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GOP eager to take on Sherrod Brown for Ohio Senate seat

Republicans are already setting their sights on incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-Ohio) seat ahead of 2024, pointing to signs that the Buckeye State is trending redder every election cycle. 

On Tuesday, state Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Ohio) launched his second bid for Senate, after his failed one in 2022, and became the first Republican to enter Ohio’s 2024 Senate primary field. Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has already started running ads in Ohio, targeting Brown and urging him to retire. 

Republicans have won Ohio in the last two presidential races and maintained their hold on former Sen. Rob Portman’s (R-Ohio) seat after he retired last year. But Brown is considered a political institution in the state, making him an unusually formidable candidate to beat in an increasingly red state. 

“The way the state has certainly trended over the last six, seven, eight years now, this is probably the best opportunity to beat him,” said Robert Blizzard, a GOP pollster with experience in Ohio. “This is going to be a different political environment for Sherrod Brown than what he has had to face in previous campaigns.” 

Still, whoever wins the primary will likely face a contentious battle against Brown, who has distinguished himself in Ohio as his party’s last statewide elected leader.

“Only a fool would underestimate Sherrod Brown,” said one Ohio-based Republican strategist. “There’s a reason why he’s the last one standing among statewide elected Democrats. For years he’s had the ability to connect to Ohio voters.” 

The incumbent senator is known for connecting with disparate voting blocs across Ohio, including white, working-class voters who have shifted toward Republicans since former President Trump’s first election campaign in 2016. But Republicans say former Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan’s (D-Ohio) loss last year to Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) is proof that Democrats’ pull with the voting bloc is fading. 

“Go ask Tim Ryan, who copycatted the brand,” said Ohio-based GOP strategist Mark Weaver said. 

Yet others say Brown’s brand is tried and tested. He sailed to reelection in 2018, defeating then- Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio) by nearly seven points. Republicans argue that Renacci wasn’t a quality candidate, making Brown’s win easier. But Brown also won reelection in 2012, outperforming then-President Obama in the state by three points. 

Other Republicans argue that Brown has gotten lucky in every Senate campaign he’s run in, pointing to the 2006 midterms being a notoriously bad year for Republicans, Obama being at the top of the ticket in 2012 and winning reelection, and Renacci being a poor candidate. 

“You had three different elections where he was given a good year and in at least two of them, a weak opponent. He will have neither next year,” Weaver said. 

That’s why Republicans say candidate quality this time around is of such great importance. 

Dolan’s entrance into the race marks only the start of the GOP primary. Other candidates said to be considering a run include businessman and former 2022 Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Attorney General David Yost. 

The state senator comes into the race with the advantage of personal wealth and a relatively strong name ID. In 2022, Dolan outperformed expectations, narrowly coming in third place with 23.3 percent support. Former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel received 23.9 percent support, while Vance won with 32.2 percent support. 

Dolan’s allies argue that he will be a formidable candidate, touting his popularity in the state’s suburbs and ability to appeal to more moderate voters as well. 

“He fits the issue profile of where Republicans nationally need to go, which is a conservative but somebody who’s a proven problem-solver,” said Blizzard, who has conducted polling for a pro-Dolan super PAC. “He is the antithesis of a lot of the candidates nationally that ran in 2022 that lost close races.” 

“He’s almost what the doctor ordered,” Blizzard added. 

Dolan’s critics say that his past criticism of Trump could hurt him in a state where Trump has a strong base of support. But strategists say much of that depends on whether the former president wins the GOP presidential nomination next year. 

Others point to LaRose as an ideal candidate, citing his ability to appeal to moderates and conservatives within the party. 

“[Brown’s] in for a rough, rough year next year, particularly if our nominee is Frank LaRose,” Weaver said. 

The top-of-the-ticket dynamic could also impact Democrats too, depending on if Biden runs for a second term. While Democrats defied expectations across the country in last year’s midterm elections, Republicans have continued to make inroads in Ohio. 

“Ohio has been slipping away from Democrats for years because career politicians like Sherrod Brown have put their woke ideology ahead of Ohio voters,” NRSC spokesman Phil Letsou. “Ohioans overwhelmingly rejected Joe Biden in 2020, but instead of listening to his constituents, Sherrod Brown has voted with Biden 99 percent of the time, leaving our southern border wide open, raising taxes on the middle class and hiring 87,000 new IRS agents to harass Ohio families.”

The state of the political environment will also play a role in the race. Democrats at the moment appear optimistic following their performance in 2022.

