Nvidia to Replace Intel in Dow Jones Industrial Average. Sherwin-Williams Also Joins.
The swap reflects their reversal of fortunes within the tech industry and would have been unthinkable a few years ago
By Jack Pitcher - Nov. 1, 2024
Nvidia will replace Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average next week, a swap that reflects their reversal of fortunes within the tech industry. Sherwin-Williams will replace Dow Inc. as well.
S&P Dow Jones Indices, which manages the 30-stock benchmark, said the changes were made to ensure a more representative exposure to the semiconductors industry and the materials sector. They are effective prior to the open of trading on Nov. 8.
For Intel and Dow Inc., the moves are largely symbolic. There should be little practical impact because few funds track the Dow index compared with the larger S&P 500.
For Intel, being replaced by Nvidia would have been unthinkable just three years ago. Now, it underscores one of numerous strategic missteps that have demoted Intel from tech titan to a takeover target: The chip manufacturer largely missed the boat on artificial intelligence, which is developing into a driving force of the U.S. economy.
Intel shares have dropped more than 50% this year after it became clear that Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger’s turnaround plan wasn’t working. Intel paused its dividend, announced billions in cost cuts and said it would lay off 15,000 employees in a nightmare earnings report this summer that accelerated the selloff.
The stock rose 7.8% Friday after the company reported a $16.6 billion quarterly loss but offered hints of optimism. Intel joined the blue-chip index on Nov. 1, 1999.
Nvidia, meanwhile, has become the highflying face of the AI boom. Big Tech customers that are spending big on AI systems can’t get enough of Nvidia’s graphics processing units. Sales, and Nvidia’s stock price, have soared, sending the company to a more than $3 trillion market cap that places it neck-and-neck with Apple for the title of most valuable U.S. company. Shares have risen eightfold since the beginning of 2023.
Dow Inc., meanwhile, had become a smaller company than the original chemical and materials conglomerate after spinning off into three separately traded companies in 2019. Its shares are down slightly over the last five years, while its replacement, Sherwin-Williams, is up about 85%.
Unlike the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, the blue-chip index is weighted by share price, not by market capitalization. It is calculated by adding the prices of the 30 stocks and dividing by a factor that accounts for changes such as stock splits and index entrants. That means that companies with a higher share price have a greater effect on index moves, regardless of their total market value.
With a share price of $23.20, Intel was by far the least influential stock in the benchmark, while Dow Inc. was No. 28. At $135.40, Nvidia would rank 22nd—it executed a 10-for-1 stock split in June that analysts said made its inclusion in the Dow more likely. Sherwin-Williams closed Friday at $357.97, which would give it the sixth-highest share price in the index.
The Dow has lagged behind the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in recent years because it is less oriented toward technology stocks. It is up 12% this year, while the other indexes have climbed more than 20%. The Dow’s last shake-up came in February, when online retail powerhouse Amazon.com replaced Walgreens Boots Alliance.
A committee composed of representatives of S&P Dow Jones Indices and The Wall Street Journal determines the composition of the index. The committee looks for companies with an “excellent” reputation, sustained growth and high level of interest from investors, according to index methodology.
Changes are made to the index on an as-needed basis. A company must be part of the S&P 500 to be considered for membership in the Dow. The Dow industrials exclude companies in the utilities and transportation industries, which are represented in separate Dow indexes.
Charles Dow, the first editor of the Journal and co-founder of Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of the Journal, created the Dow average to help explain stock-market movements to his readers. An average of 12 stocks was published daily in the Journal beginning in 1896. (An earlier stock average, consisting mostly of railroads, was printed in a predecessor publication in 1884.) The industrial average expanded to 20 names in 1916 and 30 companies in 1928.
Corrections & Amplifications Sherwin-Williams closed Friday at $357.97, which would give it the sixth-highest share price in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Sherwin-Williams closed Friday at $70.94, which would make it among the five stocks with the lowest share price. (Corrected on Nov. 1)
Appeared in the November 2, 2024, print edition as 'Nvidia to Replace Intel in the Dow, Sherwin-Williams Will Also Join'.
