Top Democratic public affairs firm SKDK has cut short its contract with the Israeli government, for which it promoted Israel’s perspective on the conflict in Gaza.
The firm’s work initially included media efforts to raise the profile of the tragedy of the Bibas family, three members of which were killed while in captivity in Gaza. SKDK then changed its focus to pitching guests for news shows to hear Israel’s side of the war in Gaza. The $600,000 contract with the Israeli government — first reported by POLITICO in March — was supposed to run from April of this year through March.
SKDK has worked for several pro-Israel efforts over the years, but this was the first time it represented the Israeli government itself. It collaborated with Havas, a European advertising and PR firm, on behalf of Lapam, the Israeli government advertising agency, with the ultimate client being the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“SKDK stopped this work on Aug. 31 and has begun the process of de-registering,” a spokesperson for SKDK said in a statement. The spokesperson declined to comment on why it was ending its work, saying only that the work “had run its course.”
SKDK’s announcement came one day after the investigative news outlet Sludge reported that one aspect of its work was setting up a bot program “to amplify pro-Israel narratives on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other platforms.” The story linked to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing that showed that Stagwell, the parent company of SKDK, agreed to perform such work.
But SKDK and Stagwell both said they did not work on a bot initiative. “Our work focused solely on media relations and nothing else,” the SKDK spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. Havas and Lapam also didn’t respond.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) defended constitutional protections for hate speech in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of conservative organizer Charlie Kirk.
In an interview with POLITICO’s Rachael Bade, Cruz said people who engage in hate speech are not “immune from the consequences of your speech,” expressing support for companies that have taken disciplinary action against employees for speaking negatively of Kirk.
"The First Amendment absolutely protects speech,” Cruz said Tuesday at POLITICO’s AI & Tech Summit in Washington. “It absolutely protects hate speech. It protects vile speech. It protects horrible speech. What does that mean? It means you cannot be prosecuted for speech, even if it is evil and bigoted and wrong.”
At the same time, Cruz endorsed “naming and shaming” as “part of a functioning and vibrant democracy,” citing English philosopher John Stuart Mill’s famous axiom that free and plentiful expression is the best antidote to undesirable speech.
"We have seen, as you noted, across the country, people on the left — not everybody, but far too many people — celebrating Charlie Kirk's murder,” Cruz said. “We've seen teachers in high schools and elementary schools posting online, celebrating. We've seen university professors posting. In my view, they should absolutely face the consequences for celebrating murder."
The senator lauded Kirk, who he described as a friend, for being willing to engage in civil debate.
Numerous individuals have been targeted online for making disparaging posts about Kirk, leading to firings in higher education, media and other industries. The Pentagon has also vowed to discipline service members who “celebrate or mock” Kirk’s killing.
Cruz also defended Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who said law enforcement would “absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” Cruz said those comments had been “misconstrued.”
In a Tuesday morning statement posted to social media, Bondi clarified that “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment.”
Cruz said while he was glad to see social media companies attempt to block the video of Kirk’s killing but added that the companies should “allow free speech,” echoing earlier comments by Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr who told POLITICO’s Alex Burns that the government should not crack down on social media posts about Kirk.
President Donald Trump announced late Monday he was launching a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times in his latest attack on a major media company over its reporting and commentary on him.
The suit, filed in a Florida court, accuses the Times of being “a fullthroated mouthpiece of the Democrat Party” and cites a series of articles, including the paper’s front-page endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social the “degenerate” Times had “engaged in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole.”
“The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!” he added.
Trump’s suit names The New York Times Company, four of the publication’s reporters — Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, Peter Baker and Michael S. Schmidt — and Penguin Random House, which published a book titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” written by Craig and Buettner, that the legal filing calls “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
The suit alleges the reporting had harmed Trump’s “unique brand” and business interests, including his media company’s stock value, causing “reputational injury” worth “billions of dollars.”
Trump threatened only last week to sue the Times for reporting allegations he authored a sexually suggestive note in 2003 to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019. Trump has vigorously denied he wrote the note.
In a statement posted online, the New York Times said Trump's lawsuit "has no merit" and is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting.
The Republican leader has launched a flurry of lawsuits against publications and media companies he has accused of being unfriendly and defamatory, including The Wall Street Journal, ABC and Paramount, the parent of CBS News.
In July, Paramount agreed to settle a $20 billion lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with former Vice President Harris on CBS news program "60 Minutes" that the president said was deceptively edited, paying him $16 million.
The socialist brand is on the rise, according to recent polling, fueling the left flank of the Democratic Party to argue its ideology is becoming more mainstream.
Shortly after Gallup released data showing Democrats and independents are cooling toward capitalism, a progressive organization is out with a poll finding that more than half of likely Democratic voters prefer socialist-aligned figures like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani to establishment politicians like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jefrries and Nancy Pelosi.
Democratic voters also view elected officials who describe themselves as democratic socialists about as positively as those who identify as Democrats, and they prefer democratic socialism to capitalism when written definitions of each are read aloud to them, according to the poll conducted by Data for Progress and shared first with POLITICO.
“What the mainstream of the party wants is both democratic socialism as a value system and democratic socialist politicians,” said Gabe Tobias, executive director of the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, a political nonprofit organization that funded the survey with the magazine Jacobin and the Berlin-based democratic socialist group Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
Though Democratic voters are warming to socialism, the ideology is toxic to most Republicans and many independents, making it difficult for socialists to win in battlegrounds. Even within the Democratic Party, some voters are skeptical about the electability of democratic socialists in swing areas, a reality Sanders faced during his two unsuccessful presidential runs.
Democrats find themselves in turmoil after the national drubbing they took last year, and have been tussling for months over how to rebuild their party. Progressives andmoderates alike have sought to shape the debate through polling, memos and in-person gatherings as they bicker over the path out of the wilderness.
This survey marks the first formal poll the DSA Fund has released — the latest example of the left seeking to professionalizeits operationsand create infrastructure to build on its recent electoral victories. The organization said it plans to share its findings with hundreds of socialists elected around the country.
Fifty-three percent of Democratic voters said they preferred politicians described as similar to Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani, while 33 percent favored those similar to Schumer, Jeffries and Pelosi. Fourteen percent didn’t choose.
Though Democratic voters reported viewing elected officials who describe themselves as Democrats or democratic socialists roughly equally, independent and Republican voters saw the socialists far more negatively. Both types of hypothetical politicians were described as having the same affordability-focused agenda.
The results help explain why socialists and progressives have found success in blue seats and cities — underscored by Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary in June — but have struggled to appeal to swing voters in battleground areas.
In the poll, democratic socialists were defined as believing “that the government should take a more active role to improve Americans' lives. They generally support higher taxes on corporations and high-income earners, support regulations that protect workers and consumers, and want more public ownership of key industries like housing, health care and utilities.”
The survey described capitalists as believing “that the private sector is best equipped to make improvements to Americans' lives. They generally support lower taxes, oppose government regulations of businesses, and want the private sector to own key industries like housing, health care and utilities.”
After hearing each description, 74 percent of likely Democratic voters said democratic socialism comes closest to their viewpoint, while 16 percent said the same of capitalism. A plurality of independent voters and a majority of Republicans said they preferred capitalism.
The survey of 1,257 likely voters nationwide, conducted from Aug. 22 to 24 using web panel respondents, had a 3-point margin of error.
Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah said on Monday that she was fired from the publication over social media posts she made following the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Writing in a lengthy Substack post, Attiah said she was dismissed over her posts on Bluesky that she says were deemed to be "unacceptable,” “gross misconduct” and that endangered the physical safety of her colleagues.
“They rushed to fire me without even a conversation,” she wrote. “This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold.”
A spokesperson for the Washington Post declined to comment on personnel matters. The Washington Post's public social media policyrequires employees to ensure any posts made do not make "reasonable people question their editorial independence, nor make reasonable people question The Post’s ability to cover issues fairly."
The guidance also urges staffers to "avoid curating your feeds in ways that suggest you have a partisan point of view on an issue The Post covers," though the policy specifically states that does not apply to columnists, critics and other practitioners of opinion journalism posting as part of their work.
Earlier this year, the publication shifted its opinion section to focus on supporting “personal liberties and free markets.” Owner Jeff Bezos said at the time that a “broad-based opinion section” was no longer needed because a diversity of opinions were available online.
In a statement, the Washington Post guild called Attiah's firing "unjust" and said it would continue to defend her rights.
"The Post not only flagrantly disregarded standard disciplinary processes, it also undermined its own mandate to be a champion of free speech," the guild said in a post on X. "The right to speak freely is the ultimate personal liberty and the foundation of Karen’s 11-year career at The Post."
Some of Attiah’s social media posts condemned political violence but also highlighted Kirk’s divisive comments on Black women. In her only post directly mentioning Kirk, she quoted the Turning Point USA founder’s comments that Black women lack “brain processing power.”
