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中美等捐助国仍欠费 联合国资金只能维持到8月底

2026年7月2日 17:45 / 联合早报

联合国长期面临资金短缺，目前仍在等待中美这两大主要捐助国全额支付2026年预算款项。图为联合国安理会6月在纽约的联合国总部开会。 （法新社）

（纽约彭博电）联合国预算官员说，由于美国和中国等主要捐助国尚未全额支付欠款，联合国目前的资金只够维持运营到8月底。

联合国财务主管拉马纳坦（Chandramouli Ramanathan）星期三（7月1日）说：“8月之后我们就没有现金了。到9月，钱就用光了。我们正等待收款，确保9月之后的运营。”

联合国长期面临资金短缺，目前仍在等待美国和中国两大主要捐助国全额支付2026年预算款项。如果主要捐助国不加大投入，联合国就不得不推迟其他款项的支付，以便为年度联合国大会的高级别周准备资金。

美国本应承担联合国常规预算的22%，特朗普政府已经支付所欠款项的一小部分，但算上往年欠款，仍有约20亿美元（约26亿新元）的未缴会费。

中国已向联合国支付部分会费，但拉马纳坦说，北京仍欠联合国约4亿3000万美元常规预算。

拉马纳坦补充称，中国通常分批缴纳会费，预计未来几个月会支付一部分；美国也承诺很快付款。

联合国秘书长古特雷斯今年初曾警告，联合国将在7月前耗尽现金。拉马纳坦说，通过削减开支和调整预算，联合国现有资金能够维持到夏季结束。

You can start contributing to a Trump Account starting July 4. Here’s what to know.

July 2, 2026 / 5:00 AM EDT / CBS News

Americans can begin contributing to a Trump Account on July 4, when the new tax-deferred investment accounts officially launch.

Starting Saturday, parents, guardians, employers and other contributors can deposit money into a child’s Trump Account, also known as a 530A account. Children born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, who open an account will also receive a $1,000 Treasury Department contribution invested in the stock market.

Created under last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump Accounts are designed to help children under 18 build savings, similar to how adults use individual retirement accounts to save for retirement.

“These accounts are in the lane of helping children start to accumulate retirement assets from as early as possible,” Emerson Sprick, the director of retirement and labor policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, told CBS News.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent has touted the accounts as a “rainy day fund” kids can use when they reach adulthood. Six million people have signed up so far, according to a Treasury Department spokesperson.

How do Trump Accounts work?

Trump Accounts are designed to help children start investing. During the “growth period” — between when the account is created and the year the beneficiary reaches age 18 — contributions must be invested in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, that track large indexes such as the S&P 500 and have fees or expenses higher than 0.1%. After that time period, the account will operate like a traditional IRA.

Bank of New York Mellon will initially administer Trump Accounts in partnership with online brokerage firm Robinhood. However, the accounts can be rolled over to a Trump Account at another financial institution for the same beneficiary during the “growth period,” according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Parents can set up the savings vehicle through the Trump Accounts app or at the website trumpaccount.com. According to the Trump administration, funds deposited into the accounts will be invested in a broad stock-market index. The Trump Accounts app will provide an overview of the portfolio and its performance.

What are the contribution limits?

Excluding the $1,000 government contribution and any charitable contributions, people can deposit up to $5,000 per child into a Trump Account each year. Employer contributions are capped at $2,500 a year and count toward the $5,000 limit.

Some donors and employers have already pledged financial support for Trump Account holders. In December 2025, philanthropists Michael and Susan Dell said they would donate $250 to each of 25 million American children. The money will go to children born before 2025 who are under 10 and who don’t qualify for the government’s $1,000 seed contribution.

Dell Technologies, founded by Michael Dell, as well as other large companies such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and chipmaker Micron Technology, have also committed to matching the government’s $1,000 contribution.

When can the money be withdrawn?

Except in limited circumstances, funds generally can’t be withdrawn before the beneficiary turns 18. Once they reach that age, children can keep the money in the account or withdraw it to use for qualified expenses, such as education, buying a home or starting a business.

However, if beneficiaries tap their Trump Account funds before age 59.5 for an unqualified reason, they will incur a 10% early withdrawal penalty, as with traditional IRAs, according to Sprick. Tax considerations are another issue to keep in mind. Contributions from individuals, including parents, guardians and family members, are not tax-deductible — unlike contributions to some other types of accounts, like 401(k)s.

“The person making those contributions receives no tax benefits from those contributions because the tax benefit is realized down the road by the account beneficiary,” Sprick said.

Along those lines, parents may want to consider how Trump Accounts compare to other savings vehicles, which may be more preferable from a tax perspective, Sprick said. Other account types may also come with fewer restrictions than Trump Accounts, which have contribution caps and more limited investment tax advantages, according to experts.

“There are all kinds of accounts that folks can use, whether it’s a 529 [plan] or just a savings account at their local credit union,” Sprick said. For those who do open a Trump Account, the biggest benefit will come from the $1,000 government contribution, he added.

If they haven’t already, parents and guardians can still sign up for a Trump Account for their child by completing and submitting IRS Form 4547, provided the child is under 18 and has a valid Social Security number.

Edited by Aimee Picchi

中美等捐助国仍欠费 联合国资金只能维持到8月底

2026年7月2日 17:45 / 联合早报

联合国长期面临资金短缺，目前仍在等待中美这两大主要捐助国全额支付2026年预算款项。图为联合国安理会6月在纽约的联合国总部开会。 （法新社）

（纽约彭博电）联合国预算官员说，由于美国和中国等主要捐助国尚未全额支付欠款，联合国目前的资金只够维持运营到8月底。

联合国财务主管拉马纳坦（Chandramouli Ramanathan）星期三（7月1日）说：“8月之后我们就没有现金了。到9月，钱就用光了。我们正等待收款，确保9月之后的运营。”

联合国长期面临资金短缺，目前仍在等待美国和中国两大主要捐助国全额支付2026年预算款项。如果主要捐助国不加大投入，联合国就不得不推迟其他款项的支付，以便为年度联合国大会的高级别周准备资金。

