Welcome back to The Washington Mall, my twice-a-week private email about what’s really happening in this town—on the hill, on K Street, in the press, and of course in Bidenworld.

Speaking of which: it may be a holiday, but Joe Biden is out on the campaign trail today, hitting Pittsburgh and Milwaukee for Labor Day events. The White House is feeling noticeably upbeat lately as Democrats enjoy a late-summer, post-post-Roe swing in the polls, putting control of the Senate, and maybe even the House, back in their sights. For more, I reached out to John Anzalone, the top Democratic pollster who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign, to prod him on the specifics of the party’s midterm messaging and whether the left’s resurgence is real, or a mirage.

Mentioned in this email: Gretchen Whitmer, Tudor Dixon, Blake Masters, Todd Akin, Stacey Abrams, Joe Lombardo, and many more…

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John Anzalone: No, but I think it reinforces the feelings of Republicans and independent-leaning Republicans, who are kind of disgruntled and disgusted with Trump and his antics—whether it’s The Big Lie or whether it’s January 6th and his role in that. What they learned during the January 6th committee hearings, which I actually think is significant, is underestimated in a lot of ways. We’re seeing this in elections where there’s people who used to be Republican now identify as independents. We see that there’s Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are voting for third party candidates. I think we’re going to see a lot more third-party candidate votes this cycle because of people disgruntled with Trump. I mean, there’s a reason that Republicans aren’t able to take advantage of the bad political environment, and Trump is one of those reasons.

So you don’t think it’s a mistake for Democrats to emphasize the search at Mar-a-Lago?

I don’t feel like Democrats are really out there emphasizing it. It’s not like it’s on TV ads. But you never stop learning...