“I made clear that not performing over-the-top grief for white men who espouse violence was not the same as endorsing violence against them,” Attiah said.
Attiah, who started her career at The Washington Post in 2014, said the publication “silenced" her. She warned her firing is part of a larger trend.
President Donald Trump’s already brass-knuckled push for red-state redistricting is taking on an increasingly apocalyptic valence among MAGA stalwarts following the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Inside an Embassy Suites ballroom in suburban Indianapolis this weekend, Sen. Jim Banks’ inaugural Hoosier Leadership for America Summit drew hundreds of attendees who came to hear from next-generation MAGA figures ranging from Alex Bruesewitz, a top Trump adviser and longtime friend of Kirk’s, to GOP strategist Alex DeGrasse.
The summit marked the first official MAGA gathering since Kirk’s death and served as both a Kirk memorial and redistricting rally, unfolding amid an increased security footprint and ubiquitous police presence throughout the conference center.
Between musical interludes featuring Jason Aldean’s “Fly over States” and “Try That In a Small Town,” MAGA leaders spoke of “demons” at work behind the shooting of Kirk and the stabbing of Iryna Zarutska and “the righteous versus the wicked.” An attendee who posed a question to Banks wondered whether Kirk’s killing “lifted the veil between good and evil.”
“This isn’t a political battle anymore,” said Bruesewitz, who spoke to the crowd with visible emotion about his friendship with Kirk dating back to their teens, and recalled their last dinner together in South Korea just days ago. “It’s a spiritual battle.”
All of it presaged a coming national political hardening on the right with Kirk’s killing as the raison d'etre. More than any other issue at the conference, Kirk’s death seeped into the rationale for mid-decade redistricting.
In the final weeks of his life, Kirk underscored the argument for that push in Indiana: He posted to X last month Turning Point would “support primary opponents for Republicans in the Indiana State Legislature who refuse to support the team and redraw the maps.”
Bruesewitz in an interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of the summit said he initially considered asking Banks’ team to cancel the event in light of Kirk’s killing. But he decided to push ahead, recalling a message from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. “She said, ‘Do not let your words or your voice get softer, speak out now more than ever,’” Bruesewitz recalled.
Bruesewitz made the case to still-hesitant Hoosier lawmakers for a congressional map that delivers Republicans all nine Indiana districts, carving up Democratic-held areas in Indianapolis and Northwest Indiana.
“They need to recognize what time it is in our country,” Bruesewitz told POLITICO. “We are up against a wicked ideology that cannot continue to have power in our country. And Indiana has a unique opportunity to take some of their power away, doing it through lawful means and doing it through legislative means, and they should listen to the president and get it done.”
Banks said in an interview that Trump is closely monitoring the redistricting effort — and similarly tied the importance of the push to Kirk’s death.
“They killed Charlie Kirk — the least that we can do is go through a legal process and redistrict Indiana into a nine to zero map,” Banks said. “And I sense it in this crowd, in a big way. And I sense it from supporters all over the state; that now's not the time to back off. Now's not the time to be nice. Now's the time to engage in a peaceful and political way.”
Missouri lawmakers passed Republican-drawn maps this week at Trump’s behest. Ohio is required to produce new maps soon, too. But in Indiana, Burkean conservatives have dragged their feet. Since an Oval Office meeting with Trump last month, legislative leaders have neither publicly addressed that meeting nor shown their cards.
Speaker Todd Huston and state Senate President Rodric Bray have been holding behind-closed-doors caucuses to take the temperature of their members. But people familiar and briefed on those proceedings say Huston hasn’t taken a vote on the matter and Bray’s Senate is said to have not made much headway.
Throughout Saturday morning, precinct officials, local GOP grandees and state lawmakers heard speakers turn up the pressure on the issue.
War Room host and keeper of the MAGA flame Steve Bannon joined the event via live stream, calling for a maximalist approach to redistricting. “We’re absolutely pushing for 9-0,” DeGrasse told Bannon from the stage. “That’s the whole ballgame.”
Kurt Schlichter, the Townhall columnist, said Indiana lawmakers needed to “get hard” and “have the stones” to succeed in their push. “You need to carve this state into nine Republican districts and drink their tears,” he told Republicans of Democrats.
The keynote panel featured three Indiana GOP state lawmakers who have become vocal proponents of redistricting. Among them was state Rep. Andrew Ireland, who said in an interview that Kirk’s killing “crystallizes what a lot of people think, what the party believes,” emphasizing that the country has a “real issue” with political violence — which he claimed the left was particularly responsible for — and that Republicans have been complacent. “For too long, I think Republicans have tried to just rest on their laurels when it comes to things like redistricting.”
Not all of those gathered were nodding their heads. State Rep. Becky Cash, who represents more purple parts of the Indianapolis suburbs, told POLITICO that even after hearing the case for redistricting afresh at Saturday morning’s event following her White House visit last month, she remained opposed. Since Kirk’s death, Cash said she has received messages saying she and her colleagues should “redraw it all.”
“I tell people, ‘I don't think it's gonna happen,’ and then they look at me and they're like, ‘Oh, you're definitely going back in” for a special session, she said. “I'm like, ‘Well, do you know something that I don't know?’ Like, I think it's 50-50 at this point.”
Even if lawmakers do go back into a special session, Cash said based on her attendance at private caucuses she is not at all certain new maps would pass.
“I can tell you that the speaker did not take a count,” Cash said. “People are individually communicating with him. Obviously, we have three legislators who were on a panel today who are 100 percent yes. And I don't know many who are ‘yes.’”
Spokespeople for Huston and Bray did not return requests for comment.
Banks painted the stakes of the effort in no uncertain terms, asking the audience of statewide officials, lawmakers and precinct officials and grassroots powerbrokers to imagine Republicans losing their House majority by one or two seats because the state failed to take up redistricting.
“Indiana could be ground zero for keeping the House of Representatives,” Banks said.
The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has raised new fears that the country is entering another era of political violence.
One worrying sign: Americans’ attention has moved on faster and faster as incidents have become more frequent, data suggest, indicating the public may be becoming rapidly desensitized to it.
When an arsonist set the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion on fire in April, the incident did not make most national newspapers’ front pages. When two Democratic lawmakers were shot, with one killed alongside her husband, in Minnesota in June, it took only a few days for Google search traffic for the incident to drop to almost zero.
It shook the nation when Trump was shot last summer; but when another would-be gunman targeted the then-candidate on a golf course a few weeks later, it was just a blip in the news cycle.
Each attack may seem shocking, but the incidents are leaving less of a mark on the national consciousness. A POLITICO review of Google search data and newspaper front pages found individual attacks are getting less attention than they did in the past, and Americans are moving on even quicker. The news cycles for incidents of political violence this year are typically measured in a few weeks, if not just days.
“There's a whole bunch of studies on violence in the news, documenting the fact that people's emotional cognitive reactions early on are high, and then as time goes on, the more you are exposed, those cognitive emotional reactions lessen,” said Karyn Riddle, a communications professor at University of Wisconsin who studies violence in media.
And while definitions of political violence vary, it’s clear that it has been increasing in the U.S., by any metric. Targets in recent incidents include Trump, a Supreme Court justice, multiple governors, a former speaker of the House, and state lawmakers.
Threats against members of Congress have surged, according to the U.S. Capitol Police, with recorded threats more than doubling from 3,939 in 2017 to 9,474 in 2024.
“You'd have to go back to the pre-Civil War era to find a similar level of threat and acts of physical violence against lawmakers,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian at The George Washington University.
There was a time when such political violence, shocking the nation, drew prolonged national attention: When then-Rep. Gabby Giffords was grievously injured in a mass shooting in 2011, and six others killed, it was on the front page of The New York Times for more than a week.
It was in some ways the first of an era, and Giffords became an advocate for preventing gun violence. The Giffords attack has continued to get interest online after mass shootings and other incidents of political violence, POLITICO’s review found.
But that has largely not been the case for the growing number of later events. Google searches have surged after each event of violence — an indicator of the spike in public interest in the news topic — but quickly returned to normal levels.
That is happening even faster for recent acts of violence, POLITICO found.
Incidents of political violence over the past decade — such as the 2017 congressional baseball shooting that targeted Republican lawmakers including Rep. Steve Scalise, or the 2022 assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi — received relatively little search interest after the first rush of news.
The drop-off in public attention matches the pattern of news coverage: A POLITICO review of newspaper articles from LexisNexis found that recent events of political violence have tended to disappear from most newspaper front pages within just a week.
The POLITICO review focused on incidents where individual political figures were targeted for violence. That does not encompass the full scope of political violence in the U.S., which has also included shootings targeting campaign offices and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The review also found that despite the overall trend toward desensitization, many factors influenced the level of attention various incidents received, including the extent of injuries and how quickly the attacker was apprehended.
