TLP Politics Digest (March 2025)
Welcome to the first edition of TLP’s monthly politics digest. We know that the world of government and politics is a fast-moving and often complex beast. To help navigate this landscape, we’ll be putting together a monthly rundown of the latest developments in the world of American politics. We hope to arm readers with useful knowledge and data points for understanding what’s going on in the government.
Notable Quotable
“We’ve seen this movie before. George Soros-funded groups and others literally pay protestors…Democrat activists who don’t live in the district very often will show up for these town hall events and they’ll go in an hour early and they’ll fill all the seats…They’re professional protestors so why would we give them a forum to do that right now.”—Speaker Mike Johnson blames paid protestors for angry outbursts at town halls hosted by Republican House members. In a closed-door meeting Tuesday, NRCC chair Rep. Richard Hudson instructed members to stop holding in-person town halls.
By the Numbers
Trump Approval
Analysis: After beginning his term with a nearly 50 percent approval rating and +8.2-point net approval, Trump this month sunk into net-negative territory for the first time in his young second term. This has largely been driven by the rise in his disapproval rating, likely an indication of the short leash he has with voters who backed him in November but aren’t staunch supporters.
Right Track/Wrong Track
Analysis: Views about the direction of the country increasingly hinge on one’s partisan affiliation. During Biden’s presidency, Democrats were likelier to say things were on the right track while Republicans mostly said the opposite. Following the 2024 election, those sentiments have completely inverted. Overall, Americans have been pretty pessimistic in recent years: the share believing the country is on the wrong track has consistently outpaced the share saying it’s on the right track since at least 2009. However, that might be changing. As of this month, the percent who believe things are moving in the right direction is at its second-highest point (trailing only early 2021, right after the COVID vaccine rollout). The slight shifts toward “right track” over the past month appear to be driven by growing optimism among independents, specifically.
Economic Overview1
An Eye on the Hill
The 119th Congress has been off to a fast start. Below are a few key votes each chamber took over the past month.
House
Bill: Establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034 (H. Con. Res. 14).
Summary: This bill is the budget plan to advance key parts of President Trump’s agenda, including $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, $100 billion in new spending on immigration enforcement and the military, and $2 trillion in spending cuts, which Republicans say will include reduced spending for Medicaid.
Roll call vote: 217–215
Democrats: 0 Yeas, 214 Nays
Republicans: 217 Yeas, 1 Nays
Bill: Protecting American Energy Production Act (H. R. 26).
Summary: This bill prohibits the President from declaring a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing unless Congress authorizes the moratorium.
Roll call vote: 226–188
Democrats: 16 Yeas, 188 Nays
Republicans: 210 Yeas, 0 Nays
Bill: HALT Fentanyl Act (H. R. 27).
Summary: This bill permanently places fentanyl-related substances as a class into schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Under the bill, offenses involving fentanyl-related substances are triggered by the same quantity thresholds and subject to the same penalties as offenses involving fentanyl analogues (e.g., offenses involving 100 grams or more trigger a 10-year mandatory minimum prison term).
Roll call vote: 312–108
Democrats: 98 Yeas, 107 Nays
Republicans: 214 Yeas, 1 Nay
Bill: Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H. R. 21).
Summary: This bill establishes requirements for the degree of care a health care practitioner must provide in the case of a child born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion. Specifically, a health care practitioner who is present must (1) exercise the same degree of care as would reasonably be provided to any other child born alive at the same gestational age, and (2) ensure the child is immediately admitted to a hospital. Additionally, a health care practitioner or other employee who has knowledge of a failure to comply with the degree-of-care requirements must immediately report such failure to law enforcement.
Roll call vote: 217–204
Democrats: 1 Yea, 204 Nays
Republicans: 216 Yeas, 0 Nays
Senate
Confirmation: Pamela Bondi to be Attorney General.
Roll call vote: 54–46
Democrats: 1 Yea (Fetterman), 46 Nays
Republicans: 54 Yeas, 0 Nays
Confirmation: Russell Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Roll call vote: 53–47 (party-line vote)
Confirmation: Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence.
Roll call vote: 52–48
Democrats: 0 Yeas, 47 Nays
Republicans: 52 Yeas, 1 Nay (McConnell)
Confirmation: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Roll call vote: 52–48
Democrats: 0 Yeas, 48 Nays
Republicans: 52 Yeas, 1 Nay (McConnell)
Bill: An original concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034. (S. Con. Res. 7).
Summary: This bill is a $340 budget blueprint designed to boost President Trump’s border enforcement efforts, energy production, and the military.
Roll call vote: 52–48
Democrats: 0 Yeas, 48 Nays
Republicans: 52 Yeas, 1 Nay (Paul)
Bill: Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 (S.9).
Summary: The bill provides that for purposes of determining compliance with title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth.
Roll call vote: 51–45 (4 not voting)
Democrats: 0 Yeas, 45 Nays, 2 not voting
Republicans: 51 Yeas, 0 Nays, 2 not voting
The Ballot Box
Special Elections in Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional Districts
Reinforcements are on their way for Speaker Mike Johnson. A pair of April special elections will decide replacements for Mike Waltz, who is now Trump’s National Security Advisor, and Matt Gaetz, who resigned to dodge a damning ethics report. Both seats are ruby red and should be easy holds for Republicans. Even if the wonky dynamics of a special election lend a smidge of intrigue, the husk of the Florida Democratic Party is ill-equipped to pull off an upset.
A pair of new GOP representatives will mean House Republicans can afford two defections, rather than the one-vote margin they’ve been operating with for the last couple months. The newfound comfort, however, might not last long. Expect Rep. Elise Stefanik, who was nominated for UN Ambassador, to resign not long after the freshmen take their seats.