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U.S. Chip Toolmakers Move to Cut China From Supply Chains
Applied Materials, Lam Research tell vendors to follow new restrictions, spurred by U.S. government pressure
By Liza Lin - Asa Fitch - Nov. 4, 2024 9:00 am ET
The U.S. semiconductor industry is uprooting Chinese companies from supply chains, spurred by directives from Washington seeking to suppress China’s involvement in sensitive next-generation technology.
Chip toolmakers are telling suppliers that they need to find alternatives to certain components obtained from China or risk losing their vendor status. Companies relaying this message include Applied Materialse and Lam Research, according to people familiar with the matter. The two Silicon Valley companies make equipment used in the production of microprocessors and are among the world’s biggest manufacturers of these tools.
Suppliers have also been told that they can’t have Chinese investors or shareholders, the people said.
Industry executives said such moves were likely to raise costs because it won’t be easy to find non-Chinese alternatives at similar prices.
Lam Research said it adheres to U.S. export controls for companies in the chip-manufacturing supply chain. Applied Materials said it identifies alternative sources for components to make sure they are available.
Washington is becoming increasingly strict on Chinese imports. The two main U.S. presidential candidates have pledged to get tougher on trade with China, and the semiconductor industry is seen as particularly critical because of its importance to national security.
The U.S., Japan and Europe are spending tens of billions of dollars on support for chip manufacturing in a bid to gain more control over the process.
In recent years, U.S. lawmakers have blocked China from acquiring the most advanced chips and chip-making equipment. That equipment is generally made or designed in the U.S. and in regions friendly to the U.S., including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Western Europe.
The steps by Applied Materials and others involve trade in the opposite direction, when Chinese parts or tools are acquired by semiconductor-equipment makers based in the U.S. or U.S.-friendly regions. U.S. officials fear that if companies rely on Chinese suppliers for parts, it could hand Beijing a card to play against the U.S. in a crisis.
The Commerce Department last year issued rules requiring American toolmakers to obtain licenses before sharing technical details and plans with Chinese suppliers. They were given a temporary license to keep such current suppliers, one that expires at the end of 2025. This summer, the department made explicit that suppliers outside China were also subject to these controls if their parent company was based in China.
Plainview, N.Y.-based Veeco, which makes processing systems for the semiconductor industry, issued a written directive to vendors telling them to immediately halt the use of any new Chinese suppliers and wean themselves off existing ones by the end of 2025, according to a copy of the directive reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Veeco didn’t reply to requests for comment.
Applied Materials and Lam Research informed their vendors of their directives verbally, and didn’t include it in any official vendor guidelines or agreements, people familiar with the matter said.
Finding alternatives to Chinese suppliers isn’t always easy, and any overt move to sideline the country risks angering policymakers in one of the world’s largest markets for semiconductor-making equipment. China is the biggest customer for both Applied Materials and Lam Research globally.
In China, a reciprocal drive to push U.S. technology out of the country is under way, with state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors moving to replace foreign software and hardware in their systems.
The rules have left some Chinese contractors in a bind. Shenyang Fortune Precision Equipment, a supplier to Applied Materials, opened a factory in Singapore this year expecting it could serve foreign customers including the U.S. manufacturer, according to people familiar with the matter.
Fortune set up the plant close to Applied Materials’s office in Singapore. Now, because of its Chinese backing, the factory has yet to receive authorization to supply Applied Materials, the people said.
Danny Low, a business development director at the Singapore plant, declined to comment on the relationship with Applied Materials but said the factory’s reach extends beyond U.S. toolmakers to equipment manufacturing customers around the world.
Other Chinese suppliers are exploring workarounds, such as setting up joint ventures or holding companies in third countries.
One executive at a Chinese firm making components for the semiconductor industry said his company set up a holding company in Singapore that was in turn looking at a joint venture with a Malaysian company to manufacture precision components in Malaysia. The goal is to keep supplying U.S. companies.
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Infineon Forecasts Sales Decline Amid Weak Chip Market
Demand for chips in cars, industrial equipment and personal electronics remains subdued
By Mauro Orru - Updated Nov. 12, 2024 4:58 am ET
Infineon Technologies is expecting lower sales in its new fiscal year as demand for chips in cars and industrial equipment remains weak.
