AxIndex, Edition 10

 

SNAPSHOT

 

Our Top 3:


1) Redistricting Tilts Right as Democrats Pivot to 2028:
Two court rulings reshaped the map in recent weeks: the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved Democratic plan, and the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a Mississippi ruling protecting Black voting strength. Republicans now project gains of up to 15 seats across the South and Midwest, against six potential Democratic gains in California and Utah. House Democrats are responding by targeting New York, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington for 2028 redraws. With control of the House likely to hinge on a handful of seats, even small map shifts could prove decisive.


2) Cassidy Becomes the Highest-Profile Casualty of Trump's Retribution Tour:

Sen. Bill Cassidy finished third in Louisiana's GOP Senate primary with 25 percent, behind Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow (45 percent) and former Trump official John Fleming (28 percent), who advanced to a June 27 runoff. Cassidy spent $21 million defending his seat but could not overcome Trump's targeting over his 2021 impeachment vote. Only Sens. Collins and Murkowski remain among Senate Republicans who voted to convict. Attention now shifts to Tuesday's Kentucky primary, where Rep. Thomas Massie faces a Trump-recruited challenger in the most expensive House primary ever at $32 million. The big question is whether Trump-aligned primary winners carry the same edge in competitive generals.


3) Polling Shows Trump Endorsements Cut Both Ways:

New POLITICO Poll modeling finds Trump's endorsement remains the most powerful force in GOP primaries but a likely liability in battleground generals. His backing made 2024 Trump voters 22 percent more likely to support a candidate, but pushed 2024 Harris voters 55 percent less likely to support a candidate, a net negative overall. Pro-crypto and pro-AI-deregulation endorsements proved similarly toxic to voters of both parties. The findings echo 2018 research showing Trump's nods can drag down GOP nominees in swing seats. As Trump stays active in primaries from Louisiana to Texas, the dynamic could shape how nominees position themselves for November.


 

National Sentiment Tracking

 

Trump's China Trip Yields Few Wins as Approval Hits Second-Term Low

President Trump returned from a two-day visit to Beijing without securing concrete commitments on the Strait of Hormuz, where a 79-day-old conflict with Iran continues to drive up gas prices and squeeze the U.S. economy. A new NYT-Siena poll released Monday found 64 percent of Americans, including 73 percent of independents, view the Iran war as a mistake, while Trump's overall approval rating fell to 37 percent, a second-term low. With 76 percent rating the economy fair or poor and Speaker Mike Johnson openly expressing concern about Trump's refusal to leverage Xi for relief at the pump, the trip did little to ease the political headwinds confronting the GOP heading into November. Trump's reluctance to engage in traditional horse-trading and his vague characterization of the visit's "deliverables" underscore the difficulty of converting foreign policy into domestic political relief. Read More.

Democrats Open Double-Digit Generic Ballot Lead in NYT-Siena Poll

A new New York Times-Siena survey shows Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot 50 percent to 39 percent, with 11 percent unsure, an 11-point margin and one of the cleanest Democratic advantages of the cycle. The poll surveyed 1,507 registered voters from May 11–15, with 90 percent saying they plan to vote in the midterms.


The advantage comes despite Republicans holding a cash-on-hand edge of $78.2 million to $69.9 million as of February, signaling that the political environment, not financial firepower, is the dominant force. With six months to go, generic ballot leads of this size have historically been a strong indicator of how a president's party will perform in the midterms. Read More.

GOP Loses Its Traditional Economic Advantage as Affordability Anger Mounts

A new CNN/SSRS poll finds 77 percent of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say Trump's policies have increased the cost of living, while his approval on the economy has fallen to 30 percent, a career low. Democrats now lead on trust to handle the cost of living by 9 points and hold double-digit advantages on income inequality, healthcare costs, and helping the middle class, reversing the GOP's 15-point edge on economic issues in 2022.

With 55 percent of Americans naming the economy as the country's most important issue and Democrats leading 45-42 on the generic ballot, the data signals a structural realignment of which party voters trust on pocketbook concerns. The shift is particularly significant given that Republicans built much of their post-Biden coalition on inflation frustration. Read More.

