Democrats want to move on from 2024. The Bidens won’t let them.

Former first lady Jill Biden put a glaring spotlight back on the debate that ended her husband’s political career while promoting her new memoir. Former President Joe Biden is drawing attention again to his audio interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur as he sues the Justice Department to prevent their release. And his scandal-ridden son Hunter Biden, whose past Republicans repeatedly weaponized on the campaign trail, is making headlines again — this time for appearing on a podcast with flame-throwing conspiracy theorist Candace Owens.

Jill Biden’s stunning admission this week that she thought her embattled husband was having a stroke on the debate stage in June 2024 stood in stark contrast to her positive spin and staunch defense in the moment. And it ripped open barely healed wounds from Democrats’ disastrous effort to hold the White House, setting off a fresh round of backward-looking fingerpointing less than a week after the party’s botched autopsy of the 2024 presidential election.

Leading Democrats say it’s an unnecessary distraction as they push to keep their party focused on a critical midterm — and what voters truly care about.

“We don't need to be distracted by what the DNC says about the autopsy. I don't need to be distracted about anyone's book,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, told reporters on the sidelines of a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington on Thursday. “What I need to do is to focus on making a difference in the lives of people. And that's what I think they're getting really frustrated about, is all this nonsense. I don't think the average Democratic voter, honestly, particularly in New Mexico, gives a damn about that book or the debate anymore.”

Lujan Grisham, who sat on the national advisory board for the 2024 Biden-Harris campaign, stressed that she didn’t mean “any disrespect” to Jill Biden and later said she is a “big Joe Biden fan.”

Still, Jill Biden’s confession that she was “frightened” by her husband’s debate performance landed with a thud among former Biden White House and campaign staffers who were told in the moment to treat the then-president’s halting and haphazard debate performance as little more than a blip.

Meghan Hays, a former special assistant to Joe Biden in the White House who left before the 2024 reelection bid, cautioned that the timing and context of the former first lady’s memoir risks dealing Democrats a setback at a time when they’re on an electoral hot streak.

“I think that they need to sell books, and I think that Dr. Biden wants her story out there,” she said on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire,” hosted by POLITICO’s Dasha Burns.

“It is not welcome from Democrats,” Hays said. “We have a lot of momentum in our favor … and when we get pulled back into conversations about age and the election in ‘24, it’s never gonna be a good place for Democrats. I think it’s a tough place to be.”

Hays wasn’t the only former Biden official who expressed frustration.

“My reaction was basically: ‘Welcome to the club.’ Every person across America and in your administration wondered the same thing, and instead of acknowledging that, we were told for days to ignore it — that it was just a bad night, just an anomaly,” said another former Biden White House staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Still, several prominent Democratic strategists, former party leaders and past Biden-Harris officials downplayed the significance of this latest bout of 2024 relitigating, dismissing it as little more than white noise that wouldn’t have much effect on the party’s prospects in 2026 or 2028.

“Let everyone finish venting about ‘24 now and get it out of their systems,” former Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), who narrowly lost her reelection that year as Trump carried her state, said in a text message to POLITICO, adding that “voters won’t remember any of this in 2028.”

But, she added, “I am a bit unhappy about the DNC’s delayed release of the autopsy of 2024. We don’t need those reminders in writing and we certainly don’t need to give the Republicans any more oppo to remind voters of everything we did wrong in 2024.”

A spokesperson for the Bidens declined to comment. A former Biden White House and campaign staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in a text message that the party writ large has moved on.

“While it feels painful and traumatic for those who had to deal with this at the time, the public is focused on the current president and related concerns: high gas prices, immigration concerns, [Jeffrey] Epstein,” the person said.

The renewed firestorm around the two-year-old debate comes as other moves by the Biden clan force Democrats to again confront his decline in real time.

Joe Biden is suing the Trump administration in an effort to block the release of recorded interviews with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the Justice Department during a now-shuttered probe of whether he had mishandled classified information. But his effort to stop the tapes and transcripts from going public is dredging up another painful encounter that derailed his second term hopes.

Hur chose not to charge the president in that investigation because he believed jurors would likely see Biden as an“elderly man with a poor memory,” a moment that set off a political firestorm. The audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden, released last year, backed that up.

As Biden tries to keep those tapes under wraps, his son made recent moves to draw more attention to himself and his family.

Hunter Biden has triggered a raft of headlines in recent days after he taped a podcast with Owens, the conspiratorial conservative influencer who has repeatedly attacked the Biden family and the former president’s mental capacity. In the interview, Owens promised not to disparage Joe Biden and even commended Hunter Biden for defending his father. But the widespread media coverage still generated backlash within the party.

Some Democrats are simply ready to sweep the Bidens into the dustbin of history so their party can move forward.

“Nobody wants to relitigate the worst debate performance since the Greek Republic. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about Hunter Biden? Why is Hunter Biden talking about Hunter Biden?” said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama’s campaigns but was not involved in Joe Biden’s or Kamala Harris’ bids.

“Your time has passed, move on. … The Republicans and all their super PACs are going to outspend us three-to-one, four-to-one — that’s what we need to be focused on,” he added.

But the Bidens — and Harris — show no signs of slinking back into the shadows. Harris, who released a book last year criticizing the president with whom she served, has signaled she could mount a third presidential bid in 2028. Joe Biden, for his part, has begun endorsing his former administration officials who are running in midterm contests; one of his picks, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, won her gubernatorial primary last week in the key swing state of Georgia. Jill Biden is embarking on a book tour to promote her work.

And other Democrats say they’re less frustrated at the Biden family itself than they are with their party’s most vocal factions, which descend into a circular firing squad with each drip of new information about 2024.

“I would rather not have to talk about it. But they both have the right to do what they're doing,” Maria Cardona, a prominent Democratic strategist who backed Biden’s reelection bid, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the DNC meeting. “But we also are in control with how we react to it. So let them do their thing. They are no longer in control of the party. We don't have to rehash every single word that comes out of it."

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© Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Progressive sex therapist Maureen Galindo lost the Democratic runoff for Texas’ 35th District after being accused of antisemitism and facing condemnations from within her own party.

Johnny Garcia’s victory over Galindo on Tuesday has national and Texas Democrats breathing a sigh of relief.

They had moved en masse to disavow Galindo after she said in a recent social media post that she would write legislation to turn a local ICE detention center into a “prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking.” They had also accused Republicans of trying to prop her up, pointing to a shadowy super PAC with possible GOP ties, Lead Left, that pumped over $900,000 into the race to boost Galindo and attack Garcia.

The district is one of the five that Texas Republicans are targeting for pickups this fall, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has added Garcia, a county sheriff’s deputy, to its coveted “Red to Blue” program to support his candidacy.

Galindo has said she’s not antisemitic and claimed DCCC was trying to “inflame my comments because they want my Israeli-backed opponent.”

In an email to POLITICO last week, she said her proposal for the detention center “was NEVER for Jewish Zionists — it’s for BILLIONAIRE Zionists, regardless of religion. If they’ve done business for genocidal prison state materials or there’s evidence of pedophilia from Epstein files, they should be brought to trial.”

Tuesday’s result is a reversal from the March primary, where Garcia finished second to Galindo.

Blue Dog Action PAC spent over $1 million boosting Garcia’s bid in recent weeks, including over $450,000 to directly counter Lead Left. And he had racked up endorsements from former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to Texas Reps. Lloyd Doggett, Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar, all of whom represent nearby districts.

Garcia will face Carlos De La Cruz, a Trump-backed candidate and the brother of Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) who won his GOP primary Tuesday night. Trump won the district by 10 points in 2024.

© Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News via Getty Images

Democrats’ long-awaited autopsy of the 2024 election backfired almost immediately after it was released on Thursday.

The Democratic National Committee’s biting and gloomy portrait of the party immediately kicked off a fresh round of infighting, with strategists and party officials lambasting chair Ken Martin for releasing a haphazard, typo-ridden report that failed to fully capture why, exactly, the party was crushed by President Donald Trump.

Martin explained his reasoning to DNC members on a private call Thursday afternoon, according to three people on the call granted anonymity to share details. One person said Martin's post as chair is "absolutely at risk," though they were not sure "if DNC members have enough votes to actually pass a vote of no confidence."

Martin appeared to acknowledge his shaky standing at the end of his remarks to members, thanking them for their “continued support.”

"Being a leader at any level means you own every single mistake — those of your creation and frankly those not of your creation. This was a major mistake. I own it,” he said, per a recording of the call obtained by POLITICO. “And now it’s time for us to move forward at the DNC, and I hope that you’ll move forward with me.”

The 192-page document — which the DNC only made public after it had been published by CNN — made no mention of Israel or Gaza and included sparse references to former President Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection, two key elements that contributed to Trump’s 2024 win.

“We should take this autopsy with a massive grain of salt. Clearly, the people who put it together ran a highly ineffective, ill-researched process. Therefore it's difficult to draw constructive conclusions," said Adrienne Elrod, a senior adviser on the Biden and then Harris campaigns.

“What’s important is what’s missing, what they’re not releasing,” said Ashley Etienne, a former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris who left the administration in 2021.

“It feels like what the DNC is doing is cherry-picking the parts of it that it wants to actually release, that [are] less problematic for the party going forward, because most of the stuff that we're reading right now is … not groundbreaking.”

The Democratic Party is still navigating its path forward while it remains fully locked out of power in Washington and struggles to match Republicans’ cash-on-hand advantage. The report’s release comes after months of internal and external pressure on the DNC to provide lessons from 2024 in order to move forward with the looming midterms.

Martin released a lengthy statement apologizing for how he handled the autopsy, which was written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, although his name does not appear on the released copy and he is no longer working for the DNC. The DNC never received a finished report, according to a person within the party granted anonymity to share details, and the author did not turn over a list of interviewees or transcripts despite multiple requests. The post-election analysis contains interviews with hundreds of operatives from all 50 states.

David Hogg — the former DNC vice chair who was ousted over a procedural issue and has embarked on a primary spree against fellow members of his party — unsurprisingly called for Martin’s resignation.

Asked why in an interview with POLITICO Thursday, Hogg responded: “I mean, have you read the report?”

“This cannot be the best person to lead us in this moment,” Hogg said, emphasizing the missing elements of the report like Biden’s age and the war in Gaza. “I can think of 100 different people that could do a better job.”

