Oct. 14, 2022: Why Trump is the main character of 2022
For a minute there, Donald Trump wasn\u2019t the dominant political story. In between peak coverage in August of the FBI\u2019s search of his Mar-a-Lago home and Thursday\u2019s public vote by the Jan. 6 committee to subpoena the former president, there were long stretches when Trump wasn\u2019t the main character of the midterms.\nIn some ways he still isn\u2019t. As NYT\u2019s Blake Hounshell and Alyce McFadden point out, Jan. 6 \u201cis practically invisible on the nation\u2019s airwaves, despite nearly a billion dollars in overall ad spending this year.\u201d POLITICO\u2019s Jordain Carney, Sarah Ferris, and Ally Mutnick note that \u201cDemocrats have aired just two dozen spots focused on threats to democracy this cycle, in roughly 16 different battleground districts.\u201d\xa0\nBut even if he didn\u2019t appear in a single ad \u2014 and there are plenty that include him \u2014 \xa0Trump still looms over everything in politics.\nSubscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter\nRaghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.