“Sen. Sherrod Brown is battle-tested and has a proven record of winning tough elections,” said Nora Keefe, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “He always fights for what’s right for Ohio’s working families, and that’s exactly why he will be reelected in 2024.”

But Republicans appear to be shifting their strategy toward targeting red-state Democrats. 

In the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is already applying pressure on Brown, as well as other red-state Democratic senators up for reelection like Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), to support proposals that are passed out of the Republican-controlled House. The same three senators were targeted in the NRSC’s “Retire or Get Fired” ad campaign. 

Republicans also argue that the party will benefit from presidential year turnout, especially with a competitive presidential primary in the mix. 

“There’s a lot more votes, especially if there’s a competitive Republican primary for president. Not as much action on the Democratic side in a state like Ohio where anyone could vote in the Republican primary. You could see explosive turnout,” Blizzard said. 

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Senate stares down immigration fight

A bipartisan group of senators attempting to craft an immigration compromise have an arduous task ahead of them: finding a deal that can attract the support of Democrats, moderate Republicans and the hard-line conservatives who have newfound power and influence in the House. 

Ten senators last week visited multiple spots along the border for an up-close look at the issues consuming the immigration system. President Biden also traveled to El Paso, Texas, the epicenter of what members on both sides of the aisle describe as a crisis. 

Despite that agreement, lawmakers must navigate the tricky contours of the politics of immigration — an issue that’s famously difficult to get agreement on while also serving as a key talking point in recent presidential elections.

That’s not deterring talks among those in the Senate, however.

“This is going to take months to potentially get to something that we could get the support in the House. We can’t simply, because it’s politically difficult, say we can’t touch it this Congress,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of those that made the border trip, told The Hill. 

Tillis and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who was also among those at the border last week, made a last-minute attempt last year to win support for a narrow proposal that would have allocated tens of billions of dollars to border security and processing asylum requests while also handing “Dreamers” — those brought to the U.S. as children without authorization — a long-awaited path to citizenship.

But that push — which consisted of a framework and not a bill — was too little, too late.  

Tillis and Sinema’s attempt at bipartisan compromise may have been the last chance for the foreseeable future for Congress to take action, despite both parties in Congress and the White House acknowledging the problem. 

Any deal that could emerge from the Senate — meaning with the support of at least nine Senate Republicans — would likely earn resistance from far-right members of the GOP-controlled House.

“It’s harder because the politics have gotten even harder for Republicans to get to ‘yes,’” said Alex Conant, who served as press secretary for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during the “Gang of Eight” immigration fight in 2013. “You look at the political fallout for those involved in the 2013 deal, and how a lot of Republicans have been able to use immigration to win nominations since then, it’s an issue that Republicans are very wary of getting on the wrong side of.”

Since the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform package failed, the politics of the topic has only hardened on the right and the voices have gotten louder. Adding to the troubles is that members are heading into a presidential election cycle and are hesitant to deliver any wins for Biden, especially on a topic that matters this much to the base. 

Many House Republicans made immigration a central issue and some are already talking about impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against the secretary last week. 

And on Wednesday, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) sent a letter pressing Mayorkas for answers about border issues, writing that “administration cannot continue its erosion of the southern border and its mass-parole of migrants into our country.”

“It’s been a steep hill — steep and tall — for 40 years. That’s why nothing’s gotten done. So this is just a different dynamic,” said Tillis, who blamed the “talking heads” in part for scuttling his efforts with Sinema last year. “I don’t think it’s fair to blame this Congress. This Congress could be the first one since leisure suits were popular to do something on immigration.”

Tillis, who has become a key player in bipartisan negotiations on myriad topics in the past two years, said he is expected to discuss a path to passage of immigration reform with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Freedom Caucus members. 

Some political observers believe the impetus for a deal could be simple: The situation at the border now is worse than it was a decade ago as monthly encounters with migrants are near record highs.

One Senate GOP aide added that the road to a bipartisan, bicameral deal is “difficult but not impossible.” 

“Details will really matter, though,” the aide said. “At the very least, it’s good to finally see a substantive bipartisan acknowledgement that there’s actually a problem at the border.”

Legislation that passes muster with both chambers, however, would need to overcome another complicating factor in the House: McCarthy, as part of the deals he struck to become Speaker, empowered a far-right contingent of his party and handed them an easier procedural avenue to oust him, just as they did former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2015 — two years after Boehner refused to bring the “Gang of Eight” bill to the floor for a vote. 

