An unsteady truce between Nashville’s Democratic mayor and Tennessee's Republican leaders just collapsed after an ICE dragnet in the city.

Tension began to build in early May, when ICE started making traffic stops in partnership with the state highway patrol in the immigrant-heavy neighborhood of South Nashville, leading to the arrests of nearly 200 suspected undocumented immigrants.

Mayor Freddie O’Connell quickly condemned the action as damaging to the community. And a GOP firestorm resulted, with Republicans accusing O’Connell of interfering with federal immigration enforcement.

Four weeks later, a simple public policy spat has turned into a major conflict between some of the most powerful leaders in Tennessee, breaking a fragile peace between the city and the GOP supermajority legislature – and exposing Nashville to the wrath of the Trump administration. The feud, which shows no signs of ending soon, comes with real potential consequences for Nashville and other blue cities in red states being targeted over their immigration policies.

“It's unfortunate that he's willing to support the law breakers instead of supporting us as the lawmakers,” state Rep. Rusty Grills, a Republican, said of the mayor.

O’Connell, who has worked to calm long-running tensions with Republicans since his election in 2023, is the latest target of GOP ire over perceived threats to President Donald Trump’s deportations, and the onslaught against the mayor also represents a further escalation in the administration’s attack on local officials. In New Jersey, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested in May on a trespassing charge outside an ICE facility. That charge was later dropped, but U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver is facing assault charges from the same confrontation.

In Tennessee, Republicans in the state legislature told POLITICO that O’Connell was putting officers at risk by updating a longstanding executive order mandating that city officials disclose interactions with ICE to the mayor’s office within 24 hours. They have latched onto that as evidence the mayor is impeding law enforcement operations.

O’Connell, speaking at a press conference following the raids, said the city does not have the authority to enforce immigration laws, and noted that Nashville’s crime rates are down. He has maintained that the city did not interfere with the ICE operation in early May.

Yet GOP outrage has spread from Tennessee to Washington. O’Connell is facing a federal investigation from House Republicans announced last week, and a call for another from the Department of Justice by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who all argue that O’Connell is impeding law enforcement’s ability to crack down on crime committed by illegal immigrants.

U.S. border czar Tom Homan has warned that Nashville could see larger immigration crackdowns as a result of O’Connell’s opposition.

“We’ll flood the zone in the neighborhoods to find the bad guy,” Homan said on Fox News last week. “We’ll flood the zone at work sites to find the bad guy, but we’re going to do it, and [O’Connell’s] not going to stop us.”

Republicans have also gone after O’Connell for highlighting a donations fund that supports individuals affected by the arrests, like children whose parents were detained. Republicans say the fund is an improper use of taxpayer dollars, although the fund was created by a nonprofit that says it exclusively uses private donations.

Tennessee Democrats and immigrant advocates say that Republicans are cheering ICE’s involvement because of a bad-faith view of immigrant communities and that the criticism of O’Connell is purely GOP rhetoric lacking any basis. They also say the sweep shows how the Department of Homeland Security is taking in people that pose no threat to the public. DHS said about half of the people arrested have criminal records, but only identified four of them – leading Democrats to demand more information about those detained.

“For the politicians who care about nothing but the national news, this is a symbolic story,” said Democratic State Sen. Jeff Yarbro. “But for those of us who represent communities where we've seen lawless dragnet policing, there are real life consequences to our community and to our neighbors.”

The raid’s scale and scope was “unlike anything we've ever seen before,” said Lisa Sherman Luna, the executive director of the Tennessee Immigrants & Refugee Rights Coalition.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol’s cooperation with ICE underscores the role states will play in carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration agenda – especially as DHS struggles to hit its deportation goals. GOP leaders eager to impress the president have taken steps in recent months to deputize local law enforcement as immigration enforcers, like in Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed a law requiring law enforcement to check the immigration status of detainees.

“They are building an infrastructure that we've never seen, especially for a non-border state, to really carry out the President's agenda of mass deportations,” Luna said of the ICE operation in Nashville. “The devastation for families and local communities is going to be deep and broad, because everyone is a target now, and so it's really alarming to see our state government being used in this manner.”

Tennessee Republicans have framed the conflict as a matter of law and order – arguing that the ICE raids were a necessary use of force to crack down on crime they blame on illegal immigrants. Under the leadership of Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee has emerged as one of the most aggressive non-border states on immigration in the second Trump era.

Lee, to the surprise of many Tennesseans, was the first Republican governor to say in January before Trump’s inauguration he was readying the National Guard should they be called upon to aid in deportations. In January, a few days after attending a governors meeting at Mar-A-Lago, Lee tacked onto immigration legislation as part of a special session on school vouchers. Lawmakers then passed a sweeping law expanding local law enforcement’s immigration purview and making it a felony for state officials to establish sanctuary cities.

Nashville is not a sanctuary city. But Democrats there still view the law as a warning shot from the legislature, which has clashed with city leaders over a range of issues — from control of the airport to representation in Congress.

“We wanted to send a signal that Tennessee was ready to cooperate and welcomed ICE coming into our communities to get these violent people out,” said state Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican. “So I'm very, very happy with it and excited, and I hope they do more.”

And many want to see ICE return. State Sen. Brent Taylor has asked Homan to send ICE to Memphis to address “the violent crime epidemic” that he says is “exacerbated by poor local leadership.”