HOUSE HIGHLIGHTS

Polling At A Glance

House
RCP Average Generic Ballot: 48.8 Dem - 41.6 GOP (D +7.2)
On this day in:
2022: 45.4 GOP - 43.2 Dem (R+2.2)
2018: 45.0 Dem - 40.3 GOP (D+4.7)


Recent Polls
Quantus (KY-04 GOP Primary): Gallrein 53, Massie (i) 45
Big Data Poll (KY-04 GOP Primary): Massie (i) 50, Gallrein 50
SoCal Strategies (KY-04 GOP Primary): Gallrein 49, Massie (i) 42



Cook Ratings
Recent changes:
MO-05 (Cleaver): Solid Dem -> Solid GOP


Retirements

For context, during the first Trump term, there were 52 retirements from the House. 

Massie Faces Trump's Wrath in Most Expensive House Primary in History

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie faces voters Tuesday in a primary that has drawn more than $32 million in ad spending, the most ever in a House primary, according to AdImpact. Trump personally recruited challenger Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, after Massie voted against the Big Beautiful Bill, sponsored a war powers resolution against the Iran strikes, and joined the bipartisan push to release the Epstein files. Trump-aligned and pro-Israel groups have dominated the ad spending against Massie, while the libertarian congressman has retained a small bench of allies, including Sen. Rand Paul and Reps. Boebert, Davidson, and Spartz. The race serves as the next major test of Trump's intraparty retribution campaign after Saturday's Cassidy ouster, with Massie betting on younger voters and a generational divide to survive. Read More.

Philadelphia Primary Becomes Flashpoint as Congressional Black Caucus Faces Existential Threat

The Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Dwight Evans in Pennsylvania's 3rd District, the bluest in the country, has become a proxy fight over the future of Black political representation, with up to one-third of the 63-member Congressional Black Caucus potentially losing seats to red-state gerrymanders.


Three Black candidates are competing: state Rep. Chris Rabb, backed by progressives including AOC, Summer Lee, and Maxwell Frost; state Sen. Sharif Street, backed by Sen. Cory Booker, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, and former Gov. Ed Rendell; and pediatric surgeon Ala Stanford, endorsed by Evans, Reps. Madeleine Dean and Chrissy Houlahan, and an outside STEM-focused super PAC.


The race highlights generational and ideological divides within the CBC, just as Reps. Jim Clyburn and Bennie Thompson face potential losses to GOP redistricting. The outcome will shape both the caucus's direction and the Democratic Party's broader debate over establishment versus progressive leadership. Read More.

Redistricting

Democrats Pivot to 2028 Maps After Virginia and Alabama Setbacks

Following the Virginia Supreme Court's rejection of the Democratic-drawn map and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision allowing Alabama to redraw minority districts, House Democrats are shifting their redistricting focus to 2028, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pushing blue states, including New York, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, to act before the next cycle.


Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is publicly pressuring state Senate President Bill Ferguson, his lone Democratic holdout, to authorize a mid-cycle map that could add a seat. House Majority PAC, which spent $38 million on the failed Virginia effort, is now seeding ballot initiatives in Colorado and preparing for legal fights in GOP-redrawn states. The strategic shift acknowledges that Republicans may dominate the 2026 map war but signals Democrats intend to fight a longer battle for the 2028 cycle. Read More.
Supreme Court Vacates Mississippi Redistricting Ruling, Expanding VRA Rollback

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated a lower court ruling that had found Mississippi lawmakers unlawfully diluted Black voting strength and ordered the case reconsidered in light of the recent Callais decision, which weakened Voting Rights Act protections. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenter, noting the appeal had only raised a narrower question about private parties' standing under the VRA.


The original lower-court ruling had triggered special elections last year that flipped one Mississippi House seat and two Senate seats to Democrats, gains now potentially at risk. The high court's action signals a continuing pattern of vacating VRA-based rulings and gives Mississippi Republicans an opening to reinstate maps that had been struck down. Read More.

South Carolina Eyes 7-0 GOP Map, but Republican Doubts Surface

South Carolina House Republicans began debating a new congressional map Monday that could yield a clean sweep of the state's seven U.S. House seats by targeting Rep. Jim Clyburn's majority-Black district. Some Republicans, including state Rep. Nathan Ballentine, have voiced reservations, citing constituent opposition and concern that a 7-0 map could spread GOP voters too thin in currently safe districts.