One Democratic operative who worked for the DNC and the Harris campaign called the autopsy a “self-inflicted wound and unfortunate given victories in New Jersey and Virginia.” Another senior Democratic operative close to the process who was granted anonymity to speak candidly said simply: “The report's so stupid, it's hard to make sense why something's in there and why it's not.”

Still, James Zogby, a longtime DNC member, said the backlash to Martin may be overblown.

“I’m getting calls from people saying ‘do I think he should step down?’ And the answer is no, not at all," he said. "The people who are making the biggest fuss are the people who didn’t want him in the first place.”

Even in its draft-like state, the report drew scathing conclusions as to why the party lost.

Rivera, in the autopsy, wrote that Democrats “have proven incapable of projecting strength, unity, and leadership, and voters have drifted away,” citing Latino voters’ shifts to Trump and highlighting the GOP’s immense spending.

The report also dings the Biden White House for saddling Harris with the immigration portfolio, which Trump and running mate JD Vance used to great effect after she took over the Democratic ticket. And simply put, Rivera implies that Republicans are better at running campaigns.

“At times, it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections,” the report says. “Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.”

The Harris campaign in particular struggled to respond to an attack ad the Trump campaign ran featuring statements on transgender Americans: “They all recognized the attack was very effective,” Rivera wrote, “and felt the campaign was boxed.”

Not every Democrat was upset by the release Thursday. Prominent centrist groups that argue the party has drifted too far to the left found validation in the report.

“Ken Martin’s autopsy of the autopsy was excellent!” said Liam Kerr, co-founder of the centrist WelcomePAC. “After spending a decade accepting all edits from every progressive interest group, better to just delete all DNC strategy docs and admit we need to start from scratch. Admitting incompetence is much better than denial.”

Jonathan Cowan, president of center-left group Third Way, suggested the report was shelved because it would anger progressives. "I think it's very clear why this report was buried, because as it says in the opening, it calls for Democrats to return to the vital center,” Cowan said. “Now I understand why a lot of very Twitter-friendly, super liberal DNC staff didn't want this to come out.”

The overwhelming takeaway from the autopsy, after conversations with dozens of Democrats on Thursday, was that it’s time to move on.

"Folks want to point fingers and navel gaze, and this internal fight doesn't get us where we want to go,” said Tory Gavito, president of Way to Win, a Democratic donor table. "We are months away from an existential election period. The economy is in free fall, but the Constitution is in shreds. Democrats have to win and have to focus on what they need to do to win, and we weren't waiting for the DNC to release a report to do that."

The postmortem’s release ends a monthlong fight within the DNC over whether or not it should have been made public at all. Martin pledged to release the document publicly in January 2025, then reversed course in December. The move infuriated Democrats at war with themselves over what went wrong in the election even as Martin said he was attempting to steer the party toward focusing on a series of post-2024 overperformances rather than continuing to publicly rehash its botched presidential effort.

But pressure continued to build on the DNC to release it, with liberal groups like RootsAction flooding DNC officers with thousands of emails, as activists and allies traded conspiracy theories about what could be in the report that the organization didn’t want publicly aired.

Martin reversed course — again — on Thursday, acknowledging in a Substack post that by trying to avoid creating a distraction after the party’s wins last November, “I created even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize.”

By putting a bright red disclaimer atop every page noting that the “document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC” — the party made one thing very clear: It still hasn’t formed its own conclusion of what went wrong, or where it’s headed next.

Dasha Burns, Samuel Benson, Gregory Svirnovskiy and Liz Crampton contributed to this report.

© Allison Robbert/AP Photo

Chris Rabb, a progressive state representative and self-styled “rabble-rouser,” clinched the Democratic nomination Tuesday for the nation’s bluest House district.

Rabb is all but guaranteed to succeed retiring Rep. Dwight Evans in Pennsylvania’s 3rd District. It’s a major win for the party’s left flank and a significant blow to the city’s storied political machine, which split between two other candidates in the race.

The progressive five-term state lawmaker toppled state Sen. Sharif Street, a former state Democratic Party chair and scion of a prominent North Philadelphia political family who had the backing of much of the city’s establishment. He also defeated Evans’ preferred successor, Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon who was running her first political campaign.

The race became a microcosm of the ideological and stylistic fights roiling the party nationally and a proxy battle between its progressive and center-left wings.

In a field where each candidate claimed progressive bona fides, Rabb tacked furthest to the left. He racked up endorsements from members of the “Squad,” won the backing of the local chapters of the Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists of America and held rallies with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and polarizing left-wing political streamer Hasan Piker.

He pushed his rivals to join him in calling Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide” and attempted to tie his competitors to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has become a lightning rod in Democratic primaries. AIPAC said it was not involved in the race.

His victory is as much an exclamation point for progressives as it is a remarkable rebuke of Philadelphia’s Democratic machine.

In an interview ahead of Election Day, Rabb said his win would signal “that the era of establishment politics is coming to an end.” Nationally, he said it would show that “folks who are framed as radical or far left by mainstream media and establishment politics … are very much in the moral center.”

© Rachel Wisniewski for POLITICO

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro just passed his first major test of the midterms.

Bob Brooks, a Shapiro-endorsed firefighter union leader, will take on GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in a key November battleground after clinching the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania’s 7th District over a crowded field.

It’s a significant win for Shapiro, who helped recruit Brooks into the race as part of his aggressive push to help Democrats retake the House by flipping four competitive seats in Pennsylvania. A romp across the map could serve as a launchpad for the governor’s potential 2028 presidential campaign.

It’s also a boon to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which recently added Brooks to its “Red to Blue” program and boosted him with a pre-primary ad buy.

Brooks, a first-time candidate, leaned heavily on the highly popular governor’s imprimatur to boost him over a four-way field that included former Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, and engineer Carol Obando-Derstine, who served as an adviser to former Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

Shapiro went all-in, endorsing Brooks and hosting a fundraiser for him in December, cutting an ad for him in the spring and stumping with him shortly before Election Day.

The governor’s support brought scrutiny on both men. News outlets unearthed Brooks’ problematic old social media posts and a messy family property dispute. Brooks suggested that Shapiro tried to retaliate against a political foe in 2024 by encouraging his union to back her GOP opponent. (Brooks later said he misspoke.)

And a mysterious outside group with apparent ties to the GOP, Lead Left PAC, spent more than $1 million boosting McClure and attempting to sink Brooks and Crosswell in the final days of the race. Voters appeared to look past it all.

Brooks had more than just Shapiro in his corner. The blue-collar everyman who worked as a bartender and moonlights as a snowplow driver is being held up by an array of Democrats as a model for how the party can win back working-class voters.

He boasts one of the broadest endorsement lists of any House challenger on the map, a roster that spans from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and from the Congressional Progressive Caucus to the Blue Dogs. He’s also brought together a cross-section of top Democratic operatives, including the progressive Fight Agency and The Bench, a new group that works to elect nontraditional Democrats.

© Matt Rourke/AP

President Donald Trump finally got his revenge on Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.

The libertarian-leaning iconoclast who has been a hindrance to some of the president’s biggest priorities lost to Trump-endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in Kentucky’s 4th District on Tuesday, in a primary that became the most expensive intraparty House fight on record. It’s the latest in a string of primary victories for the president that cements his viselike grip on the GOP even as his overall approval numbers continue to sag.

In a retribution campaign that has seen Trump fell GOP foes from Indiana to Louisiana, Massie’s race was perhaps his sweetest victory.

Massie has long been an irritant to Trump and House GOP leaders. But his votes against Trump’s signature tax-and-spending package, moves to rein in the president’s war powers over Iran and stewardship of the bipartisan effort to release the Jeffrey Epstein files finally pushed Trump to front a primary challenger.

The president searched for a “warm body” to run against the “third rate Grandstander” and eventually found one in Gallrein, a fifth-generation farmer and failed state Senate candidate. Trump endorsed Gallrein before he got into the race and rallied with him in March. His Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, promoted Gallrein at an event in the district Monday.

Polls showed a tight race down the home stretch in what had become the fight of Massie’s political life. The president’s intervention united local forces and various factions of the GOP that had long wanted to oust Massie but previously lacked the firepower. And it unleashed a flood of outside spending against Massie that proved too much for the incumbent to overcome.

A pair of pro-Israel super PACs linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Republican Jewish Coalition spent more than $9 million targeting the isolationist, who has routinely rejected efforts to financially aid and symbolically support the U.S. ally. Another super PAC stood up by Trump’s top political operatives spent nearly $7 million berating Massie over his votes against the president’s tax cuts, border wall and other priorities. Overall ad spending in the race topped $33 million, per tracking firm AdImpact.

In delivering a death knell to the seven-term representative, the president has effectively silenced his loudest remaining Republican critic in Congress and sent a warning shot against further dissent.

While Massie will remain a thorn in Trump’s side through the end of the year — and likely an even louder one, now — he’ll be replaced by a staunch supporter.

Massie had cast the race in existential terms for the GOP, warning in an interview last month that his loss could further fray the coalition that Republicans are struggling to keep together in the midterms by pushing voters dissatisfied with the president to stay home.

“This is a congressional race. But it's also somewhat of a national movement,” Massie said. “And it would be bad for Republicans’ prospects in the midterms if I lose.”

Now, Massie’s defeat will be a defining part of Trump’s legacy. And it stands as a sharp rebuke of the isolationist and conservative wings of the GOP that rallied around the incumbent, including prominent figureheads like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

The race became a microcosm of the conflicts playing out across the Republican Party over foreign interventions, Israel and the influence of its allied super PACs as the GOP starts to splinter over all three. It also drained tens of millions of dollars in GOP resources in a safe red seat as Republican donors fret about the party’s chances in competitive midterm races.

© Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP

Next stop on President Donald Trump’s revenge tour: Kentucky.

On the heels of ousting several Indiana state lawmakers early this month and Sen. Bill Cassidy just days ago, the White House is well-positioned to remove rebellious Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s GOP primary on Tuesday.

It’s one of the final checkpoints in Trump’s monthlong effort to punish Republicans for bucking him. And the list of Massie’s sins is long, from his opposition to the president’s signature tax-and-spending plan to his forceful stands against the war in Iran and successfully pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

“Trump is coming in as the leader of the party and he has every right to flex his muscle,” said Shane Noem, who is neutral in the race as the chair of the Kenton County Republican Party in Massie’s district. “The question remains: Will the ‘Average Joe’ Republican lean into the party, or will they lean into an outsider who’s been in the party for 14 years?”