美国本应承担联合国常规预算的22%，特朗普政府已经支付所欠款项的一小部分，但算上往年欠款，仍有约20亿美元（约26亿新元）的未缴会费。

中国已向联合国支付部分会费，但拉马纳坦说，北京仍欠联合国约4亿3000万美元常规预算。

拉马纳坦补充称，中国通常分批缴纳会费，预计未来几个月会支付一部分；美国也承诺很快付款。

联合国秘书长古特雷斯今年初曾警告，联合国将在7月前耗尽现金。拉马纳坦说，通过削减开支和调整预算，联合国现有资金能够维持到夏季结束。

Takeaways from a divisive Supreme Court term that expanded Trump’s power

2026-07-02T09:00:25.628Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/02/politics/supreme-court-controversial-heated-term-takeaways

After berating the Supreme Court for much of the year — while simultaneously inviting some of the justices over to the White House for dinner — President Donald Trump’s final assessment of the court’s momentous term this week felt something like a ceasefire.

“The Republican Party,” the president posted on social media, “was treated very fairly by the United States Supreme Court.”

The muted appraisal was a remarkable shift from just four months ago, when Trump declared that the justices who voted to shut down his emergency global tariffs were an “embarrassment to their families.” The sudden bonhomie, if it holds, reflects a term in which the 6-3 conservative court, grappling with many of Trump’s policies for the first time, handed the White House big losses, but also a series of substantial wins.

In all, the Supreme Court issued opinions in 58 merits cases, touching on a wide spectrum of American life and deciding who can play on high school soccer fields, who would win the national battle over redistricting and who gets to be a US citizen.

Here are some of the major themes from the Supreme Court’s momentous term.

Because of the way the court’s calendar works, only a few Trump controversies received a full airing from the justices last year. Many of the administration’s policies that drew the most attention in 2025 — such as its crackdown on immigration and expansion of executive power — didn’t reach the Supreme Court in earnest until last fall.

Trump ultimately lost several of those cases, most notably birthright citizenship and tariffs, but he scored enormous wins on many of his other priorities.

The 6-3 conservative Supreme Court vastly expanded the president’s power to fire the leaders of independent agencies and allowed the administration to end temporary humanitarian relief for potentially more than 1 million people who have been living in the US legally to escape conflict and natural disaster in their home countries.

And while Trump didn’t have a direct stake in the court’s 6-3 decision to allow states to ban transgender students from competing on girls sprots teams, the outcome was clearly aligned with his agenda and rhetoric. Same goes for the court’s divisive 6-3 decision in April to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the 6-3 decision to erase limits on how much political parties can spend on campaigns in coordination with candidates.

The president hasn’t been shy about criticizing the court in the past. In a lengthy post in March, Trump accused the court to which he appointed three of nine justices of being “little more than a weaponized and unjust political organization.”

At the same time, the president seemed to be engaged in a charm offensive, inviting the court’s conservatives to a banquet featuring Britain’s King Charles in April. He also publicly praised several of the conservative justices who showed at the White House in May for the swearing in of Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh.

When the dust settled on the term, Trump seemed pleased. He focused much of his attention on the court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter, allowing him to fire officials at federal agencies that Congress attempted to protect from presidential politics.

“The biggest and most consequential decision issued by the court, by far, is the Slaughter case, which overturned the very famous Humphrey’s Executor Rule.” Trump wrote on social media, referring to a 1935 precedent the court toppled in that case. “This decision gives tremendous additional power back to the presidency, where it belongs.”

When it comes to some of the biggest cases dealing with political power and the culture wars, the term did little to dispel the notion that this is a Supreme Court deeply divided on ideological lines.

The justices handed down 6-3, ideologically split decisions in 13 cases this term, more than double the count last year. Those included cases upholding transgender sports bans, expanding the president’s power to fire and endorsing much of his immigration agenda.

The frequency of ideological splits is one way to test the court’s self-styled image of being above the partisan fray in an era of Trumpian politics. Chief Justice John Roberts has often urged the public to not view the court as a partisan institution voting along party lines.

“People think we’re making policy decisions,” he said to a conference in May.

“I think they view us as truly political actors,” he said, “which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”

Among the 6-3 rulings this term was a decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, an outcome that allowed state lawmakers in Southern states like Louisiana and Alabama to redraw their maps in a way that benefited the GOP. The court also allowed the president to end a form of humanitarian relief for Haitians and Syrians, and it erased the caps on how much political parties could spend in coordination with candidates.

“For those who would prefer even more money to be pumped even more easily into politics despite the danger of corruption — this overruling is for you,” Justice Elena Kagan quipped as she dissented in the campaign finance decision handed down on the last day of the term.

To be sure, the court also issued decisions with surprising coalitions that crossed ideology, including in major cases. The court’s decision on upholding automatic birthright citizenship put three conservatives — Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh — in the majority along with the court’s three liberals. Roberts and Barrett were together again in a decision that upheld the counting of mail ballots postmarked by Election Day but arriving days later.

The court unanimously settled a Second Amendment case that limited the government’s ability to disarm regular drug users. Roberts, Barrett and Justice Neil Gorsuch joined with the court’s liberals to shut down Trump’s emergency tariffs.

By another measure, unanimous decisions, the court was roughly in line with past terms. The justices decided 25 cases this year unanimously, just under 44% of its docket of argued appeals — close to the 45% average calculated by SCOTUSblog for the past 20 years.

As in past terms, Kavanaugh and Roberts were in the majority more than any of their colleagues, underscoring their firm grip on the ideological center of the Supreme Court.

“Justice Kavanaugh emerged as a key vote, a pragmatic jurist, and a thoroughly independent thinker,” said Richard Re, a Harvard Law professor and former Kavanaugh clerk. Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the bench in 2018.

But Kavanaugh also moved closer to Trump this term, siding at least partly with the president in two massive decisions that wound up putting him at odds with the chief. It was Kavanaugh who wrote the lead dissent in the tariffs case. And, on the final day of the term, Kavanaugh declined to join the majority’s reasoning for upholding automatic birthright citizenship.

While the court’s decision against Trump was 6-3, only five justices thought Trump’s birthright order had violated the 14th Amendment. Kavanaugh wasn’t one of them.