House Republicans voted nearly unanimously to limit each member to one amendment and three minutes of debate after more than 600 amendments were filed. Nationally, Republicans believe they could gain as many as 15 seats from new maps across Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama, against six potential Democratic gains in California and Utah. Read More.

SENATE HIGHLIGHTS

Polling At A Glance

Recent Polls


Detroit Chamber/Glengariff (MI General): Rogers (R) 45, El-Sayed (D) 40
Detroit Chamber/Glengariff (MI General): Rogers (R) 43, McMorrow (D) 41
Detroit Chamber/Glengariff (MI General): Rogers (R) 44, Stevens (D) 42
MIRS/Mitchell Research (MI General): Rogers (R) 42, El-Sayed (D) 41
MIRS/Mitchell Research (MI General): Rogers (R) 42, Stevens (D) 39
MIRS/Mitchell Research (MI General): Rogers (R) 43, McMorrow (D) 41
MIRS/Mitchell Research (MI Dem Primary): El-Sayed 28, Stevens 18, McMorrow 17
Carolina Journal/Harper (NC General): Cooper (D) 50, Whatley (R) 39
Remington Research (AL GOP Primary): Moore 23, Hudson 20, Marshall 16, Deas 2, Walker 1
Insider Advantage (SC GOP Primary): Graham (i) 56, Lynch 13, Cowen 3, Mitchell 2, Dismukes 2, Herrmann 1
TSU/YouGov (TX General): Paxton (R) 45, Talarico (D) 45
TSU/YouGov (TX General): Cornyn (R-i) 45, Talarico (D) 44
Carolina Forward/Change Research (NC General): Cooper (D) 49, Whatley (R) 42


Retirements

So far, 11 Senators have announced their retirement from the chamber at the end of the current Congress.


Trump Endorses Paxton in Texas Senate Runoff, Reshaping the Race

President Trump on Tuesday endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn in the May 26 GOP Senate runoff, capping more than a year of jockeying for the president's backing. The endorsement landed a day after early voting began, with the latest University of Houston poll already showing Paxton ahead 48-45 among likely runoff voters. Trump praised Paxton as a "true MAGA Warrior" who "knows how to WIN," while noting Cornyn was "very late in backing" his 2024 campaign. Paxton, who has consistently led with the GOP base and aligned closely with Trump's agenda, including the SAVE America Act, now heads into the final week with the most powerful endorsement in Republican politics.


The move is a significant boost for Paxton, who has cast Cornyn as a creature of the Washington establishment despite the senator's late-cycle efforts to align with Trump, including the reversal of his longstanding defense of the filibuster. Democratic nominee James Talarico, who raised more than $27 million in the first quarter, has polled competitively against both Republicans, but Paxton allies argue his stronger connection to the GOP base will be decisive in a state Trump carried by 14 points. Coming three days after Sen. Bill Cassidy's Louisiana primary loss and on the same day as Rep. Thomas Massie's Kentucky primary, the endorsement underscores Trump's continued sway over Republican primaries heading into November. Read More.



Cassidy Loses Louisiana Primary as Trump's Retribution Campaign Advances

Sen. Bill Cassidy finished third in Louisiana's GOP Senate primary on Saturday, drawing roughly 25 percent of the vote behind Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow (45 percent) and former Trump administration official John Fleming (28 percent), who will advance to a June 27 runoff. Cassidy spent more than $21 million defending his seat but could not overcome Trump's targeting over his vote on the 2021 impeachment, his uneasy alliance with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Louisiana's recent move to closed primaries. The loss leaves Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski as the only remaining 2021 impeachment voters in the Senate and further consolidates the chamber behind the president.

Broader Context: Axios reported earlier this week that Sen. Thom Tillis is privately fuming over the ouster and has warned that pushing this week's reconciliation package could similarly damage Sen. John Cornyn in next week's Texas runoff. Read More.

EMERGING NARRATIVES

AI Industry Targets Manhattan Primary in First Major Test of Political Muscle

State Assemblyman Alex Bores, running in a crowded 12-candidate Democratic primary for Rep. Jerry Nadler's open Manhattan seat, has become the first major target of a new AI super PAC called Leading the Future, which has spent more than $2 million on attack ads against him. Bores authored a New York AI safety bill signed into law by Gov. Hochul last year, drawing the ire of OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz, whose principals anchor Leading the Future's $125 million war chest.