The German chip maker said revenue in the year to the end of September 2025 would decline slightly from the 14.96 billion euros ($15.94 billion) it reported for fiscal 2024. Its segment result margin—a key profitability measure—is expected to be in the mid-to-high-teens percentage range compared with the 20.8% margin it reported in fiscal 2024.
Infineon said revenue at its automotive business should decline slightly in the year. The company is particularly exposed to car makers since its automotive business generally accounts for the lion’s share of annual sales.
Auto makers have been agonizing for months over a slow electric-vehicle market and fierce competition from local car makers in China, which forced several European auto manufacturers to lower their own profit and sales forecasts.
Infineon said it expects revenue at its green industrial power division to decline even more than auto chip sales. The power-and-sensor systems business should see a moderate increase in revenue, while sales at its connected secure systems division are expected to remain more or less stable.
Chip makers have been grappling with uneven demand in recent months. Orders for chips to power artificial intelligence in data centers keep booming, but manufacturers of smartphones, laptops, electric vehicles and industrial machinery haven’t placed many new orders for chips lately because they stockpiled the semiconductors they needed years back.
“Currently, there is hardly any growth momentum in our end markets except from AI,” Infineon Chief Executive Jochen Hanebeck said in a statement.
The schism in demand for AI chips and other semiconductors created diverging fortunes for chip makers. Those with significant AI exposure like Nvidia have grown exponentially in recent years, but companies that make chips mostly for the automotive sector, industrial equipment and personal electronics have had to cut guidance to reflect sluggish demand.
Infineon said in August that it would cut some 1,400 jobs globally and redeploy another 1,400 to countries with lower labor costs as part of efforts to shore up profitability by fiscal 2028. The company slashed its sales guidance three times in fiscal 2024. Rival STMicroelectronics, which counts Apple, Samsung Electronics and Tesla among its customers, also lowered its annual forecasts several times.
“Short-term ordering patterns and inventory digestion are clouding visibility on demand trends beyond the next couple of quarters,” Hanebeck said. “We are therefore preparing for a muted business trajectory in 2025.”
Jefferies analysts wrote in a note to clients that setting weak guidance now minimizes the risk of Infineon having to cut it in the coming months. Shares in Frankfurt climbed more than 5% in European morning trading after investors welcomed the company’s conservative forecasts.
Infineon proposed a dividend of 0.35 euros a share for fiscal 2024, unchanged from the previous year.
The company booked 3.92 billion euros in sales in the three months to the end of September, down 6% on year.
Infineon swung to a quarterly net loss of 84 million euros from a profit of 753 million euros, while its segment result declined to 832 million euros from 1.04 billion euros, generating a 21.2% margin.
Analysts had forecast quarterly sales of 3.97 billion euros, a profit of 510 million euros, a segment result of 788 million euros, and a 19.9% margin, according to the consensus.
For the current quarter, Infineon is expecting sales of around 3.2 billion euros and a segment result margin in the mid-teens percentage range.
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CSIS: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Building A Tech Alliance
Commentary by James Andrew Lewis - Published October 29, 2024
This commentary is part of a report from the CSIS Economic Security and Technology Department, titled Staying Ahead in the Global Technology Race. The report features a set of essays outlining key issues on economic security for the next administration, including global technology competition, industrialization policies, economic partnerships, and global governance.
Calls to create some kind of technology alliance among democracies can be grounded in experience. We can identify requirements for developing an alliance and the actions needed to turn proposals into agreement. However, while alliances are easy to propose, they are hard to build.
The first, and most important, of these requirements is there must be a shared problem that potential partners wish to address through collective action. Maintaining U.S. technological dominance is not a shared problem and probably not the best appeal for partnership. Similarly, calling for a crusade against China is not universally appealing in Europe or Asia.
Europe is the crux of the tech-alliance problem. Countries like Japan and Australia are ready to work together with the United States, but there is a degree of ambivalence in Europe. There is also a degree of envy over U.S. technological success. European political culture is still shaped by the traumas of the twentieth century, and one explanation for extraterritorial regulation of U.S. technology companies is that Americans should “remember Europe’s history” and how it creates deep concerns for fundamental rights such as privacy. Others say that the purpose of technology regulation is, at least partially, to slow down U.S. companies so that European companies can catch up.