“I don’t think it’s this,” one conservative Senate aide told The Hill about McCarthy’s lack of willingness to complicate his standing as Speaker over a Senate-negotiated immigration bill. 

“What [former President Trump] showed was you can run on a pretty hard-line immigration stance and win on it,” the aide continued. “I don’t think they get there without something Democrats can’t stomach.”

For now, all eyes are on the Senate to see how it proceeds, though it all comes down to what McCarthy and House conservatives could accept.

“Now we have a gavel,” Tillis said. “And when you have a gavel, you have to govern.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Republicans warn against writing off Trump's chances in 2024

Republicans are warning not to write off former President Trump’s 2024 White House bid, arguing that he’s still the presumptive front-runner despite signs that some in the GOP are ready to move on.

Strategists and officials began sounding the death knell for Trump’s political career after last year’s midterm elections, as the former president’s mounting legal problems and continued fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol raised questions about whether he was too damaged to continue on as the GOP’s de facto leader.

But Republican operatives say it’s too soon to discount the former president, even as his potential 2024 rivals — most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — attract an increasing share of the public’s attention.  

“When you’re in Florida at these grassroots meetings, yeah, you hear ‘Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis,’” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “But outside of Florida, it’s still Donald Trump.” 

“I think that a lot of people have been too quick to write off Donald Trump, from the media to donors to commentators,” he added. “You have to remember, this is a former U.S. president who has a good handle on what needs to be done in Washington, and he’s extremely popular with the base.”

Trump has also received an apparent reprieve from allegations that he mishandled government documents after classified material was found in President Biden’s Delaware residence and an office in Washington, D.C. While both matters are under investigation by special counsels, and observers are quick to emphasize the differences in the two cases, Republicans say the latest revelations help Trump.

“It takes a lot of pressure off of him, because Republican voters start to remember that whatever the Democrats accuse Trump of, the Democrats are doing themselves,” one former Trump campaign aide said. “For Republican primary voters, that’s a big thing.”

Other Republicans are quick to argue that Trump has unparalleled political resilience. The former president has faced near-constant scrutiny since launching his first presidential campaign in 2015, so counting him out now would be premature, they say.

“Shrugging off Mr. Trump’s 2024 candidacy or writing his political obituary is a fool’s errand — he endures persecution and eludes prosecution like no other public figure,” Kellyanne Conway, a former top adviser to Trump, wrote in an essay published by The New York Times last week. “That could change, of course, though that cat has nine lives.”

Of course, that’s not to say that Trump isn’t facing significant challenges as he looks to reclaim the White House following his 2020 loss to President Biden; Conway herself noted that “it would also be foolish to assume that Mr. Trump’s path to another presidency would be smooth and secure.”

A string of losses by Trump’s endorsed candidates in last year’s midterm elections prompted many Republicans to question his influence and political instincts. He’s also facing a slew of legal issues ranging from the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.

Several Republicans also described his budding 2024 presidential campaign as anemic and uninspired, 

“If you’re running for president, you do your announcement, you go to Iowa and have a rally. You go to New Hampshire,” one veteran Republican strategist said. “It just doesn’t seem like he has that planned out. He hasn’t done that yet.”

There are signs that that may be about to change. Trump is set to make the first public appearance of his 2024 campaign next week in South Carolina, where he’s expected to unveil his leadership team in the state. He will be joined there by two of the state’s most prominent Republicans, Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Gov. Henry McMaster.

Trump is also moving to reclaim control of his social media accounts two years after he was booted off of Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 

On Tuesday, his campaign sent a letter to Facebook’s parent company Meta, arguing that Trump’s ban from the site “has dramatically destroyed and inhibited the public discourse” and asked that his account be reinstated.

Trump’s once-powerful Twitter account was returned to his control in November after Tesla CEO Elon Musk bought the company, though Trump has yet to resume using it.

And for all the chatter about DeSantis, the hard-charging Florida governor who’s emerged as a top pick for the 2024 Republican presidential nod, there are still signs that Trump remains the favorite. 

A Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday showed the former president running ahead of DeSantis by a 17-point margin in a hypothetical primary field that also includes former Vice President Mike Pence, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Some other early polls don’t bode as well for Trump. One survey from USA Today and Suffolk University released last month found DeSantis leading Trump by 23 points in a hypothetical one-on-one primary match-up. 