AI companies have collectively pledged about $265 million for super PACs ahead of the midterms, modeled on crypto's $200 million 2024 spending blitz, while Anthropic has seeded $20 million into a counter-group, Public First Action. The race will establish whether AI industry money can take out a regulation-friendly candidate, mirroring the playbook that helped crypto secure favorable federal policy under the Trump administration. Read More.

Polling Suggests Trump's Endorsement Could Hurt Battleground Republicans

A new POLITICO Poll experiment finds that while Trump's endorsement increases support among 2024 Trump voters by 22 percent, it makes 2024 Harris voters 55 percent less likely to support a candidate, yielding a net negative effect across the full electorate. The findings echo prior research showing endorsements often generate stronger backlash than support, particularly when the endorser is divisive.


The polling also found that endorsements from pro-cryptocurrency and pro-deregulation AI groups are toxic to voters of both parties, while Medicare for All and stronger AI regulation produced net positive reactions. The data suggests Trump's primary kingmaking power could become a liability in the general election, and helps explain why outside super PACs, particularly in the crypto and AI industries, typically spend on messaging that obscures their underlying agenda rather than openly endorsing candidates. Read More.

Data Centers Become Political Flashpoint as Opposition Hits 70 Percent

A new Gallup survey finds seven in ten Americans oppose building data centers in their communities, with 56 percent of Democrats expressing strong opposition. Half of opponents cite the drain on water and energy resources, while another 22 percent cite quality-of-life concerns, and one in five raise cost worries.


The numbers underscore why data centers have become a bipartisan target as states from Maine to Maryland weigh moratoriums and restrictions, and why tech companies are scrambling to soften the projects' image. The growing backlash positions data centers as a midterm-cycle wedge issue with crossover appeal in suburban and rural districts alike. Read More.

ON THE HORIZON

Upcoming Elections:


May 19:
Alabama Primary
Georgia Primary
Idaho Primary
Kentucky Primary
Oregon Primary
Pennsylvania Primary


May 26:
Texas Runoff


June 2:
California Primary
CA-01 Special Primary
Iowa Primary
Montana Primary
New Jersey Primary
New Mexico Primary
South Dakota Primary


June 9:
Maine Primary
Nevada Primary
North Dakota Primary
South Carolina Primary


June 16:
CA-14 Special Primary
Oklahoma Primary
Alabama Primary Runoff
Georgia Primary Runoff

The Morning After: Why Post-Election Planning Starts Now

By Sarah Williams • October 15, 2026
The Morning After: Why Post-Election Planning Starts Now With less than three weeks until Election Day, nearly all the attention is on who will win. For organizations with business before government, the better question is what they will do the morning after. November 3 will reset the cast of characters, shift the leverage, and open one of the most compressed legislative windows of the year. The organizations that come out ahead will be the ones that planned for every outcome before the votes were counted. A Five-Week Sprint The current continuing resolution funds the government through December 11, leaving a lame-duck Congress about five weeks to deal with FY27 spending, the NDAA, a possible third reconciliation package, and expiring programs from surface transportation to healthcare. Many of those decisions will be made by members who just won, just lost, or are about to hand over the gavel. And as Bob Salera noted in his recent look at polling error , today's polling leads are provisional, so the smart move is to plan for every scenario, not just the forecast. What to Do Now The next three weeks are the best time an organization will have to prepare. Once results are in, every company, association, and coalition will be chasing the same new offices with the same requests. Get in front of new members early. Identify the candidates in open seats and competitive races who will matter to your issues, and be ready to reach out the day after the election with information about what you mean to their district. Those who show up early become trusted resources. Those who show up in February with an ask become one more meeting request. Know the new decision makers. New offices hire chiefs of staff and legislative directors between November and January, and retirements will open committee chairs no matter who wins. Know who is coming, who is next in line, and where they stand on your issues. Shape the narrative before someone else does. New members form their views quickly, often from what they read and hear at home. Have your story ready for local press, op-ed pages, and the trade outlets new staff will be reading in their first weeks. Bring local voices . Map your footprint in every district and state that matters, from employees and facilities to customers and community partners. A constituent in the room carries more weight than any one-pager. Line up your allies. Coalition partners, local leaders, and third-party validators who can carry your message matter even more with lawmakers who do not know you yet. Lock in your lame-duck asks. If your priority could ride on a funding bill, the NDAA, or an extender package, it needs to be drafted, socialized, and backed by allies before Congress returns. Be ready on day one. Prepare statements for every outcome, a briefing package built for new offices, and digital content ready to deploy the moment results are in. Don't Forget the States Thirty-six governorships and most state legislative chambers are on the ballot. New governors start building transition teams within days, and many legislatures convene in January. Every capital where you do business needs the same plan: relationships with incoming leaders and a message built for them. The Bottom Line Election Day ends the campaign, not the work. The relationships and narratives that will decide your issues in 2027 are taking shape now. At AxAdvocacy, we pair federal and state government relations with integrated public affairs campaigns, so our clients are in the room and in the conversation on day one.