“In my view, the executive order does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment,” Kavanaugh wrote in a partial dissent that none of his colleagues joined.“Congress could — consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment … enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country.”

Barrett has received sharp criticism from the right after she joined Roberts’ birthright citizenship opinion. Vice President JD Vance this week called Barrett’s vote against Trump a “mistake.”

Others were less diplomatic.

“Impeach rogue, activist judges,” Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, posted. “We’re looking at you Amy Coney Barrett.”

Attacks aimed at Barrett any time she rules against Trump have become something of a ritual in recent terms. Kavanaugh, by contrast, has received no such blowback.

Re framed Kavanaugh’s position in the birthright case as a “hybrid” that had “the virtue of pleasing no constituency.”

“He both frustrated the administration by invalidating the executive order and disappointed liberals by rejecting the plaintiffs’ constitutional claim,” he said.

Long before the end of the term there were signs of strife as some of the justices wrestled publicly with the significance of a series of emergency docket rulings on Trump’s policies — most of which landed in the president’s favor.

Just as that tension eased, the court handed down its blockbuster decision on voting rights in April. And that seemed to widen the gulf between the court’s conservative and liberal wings.

“Courts are apolitical,” liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s junior justice, said at an event in May, adding that her colleagues missed the mark in avoiding the appearance of politics. “We have to be scrupulous about sticking to the principles and the rules that we apply in every case and not look as though we’re doing something different in this kind of context.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor had to apologize in April after directing “hurtful” comments at Kavanaugh about his opinion in another case. And the court had to clean up after an unusual exchange on the bench in which Justice Samuel Alito signaled he had been blindsided by Sotomayor’s decision to read a dissent in one of his cases.

The court later told CNN that Sotomayor had indeed given Alito’s chambers a heads up, which apparently never reached the justice. “It was a misunderstanding on Justice Alito’s part,” a court spokesperson said.

The court resolved several important cases this term by simply removing the judiciary from the equation.

In the decision upholding Trump’s ability to end temporary humanitarian protections for people from Haiti and Syria, a 6-3 majority ruled that federal courts couldn’t review the president’s decisions on the program.

In a case involving a devout Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were cut in prison, the court’s conservatives concluded that people could not sue under a federal law intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners.

The justices barred people from suing companies on claims that they aided and abetted torture overseas. And it ruled 7-2 that a federal law blocks people who say the herbicide Roundup caused their cancer from suing the company that makes that product.

Those decisions continue a trend over the past several years of the court finding that only Congress can authorize lawsuits, not courts.

Critics say that approach has effectively left people who have been injured with no recourse.

Next term, the court has agreed to hear a case involving a prisoner who sued federal prison officials for failing to transport him to a hospital after a gang-related fight left him severely injured. Though the prisoner’s tailbone was fractured, he was treated only with over-the-counter pain medication.

The court could use the case to severely limit the ability of Americans to sue federal officials.

“A tragic pattern of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions is leaving individuals who have been seriously injured and whose rights have been violated with no remedy whatsoever,” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley law school, told CNN. “Rights are meaningless without courts to provide remedies when they are violated.”

德国北部一医院起火 两名病人罹难

2026年7月2日 18:05 / 联合早报

德国北部路德维希斯卢斯特（Ludwigslust）一家医院发生火灾，造成两人死亡、30多人受伤。

新华社引述德国媒体的报道说，据警方消息说，火灾发生于当地时间星期四（7月2日）4时28分。初步调查显示，火情始于医院一间病房。当地消防队出动大量人员灭火，目前明火已扑灭。

据德国新闻社（dpa）报道，地区官员说，两名死者均为医院的患者，伤者的伤势均不严重。

据德国广播公司北德广播公司（NDR）报道，火灾起于一间有病人的房间，并蔓延至放射科的屋顶。

据地区当局发言人说，火灾是从血管外科的一间房间开始的。她说，一名患者在这间房内死亡，另一名患者在隔壁房间内死亡。

据医院网站消息，这家拥有160张床位的医院，许多病人和工作人员已疏散。 医院火灾原因尚不清楚。

NASA stops the sky from falling

July 2, 2026 at 5:33 a.m. EDT / The Washington Post

Analysis by Alec Dent, Matthew Choi and Dan Merica

In today’s edition … Democrats put Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill front and center in midterm races … what the Supreme Court’s decision on federal agencies means for the bureaucracy … but first …

Alec Dent
Alec Dent is an assistant editor on the politics and government desk.

Matthew Choi
Matthew Choi is a co-anchor of the Early Brief politics newsletter. He has been at the Post since 2025. He previously covered Washington for The Texas Tribune and energy for Politico.follow on X@matthewichoi

Dan Merica
Dan Merica is co-anchor of the Post’s flagship political newsletter, Early Brief. He joined the Post in 2025. He previously covered campaigns, politics, and all levers of power in Washington, D.C. for CNN, The Messenger, and the Associated Press.follow on X@merica

How dialects reveal America’s history and hint at what’s next

July 2, 2026 / 6:00 AM EDT / CBS News
By Luis Giraldo

You can tell where Emily Sweeney is from the minute she says “coffee.”

If you want to imagine her speaking, picture her saying the following words like Ben Affleck: “Park the car in Harvard Yard.”

The Boston Globe social video journalist went viral earlier this year for her accent while reporting on crime in Massachusetts, where the way you speak is filled with cultural authenticity and central to identity — much like other parts of the United States, across which dialects have been evolving since the nation’s founding.

The Boston accent

Boston native Emily Sweeney on how words sound in a Boston accent.

The prevalence of certain dialects is thanks to people like Sweeney, and the changes, according to linguists, usually happen once teenage girls say so.

“Consistently across every dialect that we have ever studied, it is adolescent girls who are half a generation to a full generation ahead of the curve,” said Betsy Sneller, an associate professor of linguistics at Michigan State University. “What they’re doing is where language is gonna go.”

Sneller, who studies sociolinguistic change in the U.S., said teenage girls have the most power to determine where vernacular goes during the “adolescent peak.”

“If you really want to get a snapshot of the future of a language, record a 20-year-old woman talking crap about somebody,” Sneller said.