Of course, DeSantis hasn’t made a final decision on a 2024 presidential bid, and a potential campaign announcement is still likely months away. Yet there are still signs that Trump is taking the budding rivalry seriously. In a Monday interview on the conservative podcast “The Water Cooler,” Trump suggested he has no intention of going easy on DeSantis if the two find themselves going head to head in a GOP primary.

“You know, now I hear he might want to run against me,” Trump said. “So we’ll handle that the way I handle things.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Lightfoot fights for political survival in Chicago mayor's race

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) is bracing for a challenging reelection bid as she vies to remain the city’s top executive against eight other candidates in next month’s election.

Lightfoot, who made history in 2019 as the city’s first Black female and openly gay mayor, has faced a slew of challenges in recent years, including confrontations with local unions, the COVID-19 pandemic and rising concerns over crime.

Now the mayor is staring down efforts from within her own party to take her down, though observers suggest ousting Lightfoot will be no easy feat.

“She currently has two challenges. I would call them crime and combativeness,” said Jason DeSanto, a senior lecturer at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and a Democratic debate strategist.

Lightfoot’s time in office has at times been marked by contentious relationships with city and state officials. She’s gone head to head with the Fraternal Order of Police president over COVID-19 vaccines while grappling with two Chicago Teachers Union strikes, the first of which was held just months after her 2019 election. Text messages obtained from the Chicago Tribune through a public records request have also shown a frosty relationship at times with other leaders like Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and state Senate President Don Harmon (D).

And while Chicago is making some progress on the issue of crime, including seeing lower numbers of murders and aggravated battery over the last year, certain crimes like murder and theft are still above pre-pandemic levels, according to Chicago Police Department data.

At the same time, Lightfoot has sought to remind voters about the city’s track record under her administration since the former federal prosecutor and then-political outsider entered office in 2019. 

“Mayor Lightfoot has led this city through unprecedented challenges with tough, fair leadership — all while undertaking an ambitious agenda to deliver real, tangible results,” said Hannah Goss, a spokesperson for Lightfoot’s campaign, in a statement. “The Mayor is improving public safety, getting guns off our streets and hiring more officers, all while ramping up police accountability and transparency. She’s reversing decades of disinvestment in communities on Chicago’s South and West Sides to create inclusive economic growth.”

“Unlike her opponents, these aren’t just half-baked ideas or values statements,” Goss added.

Yet candidates like Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D), former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson (D) and state Rep. Kam Buckner (D) are now casting themselves as viable alternatives to the first-term mayor. Alds. Sophia King and Roderick Sawyer, activist Ja’Mal Green and businessman Willie Wilson have also thrown their hats in the ring. 

All of them will make their case to voters during their first televised debate on Thursday ahead of the Feb. 28 election. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the election will head to an April 4 runoff between the top two vote-getters.

Green’s campaign in a statement highlighted the activist’s “bold action, fearlessness, and ardent sentiment to stand up for justice for all,” while Sawyer, the alderman, pointed to his 12 years serving in City Council and nodded to his upbringing as the son of a former Chicago mayor in his own statement. Antoine Givens, a spokesman for García’s campaign, told The Hill in a statement that the congressman was the “only candidate who has the ability to unite Chicago.”

Observers note that Lightfoot’s first task is making it into the April runoff and that Vallas and García could be the most formidable challengers. Both men have run for Chicago mayor in the past. Vallas has honed in on the issue of crime, while García enjoys support from several labor unions, including the influential IUOE Local 150. 

“The path for her is to have the right candidate” to run against, said veteran political operative Victor Reyes, who’s a supporter of García.

“If she makes the runoff with certain candidates, her chances improve dramatically,” he added. 

Lightfoot has already gone on the attack against the pair, accusing Vallas of being “silent” for months on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade while rolling out a 30-second ad earlier this month tying García to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and disgraced former state House Speaker Mike Madigan (D). 

Bankman-Fried gave a $2,900 donation to García’s campaign, and the PAC Protect Our Future, which is also associated with Bankman-Fried, spent over $150,000 independently to boost his campaign, according to the Tribune. The congressman donated the nearly $3,000 direct campaign contribution and said of the PAC money, which was spent outside his campaign, “by law and by definition, I had nothing to do with it.”

Givens, the García campaign spokesperson, in a statement slammed Lightfoot’s ad, saying the mayor was “resorting to more lies and desperate attacks.”

Observers say Lightfoot’s opponents also face the challenge of trying to unseat an incumbent.

