| Good morning, Early Birds. Our condolences to the Carolina fans among our readers. Tips & belated birthday wishes to our lovely researcher Tobi Raji: earlytips@washpost.com. 🎂 Thanks for waking up with us. In today's edition: Former president Barack Obama visits the White House today for the first time since 2017 ... Three Republican senators have announced their support for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is now poised to be confirmed by the end of the week ... California's special election to replace GOP Rep. Devin Nunes ... Volodymyr Zelensky to address U.N. Security Council and the E.U. eyes ban on Russian coal … but first ... | | |  | On the Hill | | Recent focus groups showed continuing anger over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol |  Capitol Police officers monitor protestors as they gather outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Shortly afterward rioters breached the building. (Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post) | | | As the House Jan. 6. committee moves toward the public phase of its investigation and the midterm elections approach, a looming question for both parties is how or whether the attack on the Capitol will resonate with voters. To that end, Lake Research Partners last month conducted a series of focus groups via Zoom with people across the country who are new midterm voters, high-information voters and/or White voters who started participating in electoral politics after the 2016 election. The sessions showed participants expressing a strong desire for accountability for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and negative reactions to Republican lawmakers and candidates who downplayed its significance or seemed sympathetic to people who stormed the Capitol, according to transcripts of the focus groups obtained by The Early. Further, some of them said they viewed the issue as a reason to get out and vote against a candidate. (The participants' last names are not included in the transcripts of the sessions). | - "I just don't get why you can support treason and then try to be part of the government that you were trying to overthrow," said Gabby from Madison, Wis.
- "It's treason," said Mark from Chicago. "It makes me want to move to their district and vote against them," he added.
- "I feel like for me, it's just very frustrating and it's a matter of, if these were Black people or minority folks in the U.S. the perspective would be completely different. It just feels like a double standard to me," said Chandler, who didn't specify where he lived.
- "Horrible. It's horrible what happened. Horrible," responded Sarae from Baltimore. "I am frustrated, angry. I want to vote, because I want the right person to win and make a change in the world moving forward for my child and for my child's child, because it's scary."
| | The focus groups were paid for by progressive groups, according a person familiar with matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the results of the sessions have not been publicly released. This person said that members of the focus groups were not asked for their party affiliation. | | Celinda Lake, the firm's president who conducted parts of the sessions, served as one of President Biden's top campaign pollsters in 2020 and currently polls for Biden-aligned groups. It's unclear whether anger about Jan. 6 like that expressed in the focus groups will play a big role in the midterms, but Democrats are hoping the issue will help them, particularly if the public hearings expected to be held this spring by the Jan. 6 committee garner a lot of attention. | | Democrats have been wrestling with how much to make the midterms about former president Donald Trump or whether they are better off emphasizing their plans to help voters on pocketbook issues. The focus groups show continued anger toward the former president among some participants over the insurrection. When asked if Trump was personally involved with the attack on the Capitol, most voters in the groups answered that there was no question he was involved and should be held accountable in some way and stressed the importance of punishing people who participated in or contributed to the violence to prevent it from happening again. | - "For me, it's a matter of fairness in our justice system, because there are so many smaller issues besides just storming the Capitol of the country that people are being locked up for, or being punished for, and this is something that I think should be held to a more serious degree," said Gabby. "And if we are going to treat it as serious as it should be, then this should have happened a lot faster and a lot sooner."