Polling Error Is the Wild Card Heading Into November

By Bob Salera • October 6, 2026
Polling Error Is the Wild Card Heading Into November With four weeks until Election Day, Democrats are enjoying some of the most favorable polling they have seen in years. The question for anyone planning around November's results is a simple one: are the polls right? Recent history says that is far from guaranteed. In each of the last three election cycles, polls have missed in the same direction, and that direction has been toward Democrats. Three cycles, one direction Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin tracks the average statistical bias in polls taken during the final three weeks of each election cycle. The pattern since 2019 is hard to miss: • 2019-2020: polls overstated Democrats by 4.7 points across all offices • 2021-2022: polls overstated Democrats by 0.8 points • 2023-2024: polls overstated Democrats by 2.9 points  Averaged together, that is a 2.8-point miss in Democrats' favor.

State of Play: The Post-Recess Congressional Outlook

By Caleb Franz • September 10, 2026
The Post-Recess Congressional Outlook Congress returned from its five-week August recess and sent a bill to the President to fund the government through December 11, but the major fiscal and policy fights remain unresolved. That makes the CR a ceasefire, not a resolution — the fight over spending and policy is still ahead. The Clock The calendar is shrinking by the week. The House returned August 31, then canceled its remaining two full work weeks in September, leaving a single four-day session (September 14-17) before members leave for the campaign trail. The Senate has a bit more time, scheduled to stay in session through October 2. The September 30 fiscal-year deadline is no longer the immediate deadline because the CR extends funding through December 11. Neither chamber has the runway to finish the remaining major legislative agenda items before Election Day. The likely outcome is that decisions on government funding beyond December 11, the FY27 National Defense Authorization Act, and the fate of a third reconciliation package extend into the lame-duck session - decided by a Congress that may look different than the one sitting today. Appropriations & NDAA Appropriations and NDAA are traditional must-pass priorities. Reconciliation is optional. Appropriations remain the most immediate pressure point, and the December 11 deadline only buys time on the FY27 spending bills. All twelve have cleared the House Appropriations Committee, but only three have passed the full floor, and the Senate hasn't reported a single one out of committee. That disparity reflects the two chambers' unresolved fight over topline defense and non-defense spending levels. Absent a herculean effort by the leadership of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, passing any of the outstanding bills across both chambers by year's end is unlikely, and another stopgap will likely be necessary. After six decades of annual enactment, the odds are in favor of Congress ultimately producing an NDAA. The House passed its version in July by a narrow margin, authorizing roughly $250 billion more in defense spending than FY26 levels. The Senate's version is still pending, stalled since a failed July cloture vote, and even once it passes, a conference committee still has to reconcile the two chambers' different versions before anything reaches the President's desk. NDAA hasn't been signed into law before December in any of the last several cycles; last year's version wasn't signed until December 18, and this year is tracking the same way. With no official Senate passed product, the two chambers will begin informal conference discussions in earnest after the Congress officially breaks for the election season. Reconciliation 3.0 Reconciliation is the one item on this list Congress does not have to touch. Republicans already used the process once this year, passing a second reconciliation bill in June that provided roughly $70 billion in funding for ICE and CBP. A third package, built around Iran war funding, agricultural aid, and provisions tied to Republicans' election-law priorities, cleared the House in July, but the Senate has not advanced it. Majority Leader Thune has said he'd rather hold the framework in reserve as leverage for the funding fight than spend it on a standalone package before the election. Its prospects are likely to depend in significant part on how the funding negotiations develop as well as the election outcome. If one or both Chambers flip, look for Republicans to revisit reconciliation efforts as a last-ditch effort to provide funding to the Administration for key priorities prior to the new Congress. What the Election Changes The election will determine how much leverage each side has during the lame-duck period. With the election on November 3 and the CR expiring December 11, the lame-duck Congress would have roughly five weeks to resolve the next round of government funding. If Republicans retain both chambers, they can continue pursuing their legislative agenda, but the incentive to complete major priorities before the new Congress takes office would still depend on the size of their margins and the remaining legislative calendar. If Democrats win either chamber, the outgoing GOP majority faces greater pressure to resolve outstanding priorities before the new Congress takes office, when the balance of power could shift. That could create a final push to lock in NDAA authorization levels and take another run at reconciliation before new members take office in January. The Bottom Line The next sixty days matter more than the usual pre-election lull suggests. The major open questions: the FY27 spending bills, NDAA authorization levels, and whether Republicans pursue a third reconciliation bill, remain unresolved. Organizations with a stake in any of these three fights have a narrower window than usual to get specific asks attached before that happens, and that window closes well before Congress reconvenes in January.