The Kentucky libertarian’s fate is the biggest in a slate of tests Tuesday of Trump’s grip on the GOP. In Georgia, the Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate seems likely to advance to a runoff, while Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — who refused to accept the president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results — is polling in third place. In Alabama, Trump’s endorsement of Rep. Barry Moore in the GOP Senate primary helped boost him to front-runner status.

The president’s endorsement has proven to be decisive in GOP primaries and a mobilizing force for his base. A POLITICO poll, conducted by Public First from May 9 to 11, found that nearly half of voters who plan to vote Republican in the midterms would choose a candidate officially endorsed by the president, compared with a candidate Trump hasn’t endorsed but isn’t opposed to (28 percent), or a candidate he’s actively trying to block (9 percent).

Trump and his allies have had some major recent successes in taking out the president’s foes. They spent more than $9 million to pick off five state lawmakers who opposed his redistricting push in Indiana. In Louisiana, Trump lent the influence of his social media account to boost Rep. Julia Letlow early on in the race and State Treasurer John Fleming in the final hours.

But no one has drawn the ire of Trump and his team quite like Massie. The president’s endorsement of former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein united local forces and various factions of the GOP in trying to sink the iconoclastic Kentucky conservative with a libertarian lean. Spending in the race has topped $32 million, making it the most expensive House primary in history, per tracking firm AdImpact. Trump’s political operation and pro-Israel groups who’ve long opposed the incumbent have unleashed more than $16 million against him. Trump rallied with Gallrein in March, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promoted him at an event in the district on Monday.

Polling shows a tightening race down the home stretch after Massie led earlier on, with one survey showing Massie leading Gallrein by just over 1 percentage point and two others showing him trailing by 7 and 8 points, respectively.

Trump’s allies are growing bullish after his romps through other red states: “Got another one coming Tuesday,” Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign manager who is running the anti-Massie super PAC MAGA KY, recently posted on X. in response to a meme of the president knocking out Cassidy with a golf ball.

Asked for comment, the White House pointed to Trump’s recent Truth Social post praising Gallrein as a “WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN” and calling Massie “a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly.”

Massie is a tougher target than some of Trump’s other foes. His libertarian-conservative politics mirror those of his northern Kentucky district where many voters cheer his contrarian stances as principled stands. He has allies in some of the America First movement’s loudest voices, like Tucker Carlson, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who rallied with Massie over the weekend — and even drew a threat of a primary challenge from Trump over that decision, though the filing period has closed.

Massie is not only clear-eyed about the threat he faces, but leaning into the challenge. He has projected confidence down the home stretch, even as Trump’s foes continue to fall.

“I'm glad he's in with both feet,” Massie told POLITICO on Friday as he left the Capitol for the campaign trail. “This will be his biggest loss ever as far as endorsements go.”

After felling Cassidy, Trump took to Truth Social to label Massie the“worst Republican Congressman in History.” Massie responded on ABC that he was leading and his foes were “desperate.”

In a race that revolves around Trump, Massie has been trying to make the case to voters that they can back him and back the president. He’s attempted to thread the needle on his dissent by arguing he’s with the president “nearly all of the time.” The times when he’s not — the Epstein files, spending, foreign interventions — he says, are because the administration has shifted on its core values, not him.

“Massie’s sitting to the right of Trump and Trump’s never really tried to take out somebody who’s to the right of him before,” said Tres Watson, a Kentucky-based GOP strategist who is not working for either campaign.

Massie’s opposition to Trump’s interventions in Iran and longstanding opposition to U.S. aid to Israel have turned the race into a tussle over the definition of “America First” and the base’s adherence to it as some Republicans, particularly younger ones, splinter over the wars in the Middle East.

“This is a congressional race, but it's also somewhat of a national movement, and it would be bad for Republicans’ prospects in the midterms if I lose,” Massie said. “Not just because they've wasted $10 million of Republican mega donor money on a seat that's going to be red anyway. It’s going to be because those people will be like ‘why am I even voting Republican?’ … they’ll stay home.”

A win on Tuesday, Massie said, gives him “antibodies” against the president and his political machine. In proving it is possible to withstand Trump’s wrath, it could provide a model for other Republicans who break with the president, though vanishingly few remain in Congress.

A Massie defeat — especially on the heels of Cassidy’s Louisiana loss — would signal a larger reality facing the GOP: There’s little room within the party anymore for politicians who disagree with Trump, even as he enters the back half of his presidency.

“There used to be room for effective, mild-mannered wonkish types because they got stuff done and industry and voters appreciated it,” said one Republican strategist working on the Alabama Senate race on behalf of a Moore opponent, granted anonymity to speak freely without fear of retribution. “Now it’s just different.”

© Jon Cherry/AP

The Republican Party is starting to splinter over support for Israel — and President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters are largely aligned with the embattled U.S. ally.

New results from The POLITICO Poll find that self-identified “MAGA” Trump voters are more supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its relationship with the U.S. than those who don’t identify as MAGA but still voted for the president.

Nearly half of MAGA Trump voters say they back Israel and approve of the actions of its current government, while just 29 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters say the same, according to the survey. A plurality of MAGA voters (41 percent) say Israel is justified in its military campaign in Gaza — compared with 31 percent of non-MAGA voters. And 24 percent of MAGA voters say the country was initially justified but has gone too far, compared with 31 percent of non-MAGA voters.

MAGA voters are moderately supportive of Israel, and the survey suggests they remain more willing to stick with the longtime U.S. ally even as divides inside the party deepen. The emerging fractures carry significant implications for the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance and GOP efforts to keep together the coalition that powered Trump back to the White House in an unfavorable midterm election.

Politics around the Middle East have rapidly changed in recent years. Support for Israel has long divided the Democratic Party, with some Democrats blaming the Biden administration’s approach to Gaza for costing them the White House in 2024. A 35 percent plurality of Americans who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris say Israel was initially justified in its actions in Gaza but has gone too far, while 27 percent say Israel’s military campaign in Gaza was never justified and 28 percent don’t know.

Only 10 percent of Harris voters believe that Israel is still justified in its conduct of the Gaza war. That figure underscores the near-total loss of support among Democrats for a military campaign that drew significant support from the Biden administration.

Republicans were powerfully unified in support of Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. But amid the war with Iran and a growing unease about Trump’s foreign interventions, the country’s standing appears shaky among the non-MAGA wing of the GOP and among young conservatives. Non-MAGA voters are 10 points more likely than MAGA Trump voters to believe the Israeli government has too much influence over U.S. foreign policy, the survey conducted by Public First found.

Some of those cracks have spilled into public view, with high-profile Republicans like Tucker Carlson, former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Steve Bannon all criticizing America’s close relationship with Israel, especially as the war in Iran escalates. Most Republican members of Congress, as well as conservative influencers like Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro, have remained pro-Israel voices defending the president’s actions.

“There is a sentiment right now within the Republican Party of, ‘America First,’ let’s get out of all of the conflicts in the world, let’s not be committed to those conflicts," said Amnon Cavari, an associate professor at Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University in Israel.

The poll reflects that dynamic, with a notable share of Trump 2024 voters — 29 percent — saying that the president has spent too much time focusing on international affairs instead of domestic issues.

MAGA Trump voters are more tolerant of Trump’s global agenda, with just 19 percent complaining that he has spent too much time on international affairs. That figure doubles to 40 percent among non-MAGA Trump voters.

The Israel issue is a particularly urgent flash point within the GOP coalition, but POLITICO’s polling shows a consistent gap between Trump voters who identify as “MAGA” and those who do not. That divide has shown up on views of Trump’s deportation campaign,the war in Iran and even his handling of economic concerns.

Generational divides on Israel

The POLITICO Poll finds sharp generational divides among Republicans on issues related to Israel, with the youngest Trump voters more likely than the oldest to express uneasiness over America’s relationship with Israel.

Thirty-two percent of Trump voters below 35 say the U.S. is too closely aligned with Israel’s government, while 11 percent of Trump voters over 55 say the same.

When asked whether the U.S. should distance itself from Israel — even when the two nations face common threats — or work closely with the longtime ally to fend against common threats, the generational divide holds. Nearly half of Trump voters ages 18 to 34 say there should be distance between the two countries, while just 13 percent of Trump voters over 55 say the same.

James Fishback, a far-right 31-year-old Republican gubernatorial candidate in Florida who is highly critical of Israel and has gained traction among younger online “America First” voices, said the GOP is poised for a “massive reckoning” on the Middle Eastern nation, “the first of which we're going to see this November, and in the primaries right before that.”

“And then we're set up for the ultimate proxy war on this Israel question in the [2028] Republican primary, and then in the general,” he said. “I just don't see a staunchly pro-Israel candidate becoming the Republican nominee.”

The generational divide in the GOP in many ways mirrors breaks within the Democratic Party, whose younger voters also hold stronger views against Israel’s influence and actions, driven in large part by the rising death toll and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, polling shows.

“The fact that [Israel has] lost support among young Democrats is not surprising,” said Cavari. “The fact that they are losing rapidly among young Republicans is especially alarming, and the trend is very clear.”

The AIPAC factor

The involvement of pro-Israel groups in competitive primaries has become a flashpoint on both sides of the aisle.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential advocacy group that aims to elect candidatesin both parties who strongly support Israel, has faced backlash for its involvement in Democratic primaries in New Jersey and Illinois. AIPAC is also involved in Republican primaries, and some GOP voters are uneasy about its role.

But AIPAC is also playing on the Republican side — and the GOP is beginning to split over it. The survey finds that MAGA Trump voters are 14 points more supportive of AIPAC’s political interventions than their counterparts in the coalition, while non-MAGA Trump voters are 11 points more likely to oppose AIPAC’s efforts.

Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said in a statement that “millions of Americans are members of AIPAC because they want to strengthen an alliance that advances America’s interests and values, and we will stay focused on building the largest possible bipartisan pro-Israel coalition in Congress.”

AIPAC has bundled for several GOP incumbents, including Sens. John Cornyn in Texas and Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, who are both at risk of losing their seats. The group, along with the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, has also poured millions into attempting to oust GOP Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky, in part for opposing aid to Israel and attempting to rein in Trump’s war powers in Iran and elsewhere.

Even as AIPAC has become a dividing line among highly engaged voters in both parties, a 30 percent plurality of Americans have never heard of the organization or don’t know enough to share an opinion.

“Polls will go up and down,” said Patrick Dorton, the spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project. “Obviously we’re in a post-Gaza, Iran war environment.”