Sneller received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, which pioneered research on American dialects and their changes through the Telsur Project in the 1990s. More than 700 people from all major U.S. urban areas were surveyed about pronunciation variations, different word preferences and syntax.

How dialect areas are drawn

Associate professor of linguistics Betsy Sneller explains isoglosses, geographical boundaries marking differences in speech.

“Do you call it a firefly or do you call it a lightning bug?” Sneller said. “Do you say ‘day-uhd,’ or do you say ‘dahd?’”

The research found that there are eight major dialects in the U.S.: Northern, Southern, Eastern New England, Western New England, Mid-Atlantic, Western Pennsylvania, the Midlands and the West, Sneller said.

There are exceptions, including Florida, where researchers say there is a high level of dialect mixing.

There’s also African American English, which shares origins with Southern English, but has variations that evolved differently based on the timing of segregation, according to Salikoko Mufwene, a linguistics professor at the University of Chicago.

“Central to your identity”

The notion of Black English stems from the development of plantations in the American colonial economy, Mufwene says. He distinguishes between coastal areas, especially in South Carolina and Georgia, where rice fields were prominent, and other kinds of plantations farther inland.

On the rice fields, a “Black majority” meant slaves were already segregated in the early eighteenth century, he said. By communicating more among themselves, rather than with European settlers, the Gullah Geechee language emerged.

Meanwhile, in the areas with tobacco and cotton plantations, slaves were generally a minority. The English they spoke had only minimal differences from how the European settlers spoke, until the abolition of slavery and the start of segregation under Jim Crow laws, Mufwene explains.

“We are talking here about two centuries of difference in the timing of residential segregation,” he said.

African American English and segregation

Linguistics professor Salikoko Mufwene explains how segregation fostered African American English.

Now, the prevalence of African American English tells the history of segregation in the U.S., Mufwene said.

“When did the notion of White America start?” he said. “Until the 19th century, there was no White America. There were the Anglos, there were the Germans, there were the Italians, the Poles, and all those nationalities … And there was a time when people spoke German English, Italian English, Polish English, and all those varieties.”

Those varieties have now died, he said, but African American English has not.

Part of why is a lack of assimilation and discrimination, Mufwene argues, which “leads African-Americans to develop most self-identification as different and to stick to what makes them different.”

“So they maintain African American English because it is part of their cultural identity,” he said.

Mufwene also highlights that many African Americans are “bicultural and bi-dialectal,” especially those who grow up in racially integrated communities.

“You want to fit with the people that you are interacting regularly with,” Mufwene said. “And for some people, because you navigate between different social classes, between communities, belonging to two different races, then you learn to speak both.”

Identity is a vital part of dialect, according to linguists, but certain cultural markers can lead to prejudice.

“Your language is so central to your identity,” Sneller said. “Whatever the language is, it has that flavor of home, like, this is what it sounds like to be yelled at by my grandma to clean up my room in Mandarin.”

“So if you hear somebody speaking in New York English, you know, ‘Hey, give me a coffee,’ immediately in your mind, you’re thinking of like rough and tumble, I’m tough,” Sneller said. “That’s the vibe of a New York accent, and you see this in media, like when movies want to portray somebody as being tough, they use either a New York accent or a Boston accent.”

For Sweeney, who is from Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood and has a “Dot Rat” tattoo across her back to prove it, her accent’s punch takes her back home.

When she hears another Boston accent, she identifies the person as someone who knows “what’s up,” she said.

“It just denotes, you have wisdom, you know what I mean?” she said. “You probably know more than I do, so it communicates a lot actually.”

Maintaining Southern twang and values

Karen Norris Newsome, 74, who was born in Darlington County, South Carolina, says she gets teased for her Lowcountry accent that can pack two syllables into four letters.

She sounds like a character from “Forrest Gump”: “I’m a very proud Southern woman,” she says. “I am very hardworking and very strong as magnolias.”

South Carolina Lowcountry accent

Karen Norris Newsome, of South Carolina, describes her accent.

Newsome, who was raised on a farm where her parents kept animals and grew fruits and vegetables, and has fond memories of her mom’s fried chicken and July Fourth picnics, is still keeping her accent and values intact.

Although her Southern twang may not be as prevalent in younger generations, Newsome still hopes the values she grew up with will be passed on.

“I think we’re gonna lose the personal touch that I was raised with, the respect I have for my neighbors,” she said. “I think you better get out, take a plate of cookies over to them, and meet them, because you never know whenever you may fall in the yard and need them to come help you up, which has happened to me before.”

Newsome described herself as “very patriotic.”

“I think America is the land of the free, it still is, but I think we don’t appreciate it as much as we used to,” she said.

“I think the average American is just so busy, they forget how to just sit back on the porch, in a swing with a glass of iced tea, just to relax.”

---

Join CBS for “The Great American Block Party 250,” a primetime special on Saturday, July 4, hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, featuring live musical performances, celebrations around the country, and the largest fireworks show in history in the skies over the nation’s capital. Tune in July 4 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and stream it on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7.

德国北部一医院起火 两名病人罹难

2026年7月2日 18:05 / 联合早报

德国北部路德维希斯卢斯特（Ludwigslust）一家医院发生火灾，造成两人死亡、30多人受伤。

新华社引述德国媒体的报道说，据警方消息说，火灾发生于当地时间星期四（7月2日）4时28分。初步调查显示，火情始于医院一间病房。当地消防队出动大量人员灭火，目前明火已扑灭。

据德国新闻社（dpa）报道，地区官员说，两名死者均为医院的患者，伤者的伤势均不严重。

据德国广播公司北德广播公司（NDR）报道，火灾起于一间有病人的房间，并蔓延至放射科的屋顶。

据地区当局发言人说，火灾是从血管外科的一间房间开始的。她说，一名患者在这间房内死亡，另一名患者在隔壁房间内死亡。

据医院网站消息，这家拥有160张床位的医院，许多病人和工作人员已疏散。 医院火灾原因尚不清楚。

How Iran attacks are forcing the Pentagon to rethink its decades-old Middle East base strategy

2026-07-02 06:15:30 EDT / Fox News

Retired admirals say US military is already shifting to alternate command sites and rotating forces away from fixed installations

By Morgan Phillips Fox News

Published July 2, 2026 6:15am EDT

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After weeks of Iranian missile and drone attacks exposed the vulnerability of major U.S. military bases across the Gulf, the Pentagon is weighing whether decades of relying on large, permanent installations within range of Iranian weapons still makes strategic sense.

