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Democrats suffer in statehouse races, too

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In February Democrats in Wisconsin celebrated when Tony Evers, the Democratic governor, signed into law new maps for the state legislature and Senate. The maps were the result of Democrat-aligned judges becoming the majority on the state Supreme Court, and the signing undid 13 years in which Republicans won lopsided majorities on thin vote margins. It constituted a “sea change”, said Ben Wikler, the state’s Democratic Party chairman, and on November 5th voters would have a real chance to throw out their Republican legislative leaders for the first time.

They didn’t. With several seats still undetermined, Republicans controlled 52 of the 99 seats in the state legislature—a big drop from their previous 64, but still a solid majority. They lost their supermajority in the state Senate, but retained control. Wisconsin reflected dashed hopes for Democrats down-ballot across America. Whereas in 2022 four state legislatures flipped to Democratic control, this time Republicans clawed some back. Overall, the result was a slight increase in divided government.

In Michigan Democrats lost their narrow trifecta, and that seemed likely in Minnesota as well, where two races are heading for recounts. In Pennsylvania, where the governor is a Democrat and his party controlled the House but not the Senate, they were on track to lose it. In New Hampshire, in one of the few competitive governor’s races, Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, beat her Democratic opponent comfortably, which means the party should retain its trifecta. Democrats also seemed unlikely to make good on hopes of taking the Arizona House of Representatives for the first time since the 1960s.

The news for Democrats was not universally bleak. They won the governorship of North Carolina, where Josh Stein defeated Mark Robinson, who was revealed to have described himself as a “black Nazi”. They also won the offices of the lieutenant-governor, attorney-general and superintendent of public schools and broke the Republican Party’s supermajority there, meaning that the state’s Republicans will have to negotiate with Mr Stein if they want to get legislation passed over his veto. Democrats also held onto their supermajorities in the state legislatures in New York and Illinois, despite the surges for Donald Trump in the presidential races there. Republicans did not add any states to the 22 they already completely control.

What does it mean? State governments are powerful. In Minnesota and Michigan, for example, taking control of governments in 2022 allowed the Democratic governors to pass swathes of legislation—legalising cannabis, introducing free school meals, expanding abortion rights, tightening gun-control laws and giving more power to trade unions. Had Democrats held or increased the number they controlled, they might have been able to mitigate some of Mr Trump’s national policies. Instead, the governors of those two states, Gretchen Whitmer and the losing vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz, will probably finish their terms with fewer bills to sign.

Elsewhere, expanded Republican majorities may lead to more aggressive legislating. In Texas Greg Abbott, the governor, said he now has “more than enough votes” to pass a school-voucher programme, which he has tried and failed to get through the legislature, stymied by rural Republican holdouts. But Democratic strategists in several Republican-dominated states say the losses could have been far worse: with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, some expected a “tidal wave” of new supermajorities. Chaz Nuttycombe, the president of State Navigate, which crunches data on state races, reckons that this year there may well have been more ticket-splitting, where voters chose Mr Trump and their local Democrat, than in 2020.

Polling from Pew published in May showed that voters consider the inability of Republicans and Democrats to work together to be the second-worst problem facing America, behind only inflation (which is now easing). In recent decades divided government had in fact been receding. The bounceback is modest, but division is going to be more entrenched.

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Economics

How Donald Trump could win the future

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The Democrats’ appeal to Silicon Valley is eroding

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Economics

Trump and Fed Chair Powell could be set on a collision course over rates

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Jerome Powell and President Donald Trump during a nomination announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell could be on a policy collision course in 2025 depending on how economic circumstances play out.

Should the economy run hot and inflation flare up again, Powell and his colleagues could decide to tap the brakes on their efforts to lower interest rates. That in turn could infuriate Trump, who lashed Fed officials including Powell during his first term in office for not relaxing monetary policy quickly enough.

“Without question,” said Joseph LaVorgna, former chief economist at the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, when asked about the potential for a conflict. “When they don’t know what to do, oftentimes they don’t do anything. That may be a problem. If the president feels like rates should be lowered, does the Fed, just for public optics, dig its feet in?”

