News & Brews July 27, 2026
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GOP voters ‘listless and demotivated’?
The Inquirer reports, “Republican pollsters and political groups are raising the alarm that their party faces a listless and demotivated base ahead of November’s midterm elections.” We all know that midterms already tend to go against the party in power in the White House. But this, combined with a “lack of enthusiasm” is exacerbating the GOP’s concerns this year. And according to one analysis, “about 1 in 5 reliable Republican base voters are at risk this November.”
Schools lose students, get more money
Reason reports an eye-popping statistic: Since COVID, America’s public schools have lost 1.4 million students. But from 2019 to 2024, their funding increased by 34%. “Still, more money hasn’t led to better student outcomes. At each grade level and across subject areas, there’s a decline in current achievement when compared to student benchmarks from 2019.” (For more on this, see the next story.)
Student success tied to family structure
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Ian Rowe and the University of Virginia’s Brad Wilcox write that missing from all the analysis of educational outcomes is any acknowledgement of how family structure influences student outcomes. Yet, in their research, the two “found that children in intact families—in which biological or adoptive parents are married and living together—are significantly more likely to thrive in school than peers from stepfamilies, cohabiting households, single-parent homes or grandparent-led households.”
State legislatures are key to America’s future
Here’s a POLITICO interview focusing on a topic we’ve been saying for years: The future of America rests more with state legislatures than it does with Washington, D.C. The interview is with Democrat operative Ben Wikler on his new book, but the real story isn’t a book (unless you’re talking about Matt Brouillette’s new book of course 🙂 The real story is the observation that “the basic rules of the road in this country are decided by trifectas at the state level.”
Hakeem Jeffries comes to Pa.
Underscoring (for the umpteenth time) the focus on Pennsylvania’s U.S. House races, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined Gov. Shapiro in the Lehigh Valley yesterday to campaign for Bob Brooks, who is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie. You’ll recall that Brooks is the one who put Shapiro in hot water by claiming the governor urged Brooks’ union to support Stacy Garrity over Democrat Erin McClelland after McClelland called Shapiro out for “sweep[ing] sexual harassment under the rug.”