AIPAC’s electoral arm, Dorton said, will continue to be “substantive in making the case for the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

© Illustration by Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO (source images via Getty)

It’s becoming a pattern: A possible threat to President Donald Trump’s life. Calls from both sides to turn down the temperature. And then, a pivot.

Republicans on Sunday rushed to turn the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner into a campaign cudgel, accusing Democrats of opening the door to political violence with “dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric” against the president. And they’re leveraging the attempted security breach to try and break the congressional stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding.

Less than 24 hours after calling on Americans to “resolve our differences,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that “I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats … is very dangerous.” Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters cast Saturday’s incident as “the inevitable result of a radicalized left that has normalized political violence.”

Official GOP social media accounts accused prominent battleground candidates of stoking political tensions. “Democrats like Abdul El Sayed fuel this hate,” Republicans’ Senate campaign arm wrote of the progressive candidate in the Michigan Senate race. In Maine, the group posted that Graham Platner, the Democratic primary polling leader, “said that violence with a gun was a necessary means to achieving social change.” It’s a reference to since-deleted Reddit posts from 2018; Platner has disavowed the violent rhetoric in them. And in North Carolina, an RNC account criticized Senate candidate and former Gov. Roy Cooper for not publicly condemning the attack while previously calling Trump “a significant threat to our democracy.”

It’s a playbook Republicans forged in the aftermath of the two assassination attempts against Trump in 2024, when early calls for unity gave way to accusations that Democrats had spent years stoking threats of violence against the president by casting him as a threat to democracy. They’ve deployed it amid a surge in high-profile incidents of political violence, including last year’s killing of Charlie Kirk, when top Republicans from Trump down blamed the “radical left” for inciting political violence.

There’s no evidence Democrats’ rhetoric was behind either of the 2024 assassination attempts on Trump. The motive behind the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 remains a mystery; the gunman, Thomas Crooks, was killed by federal agents. Ryan Routh, who was convicted of trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate after he hid in the bushes at one of Trump’s Florida golf courses with a semiautomatic rifle that September, was reportedly concerned about the war in Ukraine.

Democrats on Sunday broadly condemned political violence. They offered gratitude to the Secret Service, including the agent who took shots to his protective vest during the scuffle and was released from the hospital Sunday. They rejected Republicans’ attempts to assign blame and reiterated their calls to pass a bill that cleared the Senate last month that would fund most of DHS, except for immigration enforcement.

“Here in America, we can have strong disagreements. But it’s important for us to agree to strongly disagree without being disagreeable with each other,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And it is certainly the case that violence is never the answer, whether it’s targeted at the right, the left, or the center.”

It was not immediately clear what motivated Saturday’s attack, though the man being held in connection with the incident reportedly criticized Trump administration policies in writings sent to family members shortly before he rushed a security checkpoint while armed with guns and knives. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning that it appeared the suspect “did in fact set out to target folks that work in the administration, likely including the president.”

Some battleground Republicans — including in top races for Senate, House and governor — moved quickly to fill the void.

In the heated Michigan Senate race, former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers said in a statement that Democrats “know exactly what they’re doing and continue to inspire violent acts. Why else would they continue to block funding for DHS, the very agency meant to keep us safe?”

He referenced a clip of El-Sayed, one of his Democratic rivals, urging Democrats at a “fighting oligarchy” rally last year to do more to push back against Republicans. “When they go low, we don’t go high — we take them to the ground and choke them out,” El-Sayed said at the time.

Senate Republicans’ campaign arm circulated the clip Sunday morning.

In a statement Sunday, El-Sayed criticized Republicans’ attacks, saying there is “never any excuse for political violence” and calling on everyone, “regardless of party, to bring the rhetoric down.”

“It’s sad to see the NRSC shamelessly politicize this awful act so quickly,” El-Sayed said. “Needless to say it strains credulity to believe that these acts had more to do with what a candidate in Michigan said in 2025 than what the MAGA movement has done to normalize violence through Jan 6, endless war, and violent rhetoric.”

Republicans have yet to put any significant cash behind a line of attack that was still taking shape on Sunday and playing out largely on social media and in public statements.

Still, Democrats called for them to back down.

“Instead of politicizing the shooting, Republicans should look in the mirror first. If they were actually serious about public safety, they should allow a vote on the bipartisan legislation the Senate passed to re-open DHS,” Viet Shelton, a spokesperson for House Democrats’ campaign arm, said in a statement.

Democratic operatives working on battleground campaigns argued that Republicans were being hypocritical, pointing to Trump and GOP lawmakers who’ve mocked acts of political violence against Democrats and worked to rewrite the history of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot. They also cited Trump’s suggestion last year that the actions of a half-dozen Democratic lawmakers who encouraged servicemembers not to follow illegal orders were “punishable by death.”

“Last time this many top government leaders were in one place and facing [the] threat of violence was [Jan. 6, 2021],” Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson said in a text message. “Hopefully they don’t give anyone pardons this time.”

Mark Longabaugh, another veteran Democratic strategist working on midterm races, said: “To any Republican making those accusations, my response is two words: January Sixth.”

But Republicans weren’t letting up.

Shawn Roderick, a spokesperson for GOP Sen. Susan Collins in battleground Maine, issued a statement slamming her Democratic rivals, Gov. Janet Mills and newcomer Graham Platner, for criticizing efforts to fund DHS.

“The Secret Service is funded through the Department of Homeland Security, the very department responsible for protecting our country and employing the officers who put their lives on the line every day,” Roderick said. “Yet some, like Graham Platner and Janet Mills, have criticized efforts to fund DHS, including Senator Collins’ vote to keep it operating, as part of a broader political agenda.”

That, he added, “has real consequences.”

Platner and Mills’ campaigns did not respond to a request for comment.

“Democrats have spent years pouring fuel on the fire, attacking law enforcement and stoking division, and now they want to pretend they’re the party of public safety,” said Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “We’re going to make sure voters see the full picture and hold every one of them accountable for the rhetoric they’ve embraced and the chaos it’s helped create.”

Erin Doherty and Jessica Piper contributed to this report.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) holds a sizable cash advantage over his GOP rivals in the race for New Hampshire’s open Senate seat.

The Democrat raked in $3.3 million to his campaign account over the first quarter of the year as he vies to succeed retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). Pappas, who faces only nominal opposition for his party’s nomination, entered April with $4.2 million in his war chest, according to his Federal Election Commission filing.

Pappas’ leading GOP competitor, former Sen. John E. Sununu, raised $1.1 million directly to his campaign account and had nearly $1.9 million in cash on hand. He spent just $349,000, per his filing — a significantly lower burn rate than Pappas, who spent $2.3 million over the last three months.

Sununu’s primary rival, former Sen. Scott Brown, lagged even further behind. Brown raised a modest $321,000 and entered the second quarter with $783,000 in his campaign coffers. He spent more money than he brought in, according to his filing.

Pappas leads both of his potential Republican opponents in hypothetical polling match-ups of the general election, though his margin against Sununu is slimmer.

Sununu, who has the backing of the national GOP establishment and President Donald Trump in a state Republicans hope to flip, holds a wide lead over Brown, a former Trump ambassador, in polls of the GOP primary.

© AP

Rep. Andy Barr maintained his cash advantage over his GOP rivals in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

Barr raised nearly $1.5 million over the first three months of the year and started April with almost $4.2 million in his war chest — more than five times that of his next-closest rival, according to filings from the Federal Election Commission.

Businessman Nate Morris reported raising $1 million and had roughly $580,000 in his campaign coffers to start the second quarter. But nearly half of that — $450,000 — was a personal loan, per his filing. Morris has now loaned himself $4.9 million over the course of the campaign.

Former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron posted another modest haul; he raised $456,000 and had roughly $765,000 in cash on hand.

Barr holds a slim lead in public polling of the contentious primary for McConnell’s seat that has seen all three major candidates scramble to distance themselves from their former boss and embrace Donald Trump. The president has not endorsed in the race.

© Mark Humphrey/AP

Former Rep. Mary Peltola’s (D-Alaska) staggering first-quarter haul comes with a caveat: She spent a lot to raise a lot.

Peltola hauled in nearly $8.7 million directly to her campaign account over the first quarter of the year in her quest to unseat Alaska GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan. She raised four times as much cash as the incumbent, according to filings from the Federal Election Commission. But she spent nearly $3 million, leaving her with $5.7 million in cash on hand.

Sullivan, meanwhile, raised $1.7 million directly to his campaign account and kicked off April with more than $7 million in his war chest.

Both campaigns have argued they’re in strong financial positions in what is already shaping up to be an expensive race by Alaska standards — one that could help decide control of the Senate. Peltola has an early polling advantage and led Sullivan by 5 percentage points in a mid-March Alaska Survey Research poll.

The candidates are getting a boost from outside groups. Democratic-aligned groups have already put more than $3 million into backing Peltola, per the tracking firm AdImpact. The Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super PAC, has pledged to put $15 million into defending Sullivan’s seat and has already placed millions of dollars in ad buys.

© Mark Thiessen/AP

Eric Swalwell’s money has become toxic — fast.

As a rising star in the Democratic Party, the California representative donated widely to battleground campaigns across the country. Now, amid Swalwell’s resignation from Congress following sexual misconduct allegations, many are rushing to distance themselves from him.

Rebecca Cooke, who is hoping to flip a critical House seat in Wisconsin, has renounced Swalwell's endorsement of her campaign. So, too, did Jordan Wood, who's running in Maine’s swingy 2nd District. And former Gov. Roy Cooper, who's making a bid for the North Carolina Senate seat that could swing control of the chamber, rejected an endorsement from Swalwell’s Remedy PAC.

In all, a dozen Democrats in top Senate and House races told POLITICO they plan to donate the campaign contributions they’ve received this cycle from Swalwell and his PAC to various charities.

Their discomfort with Swalwell comes as the party grapples with how to address the sexual assault and misconduct allegations that have felled the seven-term representative’s career in the House and gubernatorial campaign, spurred criminal and House ethics investigations and prompted a GOP-led push to expel him from Congress.

Republicans are already working to make Democratic candidates’ ties to Swalwell a pain point, hammering them in statements and on social media over the money he’s given in recent years.

Most of that has gone toward battleground districts, as well as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to a POLITICO analysis of federal campaign finance filings. So far this cycle, Remedy PAC has given a total of $26,500 to 23 Democratic candidates; in the 2024 cycle, the group gave nearly $170,000 to more than 60 Democratic members and candidates.

