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Across the country, top Democratic officials are relaxing mask mandates as Omicron recedes and concern rises about how masking is affecting schoolchildren. Meanwhile, Republicans have seized on the issue to attack Democrats as mask fundamentalists.

The shift among Democrats accelerated Monday, when a bipartisan group of governors meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington told him they wanted a “return to a greater state of normality” and to “move beyond the pandemic.”

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

The fallout from the RNC’s weekend censure of Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) spread to Capitol Hill on Monday: Hill Republicans returned to town and lit into Chair Ronna McDaniel. Senate Republicans went on the record to say that looking back to 2020 is a losing strategy that won’t help the party flip both chambers of Congress. 

And they’re furious that the RNC would dub the activities of Jan. 6 “legitimate political discourse.”

And less than 24 hours after our colleague Alex Thompson reported that an internal White House investigation found that top White House science adviser Eric Lander bullied and mistreated his subordinates, Lander resigned.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

The most likely November election scenario is that Republicans win the House and Senate. On average since World War II, the president’s party loses 26 House seats and four Senate seats in a midterm election. 

The traditional indicators still point toward a typical midterm for Biden: low presidential approval rating (42%), a Republican advantage over Democrats on the generic ballot (44%-42%), and more than twice as many Democrats retiring from the House as Republicans (29-13).

But Democrats are beginning to whisper about something that sounds laughable to many observers: Maybe they can win the midterms.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

If you work on Capitol Hill, you’ve probably heard about “Dear White Staffers.” It’s an Instagram account that started as a place where aides of color on the Hill — a place dominated by white lawmakers and staff — could express their frustrations. But it’s expanded beyond that to become a go-to hub where anonymous staffers name and shame bad bosses and colleagues, and complain about absurdly long workdays, gender discrimination allegations, salaries so low they rely on food stamps to eat, generally toxic workplace behavior and an endemic lack of diversity. 

Playbook Deep Dive: Why Stephanie Cutter says Dems need a new SCOTUS strategy

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

BREAKING OVERNIGHT — via AP’s Ghaith Alsayed, Lolita Baldor and Bassem Mroue: “U.S. special forces carried out what the Pentagon said was a large-scale counterterrorism raid in northwestern Syria early Thursday.”

President Joe Biden travels to New York City today for a pair of events on crime policy with Mayor Eric Adams. Two years ago, if Democrats knew their next president would be meeting with an ex-cop mayor of New York at the NYPD’s Manhattan headquarters to discuss “historic levels of funding for cities and states to put more cops on the beat,” it would have been a big surprise.

Low levels of crime combined with outrage over white police officers abusing and killing unarmed Black Americans sparked a fierce backlash against cops, especially among progressives, and birthed the “defund the police” movement, which was embraced by a surprisingly wide spectrum of Democrats.

What happened to make it safe for Biden to reorient the Democratic Party’s positioning on crime?

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Republicans have been all over the map lately in their Supreme Court messaging. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) called President Joe Biden's vow to only consider Black women for the vacancy “affirmative action.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Biden doing so during the campaign was “clumsy” and risked further politicizing perceptions of the high court. And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) welcomed Biden’s bid to diversify the Supreme Court, saying “it’s about time” it looked more like America.

So what gives?

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

The center of legislative intrigue on Capitol Hill is bipartisan election reform.

“That’s on a hot track right now,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Monday. 

But as talks heat up to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, President Joe Biden is out in the cold — a bystander out of sync with both parties in Congress.

Administration officials are deeply engaged in a gamut of other bills snaking through Congress. Russia sanctions? “We are working very closely with Congress,” press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. Trying to unstick Build Back Better? “There’s a lot of discussion among members, their staffs, committees” and “we’re engaged in those as well.” Ditto for the government funding bill that must be passed by Feb. 18, and the China competitiveness bill under negotiation. 

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Lawmakers return from recess this week to a massive February to-do list before President Joe Biden's March 1 State of the Union address. And the pressure is on: The White House and vulnerable House Democrats are desperate to quickly pass a $250 billion package aimed at boosting manufacturing and relieving supply-side constraints — a win they’d love the president to be able to trumpet at his big speech.

But Congress also has to avert a government shutdown and possibly begin vetting a Supreme Court nominee. And that’s to say nothing about trying to resuscitate Build Back Better. 

Can they do all this in a few weeks?

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

TV doc turned Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the NRSC headquarters earlier this month to lay out why he thinks he can win in the swing state of Pennsylvania. 

In normal times, such a meeting between a candidate and party bosses would be as pro forma as they come. But needless to say, these are not normal times in the GOP. Playbook's Tara Palmeri is here to explain.

Plus, the latest in Ukraine and what's next for SCOTUS.

Listen to POLITICO Playbook Deep Dive: A former NATO ambassador gets inside Putin’s head

Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.

For weeks, Joe Biden's presidency has been dragged down by a stalled agenda, spiraling inflation, lousy poll numbers and an angry base accusing him of not delivering on his promises.

Wednesday delivered a much-needed jolt with the news that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this term. It’s a chance for the White House to pivot from the spate of bad news and rally depressed Democratic voters. Perhaps more importantly, it presents a chance for Biden to prove to Black voters — who rescued his 2020 campaign — that he can deliver for them.

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Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the Senior Producer of POLITICO Audio.