National
The second Cabinet of President-elect Donald Trump (R-FL) continues to come together, as more high-profile names make it to the list, with the vast majority requiring Senate confirmations after Trump is inaugurated at the forty-seventh president on January 20.
In perhaps the most-awaited Cabinet pick, Trump has emerged with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (pictured below), as his Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). RFK initially ran as a Democrat seeking to primary President Biden (D-DE), before suspending his campaign last autumn to instead run as an Independent. RFK climbed a historically tall “glass mountain,” in the words of his daughter-in-law and campaign manager, in obtaining ballot access in all fifty states. He suspended his campaign this summer to officially endorse and join forces with Trump in the closest the U.S. has come to a legitimate fusion ticket in over a century.
Trump hasn’t shied away from the fact that he and Kennedy disagree on the environment, but Trump has explicitly stated his faith in Kennedy on health matters.
Trump has also tapped Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, of New York, as his Secretary of Commerce. Lutnick hosted an early October fundraiser for Trump at his Bridgehampton home and even spoke at the wild-card event at Madison Square Garden just before the election.
Former Congressman Sean Duffy (R, WI-07) has been selected as Trump’s Transportation Secretary. Duffy served in the U.S. House from 2011 to 2019, as Ashland County District Attorney from 2002 to 2010, and is a former prosecutor and sports commentator.
Trump is also hoping to bring back another congressional colleague, former Congressman Doug Collins (R, GA-09) as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Collins has served in the U.S. Navy and the Air Force Reserves, earning the rank of colonel while still an active service member.
Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright, of Colorado, is Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Energy, while Governor Doug Burgum (R-ND) is his pick for Secretary of the Interior. Burgum was twice elected Governor of North Dakota before running a long-shot bid for the presidency earlier this year.
Trump has also tapped another celebrity to bring into his Cabinet, Dr. Mehmet Oz (R-PA). Oz unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, losing to John Fetterman (D) by five points, allowing Democrats to hold both of the Keystone State’s Senate seats simultaneously for the first time since 1947.
Oz, the first Muslim candidate to be nominated by either party for a U.S. Senate seat, has been nominated by Trump to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, two federal health insurance programs covering about a third of the population.
Finally, Trump has nominated Linda McMahon (R-CT) to lead his Department of Education. McMahon is a former wrestling executive and the wife of former CEO of WWE and long-time friend of Trump, Vince McMahon. Ms. McMahon has also run two unsuccessful campaigns for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, losing in both 2010 and 2012.
McMahon had served as Trump’s Small Business Administrator during most of his first term.
All of these positions, and those we discussed last week, require confirmations by the U.S. Senate, except Susie Wiles’ position of White House Chief of Staff. Positions that require Senate confirmations where President-elect Trump has not put forth a nominee, as of press time, include Agriculture, Labor, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Management and Budget, Trade Representative, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA), and Science Advisor to the President.
While Republicans are projected to have won control of the U.S. House of Representatives, two races remain uncalled as press time, both in California and both featuring Republican incumbents.
In the Orange County-Los Angeles-based CA-45, two-term Congresswoman Michelle Steel (R) is narrowly trailing challenger Derek Tran (D) by just 102 votes out of over 300,000 ballots cast. CA-45 is part of ancestrally-Republican Southern California that, along with three other SoCal-based seats, flipped blue in 2018. Steel clawed the seat back in 2020 and posted a five-point win in 2022, despite Biden carrying the seat by eleven points in 2020.
Initially, Steel looked to be more equipped to win a third term, as the Democratic primary got off to a rocky start. Even if Derek Tran narrowly loses this race as the last few votes are tabulated, he came remarkably close for a campaign with a short runway.
The Messenger forecasted that this is a seat Republicans would be able to hold. That result is still uncalled as of press time, but it seems that Tran will oust Steel, equating to no net gain for either party in the lower chamber.
The other California seat that remains uncalled in CA-13, which includes the hotly-competitive center of the Central Valley. The district includes Merced County and parts of Stanislaus (Modesto), Fresno, and San Joaquin (Stockton) counties. Trump is also the first Republican to win these counties since George W. Bush (R-TX) in 2004.