Swalwell has also donated more than $2,000 to House members this cycle from his own campaign account. His team did not respond to a request for comment, but the lawmaker has repeatedly vowed to “fight” what he has called “serious, false allegations” of sexual misconduct reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN.

“I am deeply sorry to my family, staff, and constituents for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past,” he wrote Monday in announcing his decision to resign.

Cooke wrote on X that she was “appalled by the allegations” against Swalwell and is donating the $5,000 she received from Swalwell’s PAC across her 2024 and 2026 congressional campaigns to five charities, including several food pantries. Wood, who previously was chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter, one of Swalwell’s rivals for California governor, said he is donating the $1,000 he received to a food bank.

Cooper’s campaign told POLITICO that it has donated the $1,000 it received from Remedy PAC to the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Another one of Democrats’ star Senate recruits, former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, donated the $1,000 he received from Remedy to a shelter for victims of domestic violence, according to his campaign.

Other Democrats in hotly contested races who confirmed they plan to donate Swalwell’s contributions include: Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for Senate in Michigan; Rep. Angie Craig, who’s vying for Senate in Minnesota; Reps. Dan Goldman in New York, Yassamin Ansari in Arizona and George Whitesides, Derek Tran, Dave Min and Adam Gray in California.

A growing number of House lawmakers, including Craig and Ansari, have called on both Swalwell and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) — who admitted to a sexual relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide — to step aside or be expelled from the chamber.

“There's a larger pattern here. For too long, Washington politicians have abused their power and preyed on young staffers. I refuse to be silent. It must stop,” Craig said Monday.

Gray was a co-chair of Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign but withdrew his support and called for Swalwell to drop out after the allegations went public. Min and Tran were both early endorsers of Porter in the California governor’s race, and Swalwell had previously backed one of Min’s opponents in 2024.

Min said in a statement he had only learned of the contribution to his campaign this week.

“Given the seriousness of the allegations made against him, I am not comfortable with this, so I have donated this contribution to Waymakers, an Orange County non-profit that assists survivors of sexual assault,” Min said in an X post.

Swalwell’s political career swiftly imploded after the allegations surfaced. Democratic Party leaders yanked their support and urged Swalwell to drop out. Staffers from his congressional office and campaign released an unsigned statement saying they were “horrified” by the allegations. Then, more than 50 former staffers called for him to resign and drop out of the governor’s race. By Sunday, he had exited the race. By Monday, he stepped down from his seat.

Republicans are determined to wield Swalwell as a campaign cudgel. The National Republican Congressional Committee told POLITICO it’s closely tracking Democrats who’ve accepted contributions from Swalwell and have other ties to him. The campaign arm is pressuring the candidates who have yet to issue public statements to ditch the lawmaker’s donations.

“Every single vulnerable House Democrat must return the filthy creep cash or own the rot they’re protecting," NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.

The NRCC and Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), who Cooke is again trying to unseat, needled the Democrat over the weekend to return the donations. After she did, Van Orden suggested she did so out of “political convenience.”

“I find it appalling that Rebecca Cooke would wait to renounce the endorsement from the disgraced Rep. Eric Swalwell until she received tremendous heat from the media,” Van Orden said in a text message Monday, referring to coverage from a local conservative outlet. “This is not leadership, this is political convenience for her.”

Some Democrats accused Republicans of hypocrisy for not taking accountability for the actions of their own members. They cited Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) — who is facing myriad misconduct allegations and is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee — as well Gonzales, who dropped his reelection bid last month amid pressure from House GOP leadership.

“The hacks at the NRCC who are currently defending Cory Mills and spent six-figures just last month to protect Tony Gonzales should sit this one out,” Viet Shelton, a DCCC spokesperson, said in a statement. “It’s Democrats who are actually standing up and calling for accountability in Congress — consistently and independent of party.”

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

In the villages that dot Kodiak Island off the coast of southwest Alaska, the post arrives by plane. Mailing a ballot to the archipelago’s hub takes at least two days — if the region’s frequent storms haven’t grounded air traffic.

It’s a common problem across Alaska. And it’s a big reason why the state allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted for up to 10 days afterward, a critical reprieve for voters in remote communities that are disconnected from the state’s highway system and sometimes even polling locations.

That’s why Alaskans across the political spectrum are sounding the alarm about a pending Supreme Court ruling. A majority of justices appear to be leaning toward barring states from counting late-arriving ballots, a ruling that would upend voting laws in Alaska and more than a dozen other states. That could potentially disenfranchise hundreds of voters in Kodiak’s distant villages and thousands more across the remote reaches of The Last Frontier — and upend Alaska’s election process in a state that could determine Senate control.

“This matters a lot in a place like Kodiak, because absentee voting, it’s not a convenience here,” said Jared Griffin, the mayor of Kodiak Island Borough, who is an independent. “It’s going to really hurt those rural, remote voters.”

A ban on late-arriving ballots could have an outsized impact on Alaska Natives, many of whom live in rural villages that already experience delays in receiving and returning ballots. It’s a scenario that’s sparking bipartisan fears of depressed turnout in the state’s hotly competitive Senate race between former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola and GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan. The contest could decide control of the chamber.

Democrats in particular are crying foul — accusing Republicans of pushing changes that could disenfranchise members of a significant Democratic-leaning voting bloc.

“It would be catastrophic. It’s mean-spirited,” Eric Croft, the chair of the Alaska Democratic Party, said of the potential effect on rural and Native voters. “It would hurt participation in rural Alaska. And Mary Peltola’s very strong in her Native communities, and in the community she comes from. So I think it will hurt her."

‘Blunt-force trauma’

President Donald Trump won Alaska by 13 points in 2024. But both sides see a competitive Senate race shaping up.

Peltola holds a narrow edge over Sullivan in the handful of public polls testing the race so far, leading the Republican by 5 percentage points in an Alaska Survey Research poll from mid-March. National Democrats see Peltola as a major recruiting win, and have already put over $3 million into boosting her campaign, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.

Republicans are shoveling money into the state as well, a sign they don’t see Sullivan as a lock. Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Majority Leader John Thune, pledged this week to pump $15 million into the race — a staggering sum for the state of 740,000 people.

Core to Peltola’s hopes of flipping the state — and possibly the Senate — are running up the score in the Bush region, the term Alaskans use for the a vast expanse of isolated villages from the Aleutian Islands to the North Slope that are cut off from the state’s road system and include much of its indigenous communities.

Alaska Natives make up roughly 20 percent of the state’s electorate and are a powerful force in its politics. They helped propel Peltola, who is Yup’ik and has deep roots in the Bethel region, to her 2022 special-election upset to serve out the remainder of the late Rep. Don Young’s term in the House. In the November election that year, Peltola swept the vast majority of predominantly Native precincts, according to an analysis by Split Ticket. They've also backed GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski against right-wing challengers; Sullivan has ties with the communities as well.

Many Alaska Natives rely on voting by mail, and activists see it as a critical tool in rural stretches where voter turnout is often lower than in more urban areas. That includes the region Peltola represented in the state House.

Ballots come in late from all over the state where more than four-fifths of communities are cut off from the main road system. But they’re tardy from rural and Native communities at a rate two-to-three-times higher than those coming from mainly urban and non-Native areas, according to a brief that a group of Native organizations filed to the Supreme Court. In state House District 38, which Peltola represented, nearly four-fifths of all absentee ballots came in after Election Day.

None of those late-arriving ballots would be counted if the Supreme Court strikes down a five-business-day grace period in Mississippi, in the case brought by the Republican National Committee and backed by the Trump administration.

“They want a ballot in their hands the day of election [so] you know the winner that night. That’s difficult,” said Democratic state Rep. Maxine Dibert, an Alaska Native who represents a district in and around Fairbanks, in the rural center of the state. “There’s already barriers to voting.”

The ruling, which could come this summer, could upend election administration in Alaska just two months before the state’s primaries — a worst-case scenario that prompted the state’s Republican attorney general, Stephen Cox, to ask the court to issue “clear parameters for Alaska” in its eventual ruling. Though Cox did not take sides in the case, he stressed the “unique challenges” Alaskans face in voting in a state where volatile weather can knock out mail services and polling locations sometimes lack the staff to open.

Peltola’s campaign said in a statement that she would work to ensure “Alaskans are able to make their voices heard” in November.

“Mary believes everyone who is eligible to vote should have access to the ballot box and one-size-fits-all rules from DC rarely work for large rural states like Alaska,” campaign spokesperson Harry Child said. “Whether by road, plane, or boat, we’ll be reaching Alaskans where they’re at and making sure they can participate in our safe and secure elections.”

Alaskan leaders are also bracing for the far less likely passage of the SAVE America Act, a set of voting strictures being pushed by Trump and his allies that state officials and local activists warn could further disenfranchise rural and Native populations. The bill is stalled in the Senate in part over the objections of Alaska’s senior senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, though Sullivan supports it.

“We're going through a lot of blunt-force trauma with this multi-pronged effort to not meet the voters where we’re at,” said Michelle Sparck, who runs Get Out the Native Vote, a nonpartisan group dedicated to improving Native turnout.

Senate stakes

Murkowski, who has drawn strong Native support across her campaigns and is backing Sullivan in his reelection bid over her former ally Peltola, has slammed her party’s twin efforts to curtail mail voting and tighten identification requirements as a “level of voter intimidation.” And she has warned a Supreme Court ruling eliminating the grace period for mail ballots would hit her state harder than any other.

“I’ve got a state that is very reliant on mail-in voting,” she told POLITICO, “and we want to continue that.”

Sullivan has his own ties to Native communities. He’s won the backing of several federation leaders in their personal capacities. His wife, Julie Fate Sullivan, is Koyukon Athabascan and hails from an influential family.

A spokesperson for Sullivan said the senator believes mail ballots cast by or on Election Day — even if they are received afterward — should be counted.

“Senator Sullivan has a record dating back to his time as Alaska’s Attorney General of defending voting rights for Alaskans, particularly in rural and Alaska Native communities. He believes that every eligible vote cast before or on Election Day should be counted,” Sullivan spokesperson Amanda Coyne said in a statement. “He also applauds Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox for filing an amicus brief in this case, highlighting Alaska’s unique challenges and geography.”

Art Hackney, a veteran GOP operative who is running an outside group backing Sullivan’s reelection bid, said voters would adjust to potentially having to mail their ballots earlier. And he suggested the effect on the Senate race would be negligible.