“The mayor is in there with 99 percent name I.D. Most have an opinion of her that’s baked in,” said Zach Koutsky, a city lobbyist who’s worked on Democratic and progressive campaigns. “It’s the others that are ill-defined at this point that creates an opportunity for her and for those candidates to introduce themselves or be defined by others.”

At the end of the day, while observers of the race point to Lightfoot’s perceived weaknesses, they also caution against writing her off. After all, Lightfoot was seen as an unlikely contender in the last election, given that polls had shown her polling in the single digits. 

“Anybody who writes off an incumbent is a fool. You never write off an incumbent,” said Reyes, the veteran political operative. “And even though her approval numbers aren’t where they are, she got lightning in a bottle last time.”

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Biden reelection plans on track despite documents controversy 

President Biden is on track to signal his reelection plans in the next few weeks, despite a self-inflicted classified documents controversy that has energized the GOP and put his political team on its heels. 

“It’s still very much in the works and nothing has changed,” said one source familiar with the planning around the president’s forthcoming 2024 campaign bid. 

Multiple sources with knowledge of the campaign groundwork say Biden intends to signal his intention to seek a second term after the State of the Union address on Feb. 7. A more formal declaration would come closer to the spring.  

The classified documents discovery, which triggered the appointment of a special counsel last week by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has done nothing to change those plans, these sources said.  

White House allies say Americans will prioritize issues like the economy over the technicalities surrounding the documents. In the coming months, they expect Biden to talk about the victories under his watch, including jobs numbers and a slowdown of skyrocketing inflation.

Democrats have expressed concerns behind the scenes that the classified materials story could be damaging to Biden.  

“It’s the kind of thing that can consume a lot of oxygen,” said one Democratic strategist, who asked that their name be withheld to speak candidly. “You think it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, and maybe it isn’t, but it ends up overtaking much of the campaign.”  

White House press briefings have been dominated by questions about the classified papers, including why the White House didn’t tell the public of the discovery until months after documents were initially found at Biden’s private office in Washington, D.C.  

The White House sought to go on offense on Tuesday, conducting a 45-minute call with reporters, but it also led to more questions.

At the briefing on Wednesday, the White House continued to field questions on the matter, with reporters growing frustrated with the lack of details.

During one exchange, Peter Alexander of NBC News asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to invite Justice Department officials to the podium to answer questions. The White House has consistently referred questions to the Department of Justice. 

“This is a legal matter that is currently happening at the Department of Justice and the president has been very, very clear when it comes to these types of legal matters when it comes to investigations,” Jean-Pierre said. “He’s not going to interfere but he wants to make sure that we give back the independence that the Department of Justice should have when it comes to these types of investigations. I certainly would not be bringing them here.”

The documents came from Biden’s time as vice president in the Obama administration. The White House Office of Counsel told the National Archives of the discovery of the documents on Nov. 2. The first news coverage came in the second week of January. 

Republicans newly in charge of the House have dug into the story.  

In a Jan. 18 letter to University of Pennsylvania President Mary Elizabeth Magill, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) asked for information on who had access to the Penn Biden Center — where Biden’s office was​ located in the years following his vice presidency. He also asked for information by Feb. 1 on a visitor log of those who met with Biden at the think tank, security at the facility and any donations to the center that may link back to China.  

The documents story shifted the political narrative from the messy House Speaker’s fight from the first week of January that had shown off the divide in the House GOP. It also complicated Democratic attacks on former President Trump, who has his own classified documents scandal to deal with.  

The White House and Biden allies have fought back hard at the idea that the Biden and Trump controversies are the same, saying Biden and his team immediately notified the National Archives of the revelation while Trump resisted doing so.  

“This is a false equivalency by House Republicans to try and paint them in a similar shade of corruption despite Biden’s lifetime of service to the country,” said Cooper Teboe, a Democratic strategist who works with a pro-Biden political action committee. 

“No one should defend taking classified documents home,” Teboe said. “But the situations surrounding the Trump documents versus the Biden documents are worlds apart. President Biden immediately followed procedure upon his team’s discovery of the documents versus President Trump who personally took the documents home with him and tried to hide them for a year — right after his failed coup attempt.” 

Since the story broke last week, the White House has tried to relay to the public that they handled the matter in the appropriate way, working to send the papers back to the National Archives. They say it’s a far cry from Trump’s handling of classified papers, prompting an FBI raid on Trump’s home. 

Republican strategist Doug Heye said it’s too early to say if the storyline will hurt Biden’s reelection prospects, but he said it chips away at one of the president’s core promises: competency.  