AxAdvocacy Expands to Ohio with Addition of Former State Representative Jon Cross as Principal

By Bob Salera • September 1, 2026
AxAdvocacy Expands to Ohio with Addition of Former State Representative Jon Cross as Principal Firm’s Columbus practice marks its latest expansion into key state capitals

Public Affairs Has a Performance Problem

By Ashlee Stephenson • August 13, 2026
Public Affairs Has a Performance Problem There is a hard truth our industry doesn't like to admit. Public affairs has become far too comfortable confusing activity with accomplishment. Too many firms celebrate meetings instead of momentum. They count bill introductions instead of policy victories. They send clients long recaps filled with updates everyone could have read themselves and call it strategy. That isn't advocacy. That's administration. Clients aren't hiring us to tell them what happened in Washington yesterday. They're hiring us to change what happens tomorrow. Somewhere along the way, much of our industry accepted that checking the box was enough. Weekly reports became the deliverable. Legislative summaries became the strategy. Calendar invites became evidence of value. Meanwhile, the companies paying the bills are facing the fastest-moving policy environment in decades. Artificial Intelligence Trade Tariffs Tax Policy Energy Workforce Shortages Antitrust China ESG Supply Chains State Activism Election Volatility The stakes have never been higher. Yet many public affairs programs are operating exactly as they did fifteen years ago. That should concern every CEO. Effort Isn't a KPI One of the biggest myths in our profession is that effort equals value. It doesn't. Clients don't care how many meetings you scheduled. They care whether their issue moved. They don't care how many memos you wrote. They care whether the narrative changed. They don't care how busy your team looked. They care whether they are better positioned because of your work. Being busy has become a substitute for being effective. The two are not the same. The Next Generation of Public Affairs The firms that will define the next decade won't be the ones with the biggest lobbying teams. They'll be the ones that integrate policy, communications, research, digital strategy, coalition building, and executive positioning into one coordinated campaign. Public affairs isn't just government relations anymore. It’s: Business Strategy Market Strategy Reputation Management Competitive Advantage The firms still operating in silos will be left behind. Relationships Matter. Initiative Matters More. Relationships remain the currency of influence. But relationships alone are no longer enough. Clients expect: Ideas before they ask for them Opportunities before they appear Intelligence before it becomes news Their advisors to think like business leaders - not order takers The firms creating the most value today aren't waiting for assignments. They are creating opportunities. Raise the Standard This profession deserves better than status updates disguised as strategy. It deserves: Curiosity Creativity Relentless preparation A bias toward action An obsession with producing measurable outcomes Our clients don't need more emails. They don't need another legislative summary. They need partners willing to challenge conventional thinking, anticipate what's next, and fight relentlessly for results. That's the standard. It should be the expectation - not the exception.

AxAdvocacy Launches Full-Service California Government Relations Practice with Addition of Veteran Lobbyist Joe Devine

By Bob Salera • August 3, 2026
Firm significantly expands its presence in the nation's largest state economy, offering clients a fully integrated federal, state, local, and public affairs platform.