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OFF TO THE RACES — NYT’s Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT): “I'll just say it: GLENN YOUNGKIN should seriously consider running for president in 2024.”

PELOSI VS. MANCHIN ON PAID FAMILY LEAVE — Speaker NANCY PELOSI announced today that she’s shoehorning four weeks of paid family leave into the House’s reconciliation bill — to hell with Sen. JOE MANCHIN’s (D-W.Va.) opposition. The move, announced in a “Dear Colleague” letter, comes as Democratic leaders are trying to pass the Build Back Better (BBB) bill through the House.

Some House moderates have been loath to vote on provisions that won’t pass muster with 50 senators, however. We’ll see if this last-minute addition creates a math problem for the speaker. (Remember: Pelosi can spare only three votes.)

Meanwhile, Manchin — who we’re told respects and likes Pelosi — reiterated his opposition to including family leave in the bill. He told reporters adding it was a “challenge” and said he’d rather do it on a bipartisan basis. (Remember: Under President DONALD TRUMP, IVANKA was a major supporter of this idea, and some Republicans supported similar proposals in the past.)

“It’s the wrong place to put it because it’s a social expansion,” Manchin said. “Right now, I’ve said very clearly if it’s a social expansion … let’s get our financial house in order and then be able to tackle all of these.”

A ROYAL ALLY ON PAID LEAVE — We’ll let Sen. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-W.Va.) give the rundown: “I’m in my car. I’m driving. It says ‘caller ID blocked,’” she recounted. “Honestly … I thought it was Sen. Manchin. His calls come in blocked. And she goes ‘Sen. Capito?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘This is Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.’”

Yep, MEGHAN MARKLE has been calling senators in both parties to try to get them to support paid family leave.

Over the weekend, hounding from progressives didn’t exactly help Manchin when it came to the BBB. His angry Monday press conference, our Hill team reported, was actually in reaction to a flurry of texts he received from lawmakers on the left pressing him to support this and that over the weekend. Could the Duchess of Sussex make progress where progressives could not? More in Congress Minutes on both the Pelosi push and Markle’s calls

Good Wednesday afternoon.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT — The dust has started to settle in the Old Dominion after Youngkin’s come-from-behind victory in the governor’s race. Let the post-mortems commence!

— NATIONALLY:

• The era of low-engagement and low-turnout elections, even in off years, seems to be over, N.Y. Mag’s Gabe Debenedetti reports. And contrary to what Democrats had hoped for years, higher turnout doesn’t always benefit them.
• This seems like a good time “to ask hard questions that I suspect Democrats won’t appreciate,” Charlie Sykes writes for POLITICO Magazine. Across the country, “Republicans continue to beclown themselves with lies about the election, even as they become more extreme on issues from guns to abortion. But then why does a new NBC poll give Republicans double-digit leads on issues like border security, inflation, crime, the economy, national security and even on ‘getting things done’?”

— VIRGINIA:

• Much of the early conversation has zeroed in on the role that debate over schools played in the race. … In The Atlantic, Zachary Carter writes that while the manufactured controversy over critical race theory got headlines, the election hinged more than anything on parents’ frustration and rage over school closures and health restrictions. “Covid-19 has fundamentally changed American politics, and the Democratic Party hasn’t figured out how to navigate those changes,” he writes — with dire consequences for its congressional majorities next year. … WaPo’s Dave Weigel: Youngkin was good at “highlighting anything that looked like woke liberals lowering education standards.” … WaPo’s Marc Fisher: “At Parents for Youngkin rallies in NoVa, the changes in admission policy at Thomas Jefferson High were more on the minds of many parents than the changes in the list of novels or history texts in their kids’ classes.”
• NYT’s Trip Gabriel: “Yesterday’s results were foreshadowed a year ago, when suburbanites’ rebuke of Trump did not translate downballot, and Dems lost House seats & suffered crushing losses in legislative races. None of Ds targeted chambers flipped even though [President JOE] BIDEN won many of the swing districts.”
• Puck’s Peter Hamby: Youngkin’s vote share tracked closely with Biden’s national disapproval rating — just like RALPH NORTHAM’s did with DONALD TRUMP’s disapproval rating four years ago.
• N.Y. Mag’s Sarah Jones: TERRY MCAULIFFE lost because he ran using HILLARY CLINTON’s “failed 2016 campaign” as a playbook instead of Biden’s 2020 effort.
• Sen. TIM KAINE (D-Va.) blamed congressional Democrats, saying McAuliffe would have been able to tout big new programs to help voters if the bipartisan infrastructure bill and reconciliation bill had passed in October.
• It looks like Republicans may end up with a 52-48 majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. Dave Wasserman’s analysis: “The area that cost Dems the VA House of Delegates: the I-95 corridor south of Richmond, where Republicans won four races by 5 pts or less - including two plurality Black seats.”

