Bears, Budgets, Farmers Top Congress To-do List

Donald Trump’s margin over Joe Biden in national polls has sunk to its lowest point of the year, according to the FiveThirtyEight average. What was a clear — though small edge — for Trump since January has become a pure toss-up. Newsweek: Donald Trump suffers abysmal polling week.

New Emerson College Polling/The Hill state polls find Donald Trump with a slight edge on Joe Biden in Arizona (47% to 43%), Georgia (45% to 41%), Wisconsin (47% to 44%) Nevada (46% to 43%), Pennsylvania (47% to 45%), and Michigan (46% to 45%), while Biden splits with Trump in Minnesota (45% to 45%). Said pollster Spencer Kimball: “In our first polling in several key swing states since Trump’s conviction last month, there has been little movement, with support for both Trump and Biden staying largely consistent since November.

“The National Republican Senatorial Committee is planning to spend more than $100 million on advertising as part of a massive effort to retake control of the chamber,” Politico reports.

“J. D. Vance, who gained national attention just eight years ago with his Hillbilly Elegy memoir of growing up in Rust Belt poverty, is the next-generation populist leader in the top tier of Donald Trump’s potential running mates,” Bloomberg reports. “The U. S. senator from Ohio is perhaps more closely aligned with the former president than any other candidate on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist.

“The U. S. Senate on Tuesday passed a bill to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy capacity, including by speeding permitting and creating new incentives for advanced nuclear reactor technologies,” Reuters reports. “Expanding nuclear power has broad bipartisan support, with Democrats seeing it as critical to decarbonizing the power sector to fight climate change and Republicans viewing it as a way to ensure reliable electricity supply and create jobs.”

“The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a tax on foreign income that helped finance the tax cuts President Donald J. Trump imposed in 2017 in a case that many experts had cautioned could undercut the nation’s tax system,” the New York Times reports. “The vote was 7 to 2, with Justice Brett M.