Shelby County, where Memphis is located, was included on a list of sanctuary cities and counties published by DHS last week that was soon taken down. Leaders of Shelby County, Memphis and Nashville — which was also on the list – disputed their designation as sanctuary cities, which have been outlawed by the Tennessee legislature.

State Sen. Jody Barrett described relations between Nashville and the GOP legislature as a “forced marriage,” complicated by the fact that Nashville serves as the state’s economic engine. Nashville’s population has exploded in recent years, and the city’s tourism industry keeps the state coffers filled.

“And because of that, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship,” he said.

© Nicole Hester/The Tennessean via AP

NORFOLK, Virginia – Six months out from November, Virginia Democrats believe the governor's race is Abigail Spanberger’s to lose.

There’s a risk the former member of Congress could get bogged down by national malaise toward the Democratic Party, and her margins could end up being tight because of the negative Democratic brand.

But Democrats are hopeful that Spanberger can overcome that national dynamic. She flipped a competitive district in 2018 that stretches into rural Southwest Virginia and she benefits from the unpopular actions of President Donald Trump. His stop-and-start trade war coupled with the elimination of thousands of federal jobs and looming Medicaid cuts are widely unwelcome in the Commonwealth. Spanberger enjoys strong name recognition and is far out-fundraising her opponent, a candidate who even some fellow Republicans are wincing about.

A sweeping Democratic victory this fall could spook Republicans in Congress over their inaction to Trump’s aggressive agenda and provide a blueprint for staying laser focused on kitchen table issues like economic uncertainty and federal belt-tightening that the party can ride into the midterms next year.

“If we can get these people to vote we’re going to smoke them,” Virginia House Speaker Don Scott said. “We just got to get them to vote. That’s the fear – apathy.”

Spanberger, speaking with reporters ahead of a campaign event in the battleground region of Hampton Roads last week, shrugged off the fact that her campaign is under the national spotlight. She said the operation is “totally grounded” in Virginia and the “issues and priorities that matter here.”

“If that ends up setting a good example for other people running other places, then that's their choice,” she said before entering a packed event full of local elected officials, donors and supporters in Norfolk, to mark the launch of her affordability agenda calling for lowering health care and prescription drug costs. She’s readying forthcoming plans to address other strains on Virginians’ budgets.

Selling strong messages on affordable housing, rural hospitals and public schools will help Democrats appeal to the more conservative parts of the state in Southwest and Central Virginia, said Aaron Rouse, a state senator and one of six Democrats running for lieutenant governor. Spanberger is “doing everything right so far,” he said.

Spanberger raised $6.7 million in the first quarter, dwarfing the $3.1 million brought in by opponent Winsome Earle-Sears, the lieutenant governor who was limited by state law from fundraising during the state legislative session earlier this year.

Early polling shows Spanberger is in a strong position: A Roanoke College survey this month showed her with a 17 percentage point lead, and more than half of respondents believe the country is on the wrong track. Another poll put the race at a much tighter margin, with Spanberger leading by four points.

But Spanberger’s campaign may run into the strong negative headwinds around the Democratic Party, which has been trying to reverse pessimistic attitudes toward its leaders. National Democrats believe that if Spanberger can broaden her appeal beyond the blue strongholds of Northern Virginia by convincingly talking about kitchen table issues, that will give them a much-needed morale boost and help guide them in the midterms.

Spanberger is focusing her campaign for governor on how she plans to lower costs – and blaming Trump in Washington and term-limited Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Richmond for making life more expensive. Virginia’s off-year elections are viewed as a referendum on the party controlling Washington, and Democrats are feeling confident as Trump’s DOGE cuts come down hard on Virginia’s robust federal workforce.

A recent analysis from the University of Virginia found that the state is projected to lose more than 9,000 government jobs, propelling a downturn in employment that is worrying state leaders.

“[Trump] creates the general political environment that you're in,” said Virginia-based Democratic strategist Ben Tribbett. “She's done a pretty good job of surfing that wave, of bringing more people into the party when they're not happy with what the Trump administration is doing.”

November turnout may answer how much Democrats can count on Trump’s disassembling of the federal government as a motivating issue in the midterms. Virginia Democrats, confident that Elon Musk’s unpopularity will linger even as his term as a special government employee has expired, point to Department of Defense workers and contractors living in the more competitive Hampton Roads area who lost their jobs as evidence that anger over DOGE is not just limited to the northern part of the state.

Youngkin has defended the cuts as necessary to trim government waste, and encouraged out-of-work Virginians to pursue other open jobs in the state. His office has created a website to connect former federal workers to new positions. Earle-Sears was captured on leaked audio in April saying that “we don’t want people to lose their jobs” but downplayed the losses.

"Abigail Spanberger is dusting off the same worn-out playbook that cost Democrats the governor’s mansion in 2021," said Peyton Vogel, press secretary for the Earle-Sears campaign, in a statement, referring to when Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe. "Back then, Virginians rejected fear mongering messaging and chose a leader with real solutions to make life more affordable and move the Commonwealth forward. Spanberger's current strategy failed then, and replaying it now won’t change the outcome."

Moderate Democrats see Spanberger as the ideal candidate to confirm their view that the party should shift toward the middle. In 2018, she defeated Tea Partier Rep. Dave Brat in an upset, joining the wave of women elected to Congress on a wave of anti-Trump energy. But Trump is much more popular than he was in his first term, so appealing to his voters becomes a crucial part of the comeback strategy.