That’s why Kirk’s death — and the gruesome videos of it that quickly circulated across social media — may register with Americans in a different way than past incidents, Riddle said.
“The graphicness of violence matters,” the University of Wisconsin professor said. “[Kirk’s death] was caught live on camera, it was very bloody and graphic. Are people desensitized to exactly what they saw on Wednesday? Have we seen that a lot? I don’t feel like we have.”
Charlie Kirk emboldened a new generation of conservatives. His killing Wednesday as he addressed a crowd on a college campus has left those he brought into politics grieving — and vowing to continue his mission.
Nearly every young conservative staffer in Washington was involved with Kirk’s enormous youth organizing group Turning Point USA, whether through a college campus chapter or its national and regional conventions. That created a pipeline of young conservatives, who are now looking to cement his legacy in next year's midterms and beyond.
“I was passionate before and this movement was important, but now it’s personal,” said 19-year-old commentator Brilyn Hollyhand, who met Kirk when, at 11 years old, he asked Kirk to appear on his podcast. “We have a martyr.”
Kirk was divisive — beloved by a generation that is shifting rightward; castigated for controversial and antagonistic remarks that critics deemed hate speech.
But that divisiveness helped him gain national attention and turn out young voters for Trump, particularly Republicans in Arizona, which flipped to Trump in 2024. In 2020, Trump lost young men by 11 points, according to Catalist data. In 2024, he won them by 1 point. And his vote share among young women improved too — from a 35-point deficit in 2020 to a 23-point gap four years later.
Kirk’s killing this week “has awakened an army of believers,” said 25-year-old activist Isabella DeLuca, who was arrested in 2024 for her role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and pardoned by Trump in January.
“We are at war for the soul of this nation. I will not retreat. I will advance,” DeLuca said. “Charlie’s voice did not die with him. It will live through us.”
Hollyhand, who has worked closely with Turning Point, said he hopes to return to Utah and continue the “American Comeback” tour, which kicked off the day Kirk was shot. On Friday, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced that law enforcement had apprehended a suspect in the shooting, 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson, who a judge ordered to be held without the option of bail. Formal charges against Robinson are expected to be announced next week.
The rightward shift among young people is largely credited to Kirk’s megaphone, as well as his grassroots political organization, which he founded at 18. It quickly grew to more than 800 chapters on college campuses, with more than 250,000 student members nationwide.
Turning Point “is what got me interested in politics,” said 24-year-old White House assistant press secretary Taylor Rogers, who founded Clemson University’s first chapter in the fall of 2020.
“That’s what truly guided my career in politics and where I am now,” Rogers added. “It was really Turning Point and their resources that were able to jumpstart the career of a young conservative like me.”
Kirk has a huge social media platform — he posted TikTok videos of him debating college students to more than eight million followers and hosted a popular podcast. It is likely to be hard for the movement left in his wake to replicate the charisma and political organizing skills of Kirk, who also had a direct line to Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Kirk’s critics noted he utilized provocative language to roil national debate and normalize fringe theories. Some of his most memorable exchanges come from clips of his inflammatory back-and-forths with liberals over LGBTQ+ rights, restrictions on firearms and gender roles.
Harry Sisson, a prominent online figure in Democratic circles who has drawn the ire of conservatives online, is one of those who commended Kirk’s legacy as an influential defender of open debate.
“Charlie Kirk did welcome debate from anybody,” Sisson, 23, said in an interview. “Do I think he did it in good faith? No. … But he did encourage debate.”
For college student Matthew Kingsley, his father’s Fox News-informed conservatism didn’t appeal to him while growing up in North Carolina. But he commended how Kirk encouraged young people to do their own research when forming their own political views, and joined his local chapter while in college at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he now serves as chapter president as a rising senior.
Kirk’s impact on the young conservative movement has been “astronomical,” Kingsley said. “I really don't think this is going to stop it at all,” he said. “I think it is actually going to accelerate it.”
In the aftermath of the killing of conservative organizer Charlie Kirk, Politico’s Global Editor-In-Chief John Harris observes that there are few, if any, national figures who are spreading a message of unity.
We’re at a point, he says, “where almost every news event very quickly does become politicized, and people view events as … weapons or shields in a nonstop political argument.”
Kirk, 31, was shot and killed while he was speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. Kirk was among the nation’s most prominent conservative organizers, founding Turning Point USA when he was just 18 years old and growing it into a nationwide youth movement with hundreds of chapters.
Harris joined POLITICO’s Dasha Burns to discuss Kirk and the impact of his life and death on American politics in the latest episode of “The Conversation.”
“He was a larger-than-life figure in Republican politics,” Burns said, describing him as “controversial” and “provocative” but noting his commitment to debate. “I interviewed Charlie multiple times and our exchanges were sometimes intense. I pressed him, he pushed back, but in the end he was always cordial. Always willing to engage,” she said.
His killing is the latest in a string of acts of political violence — from the attempted assassination of then-candidate Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer to the killing of Melissa Hortman, the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota house, and her husband in June.
Harris notes that while there have been periods of violence in America — the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, among others — in the past, national leaders have at least sought to share messages of unity in the aftermath. While the current political moment has taken us away from that messaging, Harris notes that our climate of divisiveness is out of step with the majority of Americans.
“I think a lot of people do wish for something better," he said, "I would think almost every person wishes for something different than the horrific violence that we saw.”
The full interview with Harris is available this weekend on The Conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
In naming Memphis the next destination for National Guard deployment, President Donald Trump has opened a new front in his crusade against cities — one that relies on cooperation from Republican governors.
So far, Trump has targeted crime in cities within states led by Democrats, deploying the Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, and threatening action in Illinois, Maryland and Oregon. But launching troops into one of deep-red Tennessee’s largest cities marks a shift for the White House, alleviating legal hurdles and strengthening the president’s efforts as he increasingly relies on the military for policing.
And Memphis may just be the start — GOP governors have shown a willingness to lean on the Guard to aid in crime fighting and deportation efforts. Before it was declared the next target on Friday, Trump had suggested he would dispatch the Guard to New Orleans — which GOP Gov. Jeff Landry celebrated. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders this week detailed the Guard to assist in immigration enforcement in Little Rock and Fayetteville. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has routinely sent the Guard to police the border, and in June authorized 5,000 troops in anticipation of protests against deportation raids.
Tennessee Republicans view the entrance of the Guard in their state as an opportunity to sharpen their attacks on Democrats over crime, an issue that remains one of the GOP’s biggest strengths.
“Why these blue state governors would act like dumbasses and not welcome the federal help to reduce the crime for their own citizens is beyond me,” said Tennessee Sen. Brent Taylor, a Memphis-area Republican who has long requested federal intervention in his city. “When it comes to the crime issue, blue state governors are as useless as a milk bucket under a bull.”
But by teaming with Republican governors, Trump will “be able to demonstrate to the rest of the country, in particular to the blue state governors, that your opposition kept your crime rate high in your cities,” he said.
Trump’s decision to go to a red state also offers more flexibility in how the National Guard is mobilized — and allows him to avoid some of the legal resistance he has faced with Democratic leaders. The White House and governor’s office have yet to decide how resources will be deployed in Memphis, but with Lee’s buy-in, the National Guard could remain under the state’s authority and avoid the constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act, which which bars the military from enforcing domestic laws without explicit permission from Congress, said Christopher Mirasola, an assistant law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
A White House official touted the president’s federal takeover in Washington, and pointed to Memphis’ crime statistics as a key driver in the president’s decision — as well as the fact that he has the backing of some local and state Republicans who welcomed Trump’s announcement. Violent crime in Memphis has risen in the last decade, but like other large American cities, rates have decreased since pandemic-era spikes. The city’s police department said in a release this week that murder is at a six-year low, aggravated assault at a five-year low and sexual assault at a 20-year low.
“The president’s action in Memphis and what he has talked about in cities — dangerous cities around the country — is not about pushing back against a Dem narrative. It’s not about scoring political points,” said the official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It is something he has talked about for many, many years, dating back to when he first ran for president in 2015.”
The official called Memphis “a very dangerous city” adding, “so, of course, having the buy-in of local officials is great.”
On Friday, after Trump derided Memphis as “deeply troubled,” Republican Gov. Bill Lee said he was working with the White House on a plan to combat crime that leverages “the full extent of both federal and state resources.”
“This is politically smart of Trump, insofar as it lets him accomplish two goals at once. First, he gets to take away an opposition talking point — that crime is higher in many cities in red states than in DC or Chicago. He can say ‘Look, I take crime seriously everywhere,’” said Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor who served as a counselor to the undersecretary of defense for policy under President Barack Obama. “Second, he continues to normalize the once unthinkable use of uniformed military personnel in American cities.”
