Democrats hoping for a blue wave to help them take over the House majority in November may want to examine more than polling data. According to a study by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Democrats lost more than 275,000 registered voters across 28 key swing districts, NOTUS reports.

“The battleground map keeps moving in Republicans’ direction, and this data shows House Democrats are running out of places to hide,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella told NOTUS in a statement. “Republicans are welcoming voters with open arms, expanding the electorate, and building long-term strength in swing districts while Democrats continue losing ground cycle after cycle.”

Democratic Party strategists disagree.

“Republicans are being rejected in election after election since Trump returned to the White House — and Democrats are overperforming by double digits,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton told NOTUS. “In primaries across the country this year, Democrats are turning out at levels consistently dwarfing the turnout in Republican primaries.”

Shelton called the NRCC’s report “cherry-picked data by the delusional hacks at the NRCC,” that “won’t change the reality on the ground: Democrats have the momentum, formidable candidates with cross-party appeal, and — most importantly — the American people on our side.”

“We will take back the House majority in November,” he vowed.

In the six years since the 2020 election, Democrats have lost 737,000 registered voters, NOTUS reports, giving the GOP a 4,000-vote advantage.

The report does not specifically state whether those Democratic voter registration losses became independent voters or Republican Party voters. Nor does it identify whether those voters left the party or moved out of the district.

NOTUS suggests that there is a “rightward lean” in those swing districts where the Democratic Party is losing registered voters. It also notes that party registration is not necessarily indicative of how voters vote in a specific election.

According to VoteHub, Democrats currently have a 75 percent chance of winning back the House of Representatives.

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Longtime political strategist Steve Schmidt scorched President Donald Trump over his explosive “Meet the Press” interview, warning that “deranged” Trump is a “degenerate” who is “in a state of decomposition and collapse.”

Schmidt, the co-founder of The Lincoln Project and a veteran Republican campaign operative who became a Democrat in 2020, pounded the president Monday during his podcast, “The Warning.”

He described Trump’s behavior during that NBC interview as “evidence of the sickness that descended over our land in these awful MAGA years.” He called it “not just important, but essential,” that America’s citizens see Trump’s performance, “and comprehend that the commander in chief, who holds in his hands the launch codes to thousands of nuclear weapons, is emotionally, psychologically, incontinent.”

Trump is a “bully and an old man decomposing who can barely stand up under the weight of his own power at the end of it,” Schmidt said. The president appeared to be struggling to stand and walk away after he abruptly canceled the remainder of his interview with NBC moderator Kristen Welker.

He is, Schmidt charged, a man who “lives in a gilded cocoon of fantasy and delusion, where no one ever tells him no.”

Schmidt said Trump’s interview “should frighten,” and “scare the s—— out of you,” and warned that he is obviously “unwell,” and a “sick, paranoid person.”

He also called Trump’s attacks on the credibility of America’s elections, “the greatest lie ever told in the history of the United States, over 250 years.” And he declared that “our elections are clean, and fair, and legitimate, and had been the envy of the world until Donald Trump came along.”

“What Donald Trump has proposed is that he will rule despite our approval, no matter what,” observed Schmidt. “And if ever there’s an election where the other side gets more votes than his side, it’s crooked. It’s stolen. And under this great and titanic lie, Donald Trump has injected a cancer into the American Republic.”

Warning that under Trump, times will get tougher, Schmidt said, “Because of that simple fact, this evil man that sits in the Oval Office is losing his popularity while maintaining his power. And thus, until that moment comes, when he no longer holds it, we, every one of us, eight billion people on Earth, will be in danger.”

Image via Reuters 

Responding to anger and outrage from Latter-day Saint leaders, veterans and elected officials, the Department of Defense backtracked on a new list of religious designations that cut the military’s recognized faiths by 180 religions — from 211 to just 31 — and stripped the “Christian” label from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The list, released on Friday, identified the 31 religions, citing 21 as Christian.

That list drew anger over the weekend from Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee, who said: “As of two days ago, the Pentagon recognizes every Christian faith in America as Christian.” He added: “Except one,” and said, “That’s not okay, and it needs to change—now.”

In a video, as CNN reported, Lee continued by saying: “I think it’s very unfortunate that the Pentagon has chosen to identify basically every faith group in America that professes faith in Jesus Christ as Christian with one exception: that is those belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Lee called it “offensive, not just because that happens to be my faith and not just because it happens to be the faith of tens of thousands of US military personnel, but it’s also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations.”

Also over the weekend, Lee said he had called President Trump over the Pentagon’s list.

Just past noon on Monday, the Defense Department’s Rapid Response social media account on X posted a new, updated list, which removes the Christian category.

Defending the Pentagon, the post claimed that the “goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control ‘belief’ coding system that had ballooned to over 200 codes.”

“The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates,” it declared, “but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks.”

Other congressional members of the LDS Church had “previously bashed the first list,” The Hill reported.

“The Pentagon’s decision to list The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apart from other Christian faiths is wrong and needs to be corrected,” U.S. Rep. Mike Kennedy (R-UT) wrote on X on Sunday.

Some remain dissatisfied.

“This list is still a problem,” wrote Hemant Mehta, who pens the Friendly Atheist on Substack. “It separates non-denominational Christians from evangelicals. It lumps together atheists and ‘Nones’ who believe in a higher power. It combines a bunch of smaller religions into ‘Other.’ The 2017 list was better. This is just ignorant.”

Image via Reuters