Florida’s 1st District (Matt Gaetz)
Candidates: Jimmy Patronis (R) vs. Gay Valimont (D)
Geography: The western Panhandle (Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa Counties), including Pensacola and Destin
2024 Presidential Results: Harris – 30.9 percent, Trump – 68.1 percent
Cook Political Report PVI2: R+19
Florida’s 6th District (Mike Waltz)
Candidates: Randy Fine (R) vs. Joshua Weil (D)
Geography: northeast coast (Flagler, Putnam, Marion, Lake, Volusia Counties), including Daytona Beach and parts of St. Augustine
2024 Presidential Results: Harris – 34.5 percent, Trump – 64.5 percent
Cook Political Report PVI: R+14
Data Snapshot
Zachary Donnini, a student at Yale and analyst for Decision Desk HQ, is quickly becoming a must-follow on X. Over the past month, he has delved into the precinct-level results from the 2024 election to better understand the demographic shifts underway in the country. Though macro-level numbers indicated that Kamala Harris lost ground with non-white voters, Donnini shows how the swings among blacks, Hispanics, and Asians were consistent across several major metro areas.
Around the Web
“The Democrats’ young man problem is real,” by Christian Paz in Vox.
Paz takes a deep dive into a conundrum facing Democrats: why did Gen Z men swing away from them in the last election? He examines three theories for this, including that Trump has unique appeal to them, Democrats are doing something to turn off these voters, and the problem is bigger than just America:
In hindsight, all the signs were there that the 2024 election would feature a yawning gender gap between Trump-curious men, and more liberal women. What polls predicted came true: a shift of Gen Z voters toward Republicans, driven by young men voting for Trump. Since then, plenty of postmortems have tried to wrestle with just what went wrong with the Democratic pitch. Still, the question remains: Will this dynamic linger? And if so, how worried should Democrats be?
A month into the second Trump presidency, the alarm bells are still ringing. While the president’s honeymoon is fading, he remains quite popular with the youngest cohort of men. As Democrats attempt to redefine themselves ahead of next year’s midterm elections, they’ll need to accurately diagnose why young men have jumped ship in large numbers.
— — —
“Democrats Must Become the Workers’ Party Again,” by former Senator Sherrod Brown in The New Republic.
A clear-eyed look at why working-class voters have ditched Democrats and how the party can win them back—from a Senator with a strong history of winning these voters himself.
“The march away from the Democratic Party among working-class voters—now including nonwhite workers—began long before inflation hit. And the road back is going to require more than just waiting for Trump to fail and voters’ memories of inflation to fade. For all the legislating over the last four years—much of it designed to put government to work for working people—Americans did not see this administration as a break from the status quo. Instead, they saw us as defenders of it: defenders of institutions that people believe have fundamentally failed them.
— — —
“The Jewish-American Vote,” by Jacob Rosewater and Adrian Elimian for Split Ticket.
A detailed, data-driven piece breaking down the Jewish vote in 2024—and why Jewish voters will play an important role in off-year elections:
“We find that places like Squirrel Hill, PA (~50 percent Jewish), Teaneck, NJ (~40 percent Jewish), and Scarsdale, NY (~30 percent Jewish) swung by R+3 percent, R+8 percent, and R+12 percent, respectively. These results, when taken together with exit polls, suggest an actual swing right that is between 5 and 10 percentage points. Still, Jewish voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic, partially due to educational attainment and socially liberal beliefs.”
— — —
“How Americans Feel about Trump’s Tariffs,” by Christine Zhang and Ruth Igielnik in The New York Times.
The Times data team takes an in-depth look at how different question wording from one poll to the next can change whether Americans express support for Trump’s tariffs:
Americans express very different views on tariffs depending upon how the question is asked, a challenge for pollsters trying to measure public support for a complex and poorly understood issue…Public opinion may become clearer over time, as policy becomes more settled and people begin to see real-world impact. But for the time being, tariffs are an issue on which true public opinion is difficult to truly know.
What We’re Watching
The United States and Ukraine are expected to reconvene in Saudi Arabia next week to discuss a possible ceasefire in Ukraine’s war with Russia. Meanwhile, President Trump unexpectedly threatened sanctions and tariffs against Russia to pressure them into a ceasefire.
Trump threw another curve ball by saying he wanted to rekindle negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program after previously tossing a deal the country had formed with the Obama administration in 2015.
The House and Senate have both passed bills setting up Trump’s FY 2025 budget. The two plans are miles apart in some key ways, and Trump has come out behind the House proposal, which boosts funding for border security but also includes several trillion in both tax and spending cuts and could potentially put Medicaid on the chopping (or at least trimming) block. Meanwhile, Republicans are working to avoid a government shutdown at the end of next week by pushing for a stopgap spending bill.
Trump announced he is delaying some tariffs on Mexico and Canada for at least one month. It remains to be seen whether he will include others or extend these tariffs at the end of this delay.
Most economic figures usually lag a couple of months, as it takes time to collect this data and make it public.
According to Cook, their PVI—or Partisan Voting Index—measures how each state and district performs at the presidential level compared to the nation as a whole.
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Amazing that not one democrat voted for Tulsi Gabbard. Democrats used to mistrust the CIA and its regime change ops. Tulsi does too. Amazing that not one Democrat voted for RFK Jr. Democrats used to mistrust big pharma and support challenging them. How did the 75 vaccines on the CDC childhood vaccine schedule become some sort of sacred totem ( eucharist?) to the democrat party ?