“It certainly gets in his way,” Heye said. “Part of it is, ‘Will there be more?’ That’s a very real feeling Democrats have.” 

Another GOP operative put it differently.  

“The documents issue won’t keep him from running, but it does complicate efforts to take a clean shot at Trump on his classified documents issue and gain a clear advantage on that front,” said Kevin Madden, a former adviser to Mitt Romney. “Yes, the actions in question are very different in severity, but they are both degrees of bad.”

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Russia is planning a major offensive. Here's what that might look like.

After facing a string of setbacks nearly a year into its war on Ukraine, Russia is planning another major offensive to make up for its losses on the ground and justify its heavy human cost at home. 

Intelligence analysts and researchers largely agree there is an offensive brewing in Moscow, likely to come sometime in the winter or early spring.

Still, there is no clear picture of what that will look like, and whether Moscow has any real hope of retaking the momentum given Ukraine’s determined resistance and Western backing. 

“We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can muster to try to turn the tide of the war and at least postpone their defeat,” Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky said in an address earlier this month.

Last month, Ukrainian Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, warned Russia is amassing some 200,000 troops for “another go at Kyiv,” in an interview with The Economist, though analysts said an attempt to take the capital was unlikely. 

U.S. intelligence has previously pointed to a slowdown in the war that indicates no major ground offensives will happen until the spring.

Over the weekend, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released an analysis suggesting Russia is planning a major push in the next six months to “regain the initiative and end Ukraine’s current string of operational successes.”

ISW laid out a list of possible actions the military could take, including an offensive to take complete control of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, launching an effort from ally Belarus in the north or preparing to defend against and exploit a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Donbas.

Belarus was used as a staging ground for Russia early in the war, and Russian troops are training there. Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Minsk last month to meet with Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko. 

But an offensive from Belarus is unlikely, according to multiple analysts, based on troop movements and preparations.

The most likely course of action is for Russia to seize control over the Donbas, made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, both of which share a border with Russia and were among four provinces illegally annexed by Moscow late last year. 

George Barros, a Russian researcher at ISW, told The Hill that he has seen a buildup of Russian forces in Luhansk.

“Russians are setting up for a decisive effort in Luhansk,” he said. But that “could mean a Russian offensive or it could also mean a Russian defensive effort designed to defeat a Ukrainian counteroffensive.”

The Donbas is where the heaviest fighting has lingered for the past few months after Putin launched a failed, full-force assault across Ukraine early last year, and then retreated from one of its major prizes — the southern city of Kherson — in November. 

Russia has concentrated troops in the eastern Donbas, and took control of almost all of Luhansk over the summer. But Ukraine still holds territory in Donetsk, including the city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian troops have fended off repeated Russian assaults. 

Bakhmut is a key transportation hub in the Donetsk and would strategically serve Russia as a launch point for a push further west toward cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

John Herbst, the senior director of Eurasia affairs for the Atlantic Council, said any Russian offensive over the winter or early spring will likely be part of an effort to take complete control of the Donbas.

“The most likely thing is what is continuing in Donbas will continue more,” he said. “That’s the easiest thing for them to do.”

Ukraine also expects any new, major Russian offensive to occur in the Donbas.

Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine’s Defense secretary, said there is a “dynamic” movement of troops in Luhansk that could indicate a large-scale offensive launch from the region.

“The military objectives that the Russians have had and that they’ve never been able to accomplish was gaining complete control over Luhansk and Donetsk,” Sak told The Hill. “We hope that this will not happen. If it does, we are prepared.”

The U.S. National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment on this story. In a statement, the Pentagon said “we are not going to speculate on what actions Russia may or may not take.”

Ukraine has refused to entertain ceding any territory to Russia in the name of peace; however, due to its geographic proximity and large ethnic Russian population, the Donbas has been suggested as a focus of peace talks. Figures from Elon Musk to Henry Kissinger have suggested a popular vote to decide the region’s future, as a piece of a potential compromise to end the war. 

Russia’s short-term objectives come as Russia is preparing for a protracted war. Putin has publicly said the war could be a long conflict, and Russia’s defense chief laid out a plan this week to boost the size of the military from 1.15 million to 1.5 million by 2026.

But despite mobilizing hundreds of thousands of reservists to join the fight, there is skepticism that Russia has the manpower or firepower to reverse its losses, given depleted morale, internal power struggles and a depleted inventory of ammunition.