In her first campaign ad launched this week, Spanberger highlighted her bipartisan voting record while serving in Congress. In 2022, after Democrats came close to losing the House, she was captured on leaked audio criticizing Democrats for embracing positions defunding the police and warned them to “never use the word socialism again.”

“Her biggest vulnerability is being a Democrat in this moment, but she is sufficiently defining herself as a different kind of Democrat,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way. “She watched carefully what happened to us in 2024 and is trying not to make the same mistakes, just trying to keep her focus on the things that voters actually care about and not get distracted by things that they don't.”

Democrats view Hampton Roads, a competitive area that Spanberger needs to win, as the epicenter of several of Trump’s policies. In addition to DOGE layoffs, the Port of Virginia located here is bracing for a decline in shipments from other major trading partners.

It's also a popular vacation destination for America's neighbors to the north. Virginia Beach State Del. Michael Feggans, a Democrat running for reelection in one of the most competitive state legislative races, said he’s heard from local business leaders concerned about the decline of Canadian tourists annoyed by Trump’s annexation talk. Democrats are aiming to expand their one-seat majority in the state House, and are adopting a similar economic message as Spanberger to try to make that happen.

“He said on day one he was going to fix the price of everything and bring world peace, and there's been nothing but chaos, confusion, and people are scared and people are worried,” Feggens said.

Virginia Republicans, on the other hand, are banking on DOGE being a distant memory when voters head to the polls in November. Those Republicans are skeptical that Spanberger’s anti-Trump message will resonate beyond the Democratic base, and they insist that swayable voters.

“Her entire message seems to be: Trump sucks,” said a Republican operative granted anonymity to speak freely. “When you get down to brass tacks, people want to see what exactly are you going to do.”

© Bryan Woolston, File/AP

Elon Musk’s pledge to step back from campaign spending — if he means it — is rippling across the nation’s political landscape.

Some Republicans are worried that they might be losing their whale. Some Democrats fear they are losing their foil.

It matters because Musk injected an unprecedented level of spending into the presidential race and could do the same in November’s Virginia governor’s race and around the country in the midterms.

That was suddenly put in doubt Tuesday, when the Tesla CEO told an interviewer that he’s backing away from political spending after shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to help Donald Trump win the presidency last year.

“Taking his toys and going home,” said Steve Bannon, a Trump ally who has verbally sparred with Musk.

Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth estimated at more than $420 billion, announced that he will “do a lot less” political spending, a surprise reversal of his promise to continue to play a major role influencing U.S. elections. It’s a significant turnaround from the days after Trump’s win in November, when Musk posted on social media that he would “keep grinding” away at election funding and “play a significant role in primaries.”

Musk’s group, America PAC, spent nearly $20 million aiming to boost Republicans in swing House districts. He also joined Trump regularly on the campaign trail last year and offered cash giveaways — including $1 million prizes to a few voters. He eventually spent more than $260 million on the 2024 election cycle and even contributed to two Florida special elections this year.

But Musk’s political capital seems to have faded after he and groups he backed — America PAC and Building America’s Future — contributed more than $19 million to support Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel, a Republican who lost by 10 percentage points. The public face of the Department of Government Efficiency’s massive overhaul of the federal workforce, Musk earned the ire of many Americans. His car company Tesla faced financial headwinds, and Musk said he’d refocus his efforts on the flailing company along with his other businesses.

In Virginia, Republicans were expecting Musk would want to make his mark, given that’s where the most competitive statewide races are taking place this year. Some are still holding out hope that will happen: GOP gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears faces a major cash disadvantage against Democrat Abigail Spanberger.

Whether or not Musk actually stops contributing is still an open question. Asked about Musk’s decision to withdraw as a GOP donor, one Virginia Republican, granted anonymity to speak freely, said: “Eh, we’ll see.”

In Pennsylvania this year, Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for Supreme Court races, where three justices are up for retention in November. It could bring a repeat of the Wisconsin election: Democrats and Republicans started discussing whether Musk would play a role in the races, withthe Philadelphia Inquirer reporting that one Democratic candidate, Justices Kevin Dougherty, warned that “Elon Musk has already invested $1 million,” though that couldn't be verified yet through campaign reports.

Democrats especially don’t expect the tech billionaire to fully withdraw from political spending, and they expect him to funnel contributions legally through non-public, dark money means.

"I believe he will start moving his money in the background, through nonprofits," said Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge, a major Democratic super PAC. "It'll be a lot more of that now."

Dennis also argued that Musk stepping away publicly may help Democrats narrow their focus back on congressional Republicans for cutting federal programs and that Musk had initially served as a "shield" for them when he was the de facto head of DOGE.

A spokesperson for America PAC declined to comment on what Musk’s announcement meant for the group.

Even some Republicans are unsure exactly what Musk’s announcement will mean for the future.

“I believe he means it right now. But every election is unique,” said Republican consultant Josh Novotney. “So he may be motivated to be active again in the future.”

Even if Musk greatly reduces his amount of campaign spending, several lawmakers on Wednesday said they appreciated what Musk had done for the party.

Sen. Ted Cruz said Musk made “an extraordinary difference in the 2024 race.” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said he texted Musk Tuesday to say how thankful he was for what he’d done.