“It’s just a matter of figuring out how to deal with it,” Hackney said. “The percentage impact, I think you can toss a coin — a few this way, a few that way. They’re both going to be fighting for [Native and rural] votes.”

But Democrats, who see Alaska as a possible linchpin to their hopes of retaking the Senate, say the restrictions could hurt Peltola on her home turf — potentially imperiling their broader midterms strategy.

They argue that Alaska has already taken steps to tighten voting rules, pointing to the sweeping and bipartisan elections overhaul bill lawmakers sent to GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy last month that would update voter rolls, create a ballot-tracking system and establish a ballot-curing process.

“These efforts do one thing and one thing only: disenfranchise people who live in rural parts of Alaska,” said Jim Lottsfeldt, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state who is not involved in the Senate race. “You could make the argument that these sort of things hurt Peltola, because as the first Native woman to be elected to statewide office, she obviously has the support of Alaska Natives. That’s a core constituency.”

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© AFP via Getty Images

Democrats are, once again, punting on what to do about Israel.

DNC members rejected a symbolic resolution to limit the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and dark-money corporate groups in Democratic primaries — an unsurprising result that is nevertheless a blow to those within the party that have been infuriated by the pro-Israel group’s recent interventions.

They also punted on a pair of sweeping resolutions concerning conflicts in the Middle East that pushed the party to support conditioning military aid to Israel. The measures were referred to the party’s nascent Middle East Working Group, which is meeting for the fourth time this week and has been slow to coalesce around an agenda.

While the resolutions were not expected to pass, the outcomes reflect a party establishment still grappling with how to respond to the increasingly thorny politics around Israel and AIPAC — and their base’s sharp turn away from the longtime U.S. ally.

The AIPAC resolution called for the DNC to condemn “the growing influence of dark money” in Democratic elections, including from the pro-Israel group that has pumped tens of millions of dollars into recent primaries in Illinois and New Jersey.

Several members of the DNC’s resolutions committee said they voted it down because they had passed a resolution earlier in their meeting broadly condemning the influence of dark money in the midterms without calling out individual groups. Committee members similarly struck language from the catchall dark-money resolution that had singled out the glut of spending from AI- and cryptocurrency-aligned PACs.

DNC Chair Ken Martin amplified that messageon X: “We had various resolutions that focused on different industries and groups, and instead of going one-by-one, we passed a blanket repudiation,” he said. “I have made my position on this clear from day one: We must end the influence of dark money in our politics and restore power back to the people.”

Pro-Israel groups applauded the DNC for quashing the nonbinding resolution.

“The DNC made clear today that all Democrats, including millions who are AIPAC members, have the right to participate fully in the democratic process. And we plan to do just that,” AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa said in a statement.

Halie Soifer, a former Kamala Harris adviser and CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, suggested that the votes show the party hasn’t shifted on Israel as much as it seems.

“There are misconceptions because there is a vocal, far-left faction of our party, but they are in no way leading here,” Soifer said. “The DNC as a whole has not shifted from where it has been … which is an organization that is inclusive of Jewish Americans and is supportive of the U.S.-Israel security relationship, as well as Israel’s future as a Jewish and Democratic state.”

But Florida Democrat Allison Minnerly, who introduced the AIPAC resolution, argued there’s “merit to calling out different PACs with intention” given their individual efforts to influence the party’s elections. She said in an interview after the vote that she was unsurprised but disappointed by the result.

DNC leadership “really does not want to continue having this conversation … but our voters, our base, does,” she said. “These are hard questions on a local and national level, but the DNC ultimately has to not just kick things down the road but address things head on because people are tired of waiting.”

A Pew Research survey released this week showed 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents hold unfavorable views of Israel, up from 69 percent last year and 53 percent in 2022. A NBC News poll conducted in late February and early March, meanwhile, found that 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic change from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023.

The DNC has struggled for years with how to address the shift within its base — a challenge that has returned to the fore with Israel’s involvement in the unpopular U.S. operation in Iran. That’s being compounded by tensions over AIPAC after the historically bipartisan group intervened in a series of hotly contested primaries.

In a sign of how sensitive — and politically treacherous — both issues are for the party, one DNC member told POLITICO they had received calls about the resolutions from two potential 2028 presidential contenders.

Martin established a working group last summer to guide the party’s Middle East policy. It has yet to begin its work in earnest and has been plagued with internal dysfunction, with some members lamenting that the panel lacks heft within the broader party machine.

Some on the eight-member working group hoped by bringing the resolutions to a larger committee they could force discussion on issues around Israel. But the resolutions committee members sent the measures back to the working group — even as they raised concerns about its pace and progress.

Progressive activists and pro-Palestinian groups bristled at the DNC refusing to directly call out AIPAC and deferring action on measures that included recognizing the “State of Palestine” and pausing or conditioning military aid to Israel.

“Today’s vote once again showed that Democratic leadership is asleep at the wheel when it comes to one of the biggest existential threats to the party,” said Margaret DeReus, the head of the IMEU Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian group that had lobbied members to approve the resolutions. “Party leadership needs to wake up.”

© AP

Democrats’ internal feud over Israel is rearing its head on the party’s biggest stage — again.

Critics of Israel’s military actions and the pro-Israel lobby’s interference in recent Democratic primaries are setting up thorny test votes at the Democratic National Committee’s spring meeting in New Orleans on Thursday, where members will debate resolutions recognizing a Palestinian state, conditioning military aid to Israel and condemning the “growing influence” of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other dark-money groups.

The measures before the DNC’s resolutions committee are unlikely to pass and are nonbinding even if they do. But they are the latest public clash that will pit more pro-Israel party brass against a base whose views on Israel have turned sharply negative and progressive activists who are increasingly incensed by the glut of special-interest spending in Democratic primaries that is often directed against their candidates.

In a sign of the heightened sensitivity around the politics of Israel, one DNC member who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations said they had received direct calls about the resolutions from two presidential aspirants who would have to answer for the DNC’s positions on Israel and AIPAC if they run. The resolutions are also highlighting sharp divisions within the task force DNC Chair Ken Martin established last year to set the party’s strategy on the Middle East — a committee that remains in early stages and is far from formalizing an agenda.

James Zogby — a longtime DNC member and critic of Israel who is president of the Arab American Institute and who sits on Martin’s Middle East Working Group — said the party needs to wake up to voters’ shifting views on Israel.

“Public opinion has shifted. Democrats have clearly shifted. Candidates have shifted. And we’re not where we were five years ago even,” Zogby said. “We have to avoid the mistakes that we’ve been making, which simply show us to be unwilling to accept or unable to accept the political realities.”

A Pew Research survey released this week showed 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents hold unfavorable views of Israel, up from 69 percent last year and 53 percent in 2022. A NBC News poll conducted in late February and early March, meanwhile, found that 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic change from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The Democratic Party, time and time again, is presented with absolutely winning issues,” said Allison Minnerly, a DNC member from Florida who submitted the resolution criticizing AIPAC and corporate-aligned spending, and who unsuccessfully pushed another last year calling for an arms embargo on Israel. “People 1) hate corporate money and 2) do not want to be involved in further conflict in the Middle East.”

But Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which is against the current measures, said the increasing critiques of the Israeli government by prominent elected officials “doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a wholesale shift in support for Israel’s security or its right to exist as a Jewish state.” Soifer, a former Kamala Harris adviser whose group has opposed similar efforts before the DNC in the past, cast the latest batch of foreign-policy resolutions as a “distraction” for a party that’s showing early success in the midterms by honing in on domestic issues.

The DNC and a spokesperson for AIPAC declined to comment.

Democrats have been here before. Staffers working on the party’s 2024 autopsy found its approach to Gaza hurt the top of the ticket. But it's unclear whether that made it into the report that the DNC decided not to release.

At the party’s meeting in Minneapolis last summer, Minnerly’s weapons ban failed, while Martin yanked his measure calling for “unrestricted” aid to Gaza and a two-state solution after it passed in favor of creating the task force to advance “solutions” to the party’s divide.

The Middle East Working Group is slated for its fourth meeting this week in New Orleans. Some members lamented to POLITICO that the group lacked structure and any real institutional power. And they disagree on how best to approach their mission.

Joe Salas, a member of the working group from California, believes that Gaza was “one of the things that lost us the White House” in 2024 and is urging the party to adjust its response. He put forward the resolution recognizing the “State of Palestine” and pausing or conditioning weapons transfers to “any military units credibly implicated in violations of international humanitarian law or obstruction of humanitarian assistance,” telling POLITICO he hoped it would serve as a guidepost for the task force.

But Andrew Lachman, another task force member and the past president of the California Jewish Democrats, said he doesn’t want to see members of the group trying to “undermine the work of the commission” by pushing catchall resolutions that could bigfoot its efforts.

“It would be much better for us to try to find ways for us to work together as a party, to stand together against these wars, than engaging in this kind of approach,” he said.

The resolutions have also set off a fresh round of lobbying among interest groups. IMEU Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian group, sent members a memo on Wednesday urging them to pass the measures.

“The signs are growing that the gap between Democratic leadership and their voters on this issue will be a liability in 2026 unless serious action is taken,” the group warned in its memo, a copy of which was shared with POLITICO.

© AP

President Donald Trump’s primetime address on Iran did little to relieve rising alarm from plugged-in Republicans in key states across the country who see the war as pushing costs higher and their midterm chances ever-lower.

Trump declared Wednesday night that the U.S. offensive in Iran is “nearing completion” but warned that military operations would intensify over the “next two to three weeks.” He attempted to clarify his goals for the war — to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities — and insisted it was never about regime change. And he shrugged off the spike in oil and gas prices as a “short-term increase.”

To a number of GOP strategists and local party leaders involved in key congressional and gubernatorial races, the message was too little, too late and too jumbled.

“What the hell did he just say?” one GOP strategist in a battleground state wrote in a text to POLITICO after the president’s address, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “A quick recap and a path forward would’ve been helpful. Instead, it was nonsense left for Sean Hannity to articulate.”

Trump’s decision to attack Iran, and the subsequent spike in oil and gas prices, are the latest sources of heartburn for Republicans who were already feeling queasy about public opinion that has turned against Trump’s domestic agenda. They heard little new information Wednesday night from the president that signaled a course correction.

Conversations with more than half a dozen operatives and party chairs across seven battleground states revealed their anxiety that the prolonged conflict is overshadowing the White House’s affordability message and could hurt their chances of holding onto power this November.