— NEW JERSEY:

• As of a few minutes ago, Gov. PHIL MURPHY was ahead of Republican JACK CIATTARELLI by about 0.6 points, with 89% of the vote in.
• Just how bad was it for Dems? New Jersey state Senate President STEPHEN SWEENEY is trailing his Republican opponent, a relatively unknown truck driver who spent $153 on the campaign, per NJ.com. (BARBARA BUONO wasn’t upset.) Wasserman says, “Dems’ collapse in blue-collar parts of South Jersey is breathtaking.”

— MORE NOTABLE RESULTS from around the country:

• By a 12-point margin, Minneapolis voters decided not to replace the city’s police department, per the Star Tribune.
• The Republican candidate for Seattle city attorney has a big lead over her opponent, a Democratic police abolitionist, per the Seattle Times.
• Maine voters rejected a $1 billion hydropower transmission line project that was backed by both Democratic Gov. JANET MILLS and her Republican predecessor PAUL LEPAGE, per the Portland Press Herald.
• JOYCE CRAIG won reelection as mayor of Manchester, N.H., a rare swing-state bright spot for Democrats, per WMUR.
• In Detroit, a proposal to form a commission to study reparations won with 80% support, via the Detroit News.
• At least six Republicans who attended the Jan. 6 rally to overturn the election that led to the insurrection were elected Tuesday, per HuffPost. “Three were elected to state legislatures, and three won positions at the local level.”

JUDICIARY SQUARE

SCOTUS WATCH — The high court heard their first major guns case in a decade this morning, and the conservative majority’s questioning made it look like New York’s restriction on carrying guns outside the home will be struck down. As is often the case, some justices “seemed to be searching for a way to rule narrowly in the case,” NYT’s Adam Liptak reports.

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

POINT OF PRIVILEGE — The Trump campaign shelled out more than $50,000 for the Willard hotel “campaign center,” via payments to BERNARD KERIK’s and RUDY GIULIANI’s firms in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The revelation that the campaign helped pay for Giuliani’s efforts to overturn the election “could complicate the former president’s ongoing attempt to use claims of executive privilege to shield documents and testimony,” report WaPo’s Jackie Alemany, Josh Dawsey, Emma Brown and Tom Hamburger. (They even get JOHN YOO on the record saying that actions by the Trump campaign (as opposed to the Trump White House) aren’t protected by executive privilege.)

CONGRESS

KNOWING STEPHANIE MURPHY — The Florida Democrat and senior Blue Dog member has carved a figure of some defiance to party leaders in the House this year; the latest example is refusing, along with a few other moderates, to commit to voting for the reconciliation bill until it has a full price tag. In a new interview with Sarah Ferris, Murphy explains that she’s doing what she thinks is necessary to keep Democrats in power in the long term, protecting battleground representatives from taking damaging votes. And she says she’s gone public more this year to act as a counterbalance to the House’s energized band of progressives.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS — The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today advanced RAHM EMANUEL’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to Japan, but Sens. JEFF MERKLEY (D-Ore.) and ED MARKEY (D-Mass.) voted no — while a few Republicans voted yes, per NBC. That means Emanuel will likely have to look for support across the aisle to get through the full chamber.

POLITICS ROUNDUP

DEMOCRACY WATCH — The Republican Party remains “tightly yoked” to Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the 2020 election and beyond, even a year out from his loss, Olivia Beavers and Nicholas Wu report in an important step-back. Despite worries from some in the party that Trump’s focus could hurt the GOP in future contests, that doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon: “Many Republicans have preferred to brush Trump’s rhetoric aside rather than reckon with it.”

OHIO’S NEW GERRYMANDER — A new proposed congressional district map from Ohio Republicans looks likely to crush Democrats even more than they currently do, turning the state’s delegation from 12R-4D to 13R-2D as the state loses a seat, with only one real competitive seat.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

WHEN I CALLED YOU LAST NIGHT FROM GLASGOW — Biden worked hard at COP26 in Scotland the G-20 summit in Rome to highlight U.S. leadership in stark relief to China’s and Russia’s absence, writes NBC’s Josh Lederman in an analysis of the president’s big trip abroad. He sought to capitalize in particular on XI JINPING’s decision to stay home to help build U.S.-aligned coalitions and spheres of influence.