But even with the state’s Republicans on board, the deployment sets up a clash with local Democratic leaders. Memphis Mayor Paul Young said at a press conference on Friday that he did not request the National Guard, and he doesn’t believe it’s an effective way of driving down crime: “However that decision has been made — my commitment is to make sure strategically that we make sure this happens in a way that truly benefits and strengthens our city.”
Other Tennessee Democrats point to Trump’s military takeover of Memphis as an extension of his policies to stoke racial divisions and to make an example of the perceived ineptitude of cities that have a high number of Black elected officials.
“If he was interested in responding to his base, he would be in Utah,” state Rep. Justin Pearson said. “Immediately after Charlie Kirk is killed there’s a National Guard deployment to one of the Blackest cities in the United States of America?”
Pearson argued sending National Guard troops exposes the incompetence of Republicans who control all levels of power across the state.
“If indeed the problem is so bad here in Memphis, it shows the failure of our Republican-led statehouse and our governor…to do their jobs well,” added Pearson, who was briefly expelled from chamber after protesting in support of gun safety two years ago. “If all the money that is going to be spent on this political charade would instead be given to poor people in our cities and in our communities, we wouldn't have crime problems the way that we do.”
Others say Republicans, who enjoy a governing trifecta and a supermajority in both chambers of the statehouse, have overseen the steady roll back of state and federal resources that could help local officials tamp down on crime. This includes federal gun violence prevention funding that was cut under the Trump administration and the relocation of the FBI’s main field office last October across the state to Nashville during the Biden administration, despite Memphis ranking high on the FBI’s list of violent crimes per capita.
“I'm fearful [of] where this is going, and that we will not get the promise of zero crime,” Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said at a press conference Friday. “Send FBI agents and law enforcement agents who can get guns off of the street. Don't send armored vehicles.”
Democratic leaders in New York and Illinois are bracing for Trump to follow through on his threats to deploy the Guard in New York City and Chicago. In Chicago, as ICE’s presence has grown in recent weeks, National Guard troops have yet to be deployed. Gov. JB Pritzker believes Trump may yet change his mind ahead of the midterms.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has insisted a federal deployment of the Guard is unnecessary given the progress made addressing crime. Hochul deployed the National Guard late last year to New York City’s subways, a move intended to.make New Yorkers feel safer when riding the nation’s largest mass transit system.
New York State Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Jackie Bray said city officials have been meeting multiple times a week to discuss preparations if Trump directs his attention to New York City next.
“My message as it has been from day one is: ‘We’ve got this,’” Bray said. “The NYPD is the best law enforcement entity in the country. It would be an insult to them if the federal government thinks they can do a better job.”
Nick Reisman and Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk sparked a cacophony of condemnations and grief from leaders across the political spectrum. But missing from the din was the voice of a unifying political leader calling for calm.
No one appeared well positioned to play the soothing role that has fallen in the past to presidents and the nation’s faith leaders.
“I’m looking, but I can’t claim that I can identify that person,” former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels told POLITICO.
Daniels, a Republican from a more genteel time in American politics, was not alone in his assessment of the bleak landscape.
Bill Daley, former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, said in an interview that President Donald Trump “is the only one who can do it, because he represents everyone.”
Rep. Don Bacon, the iconoclastic Nebraska Republican, told a reporter he hoped the president would step up to the challenge, adding, “But he’s a populist, and populists dwell on anger.”
In a video statement recorded from the Oval Office late Wednesday, Trump denounced the violence on a Utah Valley University campus that led to the death of the 31-year-old conservative fixture. The president, who survived two attempts on his own life, spoke of the scourge of “demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”
But he also laid blame at the feet of the "radical left," who he said compared Kirk to "Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals.”
Trump has either actively refused or begrudginly — and then only briefly — embraced the role of consoler- or uniter-in-chief. He has routinely demonized his opponents on social media and threatened to withhold federal dollars from causes with which he ideologically disagrees. His previous rhetoric has included boasting he could stand “in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters and he recently ordered the National Guard to patrol cities whose Democratic leaders he argues let crime get out of control.
For some, Trump himself is part of the problem. As president, he has the power to ease an already tense situation — or inflame it.
“There is a violent undertow, and we have to be very careful about unleashing it,” said William Barber, an influential pastor and civil rights activist who co-chairs the Poor People’s Campaign, which advocates for the nation’s lowest-income residents. It was founded by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
He suggested perhaps one person alone can’t fill the role of cooling the temperature.
“Does the president have a responsibility at this moment? Yes,” Barber added. “But I'm saying that in our history there has never been one person. So it’s the president, pulpits and politicians that hold key leadership positions that must step into this moment.”
Asked whether he could be the country’s lead uniter, a White House spokesperson highlighted the following portion of his Wednesday night remarks: “Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died. The values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God. Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country. An assassin tried to silence him with a bullet, but he failed because together we will ensure that his voice, his message and his legacy will live on for countless generations to come.”
And asked how he would like his supporters to respond to Kirk’s assassination, Trump told a reporter, "He was an advocate of nonviolence. That's the way I like to see people."
But to another question he replied, “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”
Few know how to sew back together a civic fabric that seems irreparably torn.
“There's no one trusted broadly enough to play that role,” said Mike Ricci, former Speaker Paul Ryan’s communications director. Ricci crafted Ryan’s remarks in the minutes after Rep. Steve Scalise was shot at a congressional baseball game practice in 2017. “And in the absence of that kind of voice, it just leaves people retreating more into their own camps: They're more likely to share what Megyn Kelly says about it than they are the president.”
Trump still has room to seize the mantle, said Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s former spokesperson.
Back when the former president climbed a pile of rubble in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, Fleischer said, “We were still a polarized nation where many Democrats thought President George Bush was an illegitimate president because of the Supreme Court ruling in the recount. What changed everything was the fact that America was attacked and our nation rallied."
"I don't agree that it's impossible for leaders to bring people together, because I saw it happen,” he added.
Indeed, FBI Director Kash Patel, a MAGA faithful, attended the anniversary ceremony Thursday alongside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, an establishment Democrat, in a sign that a few moments and places remain to bridge the partisan divide.
Former presidents looked to offer their own way forward for the nation using the only megaphone they had: social media.
But no one can quite find the words — or the credibility or moral authority — to quell the molten anger of this American moment, an anger that shows no signs of receding ahead of the pivotal midterm elections next year.
Trump is as much an ailment to the body politic as he is a symptom. Declining trust in politicians, a fragmented and siloed media, and decades of waning social and religious institutionsare all colliding.
There’s no Rev. Billy Graham to speak to broad swaths of the faithful and call us to Americans’ better angels. The Pope — an American — hasn’t yet addressed Kirk’s death, though U.S. bishops did, urging for a national reckoning that rids “us of senseless violence once and for all.”.
“Billy Graham … spoke as someone who had something to offer to everyone, as opposed to someone who was speaking on behalf of a tribe— and that's what we've lost,” said Michael Wear, Obama’s former faith outreach adviser.
At its core, Wear said, the killing of Kirk — and the lack of a unifying leader to emerge in its aftermath — reveals something about American politics in 2025.
“Politicians used to be valued by their most strident supporters for their ability to speak and persuade others who were not among their core supporters,” he said. “Now, the common definition of a good politician is someone who excels at channeling and mobilizing anger among their core supporters against an enemy.”
Last week, during an event at the National Press Club, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore quoted a common rule for governors: “If you have not faced a tragedy," Moore said, "just give it a second. Yours is on its way.”
Moore’s tragedy was the Key Bridge collapse last year, he said. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, sitting next to Moore, shook his head and offered his condolences. "I haven't had to face anything quite like that,” Cox noted.
That tragedy for Cox came Wednesday afternoon, when conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, thrusting Cox’s state into the national spotlight. The Utah governor offered a forceful rebuke Wednesday evening, calling it a “political assassination” and vowing justice against the killer.
But he also made an emotional plea, noting the assassination of a Democratic Minnesota lawmaker and her husband in June and the attempted killings of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, and President Donald Trump. “Our nation is broken,” he said, pleading that “all of us will try to find a way to stop hating our fellow Americans.”
Cox, the second-term Republican governor of Utah, has made such efforts at depolarization the central theme of his governorship. As chair of the National Governors Association, his initiative — “Disagree Better” — focused on building cross-aisle collaboration with blue states. He partnered with Moore and other Democratic governors on solutions to issues from teenage social media use to housing.
He is so seriously committed to the cause that after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt last year, despite years of criticizing Trump, Cox endorsed him — committing to "help (Trump) try to lower the temperature in this country," Cox explained.
The Kirk killing Wednesday, though, posed the largest trial yet for Cox’s vision — and made Cox’s state the epicenter for the political divide he has long warned against.
“It's going to be a challenge, but an important one, to lead out to say, ‘This is not Utah, this is not the Utah way, this is not the American way,’” said Maury Giles, CEO of Braver Angels, a New York-based nonprofit that works to bridge partisan divides.