CA-13 was immediately expected to be a highly contentious district, as a slightly Democratic-leaning seat with no incumbent in 2022. Even as Biden won the area by almost twelve points in 2020, John Duarte (R) narrowly flipped the seat by just 0.4%, or about 500 votes out of 120,000 cast.
Duarte and 2022 challenger Adam Gray (D) were the only two candidates to appear on the top-two primary ballot, a system used in California whose results often are used to forecast electoral headwinds in the ensuing general election. Durate had won the primary by about ten points over Gray, leading some, including us, to believe Duarte was in a better position than expected.
He is currently on track to double his 2022 margin, still within just one percentage point, but 9% of the votes remain uncounted. It’s highly possible that Democrats flip this seat for a net gain of just one seat this cycle, but it remains just as likely that Duarte holds on.
A concrete call has been made, however, in Alaska’s at-large district, where Nick Begich III (R) has unseated one-term Congresswoman Mary Peltola (D). Peltola won in a summer 2022 special election to vacate the seat held by Don Young (R), at the time the longest-serving House member, who had suddenly passed earlier that year. Peltola benefitted from the ranked-choice voting system Alaska had adopted, which, if no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top four vote-receivers head a runoff, where the lowest-performing candidates see their votes redistributed to the voters’ second choice. The process continues until a candidate clinches a majority of the vote.
Peltola benefitted from vote-splitting between Begich and former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK). She was able to win in a similar rematch in 2022.
While Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) has called the race, and while Begich has declared victory, some in the Last Frontier are awaiting the state’s certification of the results. The state is also likely headed to a recount over their “Ballot Measure 2” proposal, which, if enacted, would repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting systems. The proposal currently leads by just 900 votes out of over 300,000 cast statewide.
Democrats have, however, held a vulnerable seat, also in Orange County, California. The Huntington Beach-based district was once the stomping grounds of Dana Rohrabacher (R), who lost re-election in 2018 to Katie Porter (D), who quickly became a prominent figure in liberal circles. Porter failed to win the U.S. Senate nomination, leaving this seat open with 2022 challenger Scott Baugh (R) coming back for his own comeback.
Ultimately, Dave Min (D) has held this seat for the Democrats by just under three points. It’s another race we incorrectly called in our forecast, but was certainly in our “Upset Alert” category.
As of now, Republicans have 220 seats with a net gain of one, while Democrats have 213 seats with a net loss of one. Two seats remained uncalled.
State
In an eye-opening move, but one that has not been deemed unexpected by her critics, Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has resurrected the congestion pricing plan, which she unceremoniously and indefinitely shelved at the end of the summer. Many on both sides of the aisle interpreted this as an election-season reversal, as the unpopular plan would have likely hurt the Democratic brand in the 2024 elections. Such a risk could not be afforded, as Democrats came dangerously close to seeing New York dip within single-digits in a presidential race for the first time in forty years.
However, the decision to resurrect the plan has received praise from New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who called Hochul a “leader” and cautioned New Yorkers that the city is safe from President-elect Trump’s plans to “terminate” the tax in his first week back in Washington.
Cars entering below Manhattan below 60th Street will be charged a $9 toll starting next year. The toll will increase to $12 by 2028 and then jump to the originally-slated $15 after 2031.
President-elect Trump and Governor Hochul (pictured above) have reportedly discussed working collaboratively, discussing fixing Penn Station and NYC’s subways.
Adams says that the concordance is welcome compared to Trump’s first term, which was served concurrently with the last few years of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D) tenure.
“We weren’t communicating before. We were warring and not working together,” said Adams. “When I said, ‘Let’s turn down the temperature, and let’s work together for the city of New York,’ all of a sudden we got a different energy.”
Local
The Suffolk County Department of Aging has begun processing applications for the 2024-2025 Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), a NYS program that helps eligible residents heat and cool their homes.
Eligibility and benefit amounts depend on income, household size, primary heating sources, and the presence of a household member who is under age six, age sixty or older, or permanently disabled.
Applicants who received benefits from the 2023-2024 HEAP program would have received an Early Outreach Application at the end of August. New applicants can reach the Department of Aging’s HEAP Hotline at 631-852-8326.
The Riverhead Energy Unit can be contacted at 631-852-3631 for questions, or residents may visit the DSS Service Center at 605 Old Country Road in Riverhead.
Utility emergencies and weekend calls can be directed to DSS at 631-854-9100.