| | "It doesn't matter that it's taken so long, but they need to be punished. It's important also to remember though, that this was a terrible thing, but this was a small group of, and I'm not a Republican, but this was a small group of a specialized Republican that kind of went crazy. It does not represent all Republicans. And I think that we also need to a look at it to make sure that something like this can never happen again," said Cara. | | Participants in the group offered mixed views on the Jan. 6 committee, with some complaining it is moving too slowly and others expressing skepticism that its members are playing the role of "truth seekers" or "defenders." In one group, the participants initially offered descriptions of the lawmakers as "overly cautious," "snails," and "slackers" because of the pace of the committee's work. "I think that they're both fair terms — truth seekers and defenders," said Ali from Philadelphia. "I mean, they are looking for the truth. Are they doing it at a glacial pace? Yes. But if you, at any other court case that makes its way through the justice system, they all take years… I mean, they're doing a good thing. They're just not doing it as fast as we would all like to see it." | | |  | At the White House | | Barack Obama to visit White House today as Biden seeks a reset |  Barack Obama campaigns with Joe Biden in Flint, Mich., in late October 2020. (Andrew Harnik/AP) | | | Happening today: Former president Barack Obama will return to the White House for the first time since leaving office in 2017 "to witness President Biden sign an executive order strengthening the Affordable Care Act, Obama's landmark domestic achievement," our colleague Annie Linskey writes. | - "Biden plans to announce that his administration is making a tweak to federal rules long sought by advocates that would allow millions of additional families to buy health plans through the insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act," our colleague Amy Goldstein reports. "Assuming the proposed tweak completes the federal regulatory process, the change would begin Jan. 1 next year."
| | "But Obama's appearance will also take place against the backdrop of low poll numbers for Biden, dim electoral prospects for Democrats and an urgent search for a spark by party leaders," Linskey writes. | - "After Biden launched his own presidential run in 2019, he rarely appeared with Obama, in part because of the coronavirus but also to avoid being overshadowed — a pattern that has continued during Biden's first year-plus in office."
- "But now, as Democrats confront a difficult landscape in the November midterms, Obama's appeal looms large, especially his ability to generate excitement among the party faithful and his popularity among Black voters."
| | |  | From the courts | | Ketanji Brown Jackson on track for confirmation, wins support from two more GOP senators | | Three's a party: "A nearly unified wall of GOP opposition to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson cracked slightly on Monday as two more Senate Republicans said they would side with Democrats in supporting her, paving the way for her confirmation as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court," the New York Times's Carl Hulse reports. | - "Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined a third Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, in lending their support to Judge Jackson, defying deep resistance in their party to the nominee."
- "The late-breaking support of the two GOP senators represented a minor triumph for President Biden and congressional Democrats who were eager to put a bipartisan stamp of approval on a nominee whom many Republicans had eagerly painted as a soft-on-crime leftist radical," our colleagues Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim write.
| | |  | The campaign | | California voters to fill House seat once held by GOP Rep. Devin Nunes |  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) returns to a secure area in the Capitol on Jan. 16, 2018. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo) | | | Happening today: "The first special congressional election of 2022 will unfold in California's Central Valley, with six candidates vying to represent a reliably Republican seat — one that won't exist when the year is over," our colleague David Weigel reports. | - "California's 22nd Congressional District, which stretches from eastern Fresno into some of the state's biggest farming communities, became vacant in January when ex-Rep. Devin Nunes (R) resigned to take over the Trump Media & Technology Group."
- "Political analysts say Republican Connie Conway, a former state legislative leader, has emerged as the front-runner," the Los Angeles Times's Priscella Vega writes. "Elizabeth Heng, a GOP candidate from Fresno, has also received attention in the race."
- A vanishing seat: "While the district shifted left during Trump's presidency, giving the ex-president just 52 percent of the vote in 2020 and 2016, it was pulled apart by the state's nonpartisan redistricting commission, whose adjusted borders will take effect in regular June primaries and the November election," Weigel writes.
| | |  | The Media | | | |  | Viral | | | 👰💍🤵 |  | | | | | "Biden and first lady Jill Biden will host a wedding reception at the White House this November for their eldest granddaughter, Naomi Biden," the first lady's communications director Elizabeth Alexander confirmed to CNN's Kate Bennett. "The White House reception is set for November 19; there is no word yet on where the nuptial ceremony will occur." | | | AM/PM | | Looking for more analysis in the afternoon? | | | | Weekday newsletter, PM |  | | | | | | |
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