Wednesday’s shooting occurred as the 31-year-old Kirk addressed thousands of onlookers during the first stop of a planned nationwide tour of college campuses. Kirk, sitting under a tent that read “Prove Me Wrong” and engaging in debate with ideological and political rivals, was shot in the neck midway through the event. The thousands of attendees, including children, fled in horror. Trump announced Kirk’s death later Wednesday afternoon.
In an act of caution, Utah Highway Patrol officials were dispatched to the homes of prominent Utahns in the vicinity, including former Gov. Gary Herbert, who lives near the Orem campus and has an office at the university.
“I think the jarring part was it happened in our own backyard,” Herbert, a Republican, said. “I think we expect more from ourselves than what we saw today.”
“It's clearly not the Utah way,” added Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) on CNN on Wednesday evening.
The “Utah way,” as Cox frequently puts it, is “disagreeing better, not disagreeing less.”
Cox’s tenure as National Governors Association chair, which ended last year, carried that message to the national stage, where Cox led in forging partnerships with national nonprofits and Democratic statewide leaders.
“I just realized that we can’t solve any of the biggest issues if we all hate each other,” Cox told POLITICO last year. “And I’m deeply concerned about the polarization in our country and our inability, especially in Congress, to work together and solve problems.” To Cox, it is as much a religious effort as a political one: He credits the teachings of Russell M. Nelson, president of Cox’s faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as his inspiration.
Tami Pyfer, co-creator of the Dignity Index, a tool for analyzing the contemptuousness of political rhetoric, said Wednesday’s act of violence was “sickening” and a reminder that her mission is still very much incomplete.
“It's discouraging to look at the work that so many bridge-building organizations are doing across the country, literally hundreds of groups addressing this problem — we’re working our hearts out,” Pyfer said, her voice breaking. “We’re working our hearts out to try to turn a corner on this.”
Pyfer, like Giles, is a Utah resident, and has worked closely with Cox on depolarization efforts. Both applauded Cox’s speech Wednesday night, as did Scott Howell, a former Democratic state senator and Utah minority leader.
"Spencer really did hit the point,” Howell said. “It would have been so easy for him to have said, ‘Democrats are the dregs of the earth’ or whatever. I give him big kudos. I really do.”
Cox’s message was one of peacemaking. “If anyone in the sound of my voice celebrated, even a little bit, at the news of the shooting, I would beg you to look in the mirror and to see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere,” Cox said Wednesday.
“I don’t care what his politics are,” Cox added about Kirk. “I care that he was an American.”
Herbert — who said Cox’s speech was “outstanding, considering the circumstances” — said his former lieutenant governor’s biggest challenge lies ahead.
“The question, ultimately, is how effective is what we say?” Herbert said. “How does it impact what we do?”
The two premier statewide elections this fall are Democrats’ to lose, but they have a lot to prove.
Many Democrats won’t be satisfied with simply eking out a win — they are banking on resounding victories from Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. The gubernatorial nominees, who are leaning into their national security pedigrees, are carrying the weight of a party's expectations.
The party is looking to them to springboard Democrats into next year's midterms, with control of Congress up for grabs. They’re eager to show that 2024’s drubbing was an anomaly.
“Democrats should be optimistic about these two races, but you know, the lesson from 2024 is we can't take anything for granted,” said veteran Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who added that President Donald Trump’s mastery of dominating news coverage runs the risk of drowning out his rivals' economic messaging.
After Democratic overperformances in local elections across the country this year, the party is bullish on their prospects. Recent polling has Sherrill and Spanberger leading their Republican opponents, Jack Ciattarelli and Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, respectively.
When pushed, operatives express more confidence about Virginia, and acknowledge maintaining their grip on the governor’s mansion in New Jersey for the third consecutive cycle presents a tougher challenge.
National Democrats have committed what they called some of their largest initial investments in these states — $1.5 million each in New Jersey and Virginia — to boost Sherrill and Spanberger. A group backed by the Democratic Governors Association also placed $20 million in advertisements in New Jersey, around twice as much as the DGA-backed group did in 2021.
The political climate in Virginia and New Jersey is far better than what they're facing in some battleground races next November. But the fear of being toppled by Republican nominees in states where Trump gained ground is adding pressure to the Sherrill and Spanberger campaigns, as are looming questions of whether they can unify their fractured coalition that cost Kamala Harris the election.
With two months before voters head to the polls in New Jersey and Virginia — and just weeks before early voting starts — here are some issues to watch.
Economy
Democrats are blaming Trump for rising costs as they emphasize affordability — an issue that catapulted him to the White House last year. If successful, that messaging is likely to serve as a blueprint for next year's midterms.
Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) argued that Sherrill’s focus on affordability will appeal to those who backed the president because he has “lied about every major campaign promise” regarding cutting costs.
Democrats see this as a way to recapture Black and Hispanic voters, who drifted toward Trump in part because they viewed him as stronger than Harris on the economy.
“Many of the voters, the Latino and Black community, were looking for possible change. They thought Trump would be that change,” said Rep. Nellie Pou (D-N.J.), who represents a diverse district that Trump won last year. “Sadly, he has not delivered on any of the promises he has made. He has not changed the economy, he has not lowered the costs. … I think the Latino and Black community will see him for what he is.”
Democrats are hoping the Trump administration's recent moves on tariffs and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will sway voters in November. Republicans, meanwhile, are toying with how to market the megabill to voters ahead of next year’s elections.
This election will put Democrats’ Trump messaging to the test. But while they try to convince voters higher costs are the president’s fault, Ciattarelli and his fellow Republicans say outgoing Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Trenton Democrats are to blame.
In Virginia, Democrats are leaning into similar messages on affordability, arguing Trump has broken campaign promises on lowering costs since his return to the White House. The DOGE cuts, which are acutely felt in Northern Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, D.C., are paramount in the campaign as Democrats look to cast Earle-Sears as a cheerleader for Trump’s gutting of the federal workforce.
The Trump Factor
The GOP is hoping they can replicate the party’s success when Trump is not on the ballot — something that helped lift Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin to the governor’s mansion four years ago. That red wave, however, was short-lived as Democrats successfully flipped control of the lower chamber of the Virginia legislature in 2023. Now Democrats are looking to expand their control of both chambers as well as usher in a clean sweep of all three statewide offices this year by leaning into anti-Trump sentiments.
But the president’s impact is an unknown factor in Virginia. Earle-Sears has yet to receive Trump’s endorsement, which some Republicans are bullish would help her make up ground.
An endorsement “would be a plus,” said Fairfax County GOP chair Katie Gorka. “I know that there are people, especially in Northern Virginia, who are not Trump fans. … But the bottom line is, Trump did really well for a Republican in Northern Virginia.”
In the meantime, Earle-Sears is borrowing from his 2024 culture-war playbook. In a campaign ad released Wednesday, she labeled her Democratic opponent a “woke Washington radical” who “wants boys to play sports and share locker rooms with little girls” and will allow kids to change genders “without telling their parents.”
The Spanberger campaign wants to remind Virginia voters that the Republican nominee, who advocated the Republican Party “move on” from the president just a few years ago, is now fully embracing Trumpism.
In New Jersey, Trump endorsed Ciattarelli in the Republican primary. But it’s unclear if the president’s support will provide a boost among the general electorate, in which Ciattarelli needs to earn the backing of unaffiliated and Democratic voters to chip away at Democrats’ large voter registration advantage. Recent surveys show Trump unpopular with New Jerseyans, and Democrats are confident he will drag Ciattarelli at the polls.
Ciattarelli recently told reporters he appreciates “that the White House isn't taking a heavy-handed approach” with his race, but offered to “do anything” that Ciattarelli thinks “can help the campaign.”
Ciattarelli criticized the president years ago, and Trump did not endorse the New Jersey Republican in 2021. But Trump now proclaims Ciattarelli as “100 percent MAGA” — something Democrats are eager to remind voters of. Ciattarelli argues that Democrats are more focused on talking about Trump than New Jersey.
Who will boost Democratic enthusiasm?
While Republicans can rally the base around Trump this November, Democrats lack that clear leader.
When asked about whether a campaign appearance from Harris would benefit Sherrill, New Jersey Democratic Party Chair LeRoy Jones said he is focused on “utilizing the celebrity base in New Jersey that we have,” and cited Sen. Cory Booker and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, the latter of whom came in second place during the June Democratic primary for governor.
“We have a number of individuals that give that turnout prowess,” he said.
Former President Barack Obama held rallies for Murphy and former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, as well as Virginia nominees Ralph Northam and Terry McAuliffe. Though he hasn't announced plans in either state yet, he participated in a fundraiser earlier this summer for Sherrill.
At least one potential 2028 Democratic White House candidate, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, is planning to campaign for Sherrill and Spanberger in the closing stretch of the campaign.
Black and Hispanic voters
Across the country, Republicans are looking to replicate Trump’s inroads with Black and Hispanic voters. New Jersey and Virginia will be the first post-2024 test of whether they are able to achieve that.