Two phrases from Brussels highlight the problem: “European values” and “tech sovereignty” (or “digital sovereignty”). The first implies somewhat simplistically that there are different values in the United States and Europe. The second is more problematic. European sources say that tech sovereignty means not only independence from China, but also from the United States. Any proposal for a new alliance needs to show how it aligns with this EU goal of increased sovereignty.
One way to overcome sovereignty issues is to build a new technology alliance upon existing structures such as the G7 or the Wassenaar Arrangement, but both would need to be modified—the G7 by adding counties like Australia, South Korea, and the Netherlands and Wassenaar by removing Russia and perhaps Hungary. Other groups, including AUKUS, the Quad, and the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, are too narrow to serve as a foundation.
Wassenaar, the current tech regime, has shortcomings. It is 30 years old, technological change challenges the scope of its controls, and it now lacks the strategic underpinnings that led to its creation (and Russia’s membership). Wassenaar was a response to the end of the Cold War and was designed for that context. While it is not in Western interests to dismantle Wassenaar, it does need to be supplemented by measures that go beyond export controls. Judging from past experience, the best route might start with the G7 and then add additional countries, since the Wassenaar Arrangement itself grew out of G7 talks.
Who in the U.S. government makes the appeal for an alliance is also important. It must be a senior political figure from either the White House (preferably the president) or the secretary of state or treasury. In the past, the Department of Commerce has not been considered by other countries to have sufficient heft, although this may have changed in the Biden administration. In addition, many countries do not consider the Department of Defense the right counterpart for economic security issues. Other departments or staff-level proposals will not be taken seriously (remember that every government starts its review of a proposal by asking its embassy if the Americans are serious, and the embassies look for signs like senior-level interest, funding, and follow-through). Working an announcement into a presidential speech, even a single sentence, would help kickstart a technology alliance.
A formal proposal must immediately follow a presidential announcement. It must lay out initial thinking on which technologies are covered and the security rationale for the alliance, as well as provide details on membership criteria, frequency of meetings, secretarial functions, and what a commitment would entail in terms of time, money, and personnel. The proposal cannot be set in stone but rather should be presented as a discussion paper, open to amendment by other participants. Further, the United States must go into discussions knowing the minimum it can accept and what is essential. Ideally this would be a joint effort, specifically, a joint proposal coming from the United States, Japan, and a G7 European member.
A technology alliance may need to have both positive and defensive goals to attract wide support, but combining these two ends can be difficult. For example, managing technology transfer to China is a central strategic consideration, but so is coordinating policies and promoting the development of emerging technologies. While AUKUS is too focused on defense to easily translate into a broader tech alliance, Pillars 1 (advanced capabilities, including cyber, AI, and quantum and 2 (industrial base cooperation) could provide useful precedent. The most challenging issue in any joint effort to jointly create new technologies is how the members will share funding and intellectual property rights.
A final point to bear in mind is that it will take months, perhaps years, to create a new tech regime. An ideal time to start such an initiative is at the start of a new administration. The spring of 2025 could be the launch point.
James A. Lewis is a senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2024 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.
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Nuclear companies want land to build new plants. Texas A&M is inviting them to come to Bryan.
By Claire Hao,Staff writerNov 7, 2024
Texas A&M University has started the process to offer companies land at its Rellis Campus in Bryan for construction of the latest generation of nuclear reactors.
If approved by federal regulators, the Texas A&M System would be the only higher education institution in the country with a commercial nuclear reactor site license, according to John Sharp, its chancellor. The university had offered up land it owns around the state for developers to build natural gas power plants in May.
Texas A&M is now courting nuclear energy companies because its leaders believe building more nuclear plants is the “obvious and only answer to the power supply problems in Texas,” Sharp said in an interview.
“The reason that we decided to look at it is because we can. If you look at the politics of the West Coast, the politics of the East Coast, in some places even in Texas, any mention of the nuclear reactors is politically not feasible. That's not the case here,” Sharp said. He cited existing nuclear facilities throughout campus, including a 1-megawatt reactor near Easterwood Airport used for research.