Russia made its first gain this month since August in Soledar, a salt mining town in Donetsk that saw some of the most brutal fighting in the war. Control of the town could help Russia take Bakhmut, but the victory was costly. Russia leveled the town with artillery strikes and reportedly lost thousands of troops to the “meat grinder” of Ukraine’s defenses. 

The Soledar fight also revealed internal feuds between Russian mercenary company Wagner Group and Moscow’s generals. U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby warned last month that the Wagner Group was becoming a “rival power center” in Russia.

ISW assessed there are preparations underway to increase the Russian military’s effectiveness ahead of the next offensive.

Conventional Russian troops, as opposed to Wagner Group mercenaries or Moscow-allied separatists in the Donbas, are training in Belarus and Russia, an indication they are being conserved for future use. The focus on training marks a shift from earlier in the war, when Russia at times sent in untrained soldiers.

Putin has also pushed to ramp up production in the defense industrial base, presiding over related meetings and visiting defense facilities in December. The Russian president infamously scolded a trade minister last week for not moving fast enough on manufacturing orders for aircraft.

Also last week, Putin appointed Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, to oversee the war in Ukraine, which ISW said was the Russian Defense Ministry reasserting control and potentially preparing for a major offensive.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate spokesperson Andriy Yusov said this week that Putin directly ordered Gerasimov to seize control of the Donbas by March, a claim the Kremlin on Tuesday declined to confirm or deny, according to Russian news service Tass.

Ukraine is also likely preparing for a major counteroffensive of its own following two highly successful campaigns last year that retook the cities of Kherson and Kharkiv.

Branislav Slantchev, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, who studies the war, said “Ukrainians have to go on the offensive” again to beat back a renewed Russian effort.

“Neither side is close to the objectives they have, in the sense that the Russians still need to conquer territory they claim is theirs and Ukrainians need to liberate territory that the Russians have taken,” Slantchev said. “You cannot achieve any of these goals by going on the defensive.”

Slantchev added that both armies are “trying to obviously confuse each other on where these offensives will come and who’s going to go first.”

In the past couple months, Ukraine has received more commitments of heavy weaponry and vehicles, including infantry fighting vehicles from the U.S. and Germany and heavy tanks from the U.K.

A meeting of dozens of defense leaders on Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany could also result in more heavy weapons for Ukraine, including American M1 Abrams tanks and Germany’s Leopard tanks.

Gian Gentile, the associate director of Rand Corporation’s Arroya Center, said Ukraine could be “trying to develop an offensive with a mechanized force.”

“The next three to four months are going to be quite telling,” he said. “It’s either going to go for one side or for the other side —  or it’s just going to be stuck in a really nasty stalemate for a while.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Comer focuses on Penn Biden Center in investigation of classified documents

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, is zeroing in on the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., as part of the panel’s investigation into classified documents discovered in President Biden’s former office at the think tank.

Comer is specifically interested in learning about who had access to the Penn Biden Center, a visitor log of those who met with Biden at the think tank, security at the facility and any donations to the center that may link back to China. He laid out the requests in a letter to University of Pennsylvania President Mary Elizabeth Magill on Tuesday, asking that all materials be handed over by Feb. 1.

“The Committee is concerned about who had access to these documents given the Biden family’s financial connections to foreign actors and companies,” Comer wrote in the letter, obtained by Punchbowl News. “The Committee requests documents and information related to foreign influence at UPenn and the Penn Biden Center.”

The request to the Penn Biden Center comes after Comer over the weekend asked the White House to release visitor logs for Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Del., where a tranche of classified documents from the Obama administration was found. The White House counsel’s office, however, has said that visitor logs do not exist for the location because it is a personal residence.

Comer’s Oversight and Accountability Committee is one of several congressional panels looking into the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s home in Wilmington and office at the Penn Biden Center. Last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) launched an investigation into the matter, zeroing in on the Justice Department’s actions in relation to the situation.

Roughly two dozen materials with classified markings have been discovered at Biden’s home and former office. The first tranche was first discovered in early November, but the White House only disclosed the finding this month. Since then, the White House has announced additional discoveries.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the matter last week. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, has said the White House will cooperate with the special counsel.

Comer on Wednesday said “the American people deserve to know whether the Chinese Communist Party, through Chinese companies, influenced potential Biden Administration policies with large, anonymous donations to UPenn and the Penn Biden Center.”