The Republicans who spoke to POLITICO were particularly concerned about Trump’s waving off the financial strain the war has put on day-to-day prices, touting “the strongest economy in history” with “no inflation.” Two different strategists compared the latter comments to President Joe Biden’s repeated insistence that the economy was doing better than they believed.

“Not sure people will buy the strong economy part,” Todd Gillman, a Michigan GOP district chair, said in a message Wednesday night. “Inflation is definitely more under control than it was under Biden, but the prices haven’t come down on a lot of things.”

Without any clear announcements from Trump on an endgame in the region, future markets for U.S. stocks recoiled and average national gas prices topped $4 per gallon. Crude oil prices soared to over $111 per barrel on Thursday morning.

Others were left wanting more specifics from Trump on an exit strategy and the factors that drew the U.S. into the war. “I think it could’ve been a little more specific or expanded on the exact threats that Iran poses to the U.S.,” said one Wisconsin-based GOP strategist. “I don’t know the extent he’s able to get into that stuff based off intelligence, but maybe he could have been a little bit more expansive there.”

Polls have consistently shown a majority of Americans oppose the military operation in Iran by double-digit margins. The conflict is already fracturing the president’s loyal MAGA base, alienating young men who believed in his “America First” message. And Democrats are beginning to go on the attack in campaign ads, accusing vulnerable GOP lawmakers of prioritizing the president’s multibillion dollar offensive over making voters’ lives more affordable.

One GOP operative working on a battleground House race found solace in Trump’s talk of an exit strategy, saying voters would be “relieved to hear that we’re not going to be sticking around.”

“On the other hand, I don't think anybody has confidence that gas prices will just come down on their own,” said the operative, who was granted anonymity to deliver a candid assessment. “Overall, there's really nothing in here that helps to sell this to the public."

Some said the address may have come too late.

“It’s something that probably should have been done at the beginning of the conflict,” said Dennis Lennox, a Michigan-based GOP strategist.

Still, others in the party found that Trump’s address met the moment and lavished praise on the president. Mark Levin, a staunch Trump ally and conservative commentator, said he delivered a “PERFECT SPEECH” in a post on X.

Brent Littlefield, a GOP strategist involved in several races, including in Maine’s battleground 2nd congressional district, lauded Trump’s decision to speak directly to Americans and dismissed concerns that the remarks came too late in the conflict to help him articulate his case to voters.

“It was right for the President to wait to do that until after the conflict began,” Littlefield said. “He did not telegraph the move to the enemy of what the United States was planning to do.”

Samuel Benson contributed to this report.

© Pool photo by Alex Brandon

Democrats are opening a new front in their midterm offensive over Iran.

VoteVets Action Fund is rolling out a $250,000 ad campaign Wednesday targeting Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) over his support of the war with Iran, according to details shared first with POLITICO.

It’s one of the first examples of Democrats putting real money behind the issue in the midterms since President Donald Trump’s attack on the country more than a month ago. And it comes as Republicans grow increasingly worried that the war’s impact on prices could hurt the party at the ballot box this fall.

The ad attacks Van Orden, an at-risk Republican and combat veteran, for backing a Pentagon push for $200 billion more for the Iran operation as prices at the pump continue to rise, and after he called last year for cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The ad accuses Van Orden of backing cuts to veterans’ care — though in the hearing referenced, the Republican advocates for slashing bureaucrats to add more doctors.

The spot sheds light on how Democrats are working to weaponize the war: by arguing that Trump is spending big abroad while further pinching voters’ pocketbooks and, in VoteVets’ case, stiffing veterans.

“Look at that gas pump. We’re paying the cost every damn day of this war in Iran. But for Congressman Van Orden, we’re not paying enough. He’s going for another $200 billion dollars to spend in Iran,” a male Marine Corps veteran narrates in the clip.

“This is the same guy who backed big cuts to VA care for vets,” the veteran says, referring to significant staffing reductions at the agency since Trump returned to office, including thousands of medical personnel. “Vets like me, we understand the cost of war. But if we don’t have the money to take care of our veterans, we damn sure can’t afford another war. Call Van Orden on it.”

VoteVets, whose PAC works to elect Democratic veterans, intends to expand its Iran ad campaign into other battleground districts, with a particular focus on GOP veterans who the group argues are blindly following Trump in abandoning his campaign-trail pledge to end endless wars.

“There’s absolutely no doubt that voters throughout the country, and particularly in Rep. Van Orden’s district, are very aware of the fact that every single day we spend billions of dollars [on] this war in Iran is yet another day that not only is the affordability crisis ignored, but it's getting even worse,” said former Rep. Max Rose, a New York Democrat who serves as a senior adviser to VoteVets. “What this first video represents is our commitment to holding every single Republican veteran in the House of Representatives accountable for their lies, hypocrisy and absence of courage.”

Van Orden, a retired Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, slammed VoteVets as a “running joke in the veteran community” in a statement to POLITICO. He expressed support for Trump’s military operation and the supplemental funding plan that the White House has been reviewing. But Van Orden stressed that he continues to oppose putting uniformed troops on the ground in Iran.

“Iran has been at war with the United States for 47 years. When we start putting a price tag on American citizens’ lives, we’ve already lost sight of our responsibility,” Van Orden said. “Every single American murdered by these radical Muslim mullahs is priceless, and every American life we can save is beyond value.”

The 30-second spot will run during NCAA games and other live sporting events, as well as on broadcast, radio, streaming services and social media platforms. It represents an escalation in Democrats’ rhetoric and aggression as the party seizes on growing voter backlash to the now monthlong conflict that Trump is threatening to intensify.

Democrats have already been hammering Republicans over affordability as the average price of a gallon of gas soars over $4. Now they’re eyeing ways to connect other cost concerns to the ballooning spending on the war amid reporting that Republicans are considering further reductions to federal health spending to bankroll the military effort — returning to some of their signature issues of the cycle to argue that the GOP is prioritizing fealty to the president over voters’ pocketbooks.

Other Democrat-aligned groups are joining in. Battleground Alliance PAC flew a plane over a minor league baseball game in Pennsylvania over the weekend with a banner targeting Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie that read “Mackenzie: Your Iran Vote = Sky High $$$Gas.” The group is planning similar stunts in more than half a dozen other swing districts across Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio.

“We're in a war of choice, which is spending an enormous amount of money, and we're going to get more health care cuts and oil price increases,” said Andrew Grossman, a senior adviser to the labor-backed Battleground Alliance PAC. “And so the cost of living — like the chaos and the Republican Congress just saying yes always to President Trump — is hitting Americans in our pocketbooks, and that is the single most important issue of our moment.”

Mackenzie’s campaign manager, Andres Weller, dismissed the move in a statement as “the same political stunts that people are tired of. An outside group did the same thing at the same place in 2024, and all it accomplished was annoying people who were trying to enjoy a baseball game with their family and friends.”

Democrats’ ramp-up comes as Republicans are increasingly fearful a prolonged war will hurt their chances of holding onto power in the midterms. The conflict is already fracturing the MAGA coalition. And polls show a majority of Americans are against the operation in Iran, including an Ipsos survey released Tuesday that found two-thirds of Americans want the U.S. to end its involvement even if the president does not achieve all his goals, and that 56 percent expect the conflict will have a negative impact on their personal financial situation.

Voters are “going to look to their members of Congress to see if they double down or be an independent voice [on Iran],” Samuel Chen, a Pennsylvania-based GOP strategist, said. “If they’re doubling down on it in these tight seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and other places, that could be the difference.”

© Matt Rourke/AP

Democrats eyeing White House runs in 2028 are preemptively breaking up with AIPAC.

Sen. Cory Booker, who received donations bundled by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as late as December, told POLITICO that he’s sworn off the group’s funds (and other PAC money). California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he never has and “never will” take donations from the group. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) vowed last week that he “wouldn’t take AIPAC money” anymore.

A spokesperson for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he has “never taken money or solicited support from AIPAC," while a spokesperson for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said "AIPAC has never contributed to Gov. Beshear and they’re never going to. Ever.” (Shapiro and Beshear would not have been candidates for AIPAC funds in the past; the group focuses on federal races).

Their retreat underscores how rapidly AIPAC has become a bogeyman for Democrats seeking to criticize the Israeli government, particularly with the Netanyahu administration’s involvement with President Donald Trump’s operation in Iran. Many former AIPAC-friendly Democrats see the historically bipartisan group as becoming more and more aligned with Netanyahu’s right-wing government in recent years. Its emergence as an early touchstone in the shadow 2028 presidential primary reflects a calculation among leading Democrats that liberal voters’ hard shift away from the longtime U.S. ally will stick.

“This is going to be a huge flashpoint in the primary throughout 2027 and into 2028,” said veteran Democratic strategist Mark Longabaugh, who advised Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. “The constitution of the party just in the makeup of the voters has changed dramatically. The politics of Israel has changed dramatically.”

Recent AIPAC critics also include some Jewish Democrats who had previously supported the organization or received its backing.

After AIPAC poured $22 million into Illinois primaries last week to mixed results, Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire who does not accept outside funds, accused the group of becoming pro-Trump and said he wants no part of the group he once donated to. A spokesperson for Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) pointed to a podcast in which she said she swore off AIPAC’s support in 2022.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told POLITICO he “need not worry about AIPAC’s support. It will not be forthcoming.”

Emanuel – a supporter of Israel whose father was Israeli – has also been a longtime critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Emanuel contested past reporting that he held dual U.S.-Israelicitizenship when he was a child: "I never had Israeli citizenship. I’m 66, my whole life I’ve only had American citizenship and an American passport."

Democrats cited a variety of reasons for rejecting AIPAC’s cash. Booker said it was part of a broader pledge he made at the start of the year to swear off all PAC money going forward. “I don’t believe we should be accepting any PAC money at all from anybody,” he told POLITICO on Friday.

Gallego likened taking the group’s backing to “endorsing what’s happening right now” in Iran and Gaza while appearing on POLITICO’s “The Conversation.”

And progressives like Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who have been highly critical of the Israeli government and have repeatedly sparred with AIPAC, have accused the group of targeting their campaigns and long rejected its financial aid. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) bluntly told POLITICO: “I don’t take their money, they’re running ads against me.”