“He's worked hard. He wasn't involved in politics and he jumped all in because he saw an opportunity to make a change,” Mullin said. “Now he's going back to his life. I don't blame him. In fact, I commend him.”

Elena Schneider and Jessica Piper contributed to this story.

© Jose Luis Magana/AP

It was a wholesale rebuke of Donald Trump. But Republicans are shrugging off the Canadian election results — a race that favored conservatives until it became a referendum on the president — as a warning sign for their party.

The cementing of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party into power on Monday served as an expression of Canadians’ deeply felt anger about the president’s tariffs and annexation taunts. It was evidence of an electorate turning against conservatives in a neighboring country — one Trump has suggested should be the 51st state — when Trump became involved. But on this side of the border, GOP strategists, pollsters and party leaders said they were unbothered by the outcome and dismissed any trouble that may lie ahead for Republicans in the midterms.

“Not concerned. Change takes time,” said Alex Stroman, former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party.

Or as Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), put it on Tuesday, “I wouldn't look at it so much as a backlash.”

Trump’s allies in the GOP have a long history of discounting reasons for concern about Trump’s political standing – sometimes accurately, as during legal proceedings that many observers predicted could derail him in the 2024 presidential primary, and sometimes inaccurately, as in the run-up to his loss in 2020.

Even as Republicans remain publicly confident, there are real signs of vulnerability for Trump today. Recent polling showed that the president has record low approval ratings 100 days after his second inauguration. And Trump’s tariffs — which have wreaked havoc on both financial markets and business' ability to plan for the future — have angered other longtime allies as he pursues an isolationist trade agenda, like the European Union.

Yet in Republican circles in Washington, the collective response was more akin to: “Eh?”

A GOP consultant, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the outcome was a “pretty specific result based on the tariffs and 51st state trolling.” But when it comes to the midterms, “other factors will come into play domestically,” like the potential for empty grocery shelves or a recession as a result of retaliatory tariffs imposed by U.S. trading partners.

When it comes to the Canadian election, Republicans dismissed it as a foreign country’s result. Or they minimized Trump’s involvement. Or they took comfort in the fact that the midterms are still more than a year off.

“I don't think you can draw any broad conclusions to the 2026 midterms other than that for Republicans to win a majority, they need to deliver on their promises,” said Adam Kincaid, who heads the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

He brushed off concerns about Trump’s perceived unforced errors, like the trolling of the former prime minister by referring to him as “Governor Trudeau” or repeatedly blaming fentanyl crossing the Canadian border as the impetus for imposing heavy tariffs, as minimal effects on domestic elections next year.

“My only concern with the midterms is Republicans not being motivated to turn out,” Kincaid said. “Passing President Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ is the best thing Republicans can do to deliver on the president’s promises and motivate our voters to vote in 2026.”

Some Republicans even speculated that Carney and Trump’s relationship may not end up being as hostile as anticipated, despite Carney declaring on election night that Canada will “fight back with everything we have” in negotiating economic and security deals with Trump.

For Republican strategist Alex Conant, there was just one takeaway from the election: “It’s a pretty good reminder of how bad it would be for Republicans if Canada was a state.”

Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.

© Jordan Pettitt/AP

For months, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear warned that the Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs stands to harm his state’s economy, including its bourbon, auto and aerospace industries. Now that President Donald Trump is ratcheting them up, the Democratic governor said the impacts will be “devastating” not just for the Bluegrass State, but for the entire country.

In an interview with POLITICO on Monday, Beshear, a potential 2028 presidential contender, said there isn’t much Democratic governors can do when it comes to international trade, even as another potential presidential candidate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, pressed trading partners to spare California-made products from retaliatory measures.

Instead, Beshear argued Democrats’ best recourse is to wage a public information campaign against Trump’s trade agenda, highlighting how the president was elected on a promise to lower costs but instead may make life more expensive for Americans. Democrats need to hammer the point that “he and he alone is making this decision, and he's out there owning it,” Beshear said.

That recommendation comes as Beshear works to raise his own national profile, with frequent appearances on cable news and a podcast launching on Tuesday.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

About a month ago, you said that you were in touch with Canadian officials urging them to pull back on their tariffs on liquor, mainly to protect Kentucky bourbon. What's the latest in those conversations?

Well, as a governor, you can have general conversations with leaders in other countries, but you can't engage in any type of tariff talks. Tariffs are entirely federal, meaning the impact that's happening on my state, the impact that's happening on the U.S. economy, is due to one person and one person alone, and that's Donald Trump. The people in my state who voted for him didn't vote to have the prices of everything that they need go up. Most of them voted thinking that he'd help bring prices down. …

I think the law is very clear that tariffs are federal policy, but I also think that that just makes it that much clearer that there's no way around the pain that Donald Trump is causing. When he engages in these actions that harm Americans, so many in the media or others say, "Well, what are you going to do to make sure it doesn't harm the people of the United States."

When the president makes a mistake this significant, when he does something that every single economist says will raise prices, that president typically has the authority to do it, but he should also take the blame for it.

Tell us more about your own trade vision. Kentucky is one of those states that has had communities gutted over the past few decades. Do you support Trump’s long term goal, which is to revitalize those lost industries?

Well, Kentucky is booming. We've had three of our best five years for economic development. … We have brought in a record over the last five years for private sector investment, created a record number of new jobs, have the best three-year average for wages, broke our export record twice, and it looks like we'll break our tourism record three years in a row. So our economy was growing. … What we are seeing is a lot of that momentum directly impacted by President Trump's very different approach.