He laid out information he said the committee has learned regarding donations to the think tank that are linked to China, reaching tens of millions of dollars. The letter also claimed that Biden, while vice president and afterward, “met with his family’s international business partners” and raised concerns about Hunter Biden, the president’s son, having access to the classified documents found at Biden’s Wilmington home.

“It is imperative to understand whether any Biden family members or associates gained access to the classified documents while stored at the Penn Biden Center,” Comer wrote.

Source: TEST FEED1

White House rips appointment of 'extreme MAGA members' to House Oversight panel

The White House on Wednesday bashed House Republicans for placing some of their most controversial members on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, accusing the GOP of “handing the keys of oversight” to extremists.

The administration responded to news that Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) would both serve on the Oversight committee after being stripped of their committee assignments during the last Congress for incendiary comments, including violent rhetoric toward other lawmakers.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a central figure in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, also tweeted that he will serve on the Oversight committee, which will play a central role in investigating the Biden White House in the next two years.

“As we have said before, the Biden Administration stands ready to work in good faith to accommodate Congress’ legitimate oversight needs,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson on GOP investigations, said in a statement. “However, with these members joining the Oversight Committee, it appears that House Republicans may be setting the stage for divorced-from-reality political stunts, instead of engaging in bipartisan work on behalf of the American people.”

Sams accused Republicans of “handing the keys of oversight to the most extreme MAGA members of the Republican caucus who promote violent rhetoric and dangerous conspiracy theories.”

The administration official noted that Greene was censured for her social media posts that referenced violence against Democrats, Gosar repeatedly downplayed the events of Jan. 6, and Perry defied a subpoena in a House investigation into the attack on the Capitol.

“House Republican leaders should explain why they are allowing these individuals to serve on this Committee and reveal transparently once and for all what secret deals they made to the extreme MAGA members in order to elect a Speaker,” Sams said in a statement, urging Republicans to focus on issues such as inflation instead.

Sams’s statement came one day after the White House called on McCarthy to publicly disclose the specifics of any deals he brokered with the roughly 20 conservative members who initially opposed his bid for Speaker.

House Republicans are expected to aggressively use their oversight powers to probe Biden’s conduct. Some members, like Greene, have gone as far as suggesting Biden could be impeached.

Biden is already under scrutiny from House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) over the discovery of classified documents from when Biden was vice president at his old office and his Delaware residence.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump trounces DeSantis in potential GOP primary match-up, new poll finds

Former President Trump holds at 17-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a hypothetical GOP primary match-up, according to a new poll. 

A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday showed Trump with 48 percent support among potential Republican primary voters, followed by DeSantis with 31 percent. Trump’s front-runner position differs from some polls since the November midterm elections, which have shown DeSantis closing the gap with Trump or taking a lead in some cases. 

Former Vice President Mike Pence came in third with 8 percent, followed by former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) with 3 percent. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) both received 2 percent. 

Trump’s support in Morning Consult polls over the past month has stayed between 45 and 50 percent, while DeSantis has hovered around 30 percent.

Among Trump voters in the most recent poll, DeSantis is comfortably the second choice, with 44 percent backing the Florida governor. About 20 percent would support Pence, and 7 percent would back Cruz. 

Just over a third of DeSantis supporters would vote for Trump as their second choice, while 14 percent would support Pence and 13 percent would back Haley. 

Pollsters found Trump’s favorability rating among potential Republican primary voters to be improving over the past month, with 77 percent having a favorable view of him. Trump’s net favorability rating, taken from subtracting the percentage who view him unfavorably from the percentage who view him favorably, passed 50 percent in the Morning Consult polling for the first time in almost a month.

Almost 7 in 10 potential voters have a favorable view of DeSantis. 

DeSantis has an advantage among potential voters who view each of them unfavorably. Only 11 percent said they view DeSantis unfavorably, while 23 percent said they view Trump unfavorably.

The poll did show that DeSantis would perform somewhat better against President Biden in a hypothetical general election match-up than Trump would. DeSantis led Biden by 3 points, 44 percent to 41 percent, while Biden led Trump by 3 points, 43 percent to 40 percent. 

Pollsters found two-thirds or more of respondents said they have not heard anything recently about any of the other potential candidates. 

Trump became the first major Republican candidate to jump in the race in November, but several other prominent Republicans have indicated they are considering running. DeSantis has not made a public announcement but has been the subject of heavy speculation surrounding presidential ambitions. 

The poll was conducted from Jan. 13 to 15 among 829 potential Republican primary voters. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1