In the primary, Sherrill had a lower share of the vote in areas with large Black and Hispanic populations, and some have warned that Democrats are at risk of continuing to lose those voters. Ciattarelli and Sherrill are working to engage those communities, and Sherrill recently got a notable boost with an endorsement from Baraka, who performed well in areas with large Black and Hispanic populations in the primary.
In Virginia, Republicans tout their diverse slate of candidates, with a Black woman running atop the ticket, an openly gay lieutenant governor candidate in John Reid and incumbent attorney general Jason Miyares, who is of Cuban descent.
Earle-Sears' campaign also points to a recent $500,000 donation from Bob Johnson, the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, as evidence she is making inroads with minority voters while picking up fundraising in the campaign’s final stretch. Spanberger enjoys a hefty 3-to-1 cash advantage, according to recent state campaign finance reports.
Spanberger was forced to play defense after a woman held a racially divisive sign last month at a campaign rally targeting the lieutenant governor. “Hey Winsome, if trans can't share your bathroom, then blacks can't share my water fountain," the sign read. Spanberger said in a social media post the sign was “racist and abhorrent.”
Democrats counter that their own diverse ticket, which includes an Indian-born woman as lieutenant governor nominee and a Black man running for attorney general, better represent the values of voters of the state than their GOP counterparts. The party also vows their ticket will, unlike the Republicans, work to protect residents from the federal government overreach.
“Folks aren't fooled in this campaign,” said Lamont Bagby, a state senator and chair of Virginia’s Democratic Party. “When we needed them to push back on the Trump administration … they did not.”
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
When Jerry Nadler announced his retirement this week, he opted to directly address a question that’s been roiling the Democratic Party since Joe Biden’s withering debate performance last year: How old is too old to run for office?
The 78-year-old congressmember cited his age as a factor in his departure plans from a safe seat in New York City. And in doing so, he earned praise from some of the party’s younger agitators — though based on interviews, it’ll take more than a handful of elderly lawmakers like Nadler heeding their calls to step aside to repair the intra-party rift.
As it is, the vast majority of Democrats who are 70 or older are publicly running for another House term.
Against that backdrop, a trend of acknowledging the party’s age problem — often tacitly — is beginning to emerge, even as other senior members of the party are likely to stay put.
Four House Democrats, including Nadler, and four Senate Democrats over the age of 65 have said this year that they are stepping down from Congress. A fifth House Democrat said he would retire from his home district if Texas’ proposed redistricting maps survive legal challenges. Democrats believe even more departures could be coming with a government shutdown deadline looming and lawmakers evaluating their futures after returning from their August recess.
“These retirements are a great example of maturity from these leaders to make the difficult decision for them of knowing even after you've served somewhere for decades that it's time for somebody else to lead,” Leaders We Deserve co-founder David Hogg said in an interview, specifically responding to Nadler’s news.
But 25-year-old Hogg, who has become a leading voice for generational change within his party, also pledged to continue his plan to financially support some candidates who challenge older incumbent Democrats.
“There is still more of a need for us to bring in some fresh blood into this party and help rejuvenate it,” he said, “and show people how the party is changing in the wake of a pretty major loss last election cycle.”
More than 80 House members are 70 or older, a statistic younger Democrats like Hogg cite to underscore their argument that a party in turmoil needs generational change. Only one House member is in his 20s, and the vast majority of older congressional members are expected to run for reelection.
Still, some Democrats who have announced their retirement have explicitly cited age as a factor.
Nadler told the New York Times that “watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that.” Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, 81, announced in the spring she wouldn’t seek reelection, saying, “It is now time for me to pass the baton” and this week praising the “new voices” as “so sharp, so articulate, so self-assured. It's wonderful.”
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, 67, likewise said earlier this year that “it’s important that people in my position do what they can to lift up the next generation of leaders” when unveiling her retirement. And 83-year-old Illinois Rep. Danny Davis told supporters in July when he decided to retire that “this would be a great time to try and usher in new leadership.”
As Democrats search for a path out of the political wilderness, they have faced a push for fresh faces from voters and activists who have urged their leaders to mount a more visible resistance to President Donald Trump. The impatience from younger Democrats has led several primary challengers to attempt to turn incumbents' age into a liability. Three House Democrats have died in office this year, further fueling the contentious debate on the left.
“The boomer generation has held on to some of these seats for a long time,” said New York City-based Democratic strategist Evan Thies. “And we saw in the last election that even very accomplished, highly competent and productive elder electeds are now at risk of not winning their elections simply because they're older.”
Even agitators like Hogg have carved out exceptions to their push to oust senior Democrats, which he insists is motivated by effectiveness and not solely age. Hogg, whose primary plans caused an uproar within the Democratic National Committee that culminated in his ouster as a party vice chair, has exempted Democratic luminaries like Nancy Pelosi, 85, from his anti-incumbent movement. And he has said the same of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 83, who still draws huge crowds even as he signals this term could be his last in the Senate.
“Generational change has been underway in the House Democratic caucus for the last several years, and it's something that every caucus member, regardless of which generation they find themselves in, has embraced,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, 55, told reporters Tuesday when asked about generational change and Nadler’s decision. “What the record shows is leadership to rank-and-file-members to committee positions, and at all points in between.”
This year, House Democrats elevated a younger, rising star in the party, Rep. Robert Garcia, as their top member of the Oversight Committee, and Jeffries himself had participated in a changing of the guard when Pelosi stepped aside as speaker, along with her top lieutenants, Reps. Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, to make way for a younger trio.
Rep. Jared Huffman took over as the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee from Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who stepped aside amid a cancer battle and later died. And Rep. Angie Craig won a caucus-wide election to be the top Agriculture Committee Democrat after Rep. David Scott also dropped his bid amid health questions.
In a move that some younger Democrats have criticized, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has actively recruited older, well-known Democrats like former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper in his long-shot bid to flip the upper chamber. Other Senate Democratic candidates are younger, including Rep. Chris Pappas, 45, in New Hampshire and the trio of Democrats running in Michigan.
Some senior House Democrats are keeping others in the party guessing about their future plans. Two top members of the previous generation of House Democratic leadership — Pelosi and Hoyer — have been publicly noncommittal on their re-election plans, though Pelosi has filed for re-election. And others who have faced competitive primary challenges amid broader health questions, like Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), have said they’re still running for re-election.
Hoyer spokesperson Margaret Mulkerrin said in a statement he was “focused on holding the Trump Administration accountable, protecting democracy at home and abroad, supporting federal employees and civil servants, and delivering for Maryland’s 5th District.”
Jumaane Williams, the 49-year-old New York City Public Advocate, applauded Nadler for stepping down after “watching what happened to the country, particularly around President Biden.”
"I think the party in general should be learning this lesson,” he said. “Hopefully, when it's my turn, I have that lesson, too.”
With additional reporting by Jeff Coltin and Shia Kapos.
CORRECTION: This spelling of Margaret Mulkerrin's name has been corrected in this story.
Democrats are scrambling to keep their nascent crusade against President Donald Trump’s national redistricting push from fizzling out.
House Democrats are considering establishing an organization to raise and spend for their remapping efforts as they look to counter an aggressive Republican move that could determine control of the chamber next year, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has privately discussed redistricting with blue-state governors, according to another person.
The Center for American Progress is urging blue states to abandon their independent redistricting commissions. And, through private strategy sessions and public appeals, Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu is asking Democrats across red and blue states to take a no-holds-barred approach to resisting GOP redistricting. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin praised Wu during a meeting in Minneapolis last week for “igniting a national movement within this party.”
“This is an all-out call to arms,” Wu, who helped lead Texas Democrats’ quorum break, said in an interview. “That chorus of 'everyone needs to get off their ass and do something' is growing louder and louder. And more and more elected Democrats who are seen as doing nothing — their commitment to our country is going to be questioned.”
But Democrats face a lopsided fight.
They’re hamstrung by constitutional restrictions or independent commissions in some states, while Republicans are generally free of those legal barriers and have leadership trifectas in Indiana, Florida, Missouri and Ohio, promising state lawmakers fewer restrictions to draw Democratic rivals out of their seats. Florida's constitution has language restricting partisan gerrymandering, though its conservative-majority state Supreme Court recently upheld a GOP redraw.
Against this backdrop, Democrats are grasping for ways to counter Trump’s maximalist campaign to redraw congressional maps to protect Republicans’ three-seat House majority in the midterms. With a counteroffensive already underway in California, Democrats are turning to other blue states to take up the charge — and finding some open-minded participants in governors with 2028 ambitions.
Democrats see the promise of netting three seats in Maryland and Illinois, whose governors — Wes Moore and JB Pritzker, respectively — have spoken with Jeffries about redistricting, according to one person granted anonymity to describe those private conversations. The minority party is also eyeing a pickup opportunity in Utah, after a judge ruled the state must redraw its map. Jeffries has also spoken with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, though any changes in the Empire State are unlikely before 2028 and thus wouldn’t impact the upcoming midterms.