Other potential White House aspirants attempted to dodge the question. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), for instance, said he has “individuals who support me” when asked if he would reject AIPAC’s backing. Several more did not respond when reached through spokespeople, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

That so many Democrats declined to comment on the organization suggests that AIPAC still has some influence in Democratic politics. And the big-spending group can still help its preferred candidates to victory even as its name has become mud in Democratic primaries, as evidenced by its wins last week in two of the four Illinois House races where it spent big. But it’s also telling that no potential 2028 candidate openly embraced the group.

AIPAC and its allies hit back, accusing Democrats who are giving the group the cold shoulder of trying to silence pro-Israel voices within the party. They vowed to continue intervening in Democratic primaries to promote their interests. Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said “efforts to push pro-Israel Democrats out of the political process are alarming and fundamentally undemocratic.”

Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, acknowledged the “difficult environment” the lobby is navigating after Gaza and with the war in Iran. But, he said, “we aren’t going to be deterred in ensuring that pro-Israel voices are heard in federal elections.”

“We are going to work with mainstream Democrats across the party to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that includes presidential contenders,” Dorton said. “We’re going to remind everybody about the millions of pro-Israel Democratic voters who are part of the political process in federal elections.”

Top Democrats’ rush to rebuff AIPAC comes amid a party-wide grappling over how to handle Israel, after the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza was found to have cost Harris votes in 2024 and as polls show Democratic voters continuing to sour on Israel as it aids the U.S. intervention in Iran. An NBC News poll this month showed 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic shift from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023. A Quinnipiac University survey earlier this month showed 62 percent of Democrats felt America is too supportive of Israel.

Democrats eyeing 2028 have been publicly repositioning on Israel for months as Gaza reemerges as a flashpoint in midterm primaries. And their criticisms of Israel and its allies in the U.S. are growing sharper as the war in Iran escalates with no clear off-ramp from Trump.

Newsom earlier this month likened Israel to an “apartheid state” and said the U.S. should reconsider military support for Israel, though in a separate interview with POLITICO published Tuesday he said he regretted using the term apartheid and clarified that he is concerned about Israel, a country he said he is "proud to support," going in such a direction. Pritzker has long been a supporter of Israel and has advocated for a two-state solution, but recently told the New York Times that he’s “challenged” by current geopolitics because the U.S. is supporting Israeli policies “that I don’t think the majority of Americans believe in and I don’t think a majority even of Israelis believe in.”

Shapiro, who’s similarly been a longtime supporter of Israel and a two-state solution, has also criticized Netanyahu and Trump’s enabling of his agenda in recent podcast appearances. But he cautioned that denying Israel’s right to exist could lead to “permanent war.” A spokesperson for Shapiro said the Pennsylvania governor “has been clear that Donald Trump is failing to hold Netanyahu accountable” while also positing that “Israel has a right to exist in security as a Jewish state, and we must find a path to peace in the Middle East that includes a safe homeland for the Palestinian people.”

Leading progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna, have gone further — accusing the Netanyahu administration of perpetuating genocide in Gaza and pushing to stop U.S. arms sales to the country.

But Democrats on both ends of the ideological spectrum have argued there are bigger issues around Israel than AIPAC. Shapiro, on a podcast last year, said putting Democrats on record over AIPAC was a “shortcut” for asking their views on Israel and a two-state solution. “Demanding answers on those questions is more important than ‘hey, what about this lobbying group or that lobbying group,’” he said.

Khanna, in a message to POLITICO on Monday, said, “What matters more is the clarity of calling what happened a genocide and stopping military sales to Israel used to kill civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.”

Still, progressive groups such as MoveOn and Justice Democrats are plotting how to make taking AIPAC money a red line for those vying to be the party’s next standard bearer.

“We’re going to be demanding that anyone who deserves to get the Democratic nomination not only doesn’t take AIPAC support or donations, but actively speaks out against this lobby,” said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi.

In a sign of the volatile and complex politics surrounding Israel, some Democrats who are shutting the door to AIPAC donations are declining to call on their would-be rivals to do the same.

Pritzker, asked by POLITICO last week whether Democratic presidential candidates should accept AIPAC funding, criticized the flood of special-interest money in campaigns in general but cast taking PAC cash as “a matter of values” for each candidate. Murphy said “everybody will make their own decision about it.”

And Booker went so far as to call the AIPAC pile-on “problematic.”

“There are Iranian Americans that bundle money. There are Turkish Americans that bundle money. There are a lot of ethnic groups that bundle money, and often for things that I don’t agree with. But somehow AIPAC seems to be drawing a lot of attention, and that’s problematic to me,” Booker said. “[AIPAC] is not the problem in America. The problem in America is money in politics.”

CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to include Emanuel’s statement that he has never held dual Israeli citizenship, Newsom's comments to POLITICO on apartheid and Israel, and that AIPAC spends only in federal races.

© AP

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee saw mixed results in the first major test of its political muscle in the midterms, drawing fresh recriminations from its foes — and some allies — for its interference in four competitive Illinois House primaries.

Two of AIPAC’s supported candidates won their races Tuesday night, with Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller denying former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. a comeback in the 2nd District and former Rep. Melissa Bean defeating a slew of progressive challengers in the 8th District.

But the group faced criticism from within the pro-Israel Democratic community and harsh words from its opponents after it failed to secure its preferred outcome in the two races where it spent the most money.

In the 9th District, the group spent $7 million, some of it aimed at attacking Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, whose mother is Israeli, making an enemy of a likely soon-to-be U.S. representative who has been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza but who had previously been willing to engage with the group. Biss won the crowded primary Tuesday night, after AIPAC pivoted from attacking him to instead concentrate its negative ads on progressive social media influencer and Palestinian American Kat Abughazaleh. And in the 7th District, an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC spent nearly $5 million backing Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who lost to state Rep. La Shawn Ford.

The split scorecard comes a month after AIPAC angered its own centrist allies by going after  another fairly pro-Israel candidate, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) — a move that ended up handing the primary to a stronger critic of Israel, progressive Analilia Mejia.

“There was once again a vast amount of money spent and wasted trying to dust up a candidate who, by almost anybody’s reasonable analysis, Israel should be happy to have in Congress supporting a strong U.S.-Israel relationship,” one longtime AIPAC member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said of the group’s spending against Biss.

AIPAC, the person added, “should take a look at the results in [the 9th District] and New Jersey and reconsider their strategy.”

AIPAC-aligned super PACs spent nearly$22 million in the Illinois primaries, more than one-fifth the total $100 million warchest it has in hand so far for the 2026 midterms, to win two of four open-seat races while losing the one that drove the most national attention.

At his victory party Tuesday night, Biss slammed the group for spending heavily “to buy this seat to support the idea that we can’t accept nuance” on the U.S.-Israel relationship.

"AIPAC found out the hard way — the 9th District is not for sale,” Biss told supporters.

AIPAC pushed back against the notion that the group struggled in Tuesday night’s elections.

“Illinois voters rejected half a dozen anti-Israel candidates across several heavily Democratic open-seat races,” Deryn Sousa, an AIPAC spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday night. “These results further demonstrate that campaigns defined largely by opposition to AIPAC, our members, and the values we represent continue to fall short on election night.”

The controversial organization, already a foil for Democrats grappling with growing anti-Israel sentiment in their party, is facing fresh animosity and renewed scrutiny over its campaign spending as the U.S. and Israel wage a joint war on Iran that’s further soured Americans on their longtime ally.

Recent polling shows Americans — and Democrats, in particular — shifting further away from Israel. A NBC News poll released this week showed 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic shift from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023. A Quinnipiac University survey showed 44 percent of voters think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel — the highest percentage since the pollsters started asking the question in 2017. Among Democrats, 62 percent think America is too supportive of Israel, compared with just 22 percent who think the support is about right and 8 percent who think it’s not supportive enough.

It’s clear the organization is aware of its standing in Democratic primaries — its ads focused on everything but Israel, accusing candidates of not being progressive enough on other issues. But AIPAC’s involvement became a major talking point for those it was attacking, especially in the 9th District.

The Illinois Democratic delegation likely won’t have a significant ideological shift on Israel from the races’ results. Bean will replace Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, another pro-Israel candidate, who lost his Senate primary contest to Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. Biss’s views on Israel aren’t far from those of outgoing Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who endorsed him and has sharply criticized AIPAC in the past. Rep. Danny Davis has supported Israel but denounced its Gaza intervention; Ford has refused to commit to unconditional aidto Israel.

The biggest potential change is Miller replacing Rep. Robin Kelly, who has called the war in Gaza a “genocide.” She also didn’t advance through the Illinois Senate primary.

“We consider this a pro-Israel win. We are better off in the Chicago delegation than we were yesterday,” said Patrick Dorton, the spokesperson for the AIPAC super PAC United Democracy Project, pointing to the new incumbents in the Kelly, Schakowsky and Davis seats.

Dorton also argued that if the group’s pop-up super PAC “didn’t go negative with more than a million dollars in spending to defeat Abughazaleh, she may well have beat Biss.”

And AIPAC allies took a more generous read on their group’s performance.

“You win some, you lose some,” said AIPAC ally Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), who backed Fine, Miller and Bean in their races. Schneider added that if a group wins every race they’re involved in, “you probably haven't pushed the boundaries as far as you can.”

Brian Romick, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, which often overlaps in its preferred candidates with AIPAC, said Tuesday’s results showed that “Israel wasn't a determinative factor in these primaries” and “none of the extremist anti-Israel candidates won.”

Opponents of AIPAC crowed that voters had spurned the groups’ hardline tactics, including AIPAC’s use of shell PACs to obscure the source of the outside spending. And they held up Biss’ victory in particular as reassurance for candidates wary AIPAC will wade into their primaries that the group can be defeated. Democratic candidates and strategists are bracing for the group to intervene in a range of upcoming House primaries, as well as the Michigan and Minnesota Senate primaries.

Tuesday’s results “should send a clear message to candidates across the country: you do not have to fear AIPAC’s spending or intimidation,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a rival organization that spent $350,000 backing Biss and worked to counter AIPAC in other Illinois House races, said in a statement.

Yet AIPAC is poised to remain formidable through the midterms. One pro-Israel Democratic donor adviser, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said even with AIPAC’s misfires, the money is likely to keep pouring in.

“Their donor talking points aren’t going to be, ‘we only got half.’ They'll say, ‘we took out two of the worst people,’” said the donor adviser of Tuesday’s results. “They know how to sell it, and there's no shortage of money.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to include Ford's views on aid to Israel.

© Illustration by Bill Kuchman/POLITICO (source images via Getty Images)