Demand for power in Texas could almost double by 2030 as the state welcomes more people and businesses, especially power-hungry data centers necessary for the development of artificial intelligence, further straining the already stretched-thin Texas power grid. Though clean energy resources have grown rapidly, state leaders say they are still concerned about power supply because wind and solar farms are dependent on weather conditions and batteries can only store a couple hours' worth of power.
Leading technology companies are faced with their own quandary: How can they thread the needle of building new data centers that need electricity 24/7, without propping up fossil fuels against their commitments to reduce carbon emissions? For many, one answer has been to revive the nation’s nuclear energy industry, which began stagnating in the 1970s due to escalating cost and safety concerns.
As Big Tech and nuclear power companies forge deals, however, few suitable locations have been identified for where those new plants will go, according to a statement issued Thursday by Texas A&M. That’s where the university hopes to step in.
Texas A&M’s Board of Regents voted unanimously at a Thursday meeting to send the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a notice of its intent to seek an early site permit that would allow nuclear reactors to be built on Rellis Campus, the first official step in providing land to developers.
The goal is to have about five nuclear reactors from different companies scattered across parcels of the 2,300-acre campus by the early- to mid-2030s, Sharp said. They’d range from 10 megawatts to 200 megawatts – much bigger than the research nuclear generator near the airport – and be connected to the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, he said. (One megawatt can power 250 Texas homes, according to ERCOT.)
Earlier this year, 23 organizations replied to a request from Texas A&M for feedback on its plans to potentially invite nuclear reactors to campus, Sharp said. The university declined to share how many companies or which ones responded to its subsequent request for proposals to build reactors, though the founder of Natura Resources, a nuclear company based in Abilene, told Texas lawmakers at a September committee hearing the company planned to submit one.
The type of nuclear plants Texas A&M wants to host are known as small modular reactors, which are smaller and designed to be cheaper to build than traditional reactors. They’re often touted as safer, though some environmental organizations and scientists remain skeptical.
Texas A&M aims to serve as a proving ground for the new technology given that it has the largest nuclear engineering program in the country, Sharp said. How the university would participate in the projects is subject to negotiations with potential developers, which are expected to begin soon.
But even if the university’s future site permit application is approved, a process that could take years, prospective developers would still have to go through other lengthy approvals while the advanced nuclear industry works to overcome significant cost barriers to prove its commercial viability. One company, Oregon-based NuScale Power, canceled its project last year after cost estimates skyrocketed to $9.3 billion from an initial $3 billion.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas has put together a working group to study how the state can encourage nuclear development, with its report due to Gov. Greg Abbott by Dec. 1.
The Biden administration announced $900 million in funding to support small modular reactors in October, with applications due in January. It’s unclear if the Department of Energy’s enthusiasm for nuclear will continue under President-elect Donald Trump, who has expressed concerns about the technology’s costs and safety.
(Updated Nov. 7 at 9:07 p.m.): The headline to this story was corrected to reflect that Texas A&M could be the first higher education institution to have a commercial nuclear reactor site license.
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Trump Expected to Nominate Rubio for Secretary of State, and Picks Waltz as National Security Adviser
Waltz has echoed Trump’s no-tolerance on illegal immigration, skepticism of America’s support for Ukraine.
By Vivian Salama - Alex Leary - Alexander Ward - Updated Nov. 11, 2024 9:41 pm ET
WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as secretary of state and has asked Rep. Mike Waltz, a Green Beret veteran, to be his White House national security adviser, according to people familiar with his thinking.
Trump could change his mind on the Rubio move, as he remains fond of others lobbying for the secretary of state role. But people familiar with the Rubio decision said that Trump feels good about going with him; Trump had considered him for the vice president slot before settling on Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
Spokespeople for the Trump transition and Rubio didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The picks, made less than a full week since Election Day, illustrate how quickly the president-elect is moving to fill out key foreign policy positions. Also on Monday, he chose Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Rubio, a former Trump critic and rival for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, has grown close with Trump in the years since and campaigned with him in the closing weeks of the race against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Rubio’s expected rise to the nation’s top diplomatic post, earlier reported by the New York Times, would put a more establishment figure into the highest echelons of the Trump administration. A hawk on China, Iran and Cuba, Rubio joined most of Washington in supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. But in recent months he started changing his message, advocating for the conflict to end as soon as possible, last week stating the U.S. was “funding a stalemate war” and that it would take “100 years” to rebuild Ukraine.