One national Democratic operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the tumultuous situation, described jumping into the redistricting arms race as “the price for entry to the 2028 presidential primary.”
Caifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose popularity is soaring as he emerges as Democrats’ remapping champion, has been encouraging his counterparts to follow his lead, saying at POLITICO’s California Summit Wednesday, “We’re going to have to see other governors move in a similar direction.”
An array of party officials and organizations are lining up.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee is fielding calls, providing technical support and legal expertise to state leaders looking at their own congressional maps, according to a person directly familiar with their efforts.
Wu, the Texas House Democrats leader, discussed messaging and other tactics with legislators from seven states where Republicans are eyeing redistricting during a Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee strategy session last week, per a summary of the call provided to POLITICO. And former President Barack Obama called Texas state Rep. James Talarico — a potential U.S. Senate candidate — to voice support for his role in his state's redistricting battle.
But in some states, messaging is all Democrats can do. Republicans in Indiana, for example, hold a supermajority and can pass any map without a single Democrat in the chamber.
It's not just Democratic officials who are getting involved. Unions that banded together to condemn Republicans’ gerrymandering in Texas are now pledging to put manpower behind Newsom’s ballot campaign in California and holding strategy discussions about combating Trump’s next moves in other states. And activists affiliated with the progressive group Indivisible have made roughly 5,000 calls to governors and lawmakers across 15 states with Democratic trifectas urging them to responsively redistrict.
“This isn’t something we had to go pitch people on the importance of. This is something people were banging down our doors about,” said Andrew O’Neill, Indivisible’s national advocacy director.
And it “does seem that this is something that has broken through with these governors and has the potential to create what I’ve been calling a productive ambition,” O’Neill said. “These people might be thinking about future job prospects for themselves and they view being a leader in this fight as a route to do that.”
Democrats’ pressure campaign is struggling in Colorado, Washington and Oregon, whose governors have all but closed the door to redistricting, and the party lacks the legislative means or the interest to change their maps.
Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib sent a recent memo to county officers outlining the near-insurmountable challenges in mimicking California’s ballot campaign, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO. Petitions attempting to circumvent the state’s independent redistricting commission are being filed without the state party’s backing.
Washington Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen shut down the possibility in a letter to a concerned constituent shared with POLITICO, noting Washington’s Democratic-heavy congressional delegation already does not reflect the political makeup of the state. And state Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad acknowledged “lots of pressure and desire” to take up redistricting, but pointed to a broad recognition that it’s “practicably impossible.”
On the East Coast, New Jersey Democrats are similarly hamstrung by state constitutional issues and though Moore told POLITICO "everything's on the table" when it comes to redistricting, a state court tossed Maryland Democrats' previous attempt to gerrymander.
But Democratic activists are increasingly discontent to let anyone in their party sit on the sidelines as they fight what they view as Trump’s latest power grab.
“These are serious times, and I’m not sure how much more serious things have to be for [Democratic governors] to get off their ass and get in the batters box and swing for the fences,” said California-based Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo. “This is infuriating.”
Natalie Fertig and Brakkton Booker contributed to this report.
The age of the millennial politician is here — nowhere more obviously than in city halls around the country. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb surprised Ohio’s political establishment in 2021 by soaring to victory at the age of 34. The former Obama intern-turned-Key Bank executive is now the president of the Democratic Mayors’ Association and a rising star within the party.
I met up with Bibb — clad in his signature round tortoiseshell glasses and a slim-cut navy suit suit even on a hot and humid Sunday in July. We talked about his city and its relationship with the federal government — from the impact federal cuts may have on his city’s hospital system to his desire to work with Republicans and President Donald Trump on permitting reform.
Over a plate of mac and cheese at trendy Cleveland bistro Luxe, Bibb said that Democrats at large have missed the fact that millennials are impatient — not willing to wait their turn to run for office, deeply entrepreneurial and chomping at the bit to solve the crises they’ve spent their entire lives navigating.
“When I ran for mayor, a lot of folks — a lot of establishment Democrats in the party — told me to wait my turn,” Bibb explained. “We are impatient about this country, because we know what crises look like … because we've experienced them firsthand.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You're from Cleveland.
Born and raised in Cleveland. I lived in the southeast side, in the Mount Pleasant/Union Miles neighborhood.
I'm not that familiar with Cleveland. So tell me what that means, vibes- or identity-wise.
It's got a crazy identity in terms of its history. At the height of Cleveland's prominence — and we were once the fifth largest city in the United States — it was a Jewish middle-class neighborhood. Then you have white flight, redlining, and it became a Black middle class neighborhood.
To this day, there's still remnants of that. When I was growing up in the 1990s at the height of the crack epidemic in the city, it still had a strong Black middle class, still strong main streets. And one of the reasons why I ran was to try to reverse that decline.
In an interview earlier this year, you mentioned that housing was a policy space where this Congress might make some progress. Have you seen anything helpful since then?
Nothing yet. And what concerns me is that with the passage of this “big beautiful bill,” it's adding to the deficit, which is going to lead to an increase in interest rates, which is going to lead to an increase in the cost of buying a home.
If there was one space where I think Trump could have some real bipartisan support, it’s around housing. He's a builder, right?
I think every mayor or governor you talk to wants to see Congress support us on permitting reform at every level of government. And every mayor or governor you talk to wants HUD to streamline regulations so it's easier to build in America.
Are there other places you see a missed opportunity, where interests align?
I know that the administration is looking at opportunity zones and … childcare tax credits.
And then on immigration reform … The best thing for us to do to be a competitive economy is to pass common sense immigration reform. So instead of all this theater and chaos and this other bullshit, let's get back to work and let's find common sense immigration reform. Everybody wants a secure border, but we also need to give people a pathway to citizenship, because if we don't, we can't be globally competitive.
You have connections with many other mayors because of the Democratic Mayors Association. Is there any housing policy you're seeing in other cities that excites you?
A lot of us right now focus on permitting reform. Cleveland will be launching that effort this fall, where we're streamlining the process to upload your drawings and to get a permit from City Hall.
Really proud of the work that Mayor Todd Gloria has done in San Diego, where he has really worked quickly to decrease street homelessness in the downtown parts of San Diego. That’s declined over 60 percent since he took office.
I look at what Andre Dickens has done in Atlanta, where he has taken old shipping containers and vacant lots and made it a homeless shelter where people have dignity and support to get the second chance they deserve.
What about some of the cuts that have come out of D.C. recently, on education funding or Medicaid. Are you finding any ways to backfill these cuts?
I think every mayor in the country will agree with this: There is no replacement that we can find to plug in the gaps from the federal government.
Cleveland is home to our only safety net hospital, Metro Hospital, and they could go out of business if these cuts go through. What's striking is that [Trump] worked to put some provisions in this bill with Republican senators to help rural hospitals, but nothing to support urban hospitals. That's gonna decimate our public health infrastructure.
And residents in Ohio are going to feel any impacts sooner, because Ohio also rolled back state Medicaid expansion — right?
Correct.
The state cuts … will put a further strain on hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic, Metro Health and emergency hospitals. It's an issue of public safety, because people may be committing crimes out of survival now, because we no longer have a strong social safety net.
All these things are interconnected. It's easy for the president and Republicans in DC to try to say, “Democrat-run cities are unsafe.” But they're the ones making our country less safe by passing these uncompassionate, crazy bills.
I totally understand that you can't replace the federal cuts. But you said at your State of the City address that you were looking for philanthropic avenues to try to help in other ways.
I'll be convening healthcare CEOs and hospitals, I'll be convening my foundation leaders, to figure out what we can do to stand in the gap until we get change from the federal government.
One idea is how do we start to promote more preventative care to make sure that folks aren't getting sick before they need to go to hospital. I'll be working with Metro Health Hospital, our local social safety net hospital, to get folks enrolled in the exchanges before these changes occur so they can get the care they need. And I have a mobile health clinic that we deploy at my department of public health as well. So all of the above is on the table.
You’re a millennial. What are Democrats missing about millennials?
That we're impatient.
Say more.
When I ran for mayor, a lot of folks — a lot of establishment Democrats in the party — told me to wait my turn. We are impatient about this country, because we know what crises look like … because we've experienced them firsthand — from 9/11 to the great recession to two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the pandemic.
But we're also the most entrepreneurial generation as well.
Follow-up question — though I don’t know how qualified we (millennials) are to talk for them — about Gen Z. In the 2024 election, nationally, millennials stayed the most blue. Gen Z swung toward Trump.
Gen Z sees a rigged system.
But we (millennials) do too, right? Why does it hit different?
