Washington Secrets: Senate Republicans find their secret weapon as they try to navigate midterm ‘headwinds’ with Palm Beach getaway

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BY ROB CRILLY

Welcome to Washington Secrets, which will be leaving the Bad Bunny discourse to others. Instead, we have a look inside the Republican Senate retreat to Palm Beach (including who won the pickleball tournament) and we take the temperature of the mess that is the GOP nomination race in Texas. Hot, damn hot, is the answer. …

Senate Republicans fled Washington for a weekend of sun, pickleball, and strategy in Florida, where they gathered to plot just how to hold the upper chamber in difficult midterm elections in November.

Last week, they were warned they faced "national headwinds" and tougher-than-expected matchups in typically red states such as Alaska and Iowa, amid lingering questions about what support they could expect from Donald Trump and his cash-rich super PACs.

But Secrets is told that the mood was upbeat among senators, candidates, and strategists at the luxury Breakers hotel (where a stay tonight would cost you $1,525 plus taxes), just a pebble's throw from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.

(And it wasn't just Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio who was in a good mood, for it was he who triumphed in the pickleball tournament.)

The reason? An attendee said the retreat was buoyed by the impact of last week's New Jersey Democratic primary, where a progressive stands on the brink of seizing the House nomination ahead of Tom Malinowski, the former congressman.

You can always rely on Democrats, said the attendee.

"If New Jersey was any indication this weekend, they're on track to nominate some real crazies," he said.

The gathering was sent back to Washington with three reasons for optimism: A huge fundraising haul and a solid campaign infrastructure; the chance to campaign on White House wins; and the constant ability of Democrats to shoot themselves in the foot.

Yet Republicans have their own problems in Texas, where Sen. John Cornyn is under pressure from Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wes Hunt. (You can read more about that mess below.)

And Democrats have overperformed in a series of special elections.

But in panel after panel in Palm Beach, Secrets is told that the 30 senators plus candidates, officials, and strategists — making it the largest such retreat — focused on how the Democratic Party was being pulled to the left.

In Minnesota, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is backing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan against a more establishment candidate for the Senate nomination.

Sanders has also weighed in on the race in Michigan, where Politico described the race as a "three-car pile-up" amid squabbles over Gaza and tactics in opposing ICE.

In contrast, White House officials, the Republican National Committee, and key figures from Trumpworld hammered a message that unity would win the day, bolstered by the $300 million war chest amassed by MAGA Inc.

It made for a refreshing change from a retreat days earlier. On Tuesday, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, delivered a sobering message by translating Democrats' 6-point lead in generic polling into state-by-state forecasts.

It suggested Republicans could have a hard time in Maine, where Republican Sen. Susan Collins is campaigning for a sixth term, for example.

"The tone all weekend was optimistic about prospects in the Senate," the attendee told Secrets after the Palm Beach retreat, "but there were moments of urgency around supporting candidates, making sure they've got resources, securing Texas, and making sure our candidates are staying on message and delivering that message."

James Blair, White House deputy chief of staff, and other Trumpworld figures, such as pollster Tony Fabrizio, addressed one of the best-attended panels.

One of their key messages to campaigns was to adopt the president's strategy of looking beyond the legacy media to reach voters where they are, by using alternative platforms such as podcasts.

And they highlighted the president's drive to push down the cost of prescription drugs as a good message to deliver to voters.

Whether that will be enough remains to be seen. It could come down to the Republicans' secret weapon.

"You've got Democrats with all these really messy situations," said someone familiar with the panel discussions. "Progressives ending up coming out on top is kind of the nightmare situation that Chuck Schumer and Democrats are facing this primary season."

Texas is a hot mess for Republicans

If that was the positive message, the weekend also included darker hints of the risk in Texas. Scott closed the weekend by urging colleagues to stay united behind Cornyn, who is locked in a tough three-way race.

Symptoms of the mess emerged on Friday in an extraordinary way after Secrets highlighted a J.L. Partners poll. It sent a shockwave through the race by suggesting that Paxton, the Trumpy challenger, had lost much of his previous lead. It put him just 2 points ahead of the incumbent, who was now only neck and neck with a surging Hunt.

Secrets heard that operatives quickly tried to undermine the legitimacy of the poll. Was Hunt secretly paying a foreign polling firm to meddle in an American election, ran the allegation.

The rumors exploded into the light when Alex Muse, an online journalist and strategist, mistakenly posted that J.L. Partners was a British company (in fact its U.S. arm is run by a British strategist but registered in Virginia). "Why do the British insist on interfering in our elections?" he asked.

His story was quickly amplified by a super PAC backing Cornyn, Texans for a Conservative Majority, which said: "Wesley Hunt's campaign shopping cooked poll #'s? You don't say."

Muse quickly deleted his X post when J.L. Partners set the record straight. ("This is completely untrue. J.L. Partners has not been paid by the Wesley Hunt campaign or any group associated or affiliated with Wesley Hunt," it said in a statement, confirming that it was registered in Virginia.) But Texans for a Conservative Majority did not. Nor did Cornyn remove his repost.

Instead, the Cornyn-supporting super PAC released its own data on Friday, suggesting the incumbent held a 2-point lead over Paxton. A University of Houston poll followed on Monday, showing Paxton with a seven-point lead.

What does it all mean? Secrets is just as confused as you are, other than to say it suggests Texas is a hot mess for Republicans.

It could all be ended by Trump if he weighed in with a Cornyn endorsement. And that was the talk of the Breakers weekend. But it may be that the president is happy to let the fight proceed and then back the winner.

Lunchtime reading

The pessimist who became a prophet: This is paywalled, so apologies if you are not an FT subscriber. But it is worth the price of admission if you are interested in the current debate in how we ended up here, surrounded by politics but without, it seems, meaningful public discourse about a larger moral meaning.

U.K. Prime Minister Starmer's Top Aide Resigns Amid Epstein Fallout: You read in Secrets last week about how Peter Mandelson, the disgraced former ambassador to Washington, was super close to Morgan McSweeney, the British Prime Minister's chief of staff. And how he liked everyone to know. That is the final straw for McSweeney, who quit over the weekend. Is it enough to save Starmer?

You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, whom you can reach at secrets@washingtonexaminer DOT COM with your comments, story tips, and suggestions. If a friend sent you this and you'd like to sign up, click here.