Trump’s pick comes just hours after he decided to name Waltz, a fellow tough-on-China lawmaker, as national security adviser. Earlier, Trump also chose another Floridian, co-campaign manager Susie Wiles, as his chief of staff.
Waltz will step into his cabinet-level role amid prolonged conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Trump is expected to try to prevent further escalation abroad by building deterrence against foreign rivals while favoring transactional policies with U.S. allies.
Trump, in his first term in office, went through four national security advisers, the first of whom served only 22 days. The others, including Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, were eventually pushed out by Trump over their disagreements over certain policy issues. Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security adviser, served through the Covid-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and was among the names Trump has considered for a cabinet job in his coming term.
Waltz, (R., Fla.), has been an outspoken Trump supporter in recent years, echoing the former president’s no-tolerance on illegal immigration and skepticism of America’s support for Ukraine.
Last year, Waltz penned an opinion piece for FoxNews.com in which he argued that “the era of Ukraine’s blank check from Congress is over.” He has echoed Trump in calling on Europe to do more to ensure the collective defense of members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“Stopping Russia before it draws NATO and therefore the U.S. into war is the right thing to do,” Waltz wrote. “But the burden cannot continue to be solely on the shoulders of the American people, especially while Western Europe gets a pass.”
This month, he told NPR that Trump’s vow to negotiate between Ukraine and Russia is “perfectly reasonable” and said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t cooperate, the U.S. has “leverage, like taking the handcuffs off of the long-range weapons we provided Ukraine as well.”
Waltz is among the most hawkish members of Congress on China, serving on the House China Task Force that coordinates policy on how the U.S. should compete with China. He also has echoed Trump’s calls for accountability after the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Waltz, 50 years old, is the latest West Wing official to hail from Florida, the state Trump now calls home. He was born in Boynton Beach, Fla., and grew up in Jacksonville.
Waltz served 27 years in the U.S. Army and National Guard, retiring during his second term in Congress. After being commissioned as an Army lieutenant, Waltz graduated from Ranger School and was selected for the elite Green Berets, serving worldwide as a Special Forces officer with several combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. He was awarded four Bronze Stars, including two for Valor.
In government, he has served in various capacities at the White House and the Pentagon, including as a defense policy director for Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.
In 2018, he was elected to serve as congressman for Florida’s sixth congressional district, replacing Ron DeSantis, who that year was elected the state’s governor. Waltz’s wife Julia Nesheiwat, a fellow combat veteran who served in several presidential administrations, was a homeland security adviser to Trump during his first administration.
The Rubio decision, if Trump goes through with it as expected, would open up a Senate seat in Florida, giving DeSantis a chance to appoint a successor. The seat would be up for election in 2026.
Once a swing state, Florida is now reliably red given Trump’s 13 percentage point margin of victory there last week. In the next Congress, Republicans are set to hold 53 seats compared with 46 for the Democrats, with one race in Arizona still uncalled by the Associated Press.
The Waltz and Stefanik appointments would trigger special elections next year to fill their seats in the House, where the GOP appears on track to keep its narrow majority. Control of the House of Representatives remained uncalled. Republicans have a 214-205 advantage but need 218 for a majority.
Rubio’s relationship with Trump has come a long way since the “Little Marco” taunts of the 2016 campaign. The two bonded during Trump’s presidential term, when Rubio served as an informal adviser on Latin American policy and worked with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, on expanding the Child Tax Credit.
Years ago Rubio criticized Trump’s calls for mass deportation; now he echoes the former president’s rhetoric. “This is an invasion of the country, and it needs to be dealt with dramatically,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in May.
Stephen Miller, the hard-charging architect of Trump’s border policies and a onetime Rubio detractor, has called the senator “one of the most deep, insightful and gifted thinkers on our political issues.” Trump picked Miller as deputy chief of staff in his second term.
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