Though Powell became Fed chair in 2018, after Trump nominated him for the position, the two clashed often about the direction of interest rates.

Trump publicly and aggressively berated the chair, who in turn responded by asserting how important it is for the Fed to be independent and apart from political pressures, even if they’re coming from the president.

When Trump takes office in January, the two will be operating against a different backdrop. During the first term, there was little inflation, meaning that even Fed rate hikes kept benchmark rates well below where they are now.

Trump is planning both expansionary and protectionist fiscal policy, even more so than during his previous run, that will include an even tougher round of tariffs, lower taxes and big spending. Should the results start to show up in the data, the Powell Fed may be tempted to hold tougher on monetary policy against inflation.

LaVorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, who is rumored for a position in the new administration, thinks that would be mistake.

“They’re going to look at a very nontraditional approach to policy that Trump is bringing forward but put it through a very traditional economic lens,” he said. “The Fed’s going to have a really difficult choice based on their traditional approach of what to do.”

Market sees fewer rate cuts

Futures traders have been waffling in recent days on their expectations for what the Fed will do next.

The market is pricing in about a coin-flip chance of another interest rate cut in December, after it being a near-certainty a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch. Pricing further out indicates the equivalent of three quarter-percentage-point reductions through the end of 2025, which also has come down significantly from prior expectations.

Investors’ nerves have gotten jangled in recent days about the Fed’s intentions. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman on Wednesday noted that progress on inflation has “stalled,” an indication that she might continue to push for a slower pace of rate cuts.

“All roads lead to tensions between the White House and the Fed,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM. “It won’t just be the White House. It will be Treasury, it’ll be Commerce and the Fed all intersecting.”

Indeed, Trump is building a team of loyalists to implement his economic agenda, but much of the success depends on accommodative or at least accurate monetary policy that doesn’t push too hard to either boost or restrict growth. For the Fed, that is represented in the quest to find the “neutral” rate of interest, but for the new administration, it could mean something different.

The struggle over where rates should be will create “political and policy tensions between the Federal Reserve and the White House that would clearly prefer lower rates,” Brusuelas said.

“If one is going to impose tariffs, or mass deportations, you’re talking about restricting aggregate supply while simultaneously implementing deficit finance tax cuts, which is encouraging an increase in aggregate demand. You’ve got a basic inconsistency in your policy matrix,” he added. “There’s an inevitable crossroads that results in tensions between Trump and Powell.”

Avoiding conflict

To be sure, there are some factors that could mitigate the tensions.

One is that Powell’s term as Fed chair expires in early 2026, so Trump may simply choose to ride it out until he can put someone in the chair more to his liking. There’s also little chance that the Fed would actually move to raise rates outside of some highly unexpected event that would push inflation much higher.

Also, Trump’s policies will take a while to make their way through the system, so any impacts on inflation and macroeconomic growth likely won’t be readily apparent in the data, thus not necessitating a Fed response. There’s also the chance that the impacts might not be that much either way.

“I expect higher inflation and slower growth. I think the tariffs and the deportations are negative supply shocks. They hurt growth and they lift inflation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The Fed will still cut interest rates next year, just perhaps not as quickly as would have otherwise been the case.”

Battles with Trump, then, could be more of a headache for the next Fed chair, assuming Trump doesn’t reappoint Powell.

“So I don’t think it’s going to be an issue in 2025,” Zandi said. “It could be an issue in 2026, because at that point, the rate cutting’s over and the Fed may be in a position where it certainly needs to start raising interest rates. Then that’s when it becomes an issue.”

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Congestion pricing in New York gets the go-ahead after all. Maybe

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NOVEMBER 20th marks the first “Gridlock Alert” day of New York City’s holiday season. This is the official designation for the city’s busiest traffic days of the year. But traffic is bad most days, with more than 900,000 cars entering Manhattan’s central business district. INRIX, a traffic-data firm, found that New York City leads the world in urban traffic congestion among the cities scored, with the average driver stationary for 101 hours a year. After years of false starts, including a cowardly pre-election pause by Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democratic governor, congestion pricing has the green light.

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