Defense officials are considering dispersing some capabilities and reassessing parts of the U.S. regional base posture, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The Gulf base network is how the U.S. responds quickly to Iran, protects shipping lanes, reassures Arab partners and keeps pressure on ISIS and al Qaeda. If the Pentagon reduces or disperses that footprint, it could make U.S. forces harder to hit — but also slower to surge in a crisis.

For decades, the tradeoff was straightforward: the closer U.S. forces were to the fight, the faster they could respond. But Operation Epic Fury reignited a long-running debate over whether concentrating aircraft, ships, command centers and thousands of troops at a handful of large Gulf bases had become an increasingly dangerous liability in an era of precision missiles and drones.

U.S. troops react as President Donald Trump walks to deliver remarks, near a banner reading, “Peace Through Strength”, during a visit to Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, May 15, 2025.(Brian Snyder/REUTERS)

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Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery said the military already has started relying more heavily on alternate command-and-control locations — the headquarters and communications hubs commanders use to direct military operations — and rotating forces rather than concentrating capabilities at a handful of installations close to Iran.

“We’re not relying on them in the same way that we did before the war,” Montgomery told Fox News Digital. “I think we are going to reposition these forces.”

The Pentagon has spent decades building a network of Gulf bases designed to put aircraft, ships and troops within minutes of potential crises across the Middle East. That strategy relied on concentrating combat power at a handful of large installations that offered unmatched access to the region.

But during Operation Epic Fury, Iran launched repeated missile and drone attacks against some of the Pentagon’s most important regional installations, including Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.

While U.S. and partner air defenses intercepted many incoming weapons and casualties remained limited, the attacks demonstrated that virtually every major American operating hub in the Gulf now sits within range of Iranian missiles and drones.

U.S. forces in the Middle East have endured rocket and drone attacks for years, many carried out by Iranian-backed proxy groups against individual outposts in Iraq and Syria. Operation Epic Fury marked a broader test of the Pentagon’s regional basing model, with Iran directly targeting multiple major air and naval hubs that underpin U.S. military operations across the Gulf.

Naval Support Activity Bahrain alone sustained extensive damage to command facilities and communications infrastructure, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since the conflict began Feb. 28, 13 U.S. service members have been killed and 400 wounded, with most wounded returning to duty.

Many of the fatalities resulted from a small number of attacks, including a missile strike in Kuwait and an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, Central Command spokesperson, declined to discuss battle damage assessments but told Fox News Digital the U.S. military “rightfully prioritized the protection of people over buildings, and our strategy of protecting people worked. Iran shot more than 8,000 missiles and drones and only two resulted in U.S. fatalities. We did far more damage to Iran than they did to us — by a lot.”

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What that future posture ultimately looks like remains under review.

A senior U.S. official told Fox News Digital questions about dispersing forces and reducing reliance on a handful of large Gulf bases had been debated since well before Operation Epic Fury, which had reignited those conversations.

“As a planning organization, we continually assess the security environment and make adjustments to best support operations and protect our troops. This has always been the case and remains so going forward,” Hawkins said in response.

Defense officials are weighing whether to disperse military capabilities across a broader network of facilities, move some bases or functions further west and even relocate certain operations to Israel, while reducing the U.S. presence at some installations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Journal reported. Officials also are reportedly considering moving some command structures underground, or forgoing rebuilding damaged structures.

“We do not have any force posture changes to announce or anything to provide at this time,” a War Department official told Fox News Digital.

A Joint Staff spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the military is tracking diplomatic developments in the region while continually monitoring and evaluating U.S. force posture.

Former counterterrorism director Joe Kent, who resigned over the Trump administration’s war with Iran, has long pushed for the U.S. to reduce its presence in the Gulf.

“Our bases in the Middle East are strategic liabilities not strategic assets. Less bases = less targets for Iran to shoot at and that = less leverage for Iran,” he wrote on X Saturday.

Aftermath of an Iranian missile strike on a Navy 5th Fleet installation in Bahrain is shown above.(Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Map from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies showing Iran’s missile ranges.(The Foundation for Defense of Democracies)

“It’s absolutely being discussed,” Retired Adm. Kevin Donegan, the former commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which leads U.S. naval operations across the Middle East, told Fox News Digital. “After (the Iran conflict) is over, I think in each country it’ll be independently evaluated based on our relationships with those countries.”

Montgomery said geography itself has become part of the problem. Many of the Gulf’s largest U.S. bases sit only about 90 miles from Iranian launch sites, leaving little time and space to respond to incoming drones.

“They’re just too close,” Montgomery said. “They’re…90 miles away from Iranian launch points.”

Fighter aircraft have become one of the primary tools for intercepting Iranian drones, but Montgomery said the Gulf’s proximity to Iran leaves defenders with less time and space to intercept drones after launch.

“Our way of shooting down drones, the best way is aircraft equipped with rockets,” he said. “But to do that, you got to get behind the drones. That’s hard.”

Moving some operations farther west would not put U.S. troops beyond the reach of all Iranian weapons. Iran’s longer-range missiles can reach Israel and other parts of the region, and former commanders cautioned that there may no longer be any truly safe rear area.

But dispersing command nodes, aircraft, logistics hubs and personnel across more locations could reduce the risk that a single strike disabling a critical U.S. capability.

“Everywhere we have forces around the world, they are under the missile envelope of potential adversaries,” he said. “So, where do you go to?”

“What you can do is buy yourself a little time against the threat, but in the end, we still need to have access to basing, because our being in the Gulf is not just to revolve around Iran, we have other reasons to be there, whether that be to ensure that terrorists like ISIS and Al Qaeda, etc. don’t threaten stability,” Donegan went on.

The bases that came under attack form the backbone of America’s military presence in the Gulf.

