The GOP’s Missed Wins This Week

Republicans missed a huge opportunity.

Worth Remembering‼️: This is the anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s assassination

• 📰Read Erika Kirk’s New York Times op-ed

  • “Erika Kirk: What I’ve Learned About Grief”

• Watch 📱: Mark Halperin explains Charlie’s legacy

  • “Charlie Kirk: A Special Friend & Generational Inspiration”

    ---

ALERT🚨: Your complimentary 90-day trial of paid subscriber benefits for War Notes expired yesterday!!!!!

• What this means‼️: You will lose access to my daily First Dispatch videos, “Things I Tell My Friends” weekend note and being able to share your thoughts on my post.

  • The War Notes newsletter will always be free!

• What to do☑️: Make sure you upgrade so you don’t miss out on anything

  • Here’s what our readers have to say:

    • Dan: “Love the Fair and Balanced reporting. Great information to follow up on.”

    • Scott: “You are frank and don’t appear to take sides. Keep up the good work.”

    • Michelle: “Thank you, Leland, for getting me the whole story, and the facts.”

      ---

Programming alert🚨: Tonight we have a special 2-hour On Balance show for you.

• 👀This should be the launch of Vice President JD Vance’s 2028 campaign/coronation

• 📺Vice President JD Vance and President Trump speak at 9 p.m ET, closing out the Republican Midterm Convention

  • Vance — not Trump will be the most interesting thing tonight!

    • Clearly, Politico Playbook has “sources” that want it to be true

    • Because that isn’t enough, The New York Times is out with a story that Vance is doing his own research on the Iran war

      • “Behind the Scenes, Vance Gathered Unvarnished Views of the Iran War”

  • Yet last night — die-hard Trump advocate Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio says “there is a big field” for 2029

• 📺We will have post-speech coverage with key guests breaking it all down, including:

  • Yemisi Egbewole, former Biden White House press office chief of staff

  • Charlie Dent, former Republican Pennsylvania congressman

  • Reagan Reese, the Daily Caller’s White House correspondent

    ---

Political Malpractice‼️

🤦Republicans took a week when they could have forced Democrats into uncomfortable conversations and instead forced uncomfortable conversations about themselves.

We learned a lot of interesting things while we were in Dallas this week.

• 😬None of them were good for Republicans.

  • Lesson learned❗: Two years ago tonight, Harris and Trump debated — polling showed Harris winning the debate and up in the swing states plus nationally.

    • She lost.

    • https://yougov.com/en-us/daily-results/20240911-c7861-2

    • Anybody who tells you what’s going to happen

Timing🕜: Republicans had a huge opportunity to have such a big win this week and talk about things Americans care about:

• ‼️The radicalism coming from Democrats

  • Both in the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the radical rhetoric that continues to come from the Left, along with 9/11 and many Democrats embracing radical Islam.

    • 🤦And yet they somehow missed all this.

      • Laura Loomer reports the RNC banned all references to radical Islam

        

        Laura Loomer@LauraLoomer

        NEW: Turns out, every single speaker at the RNC had to have their speeches screened and reviewed ahead of time. This is what I was told by multiple speakers and a few members of Congress as well. So I am 100% correct in saying the GOP censored all conversation about Islam and…

        

        Laura Loomer @LauraLoomer

        It seems like a memo was sent out ahead of the RNC midterm convention to prevent the GOP from talking about Islamic jihad. The messaging is very weak. It’s very weird how not a single speaker broached this subject as Texas is being Islamified before our eyes. Very bizarre.

        4:21 PM · Sep 10, 2026 · 288K Views

        ---

        630 Replies · 2.08K Reposts · 7.42K Likes

        • Trump instead made it all about himself, like he wanted to.

🤦This convention just put even more focus on Republicans rather than Democrats

• Out of control‼️: Republicans know who they’re against, the Democrats — but can’t figure out where they’re going or how to get there.

  • In response to the quote yesterday, “we suck less is not a winning theme,” a Republican sent me this poll

    

    OSZ@OpenSourceZone

    Democratic Party Approval Rating Among Men 🟢 Approve: 16% (-60) 🔴 Disapprove: 76% Quinnipiac poll | September 3-6

    

    6:04 PM · Sep 10, 2026 · 30.5K Views

    ---

    44 Replies · 195 Reposts · 1.11K Likes

• Proof✅: President Trump offered $5,000 to every adult if Republicans win in November last night.

  • You could call it a bribe. Some may call it desperation. Others may call it a hopeful policy. Erick Erickson titled his podcast episode about it “Unicorn Farts”

  • Reality🤷: It’s not going to happen

    • Just like the $2,000 tariff dividends he promised last year

    • Or the DOGE dividends we never got

🚨Democrats and their radicalism is something that shouldn’t be ignored.

• Middle America isn’t in the Looney Tunes Land that many Democrats are in.

• I spoke with Texas Democratic Senate Candidate James Talarico yesterday

• What I’m thinking💭: Talarico tries to sound reasonable on controversial issues — giving him wiggle room to satisfy both the far-left side of the party and the moderates.

  • But Americans see through this, and that is going to be a problem for Democrats.