Look at Kentucky's economy: Our biggest foreign direct investor is Japan, and the president has launched a very aggressive tariff on Japan. I mean, the biggest Toyota plant in the world anywhere is in Georgetown, Kentucky, and so to act like our economy isn't global and there aren't repercussions on the ground, that there aren't manufacturing jobs that are already supported by foreign direct investors, that's just not reality.

Trade is a lot more complicated than this president is acting like it is. Tariffs used surgically can be really important. China is trying to dump steel on the United States, so a targeted steel tariff makes sense. China is trying to dump completed EVs on markets throughout Europe. In the United States, targeted tariffs make sense there. … But these across-the-board tariffs, again, I think every economist says are unwise and are not going to lead to the type of investments that the president is talking about.

Regarding the auto tariffs, what impact are you expecting to see on the Toyota manufacturing plant in Georgetown, and will it help or hurt? Because, presumably, it will increase production there.

Here's the thing, if we want more parts made in the United States, that takes years of investment. I mean, a major manufacturing facility will take anywhere from two to five or six years to build. So if the idea is we will have a very aggressive tariff that will try to force that investment, well, that's two to five years of pain on the consumer. There are different ways to encourage U.S. investment.

I believe that Donald Trump is only president because he convinced the last group of movable voters that he was focused on prices and the economy and that his opponent was distracted by other issues. Now he's telling those same consumers he doesn't care about them. He's willing to let them go through pain, and his billionaire buddies are saying the same.

Your home-state senators are among the few in the GOP so far speaking out against the tariffs. With the stock market falling and Trump doubling down today on tariffs against China, do you predict this will become the breaking point for Republican support of Trump?

It should be the breaking point because it's impacting all American families, Democrat, Republican, independent. Prices are going up, and life is getting harder for American families solely because of this decision by the president. And like you said, when this Democratic governor and two Republican U.S. senators all say something is a bad idea, in this hyper partisan world, it's because it is a bad idea.

What leverage do Democratic governors have on this front? I know you said earlier, there are federal laws limiting backchanneling, but what options are on the table for them to push back in any meaningful way?

It's important for all of us to speak up and speak out. We are very close to our constituents. We are out in our communities every day, talking with the folks that live in our states. At the end of the day, it's going to need to be more than just our voices. It's going to need to be everybody who goes to the supermarket that sees their grocery tab going up, you know, X percent needs to take a picture or video of it, needs to post it and call it the Trump tax.

That couple that's trying to buy a home for the first time where they were going to be able to afford it, and now it's going up significantly, and they're not going to be able to get that first house, needs to tell their story. When somebody's passing a gas station, which is on every corner with the prices going up, that needs to get out there too. What it's going to take is the voice and the pressure of the people of the United States. And I think we see that's growing.

© Timothy D. Easley/AP

Democrats are making Elon Musk their top political target in Virginia, hammering the tech billionaire in a new campaign blitz in the systems’ off year elections.

The message channels the anti-Musk playbook Democrats used successfully in Wisconsin last week, where the Democratic-aligned candidate defeated Musk's choice for the state Supreme Court by a nearly 10 percentage point margin.

Building on its victory in Wisconsin, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is announcing aseven-figure investment in Virginia House of Delegates races, first obtained by POLITICO. The DLCC also rolled out its initial list of “spotlight candidates,” a group of four Democrats in closely divided districts who will now get increased fundraising and visibility from the national group.

Democrats believe they have an even stronger argument against President Donald Trump and Musk's government-slicing Department of Government Efficiency in Virginia, where the state economy depends heavily on the business of Washington and thousands of federal workers are facing layoffs.

“This is where DOGE is on display,” said DLCC President Heather Williams. “Virginia is sort of an epicenter for the DOGE destruction and its impact on workers and communities.”

The state has historically been a strong bellwether for the midterms, and Democrats believe that the map for them has significantly widened less than three months into Trump's second term — a reflection of how theparty views battlegrounds across the country in the days after Musk’s involvement with the Wisconsin race backfired for the GOP.

Democratic campaign leaders now see deep-red Virginia districts that Trump won by double digits as within reach. Democrats say recruitment has exploded in the last several weeks, with candidates filing in a record 97 out of 100 districts.

The investment builds on $350,000 the DLCC has already given to the Virginia House Democratic Caucus, which has been running anti-Musk ads since late February and intends to keep targeting Republican candidates for supporting the Trump administration. The caucus has spent five figures on negative ads spotlighting the tech billionaire in 12 districts with GOP incumbents — and plans to ratchet them up as the election approaches.

“Between now and November, there will be lots of ads featuring Musk as he takes a chainsaw to our economy and our democracy, and the Republicans who are too terrified to stand up to him and Trump” said state Del. Dan Helmer, the Democratic campaign chair for the Virginia House of Delegates.

Musk, who Trump has said will step away from his role as a special government employee in the coming months, has indicated he intends to invest heavily to promote Republicans in the Virginia and New Jersey elections, along with the midterms, and the party may have a hard time turning it down.

“If somebody came up to me with a 10 million check from Elon Musk, I would be very, very hard pressed to say no,” said one veteran Virginia Republican operative, granted anonymity to speak freely. “Toxic money can buy a lot of TV ads.”