— Now that the world leaders are gone, the summit’s most difficult work actually begins: The next 10 days of negotiations will get into the weeds on how much money countries will actually commit to fighting climate change, per NYT’s Brad Plumer, Eshe Nelson, Lisa Friedman, Somini Sengupta and Liz Alderman.

WATCH: Why COP26 is an urgent matter for world leaders — Biden and his European allies are now working on Plan B to save his climate goals. At the U.N. climate change summit in Glasgow, Biden urged the world to combat rising temperatures and the extreme weather events that accompany them. This week, Zack Colman joins Ryan to break down why COP26 is an urgent matter for world leaders.

ON THE BLACKLIST — The Commerce Department today put the NSO Group, the Israeli spyware company whose tools have been used for years to surveil dissidents, reporters and others around the world, on its “entity list,” report WaPo’s Drew Harwell and Craig Timberg. It’s “a significant sanction” against a company whose Pegasus tool was the subject of a major journalistic investigation this summer, and it will prevent NSO from getting crucial technologies from the U.S.

FIRST PERSON — Erik Edstrom has a new piece for POLITICO Magazine on Task Force Argo and #AfghanEvac, the volunteer network largely comprising current and former military members that has worked to evacuate thousands of people amid and after the U.S. pullout. Despite their success in filling a U.S. government void, they’re running up against major financial hurdles and at risk of having to stop at any moment: “If that happens, the thousands of people currently hiding in safe houses, waiting for the U.S. State Department to issue them a visa, will be ejected into the Taliban-controlled streets because volunteer groups can no longer cover the cost of housing them.”

POLICY CORNER

PATCH ADAMS — DHS is issuing a major new directive today mandating patches for hundreds of cybersecurity vulnerabilities across the federal government. The move amounts to “one of the most wide-reaching cybersecurity mandates ever imposed on the federal government,” WSJ’s Dustin Volz scooped.

IMMIGRATION FILES — DHS has ended “metering” at the border, a Trump administration policy that limited the number of undocumented immigrants who could be processed at ports of entry and turned them away if facilities were at capacity, per CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez. The memo

PLAYBOOKERS

N.Y. Mag’s Shawn McCreesh: “I Hung Out With Both Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams on Election Night”

SPOTTED at a fundraiser for the Indiana Democratic Party at Akin Gump on Tuesday night: Chair Mike Schmuhl, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, Reps. Frank Mrvan and André Carson, Stefan Bailey, George Hornedo, Joel Elliott, Scott Pastrick, Joel Riethmiller, Andrew Mamo, Marv McMoore and Rodericka Applewhaite.

NEW NOMINATIONS — The White House announced Biden’s ninth round of judicial nominees: Leonard Stark for the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, Georgette Castner, Jacqueline Corley, Ruth Bermudez Montenegro, Evelyn Padin, Julie Rubin, Cristina Silva, Trina Thompson and Anne Rachel Traum for various district courts, and Kendra Briggs for D.C. Superior Court.

TRANSITIONS — Geoffrey Ginsburg will be chief medical and scientific officer at NIH’s All of Us Research Program. He is founding director of Duke University School of Medicine’s Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine. … Alyssa Haslett is joining the office of the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology as an industry engagement and comms specialist through JANSON Communications. She previously was a senior associate at the Cohen Group.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Andrew Giuliani, the Trump White House alum who’s running for New York governor, and his wife Živilė, who works in real estate, are welcoming their first child next month. “Živilė and I are thrilled with the upcoming birth of our daughter,” Andrew told Daniel Lippman in a statement. “Of all the exciting things in our lives that have happened over the previous year there’s nothing that brings us more joy than the thought of the birth of our baby girl.” Pic of Andrew and his wife campaigning Tuesday for Jackie Toboroff for NYC City Council

WEDDING — Marc Sames, chief of staff at Procurated and a POLITICO alum, and James Whitlock, office manager at LandDesign, recently married at the Schlosshotel Kronberg in Germany. The couple met in Beacon, N.Y., for coffee, only to find themselves talking for 14 hours straight. Pic

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Renata Maziarz Miskell, chief data and analytics officer at HHS OIG, and Sean Miskell, senior analyst for health care at GAO, welcomed Charles Maziarz Miskell on Friday. Pic