting Deep Throat — only in broad daylight," Leahy writes in this excerpt from his memoir, The Road Taken .   After a kamikaze tax cut plan that sent markets reeling, Liz Truss resigned yesterday, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history after just 45 days in office. Before you start opining on this week's fiasco, here's what you need to sound like you're part of the Lobby. (From Ella Creamer.) - An election to pick Truss' successor will be held over the next week, and candidates will need 100 Tory backers to run. Name-drop Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch as a potential replacement, along with the bigger fish: Rishi Sunak, Penny Mourdant and … yup, Boris Johnson. Sunak is the bookies' favorite. - Don't mention a general election. The next is due by January 2025, and an early one is highly improbable: Tories would have to vote down their own government to trigger it. - Truss has set herself up for the future — she'll be eligible for a taxpayer-funded £115,000 ($129,155) yearly allowance as a former PM. A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said it would be "unconscionable" for Truss to take the money. - If you're tweeting, consider sharing a lettuce pun, honoring the Daily Star's £0.60 vegetable that outlasted Truss on a live stream. "Did the lettuce vote Leaf or Romaine?" or "Lettuce pray for a drama-free winter in British politics" should do the trick.   Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is 89 years old. In a new column, POLITICO's Michael Schaffer asks when he should retire. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Grassley, the Push-Up Pro … Chuck Grassley might well be the fittest 89-year-old in all of Iowa, tweeting videos of morning runs and doing push-ups at campaign events. But what if concerns over his age — and that of the gerontocracy that runs Washington — aren't about health or fitness or even ageism, but "whether trying to snag yet another term at an age when almost everyone else is retired is just plain arrogant and greedy?" asks Michael Schaffer in this week's Capital City column .   24 percent … of voters age 18 to 34 have not heard of Nobel-Prize winning songwriter Bob Dylan — whose new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, comes out Nov. 1. Only 6 percent of voters age 35 to 44 are out of the Dylan loop; for those age 45 to 64, that figure is 4 percent, and for voters over 65, it's 6 percent.   "Putin plays the egos of big men," says former Trump adviser Fiona Hill. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Putin the Puppeteer … Fiona Hill, one of America's most clear-eyed observers of Vladimir Putin, gained fame for her captivating testimony during Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. In this interview with Maura Reynolds , she says that Putin shows no signs of backing off in Ukraine — and that he's playing Elon Musk. "Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role," she says. "But in reality, they're just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin."   A diagram from the 1964 National Community Fallout Shelter Design Competition. | ebay, citationantiques Nuclear war has often been described as "unthinkable." Rightfully so. But at the height of Cold War hysteria, many people were thinking quite hard about what a post-apocalyptic landscape would look like. And wondering if they could buy into it. In this brochure from 1964 , architects from "The National Community Fall-Out Shelter Design Competition" sketch out a fortress meant to withstand a multi-kiloton blast — one complete with golf courses, swimming pools and suburban dog-parks. (From historian Ted Widmer.)   **Who Dissed answer: It was fellow conservative Benjamin Disraeli, who served as prime minister from 1874 to 1880. When Peel won the 1841 election, Disraeli expected a position in his cabinet, but Peel snubbed him, and Disraeli became increasingly critical of him, delivering speeches laced with invectives like this one. politicoweekend@email.politico.com   Follow us

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