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The U.S. typically maintains about 40,000 troops across the Middle East, anchored by a network of major bases built up during the post-9/11 wars. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar —home to the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command and the largest U.S. military installation in the region — alone hosts about 10,000 American personnel. Other major hubs include Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, and Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.

Those installations became the backbone of U.S. military operations during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and remain central to American air, naval and logistics operations across the region.

Fox News Digital reached out to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, the White House and the governments of Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel for comment.

Trump has not publicly commented on the matter.

https://www..com/video/6399912386112

The 9 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2026

2026-07-02T10:00:28.944Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/02/politics/senate-race-rankings-july-2026

Four months into the primary calendar, most of the battlefield is set in the race for control of the US Senate. Now the real fight begins.

Democrats are increasingly bullish about their chances to win back the Senate majority for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term even as the party faces a difficult map and questions about some of its candidates in key contests. To be successful, Democrats will need to defend all their seats and flip four others, including many in deep-red territory.

Strong recruitment in several key races and a favorable national political environment are fueling the hopes of Democrats. There is widespread disapproval of Trump’s handling of the economy and the war in Iran. Just 34% of the American public holds a favorable view of the president, according to a recent CNN poll.

Republicans hope Trump’s Iran agreement, which remains the subject of talks, could soon ease some of the economic fallout from the war, including the high gas prices that have heightened cost-of-living concerns for Americans. Given the volatility of the war over the past few months, there’s no guarantee that will happen before Election Day.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court also injected a fresh element into this year’s elections, paving the way for the party committees to spend more money in close coordination with campaigns, a move that experts say could benefit the GOP in the midterms.

At this point in the cycle, there are nine states that will likely determine control of the Senate come November: Six are currently held by Republicans while three belong to Democrats.

Our ranking of the seats most likely to flip in November is based on CNN reporting, including conversations with strategists involved in Senate races, as well as our analysis of candidate fundraising, polling and the partisan environment in the states. The rankings are a snapshot of where the contests stand at this point in the cycle and will shift over the next four months as the general election comes into sharper focus.

North Carolina tops the list as former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper is giving Democrats their best chance of flipping a Senate seat in November.

Cooper has demonstrated crossover appeal, winning both of his elections for governor in years when Trump carried the state in his presidential runs. That familiarity gives Cooper a bit of a built-in advantage over Michael Whatley, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, in the open Senate race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis.

A New York Times/Siena poll released this week found Cooper leading Whatley by 7 points among likely North Carolina voters, 50% to 43%.

Whatley, who received Trump’s endorsement as soon as he launched his campaign, must contend with that close alliance at a time when voter frustration with the president’s performance is high. The Times survey found 55% of North Carolina likely voters disapproved of the president’s overall job performance with 64% disapproving of how he’s handled cost of living issues.

Cooper has leaned into affordability messaging while Republicans have sought to paint the former governor as soft on crime. Cooper released an ad last week rebutting those attacks, highlighting his record as governor and state attorney general, saying “you deserve to feel safe and there’s nothing political about that.”

Cooper is operating with a strong fundraising base in the early months. The Democratic nominee ended the first quarter with roughly $18.4 million in the bank compared to Whatley’s $2.5 million in cash on hand.

Outside groups are expected to play heavily in the months leading up to November with the Senate Leadership Fund announcing a $71 million investment, the second highest amount the Republican-led group is planning to spend to defend a state this cycle. Republicans are hoping that money will make a dent in Cooper’s standing, arguing he hasn’t faced that level of spending against him in past elections.

Meanwhile, the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC is setting aside $31 million for advertisements to boost Cooper.

North Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Sen. Kay Hagan in 2008, which was also the last time a Democrat carried the state at the presidential level. Cooper’s bid has put the party in a position to break that streak, which earns him the top spot in the July rankings.

2. Maine

At this point in the race, Maine remains a toss-up state that could be prime for a flip in the contest between GOP Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic nominee Graham Platner, whose controversies have dominated much of the recent attention on this race.

There is a high degree of unpredictability around this contest, given it is unclear how much voters in Maine have absorbed the latest round of scandals surrounding Platner, including reports he exchanged sexually explicit messages with women outside his marriage and allegations from former partners of “unsettling” behavior.

Platner and Collins are locked in a tight contest with no clear leader according to a pair of recent polls. A New York Times/Portland Press Herald/Siena poll found the Democratic challenger drawing 49% support among likely voters compared to 47% for the GOP incumbent, while a Fox News survey showed Collins with 50% support among registered voters while 47% are backing Platner.

As she seeks a sixth term, Collins has a proven track record of turning back Democratic challenges but finds herself in the unique position of being the only Republican senator running in a state that Trump lost to former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Collins is confronting political headwinds created by Trump in a blue-leaning state, with 57% of Maine likely voters saying they strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of his job as president, according to the Times survey. She has looked for ways to differentiate herself from Trump perhaps more than any GOP Senate candidate running this year, but Democrats are quick to argue she still votes with Trump most of the time, a message they plan to hammer as they look to tie Collins to the unpopular president.

Republicans have spent months running ads highlighting how Collins’ work in the Senate has benefitted Maine, including a new one touting her efforts to protect family farms and bringing in more funding for law enforcement.

In many ways, Platner fits the “fighter” mold many Democrats have pushed for in the second Trump era. Despite being relatively unknown a year ago, Platner leaned on his populist, political outsider appeal to secure nearly 72% of the Democratic primary vote last month against Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign after struggling to gain traction but kept her name on the ballot.

But Platner’s controversies, including a tattoo with Nazi symbolism that he had covered, present a big question mark in this race. Democratic anxiety about his candidacy lingers due to his scandal-laden past and questions about whether additional revelations might come to light before November.

Republicans plan to put Platner’s controversies front and center in their messaging, and they’ll have a lot of cash to do so. SLF has announced a $42 million investment in the state while Collins’ campaign and a super PAC supporting her, Pine Tree Results, have millions more in their arsenal.

Meanwhile, Platner entered May with about $2.7 million cash on hand as he dealt with his Democratic primary fight, and SMP has said they’re allotting more than $33 million to the general election fight. This week, Platner leaned into anti-corruption messaging.

