The Lincoln Project

While Washington burns, there are people out there actually doing the unglamorous work of winning elections — and this week Rick Wilson brings you two of them. 
First up: Josh Turek, running for Senate in Iowa, where tariffs have gutted family farms, rural hospitals keep going dark, and corporate consolidation has squeezed working families until there's nothing left. Turek's pitch is what he calls a "prairie populist" agenda — lower costs, real support for family farms, healthcare people can actually reach, and a hard shove back against the corporate money that's been running the table. It's the kind of message that used to win the Midwest, and might again.
Then Rick heads to Colorado for Manny Rutinel, currently in the state House and gunning for CO-8 — one of the most competitive districts in the entire country and the most Latino district in the state. The incumbent, Gabe Evans, has voted with Trump an estimated 97% of the time, which is less a voting record than a signature stamp. Rutinel's betting that a working-class background and a genuine grassroots operation beat a rubber stamp with a war chest. Two races, two very different maps, one shared question: can Democrats stop talking past the people they need and start winning them back? These are the fights that decide whether the next Congress is a check on the chaos or a co-signer.
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Josh Turek is a candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa: https://turek4iowa.com
Manny Rutinel is a Colorado State Representative and candidate for Congress in CO-8: https://mannyforcolorado.com
Rick Wilson is @THERICKWILSON on socials and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.
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Two acts, one circus. 
Part one: Trump shuffled out last night, grabbed the podium like it was the only thing keeping him upright, and delivered a low-energy, incoherent rerun of his greatest 2020 grievances. And here's the thing — it doesn't matter what he said or how badly he said it. The speech had exactly one job: to poison the well before the 2026 election, to get millions of Americans primed to distrust the results months before a single vote is cast. It wasn't a rant. It was a pre-game. Rick Wilson breaks down why the incoherence is the point, and why the "rigged" groundwork being laid right now should have every one of us paying attention.
Part two: enter Todd Blanche, stumbling through an AG confirmation hearing that played like an audition for a job he'd already promised to somebody else. He dodged and dissembled on the Epstein files, made a spectacle of himself under basic questioning, and then — in a Freudian slip for the ages — referred to himself as "Trump's lawyer." Which, let's be honest, is the truest thing anyone said all day. Rick digs into what it means when the person up for the nation's top law enforcement job can't stop admitting who he actually works for. Grab a drink. You'll need it.
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Rick Wilson is @TheRickWilson on socials and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.
#Trump #ToddBlanche #Epstein #Election2026 #ElectionIntegrity #RickWilson #LincolnProject #ElephantInTheRoom #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #CurrentEvents #Podcast

Here's a sentence that should stop you cold: a Democratic governor just cut loose one of the most notorious election criminals in the country — because Donald Trump told him to. Tina Peters, the Colorado clerk convicted for helping breach her own county's voting system and handing the guts of it to Mike Lindell's crew, was doing nine years. Then Trump started posting "FREE TINA," and Governor Jared Polis obliged — slashing her sentence and springing her on parole, dressing it up as a "free speech" stand. His own party censured him. All six Colorado Democrats in Congress lit him up. And it still happened.
This week Rick Wilson is joined by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold — the election-integrity watchdog who fought Peters from the start — to break down what this commutation really signals: that the pressure campaign works, that the people who attacked our elections are being rehabilitated in real time, and that it's a dress rehearsal for what's coming this fall. Rick and Jena get into how the machinery of election sabotage actually operates, why the midterms are the next target, and — most importantly — what we can do right now to lock the doors before November. The last election deniers got prosecuted. This time they're getting pardoned. Time to pay attention.
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Jena Griswold is the Colorado Secretary of State. Check out her campaign for Colorado Attorney General at https://jenaforcolorado.com and follow her @JenaGriswold.
Rick Wilson is @TheRickWilson and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.
 More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.
#TinaPeters #JenaGriswold #JaredPolis #ElectionIntegrity #Trump #Colorado #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Midterms #Democracy #Politics #Podcast

Trump flew to Ankara for the NATO summit and turned it into an open-mic disaster. In two days he threatened to bomb Iran again, screamed at Europe for blocking his Greenland obsession, called Spain "a terrible partner," and trashed half the alliance for skipping his war — then spread his arms and declared it all a lovefest of "tremendous love." This week's Elephant in the Room, Rick Wilson breaks down the clown show.
Here's what the spin can't hide: our allies aren't laughing with him — they're backing away. Rick gets into what it actually costs when a president treats the most powerful alliance on earth like his personal roast: the credibility bleeding out, the adversaries taking notes, the friends who've quietly stopped counting on us. Greenland grabs, Iran threats, insulted partners, and a standing ovation he gave himself. It'd be hilarious if it weren't our national security.
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Rick Wilson is @TheRickWilson and Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and @ProjectLincoln.
Go to https://shopify.com/lincolnproject to start your free trial today. 
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Somewhere near you, Big Tech is quietly bolting together a windowless box the size of a stadium — and it's thirsty as hell. The AI gold rush has unleashed a wave of massive data centers that swallow staggering amounts of water and electricity, spike local utility bills, and buckle small-town grids that were never built to feed a machine that never sleeps. The trillion-dollar companies get the profits and the press releases. The town next door gets the drained reservoir, the power crunch, and the bill. If that racket sounds familiar, it should.
This week, Rick Wilson sits down with the one and only Erin Brockovich — the legendary crusader who's spent her whole life dragging corporate giants into the light and making them pay — to break down the fight communities are waking up to across the country. They get into who's really footing the cost of the AI boom, why local families keep getting steamrolled by companies with unlimited lawyers, how ordinary people are actually beating these projects when they organize early and loud, and exactly what to do if a data center shows up on your doorstep. It's a David-and-Goliath story with a very 2026 twist — and Erin's entire career is proof that Goliath bleeds.
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Erin Brockovich is a legendary environmental activist and consumer advocate. Find her work at Brockovichdatacenter.com, thebrockovichreport.com, and follow her at @ErinBrockovich.
Rick Wilson is on X @TheRickWilson and on Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. More from LP at www.lincolnproject.us and on X @ProjectLincoln.
#ErinBrockovich #DataCenters #BigTech #AI #WaterCrisis #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Environment #Grassroots #Politics #Podcast