Democrats hold a razor-thin one-seat majority in the state House. They hope to build on that majority and deliver the party a trifecta by winning back the governorship, with presumptive Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger facing likely GOP contender Winsome Earle-Sears. The gubernatorial matchup is expected to be close, and the fight for state House control could be another nail-biter: Democrats returned to power in 2023 thanks to just 975 votes.

But Virginia Democrats are taking a spree of special election wins — including in January, when a pair of Democrats outperformed in Northern Virginia — as a sign that voters across the political spectrum disagree with the direction of the country under Trump. Democratic campaigns intend to make Musk and the ax he has taken to government jobs central to their argument against the Trump administration. They plan to link what they are calling an agenda of chaos and carelessness toward the middle class to Virginia Republicans.

“The MAGA brand is a dying brand, but they just don't know it yet,” said House Speaker Don Scott, a Democrat. “And so we're going to help send that message in Virginia.”

Democrats have set their sights on ousting vulnerable Republicans in the suburbs of Northern Virginia to Hampton Roads to rural areas around Blacksburg. “We see all as part of the map now, as the impact of Musk’s evisceration of the federal government workforce becomes clear.”

In one mostly rural district encompassing Petersburg, Democratic candidate Kimberly Pope Adams is facing off against Republican incumbent Kim Taylor for the second time since losing to her in 2023 by just 53 votes. Adams said that in her conversations with both Democrats and Republicans, those voters are worried about potential cuts to Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare — and many are unhappy about Musk’s influence over the federal government.

“I’m hearing anger because people didn’t vote for Elon Musk, yet he seems to have such decision-making power, and it's really upsetting to the voters in my district,” Adams said.

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© Win McNamee/Getty Images

Rural swaths of the country that helped power Donald Trump to victory are facing serious economic headwinds inflicted by his administration. The results of Wisconsin's high-stakes Supreme Court race on Tuesday will reveal just how damaging they're becoming for the president and the GOP.

Conservative-backed candidate Brad Schimel needs strong support in the same rural areas the president dominated in 2024 to land on the court. But many voters here are facing the effects of White House policies that threaten their bottom lines, like retaliatory tariffs on agricultural goods or the Agriculture Department’s funding freeze.

The GOP in Wisconsin is campaigning heavily in those communities, deploying an aggressive ground game in the turnout contest boosted by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

“If [Schimel] doesn’t have the kind of support that President Trump had in rural Wisconsin, ball game over,” said Brian Reisinger, a former GOP adviser in Wisconsin who specializes in rural policy. “The strength of the rural vote, and whether it is going to be there for the conservative candidate in the Supreme Court race like it was for conservative candidates in 2024, is going to be the biggest, most determinative factor in this race."

And, Reisinger added, it's "the biggest signal that we're going to get headed in the midterms.”

The White House is paying attention to this key swing-state, off year election that will determine the partisan bent of the court. Trump personally appeared at a tele-town hall on Thursday to boost Schimel, and Musk has invested heavily and stumped there himself at a rally for Schimel on Sunday.

“What we’re seeing here is kind of a replay of the last election cycle involving Trump,” said Republican strategist Craig Peterson. “Trump is on the ballot here, so is Elon Musk.”

Wisconsin’s agricultural sector — an important driver of the rural economy – is bearing the brunt of the tumult in Washington. Farmers are in the crosshairs of retaliatory tariffs from Canada, which is targeting $5.8 billion of U.S. agricultural products like wine, fruit, dairy, meat and rice. Canada is also a major source of fertilizer material imports to the U.S. The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation's PAC endorsed Schimel over Democratic-backed Susan Crawford in the race, but other farmers are more skeptical of Trump's tariffs.

“The biggest thing that I hear is the true uncertainty that we’re in," said Darin Von Ruden, president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union. "Not knowing what tomorrow is going to look like, (or) what’s going to come out of the White House or the USDA.”

According to the latest Marquette Law School poll, conducted in late February, a majority of registered voters in Wisconsin’s rural regions think tariffs hurt, not help, the economy.

While Trump’s favorability rating is 9 percentage points net positive in those areas, Musk, his government-slashing adviser, is “pretty unpopular,” said Charles Franklin, the director of the poll. In some areas of northern and western Wisconsin, Musk’s favorability is 17 percentage points underwater.

The stakes of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race aren't exactly abstract for farmers. The election could have a significant impact on their ability to access clean water. One case under consideration by the state’s Supreme Court could curtail the Department of Natural Resources’ authority to enforce its spills law, which some farmers fear would lead to more contaminated water.

And it isn’t just in Wisconsin that Trump’s administration is roiling rural America. Republicans around the country are on the defensive as they field a wave of fresh frustration directly from farmers worried about price spikes from tariffs and funding freezes that have left many holding the bag for thousands of dollars they are owed in reimbursements.

Some concede there's danger in the strategy. West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice said he believes that “our farmers are rock solid” with Trump but conceded that “of course there’s political risk” with the president's approach.

“If they're giving everything they got and we turn our back on ‘em, that ain't gonna work, right?” the Republican said. “And that's not gonna work with them.”

But many other lawmakers are continuing to voice support for Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, even if it brings economic harm to their constituents. Some Republicans see Musk as spurring excitement among base voters who admire the Tesla and SpaceX founder, and view his downsizing of government as a necessary albeit painful experience.