Ultimately, this is a race that could boil down to how women voters are feeling about the candidates in November. Female voters made up 59% of the electorate in the 2020 Senate race and split 49% to 46% in favor of Collins, who outperformed Trump with the group, according to CNN exit polling. Platner held a 52% to 44% edge among women in the Times poll.

Democrats are trying to chip away at Collins’ standing with female voters, including on the issue of abortion rights. Planned Parenthood Action Fund recently endorsed Platner over Collins, one of the few Republican senators to support abortion rights. His campaign has also run ads highlighting her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of three justices nominated by Trump who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Michigan is one of just two states on this list where the general election matchup hasn’t been set as Democrats remain locked in a bruising primary to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.

The uncertainty around that Democratic primary in August puts this toss-up state high up on the list. The three-way contest to take on the GOP’s expected nominee, former US Rep. Mike Rogers, reflects some of the broader fault lines within the Democratic Party, testing the clout of the progressive movement in a battleground state after wins in more solidly Democratic areas such as New York City.

Abdul El-Sayed, a former health official in the state, is running as an unabashed progressive who has the blessing of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Rep. Haley Stevens is a centrist with the backing of many establishment Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he believes she has the best chance to win. Mallory McMorrow, a liberal state senator, is running somewhere between the two with an endorsement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Most recently, Sen. Chris Van Hollen threw his support behind El-Sayed, who has said he believes the Maryland Democrat should be the party’s next Senate leader.

Outside groups have started to mobilize in the contest. The United Auto Workers union, an influential organizing force in the state, is siding with El-Sayed. United Democracy Project, a super PAC associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is running TV ads to boost Stevens, a supporter of Israel, in a state where the war between Israel and Gaza proved problematic for Democrats in 2024.

For now, Republicans are relishing the drawn-out and divisive Democratic battle. They argue it gives Democrats little time to unite around a candidate post-primary and provides Rogers with a longer stretch to build a stronger infrastructure than his 2024 run for Senate when he lost to then-Rep. Elissa Slotkin.

Meanwhile, Democrats view Rogers as a flawed candidate whom they have proven they can beat even with Trump on the ballot to turn out GOP voters. Further, they believe trends of Democratic success in off-year elections coupled with negative views of the president’s job performance will work in their favor.

Ohio has shifted to the right during the Trump era but Democrats could have an opening to reclaim a Senate seat in the state in November.

After losing his reelection bid in 2024, Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown is back for another round, challenging GOP Sen. Jon Husted, who is running for a full term in the Senate after being appointed to the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance last year.

Recent polling in the state has been mixed. A New York Times/Siena Poll released this week found no clear leader in the race with Husted at 50% and Brown at 47% among likely Ohio voters. A Fox News poll released in early June showed Brown leading by a wider margin among registered voters. Both polls signaled voter frustration with the president. In the Times survey, Trump’s overall disapproval rating stands at 54%, while 57% of Ohio voters in the Fox poll had an unfavorable view of the president.

Republicans are planning to run a similar playbook against Brown as the 2024 contest when GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno defeated the Ohio Democrat by less than 4 points, much closer than Trump’s 11-point margin of victory. Democrats believe Brown’s long embrace of economic populism is right for the moment when anxiety over cost of living is a top concern for voters.

Brown has proven to be a strong fundraiser early in the contest, ending the first quarter with a war chest of $17 million. Husted, a former Ohio lieutenant governor, ended that same period with roughly half that amount – $8.2 million – in his campaign coffers.

Ohio could turn into one of the country’s most expensive Senate contests with competitive races for governor and a handful of US House seats also potentially in play. SLF is devoting the highest amount of spending to the state – $79 million – while SMP has pledged more than $46 million.

The recruitment of Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola, who lost her 2024 reelection bid after winning Alaska’s at-large House seat twice, led party leaders to label Alaska as a key piece of their path back to the majority. On the GOP side, party strategists feel confident GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan will prevail in a state that voted for Trump by 13 points in 2024.

A New York Times/Siena poll released this week showed a close contest with no clear leader as Sullivan received support from 47% of likely Alaska voters compared to 45% for Peltola.

On the money front, Peltola has been a strong fundraiser, bringing in $8.6 million in her first two-and-a-half months in the race. She ended that period with $5.7 million cash on hand while Sullivan had more than $7 million in the bank. SLF has promised a $15 million investment while SMP is putting more than $10 million in the race.

There are some potential wildcards that could be factors in the race come November. One is the state’s use of ranked-choice voting, which will determine the winner between the four candidates who advance from the open primary in August. There is also the possibility Alaska voters will have two Dan Sullivans to choose from on the ballot, after a candidate with the same name as the GOP incumbent filed to run as a Republican – sparking a dispute that ended up in the courts.

Like Ohio, Iowa is another state that has seen a rightward shift in recent years. Republicans have control of Iowa’s entire congressional delegation, the governor’s seat and the two chambers in the state Legislature.

GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson, a former news anchor, remains an early favorite in a state where Trump won by 13 points. Democrats are hoping state Rep. Josh Turek, a former Paralympian and self-described “prairie populist,” could make inroads in the agriculture-reliant state grappling with the impacts of Trump’s tariffs and the economic fallout from the war in Iran.

A New York Times/Siena poll released this week showed no clear leader in the competitive contest with Hinson at 48% support among Iowa likely voters and Turek at 46%, while another by Fox News gave the Democrat a slight 4-point edge. The Times survey found 54% of the state’s likely voters disapproved of the president’s job performance with clear majorities also disapproving of his handling of the economy, cost of living issues and the Iran war.

Hinson has been a strong fundraiser, ending the first quarter of the year with $6.5 million in the bank. Turek has some ground to make up after his primary fight against progressive state Sen. Zach Wahls. But both parties are expected to spend significant sums in the race. SLF has reserved $29 million for the general election fight while SMP plans to spend more than $13 million.

In addition to the Senate contest, Iowa is home to competitive races for governor and at least two US House seats. Rob Sand, Iowa’s state auditor and lone Democrat holding statewide office, is seen as a strong gubernatorial nominee who could help boost Turek and other down-ballot Democrats come November.