I think for Gen Z … they see all the massive amount of wealth being created because of technology and the proliferation of Amazon, Uber, what have you. They don't understand why we can't get our shit together and fix this stuff quickly.
They looked to someone like Donald Trump, who is the disrupter, to fix it.
The reason why he's losing his base on Epstein and the Epstein files is because they thought they could trust him as the disruptor. He would be transparent. We want transparency … and now they're not getting that.
What do you want Democrats in D.C. to do more of?
Listen to mayors. We are closest to the challenges and the pain of what this federal destruction looks like, but we're also closest to the damn solutions. We know how to fix America's housing problem because we're doing it. We're fixing public safety in cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, Atlanta. We know how to create good quality jobs with union and labor being a key partner.
The answer to the Democratic Party's future and problems will not come from congressional D.C. Democrats. It needs to come from America's mayors and America's governors.
Your summer playlist — What are you listening to right now?
Drake is solid. I listen to a lot of Jungle, I love Jungle. I've been in a classic Jay Z mode too, recently. I feel like Jay Z [and] Memphis Bleak is like my quintessential growing up in this city [in the] summer vibe that gets me in a good mood.
I just sent my barber my [Spotify] day list. It was called “luxury barber shop Sunday afternoon.” And he’s like “Dude, it’s straight bangers.”
You know he’s playing it at the barbershop right now …And they’re like, “this is the mayor’s playlist.”
[laughing] Exactly, yeah.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb's neighborhood residency. He does not currently live where he grew up.
Locked out of power throughout the country, Democrats see ruby-red Iowa as one of their best shots at mounting a conservative state comeback in the upcoming midterms.
And they believe Sen. Joni Ernst’s retirement, made public Friday, is the latest sign that a state President Donald Trump won by double digits presents an offensive opportunity for them next year.
Ernst’s pending exit comes as Iowa Auditor Rob Sand, the only Democrat elected statewide, runs for governor to replace departing Republican Kim Reynolds. Democrats are also enthused about picking off Republicans in Congress in a couple of potentially competitive House races in the Hawkeye State.
And while Iowa presents an uphill climb for Democrats, who have not won a presidential election there since 2012, the party has some cause for optimism: they overperformed in four state legislative special contests this year, including winning in a plus-11 Trump district this week. Democrats are anticipating air cover from their party nationally as they head into an election cycle that will determine whether they can claw back any control in Washington.
“We haven't, as Democrats, had an organized, coordinated campaign since 2018 and that's one of the many things that I think is going to happen,” said state Rep. J.D. Scholten, a Democrat who came 3 points from defeating a House Republican in a deep-red district in 2018. He predicted the state’s Senate and gubernatorial candidates would be well-funded, adding, “I think that will go a long ways."
Catelin Drey, the Democrat whose victory this week broke Republicans’ legislative supermajority, received significant financial support from the state party as the Democratic National Committee deployed its organizing team toward the end of the campaign. From Florida to Pennsylvania, Democrats have outperformed the 2024 presidential ticket in nearly 40 specials across the country this year, but the party has found the most consistent success in Iowa.
The idea that Democrats are going to reclaim any ground in Iowa two years after they lost complete control in Washington — and while they piece their party together amid record-low approval ratings — is difficult to imagine. Many Republicans dismiss it outright. Even some strategists and party officials on the left admit they may be overly hopeful. But Democrats in Iowa think Republicans are vulnerable because they have fumbled both hyper-local and national issues in the state, and believe that anti-Trump sentiment will drag down the GOP.
The prospect of taking back the Midwestern state that was once a top national battleground — one that is home to many working-class and rural voters whom the party has lost to the GOP — is too alluring for Democrats to ignore. Former President Barack Obama won Iowa twice and Democrat Tom Harkin held a Senate seat there from 1985 to 2014.
Perhaps recognizing the state could be an opportunity for the opposing party, the White House privately tried and failed to persuade Ernst to run for reelection.
Democratic leaders said their key to success in the recent special elections has been hammering an affordability message.
“Democrats have really risen. They're very motivated,” said Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. “They recognize how important it is that we win some elections here, and that's why all eyes are now on 2026.”
Despite Hart’s positive assessment, Democrats were clobbered in 2024 and have yet to recover their reputation nationally, leading to endless intra-party debate about the best path forward.
Most Iowa Republicans laughed off the possibility of a blue wave in Iowa. They said they are confident about their odds of hanging onto Ernst’s Senate seat despite losing a proven incumbent. Rep. Ashley Hinson plans to enter the Senate field by the end of September with wide backing among Iowa Republicans.
However, a GOP strategist, granted anonymity in order to speak freely, said Republicans are more worried about Sand’s gubernatorial campaign, which raised $2.25 million in the first 24 hours after its launch, breaking a state record. Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra has formed an exploratory committee, and will likely face a crowded primary field.
“Rob is a proven communicator,” the strategist said. “Rob is just running as ‘I'm not actually a Democrat.’ He’s just different.”
Democrats’ spree of special election wins — starting in January when a Democrat flipped a statehouse seat in a district Trump won by 21 points — has made some Iowa Republicans uneasy. But most GOP operatives maintain that Democrats lack the necessary base of support to pull off a statewide win, and dismiss the results as isolated bursts of energy.
“While that's a big get for the Democrats here, I just still do not see the type of organizing on the ground or the infrastructure that's necessarily going to yield widespread statewide results in 2026,” said Tyler Campbell, a Republican strategist in Iowa.
Some in the GOP said there is a deeper dissatisfaction at play in the results.
Republican Woodbury County Supervisor Mark Nelson took to Facebook this week to unload after Drey won her state Senate race, which he said prompted “a lot of questions” and “anger” at GOP officials.
“I don’t think it was about Donald Trump at all,” he said. “I think it was about Kim Reynolds and I think it’s about what the Republicans have done in the Iowa legislature for several years now.”
He cited a state battle over eminent domain, which culminated in June when Reynolds vetoed a bill that would have limited private pipelines’ use of the controversial practice. “The taking of private property for private gain is just wrong. It just is. I’m sorry, governor,” he added.
Democrats also argue Iowa’s massive expansion of school vouchers under Reynolds has hurt public schools, another issue the party believes helps them with independents and Republicans. Private schools have boomed since the passage of Iowa’s school choice law in 2023 — which allows parents to send children to those institutions using state funds — while more than a dozen public schools have closed.
“The health care issue, the education issue, the water quality issues and eminent domain are kind of like a perfect storm of dissatisfaction right now in Iowa,” said Irene Lin, a Democratic strategist and veteran of races in the state.
She acknowledged Democrats might be fueled by hopium in Iowa, but added, “it's still worth fighting for because there's no path to the House or Senate without Iowa going blue.”
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe said Friday that the state’s Legislature will draw new congressional maps in a special session, officially inserting the deep-red state into the nationwide redistricting battle that will reshape the fight to control the House in 2026.
Missouri’s redistricting push could see the state add an additional Republican-majority district to its eight-member congressional delegation. The delegation is currently split between six Republicans and two Democrats.
Kehoe released its proposed maps on Friday, which target the Kansas City-area 5th Congressional district held by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. The special session will be Wednesday.
The move is the next phase of President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure GOP-controlled states to take up mid-decade redistricting to strengthen Republicans’ chances of retaining control of the House.
Last week, Trump preemptively declared Missouri had signed up for mid-decade redistricting and stressed its importance in helping Republicans win in 2026.
“The Great State of Missouri is now IN. I’m not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before!”
Trump played a key role in pushing Texas Republicans to draw new maps with five additional Republican-friendly districts. In response, Texas Democrats left the state to deny the Legislature a quorum and temporarily delay approval of the new maps.
Democrats in Missouri will face more obstacles to oppose a GOP gerrymander — Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of Missouri’s Legislature, meaning they can power through any Democratic opposition.
Republicans are hoping other states follow Texas and Missouri. Trump and Vice President JD Vance this week ratcheted up their pressure campaign on Indiana Republicans in hopes the state will redraw its maps to create another favorable district. Ohio could also produce as many as three additional Republican-leaning districts when the state takes up its mandatory redraw.
Democrats have limited paths to counter the White House’s redistricting effort beyond California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and statewide Democrats are seeking to form five new Democratic-leaning districts through a ballot measure. Some Democrats are eyeing an unexpected opportunity to potentially challenge for a seat in Utah after a judge ordered the state’s Legislature to draw new maps compliant with state rules restricting partisan gerrymandering.
But other Democratic governors have yet to take concrete steps towards redistricting — and the party is outnumbered in the redistricting arms race. Republicans control the governor’s office and the state Legislature in 23 states, compared to only 15 states for Democrats.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin attacked Missouri’s redistricting plan as an attempt to undermine Missouri voters.
“Time and time again, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe has undermined the voice of Missouri voters,” Martin said in a statement on Friday. “Now he is attempting to dilute their power altogether by removing the ability of Missourians to stand up against this power grab.”
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