Rep. Andy Harris, a Republican representing a mostly rural section of Maryland, responded to a farmer in his district last month inquiring about a frozen grant — she said she is owed more than $36,000 from USDA for installing solar power on her farm — by criticizing “liberal politicians and pundits” for pushing “false narratives.”

He reiterated his support for DOGE in an email to that farmer viewed by POLITICO.

The farmer, Laura Beth Resnick, joined a recent lawsuit against the Trump administration and argues withholding the funds is illegal. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently announced she would unfreeze three rural energy programs from the Inflation Reduction Act. But there’s a catch: Recipients were given 30 days to “voluntarily revise” their project plans to install solar panels or energy efficiency upgrades to align with the Trump administration’s elimination of DEI and climate “mandates.”

When Resnick followed up with Harris a few weeks later to check on progress getting the funding released, Harris responded by again sharing his support for DOGE’s efforts.

“DOGE will need help and assistance from Congress to slash our deficit, achieve energy independence, secure our borders, and return us on path to prosperity,” Harris wrote in that email. “That is why I am fighting for a sensible budget and to reverse reckless spending from failed Biden programs, while preserving Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.”

In Pennsylvania, another farmer distressed about the impacts of the administration’s funding freeze contacted Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), who told the farmer, granted anonymity to avoid retaliation, that DOGE’s work is a “crucial first step towards reducing unnecessary government spending,” in an email viewed by POLITICO.

A McCormick spokesperson said in a statement that the senator is a “huge advocate for Pennsylvania’s agriculture community, with ag being the number one industry in the state.”

Republicans in Wisconsin maintain that they're feeling confident about the Supreme Court race. Peter Church, the GOP chair in Adams County, a rural county in the northern part of the state, said “the Schimel campaign is in a good position.”

“I’m not hearing people talk about abortion at all. And I’m not hearing them talk about the tariff issue,” Church said in an interview. “These people are by and large red voters. And though the Supreme Court race is nonpartisan, they see that the red side is Brad Schimel.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misspelled Darin Von Ruden's name. This story has been updated to reflect which PAC endorsed Schimel.

© Morry Gash/AP

Gavin Newsom's provocative new position on trans athletes on Thursday reopened a rift in the Democratic Party that could serve as one of the earliest flash points in the party’s 2028 primary.

Within hours of the California governor condemning trans athletes playing in female sports — shocking his party in his home state — some Democrats unloaded on the likely presidential contender.

“It’s disgusting,” said Lori Lightfoot, the former Chicago mayor. “There are kids waking up today in California with this news thinking that their governor hates them, and rightly so.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) urged Democrats to “not take the bait and give in to their anti trans people rhetoric," though she hadn't seen Newsom's comments.

Major LGBTQ+ organizations immediately made clear they're looking at trans athletes as a litmus test for ambitious Democrats. "Our message to Gov. Newsom and all leaders across the country is simple: The path to 2028 isn't paved with the betrayal of vulnerable communities —it's built on the courage to stand up for what's right and do the hard work to actually help the American people," said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.

But to moderates, Newsom was offering a lifeline for a party plagued by the culture wars and the polarizing politics of trans women in sports. His comments were the latest from a field of potential contenders seeking to distance themselves from the identity politics of 2024. In recent weeks, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg criticized some approaches to promoting diversity as responsible for how “Trump Republicans are made,” while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker cited a coming budget deficit for a proposal to cut a health care benefit for some noncitizen immigrants.

“The true story is that we’ve seen in opinion poll after opinion poll that a majority of the country (and Democrats!) agree with this idea," said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who got in hot water after saying that LGBTQ+ culture war issues were partially to blame for the party's election losses last year. "More and more are willing to say what they’ve probably always thought — and that’s a good thing.”

“We just stepped too far out of the bounds and let the far left drive the narrative,” said a Democratic strategist from a swing state, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “Our own voters don't agree with trans athletes in youth or college sports.”

The strategist said, “To have the governor of one of the bluest states come out and say this, saying our party has gone too far left, then it’s a permission structure for other Democrats to do this, too — to start saying publicly what people have been saying privately.”

Still, Newsom was staking out controversial ground — and potentially alienating whole swaths of activists ahead of 2028. In the hours after saying in a discussion with conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Newsom’s new podcast that it’s “deeply unfair” for trans athletes to play on female sports teams, no other Democrats with 2028 presidential ambitions were willing to back him publicly.

Trans rights has been a difficult subject for Democrats since Trump turned the issue into a potent weapon in his 2024 campaign, unloading millions of dollars in attack ads on Kamala Harris, including one with the tagline, “Kamala’s For They/Them. President Trump is for you.” In the aftermath, many moderates argued the Democratic Party had shifted too far into identity politics and ideological litmus tests.

Newsom, in the same interview with Kirk, said he considered those ads — going after Harris’ support for taxpayer-funded transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners — to be Trump’s most effective political attack against the former vice president.

Some Republicans cast Newsom as craven for bucking most other Democrats. On X, Trump ally Richard Grennell said the California governor should be seen as having “Flip-Flopped on Trans Athletes in Sports after viewing the polling.”

Recent polling supports moderating on the issue. While the majority of American adults support policies protecting trans people from discrimination, 66 percent of those surveyed favor requiring trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth, and 56 percent support banning health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors, according to Pew Research.