Though Trump won Iowa three times, it wasn’t long ago that the Hawkeye State was a true battleground state that former President Barack Obama carried twice, a dynamic offering Democrats some hope they can revive their political fortunes in the state.

The fact that Georgia lands at seventh on our list speaks to the political strength of Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who at this point appears to have the edge against GOP Rep. Mike Collins in a race Republicans have eyed as a prime pickup opportunity.

The only Democratic senator running in a state Trump won in 2024, Ossoff has benefitted from a drawn-out GOP primary to stockpile resources and fine-tune his messaging on the campaign trail. The 39-year-old first-term senator has generated viral moments by rolling out fiery lines calling out what he sees as corruption by Trump and his allies.

As the general election campaign gets underway, Ossoff holds a 13-point advantage against Collins in a Fox News poll of Georgia registered voters. The Democratic incumbent’s favorable rating sits at 58% compared to 44% for Collins and 42% for Trump.

The first-term senator also has a sizable advantage over Collins in the money race, sitting on more than $32 million according to his last fundraising report. Even Collins has acknowledged Ossoff’s fundraising strength will make for a “challenging” race. SMP is also planning to spend $20 million to support Ossoff’s reelection bid this fall.

Collins ended May with less than $1.2 million in the bank, but national Republican strategists say plenty of money will pour into this race to boost the GOP nominee. SLF has committed $44 million to the race, and last year, the group and the National Republican Senatorial Committee established a joint fundraising operation for the eventual GOP nominee, raising $1 million for Collins right out of the gate.

The GOP congressman is running as a staunch ally of the president, securing Trump’s endorsement in the final days of the runoff. Republicans campaigning against him in the primary argued Collins had too much political baggage to be an effective candidate against Ossoff in November.

Right out of the gate, Democrats went on the attack. Ossoff fired off a blistering statement against Collins, calling him “a notorious bigot, antisemite and extremist.” The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a digital ad calling Collins a “puppet on Trump’s strings.”

After his runoff win, Collins insisted Republicans will unite around a shared mission to “put a Republican in that seat and get rid of that Jon Ossoff in November.” To succeed against Ossoff, Collins will need to broaden his appeal beyond the MAGA base. His campaign rolled out a digital spot pointing out he spearheaded laws signed by Trump and former President Joe Biden while painting Ossoff as too “liberal.”

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s decision to retire after her decadeslong political career in New Hampshire has put this seat in play – but Democrats still retain an advantage given the state’s partisan lean. Since New Hampshire is known for its independent streak, this is one to watch as the race progresses.

Democrats feel confident about their likely nominee, US Rep. Chris Pappas, who has won tough races in the past. Harris carried the state by nearly 3 points in 2024 but that was down from Biden’s 7-point advantage four years earlier.

Ahead of the September primary, a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll showed Pappas has support from a majority of likely Democratic primary voters – 53% – compared to 29% for progressive rival Karishma Manzur.

Republicans see an opening with former GOP Sen. John E. Sununu, whose family has deep roots in the state. Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown also remains in the primary fight, but Sununu, who is backed by Trump, is the clear favorite to win the GOP contest. The two men clashed over the Trump endorsement in their first debate last month.

The same University of New Hampshire survey found a competitive general election contest with Pappas receiving 47% of likely voters compared to 44% for Sununu. Pappas holds a lead of 14 points over Brown in a hypothetical general election matchup.

One challenge Republicans will face in flipping the seat is Trump’s diminished standing in the Granite State. The University of New Hampshire poll found 62% of New Hampshire residents disapprove of the president’s job performance.

Pappas ended the first quarter with $4.2 million cash on hand while Sununu had about $1.9 million in the bank. SLF has committed $17 million in spending while SMP is devoting $10 million to defend the state.

There is no question Texas will dominate a lot of the national conversation heading into November, but Democrats’ ability to flip the state where Trump won by 14 points remains an uphill climb.

While polls have shown a potentially competitive contest between Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico – including a New York Times/Siena poll that found them deadlocked at 47% a piece – outside groups have yet to announce investments in the race. Such moves could signal the parties see the race as truly in play – but Texas is an expensive commitment – especially for Democrats, who have more favorable targets higher up this list.

Like Maine, Texas is a race with a higher degree of volatility that could see its place in the rankings shift as the campaign plays out in the coming months.

Paxton’s long history of scandals will be fodder for Democrats, but he’s survived controversies in past campaigns and remains a favorite of the MAGA base, which helped him defeat incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a May runoff. Paxton could also benefit from being on the ballot with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has a strong political network in the state and is seeking a fourth term.

Talarico’s fundraising prowess and his message aimed at appealing to voters across the political spectrum are giving Democrats fresh optimism they could put the red state in play in November. Republicans have sought to define the state lawmaker early, seizing on past comments about cultural issues that even Talarico has acknowledged were “cringey” and “missed the mark.”

Money is one area where Democrats hold an early advantage. Paxton struggled with fundraising during the primary, so he’s expected to need considerable help from national Republicans. One group to watch is MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC, and whether it deploys any of its $380 million stockpile to help Paxton. For his part, Talarico raised $27 million in the first quarter of the year and brought in another $3 million in the 24 hours after Paxton became the nominee last month.

In addition to the nine states above, here are three other Senate races to keep an eye on:

Minnesota: Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are battling it out in Minnesota’s Democratic primary, which will be held on August 11. Flanagan won the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsement after Craig said she would not seek it.

Montana: If not for the three-way general election fight on deck, Montana might have earned a spot on the list. With Democratic nominee Alani Bankhead and independent Seth Bodnar likely splitting the non-Republican vote in a red state, it makes GOP nominee Kurt Alme the clear favorite. Alme was endorsed by Sen. Steve Daines, who announced his retirement just before the filing deadline.

Nebraska:Independent candidate Dan Osborn is waging his second straight Senate run, this time challenging Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts after losing to Sen. Deb Fischer, the state’s other GOP senator, by less than 7 points in 2024. Osborn has the backing of Nebraska Democrats but there is still technically a Democratic nominee in the contest. Cindy Burbank won the party’s primary in May but has said she plans to drop out and back Osborn.

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