Happy Tuesday and welcome back to the Stratosphere, my private email focused on the money, power, and politics emanating from Silicon Valley, and the players who run it all.

In today’s email, we have three stories that may catch your attention: 1) the latest on the game of chicken between Peter Thiel and Mitch McConnell that could endanger Republicans’ chances of taking the Senate this fall; 2) details on a fundraising reception with Barack Obama that could cost a pretty penny; and 3) the latest water-cooler conversation inside Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective.

Meanwhile, we are celebrating our first anniversary here at Puck this week—the perfect time to subscribe, if you haven’t, or to share the sign up link with a friend. I’ll be back in your inbox with more information on that later this week.

Teddy

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Masters, after all, is in a vise. Mitch McConnell’s political allies believe the current polling shows he “doesn’t have a shot” of defeating Kelly in November, a person familiar with their thinking told me, which is why the the Senate Leadership Fund, McConnell’s super PAC, recently redirected $8 million in planned September ad spending to more winnable races. McConnell’s mandate, after all, is to secure a 51-seat Senate majority for the G.O.P., not to support seemingly longshot Republican candidates...