Just Politics.

The rest of it separately.

1. More Americans disapprove of their kids marrying across party lines than ever. In 1960, 4% of Democrats and 4% of Republicans said they’d disapprove of their children marrying someone of the opposite party. It’s a different story today: 45% of Democrats don’t want their child to marry a Republican. For Republicans, that number is 35%. (Source: Scott Galloway, youtube.com)

2. San Francisco voters overwhelmingly supported the ouster of three school board members yesterday in the city’s first recall election in nearly 40 years. The landslide decision means board President Gabriela López and members Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga will officially be removed from office and replaced by mayoral appointments 10 days after the election is officially accepted by the Board of Supervisors. The new board members are likely to take office in mid-March. Based on the first set of election results released by the city, the Chronicle has projected that the recall of all three will succeed. Those results showed 79% of voters endorsed recalling Collins, 75% backed removing Lopez and 73% backed recalling Moliga. (Source: sfchronicle.com)

3. The race to succeed Mayor Eric Garcetti (D), who'd taken office when crime was falling and will leave as it surges, has pulled in more than two dozen candidates. Some of them are credible, some of them are gadflies, and all of them describe a city in crisis — harder and more expensive to live in, with a government too sclerotic to fix it. Billionaire real estate developer (and former Republican) Rick Caruso, who had talked for years about what he might do as mayor, decided to enter the race because “the city needs help now more than ever,” and because in his mind, nobody else in the field looked competent enough to deliver it. Just weeks after becoming a Democrat, he's working with strategists who helped elect Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and raised historic amounts of money for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Mr. Caruso says that if elected, he'd hire 1,500 more cops for the “underfunded” Los Angeles Police Department. (Source: “The Trailer,” washingtonpost.com)

4. California Governor Gavin Newsom handily beat a recall election and is presiding over a multibillion-dollar surplus, but he can’t shake the growing perception that he’s standing by as homelessness and crime plague the state. That’s the message from a poll released Tuesday by the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. When it comes to the Democrat’s performance overall, 47% of the state’s registered voters disapprove, up from 42% in September, when he faced a rare recall election. Two in three voters say Newsom, a first-term governor running for re-election in November, is doing a poor or very poor job handing homelessness, and 51% say the same for crime and public safety. That’s a double-digit percentage point increase for both issues since 2020. (Sources: escholarship.org, bloomberg.com)

5. Republican incumbents in statewide office in Texas have significant leads in their upcoming primary races en route to reelection, and Democrats are still struggling to boost public recognition of their candidates beyond the top of the ticket, according to a poll released Monday by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Politics Project. The poll of 1,200 registered voters illustrates the significant advantage that Republican incumbents hold within their party after leaning further to the right during the state legislative sessions last year. Additionally, the poll found that surveyed voters were divided on GOP-touted issues like removing books from public school libraries, parental influence in education and restrictive laws on abortion. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton are head and shoulders above their competition in the Republican primaries, according to the responses from the 41% of surveyed voters who said they would vote in the Republican primary. Paxton, who is the most likely of the three to be pulled into a runoff, faces the most significant competition in his race. The date of the Texas primary elections is March 1st. (Source: texastribune.org)

6. Mickey Kaus: “Here, in handy clip-and-save form, are the 14 reasons why the “Coalition of the Ascendant” (a “left-leaning coalition centered on millennials, minorities, and socially liberal whites (especially college-educated and single women,” all “growing within the electorate, boosting Democrats”) is the worst idea of the decade.” Link is here. (Sources: theatlantic.com, kausfiles.substack.com)

7. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a “stark warning” for for Democrats everywhere: Unless they more forcefully confront the GOP’s “alarmingly potent” culture war attacks, from critical race theory to defunding the police, they risk losing significant ground to Republicans in the midterms. And rain is wet. (Source: politico.com)

8. Efforts to restrict discussion of gender identity and sexuality in schools have increased in state legislatures alongside an aggressive push against the teaching of critical race theory. More than 100 so-called “educational gag order” bills focused mostly on race but also gender and sexual orientation have been introduced in the first six weeks of 2022, according to a new analysis from PEN America, the free speech advocacy group. Since last year, a total of 155 such bills have been introduced or pre-filed in 38 states, including Florida, Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma. (Source: bloomberg.com)

9. Representative Kathleen Rice of New York (4th Congressional District-Long Island) announced on Tuesday that she would not seek re-election, making her the 30th House Democrat to opt for an exit ahead of what is expected to be a difficult midterm election cycle in which the party appears headed for losses. Ms. Rice’s retirement announcement marked a grim milestone for House Democrats: The number planning to leave Congress is now the biggest since 1992, a sign of the party’s lack of confidence that it will be able to hold the majority this fall. Ms. Rice, a moderate, provided no explanation for her unexpected departure. She announced it on her 57th birthday, saying only that she was moving on to the “next chapter” of her life. (Source: nytimes.com)

10. The White House and congressional Democrats, concerned about rapidly rising prices across the nation that could sour voters ahead of looming midterm elections, are discussing temporarily suspending the federal gas tax and revamping their marquee domestic policy package to include an effort to reduce the budget deficit. The discussions are aimed at addressing widespread economic anxiety and salvaging whatever they can of President Biden’s sprawling social safety net, climate and tax increase bill, known as the Build Back Better Act, before members of Congress face voters in November. (Source: nytimes.com)

11. Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau compared notes last Friday on trucker convoy protests and agreed to coordinate on shutting down the destabilizing demonstrations. The Canadian prime minister said he and the U.S. president spoke about the American and global influences behind a movement that has blocked key border crossings and occupied downtown Ottawa for weeks. Trudeau said he also spoke with Biden about the forced closure of three ports of entry, including the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. (Source: politico.com)

12. Yours truly on the incentives that make likely a “Freedom Convoy” rolling on Washington. DC. From a tweet Monday night: “Co-Organizer Brian Brase announces on Newsmax that "The People's Convoy" will officially launch February 23rd, starting at the Barstow, CA area and heading East.” (Sources: 41jellis.medium.com, twitter.com)