On Capitol Hill, most Democrats said they hadn’t directly seen Newsom’s comments but greeted the revelation he had interviewing Kirk on his podcast with somewhat of an eye roll. They refrained from directly critiquing the governor even as they disagreed with the sentiment.

“I just saw the headline. I haven't read it but I know where I stand,” said Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.). “We don't mess with our young people, our young people, we got to bring them in, we don't want to exclude them.”

Democrats had almost unanimously voted against legislation earlier this year that would bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s or girls sports. Although some lawmakers leading up to the vote like Moulton generally said they opposed letting transgender athletes play girls sports, they ultimately chose to vote against the legislation and said it was overbroad.

“What’s unfair is the targeting of transgender kids and politicians abandoning them for political expediency,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), vice chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

Asked Thursday about Newsom’s comments, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he hadn’t seen them but said Democrats opposed “unleashing sexual predators on girls throughout the United States of America.” Democratic leaders had dubbed the transgender sports bill the “Child Predator Empowerment Act” and argued it would lead to adults inspecting childrens’ genitals to assess their eligibility for sports.

In California, Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento described Newsom’s remarks ricocheting between their phones, trailed by incredulity and outrage at a governor who built his national political profile on recognizing same-sex marriage aligning himself with right-wing opposition to trans rights. As mayor of San Francisco, Newsom defied federal and state law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples

“We woke up profoundly disappointed and sickened, when you have someone who has been thoughtful and has been a very unwavering ally release a statement like that,” said Assembly member Chris Ward, a gay San Diego Democrat who has sparred with conservatives over trans issues. “Look, this is playing into a lot of the conversation that Donald Trump is obsessing about in order to distract us.”

Mia McCarthy, Amanda Friedman and Jeremy White contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misspelled the name of Rep. Sara Jacobs.

© Jeff Chiu/AP

President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting the federal workforce have injected a fresh wave of anxiety among employees across the bureaucracy — stoking fears the president is coming for their jobs.

Just a few days into Trump’s second term, some federal workers are contemplating quitting. Others are preparing to file grievances with their unions or moving communications with each other to secure platforms like Signal. Some, fearing they’ll be caught up in the White House’s purge of diversity programs, are leaving their names off of memos and documents they worry could be labeled as DEI-adjacent.

As federal employees searched this week for clues within the orders to see how they’ll be affected, a staffer with the Environmental Protection Agency said they were cleaning out their inbox and waiting for information about early retirement and buyout programs.

“Trump version 1.0 was bad,” said the EPA employee. “I’m already done with version 2.0.”

Trump, within hours of returning to power, issued a slew of executive orders seeking to overhaul how the federal government operates, from removing job protections to ending remote work to implementing a hiring freeze. The reception inside the federal government has been uneasy. But especially worrisome to some employees was the White House’s decision on Tuesday to eliminate diversity programs, subsequently placing those staffers on administrative leave.

At the State Department, the shutdown of those programs was something many saw coming. But some were startled by the directive that they report individual cases of people’s job descriptions being changed to “disguise” the DEI element to a special Office of Personnel Management email address. Some saw it as an order to snitch on colleagues. Others, who prepared for Trump’s return to office, had begun working months ago with outside nonprofits to archive websites they feared would be taken down by the Trump administration — including information on ending gender-based violence around the world.

“I would love to leave, but I don't know where I'd go, and I am terrified of not being able to pay rent and not having healthcare,” one State staffer said.

POLITICO spoke to almost two dozen federal workers for this article and granted anonymity to many in order to protect them from retribution for speaking out.

It’s too early to tell if a mass exodus of federal workers will occur. The vagueness of the president’s orders has many workers waiting to see how they will be implemented once political staff is in place. But what is clear is that the new administration intends to follow through on its threats to purge and dismantle the federal bureaucracy.

“Most of us are watching cautiously and letting the dust settle,” said an employee at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “We know that there is a range of possible outcomes, and some people are panicking, but most are taking a wait-and-see approach.”

Adding to federal workers’ distress, the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management, which is effectively the federal government’s HR department, on Monday instructed agencies to compile lists by the end of the week of all recent hires and “promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency.”

Career staffers who have been in the job for less than a year are on probationary status, meaning they can be fired without triggering civil service protections that insulate much of the federal workforce.

“The only reason you would do that is that he’s going to fire them all,” said Alan Lescht, a Washington-based employment lawyer who represents federal workers. “If you have these mass firings you can’t accuse him of discriminating or anything. But then the question becomes who does [Trump] re-hire.”

Lescht said his firm began getting a spike in calls from worried federal employees starting Monday evening after Trump began signing executive orders.

New hires who have yet to start are also seeing their jobs vanish. Employees whose start date was Feb. 8 or later had their job offers revoked with limited exceptions, under a different OPM memo tied to the Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze.

At NASA, in the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration, union membership exploded as part of an effort to protect themselves as civil servants. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 employees throughout the government, “will be tracking how agencies implement the orders and will be prepared to file grievances if our contracts are violated,” a spokesperson said.

An Environmental Protection Agency staffer said they plan to file a grievance with the union if their remote work arrangement is rescinded. In the meantime, they’re preparing to find a job outside the government.

Another EPA employee predicted that no major changes would occur until March, when the short-term spending bill runs out. “After that, it’s a toss-up,” they said.

Carmen Paun, Katherine Hapgood, Alfred Ng and Marcia Brown contributed to this report.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO