Republicans’ redistricting push is on ice in New Hampshire, in a blow to the White House’s aggressive effort to protect the GOP’s House majority in the midterms.
State Sen. Dan Innis has yanked his own bill that would have kicked off a mid-decade redraw of the state’s two congressional districts in the face of resistance from GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte.
“The governor wasn’t that supportive of it since it’s in the middle of the normal redistricting cycle,” Innis, a Republican who recently ended his U.S. Senate campaign, told POLITICO. “Rather than create a difficult situation in my own house, the New Hampshire State House, I thought it made sense to save this for another time.”
Innis’ decision to withdraw his bill deals the White House another setback in its pressure campaign to strong-arm GOP-led states into redistricting. Indiana Senate Republican leadership said this week that they lack the votes to pass a mid-cycle redraw in the Hoosier State, though Gov. Mike Braun is still eyeing a special session to redo the state’s maps. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about New Hampshire.
The White House had been ratcheting up pressure on New Hampshire Republicans to put forward a new map for months, threatening a take-no-prisoners approach that included weighing a primary challenge to Ayotte. Trump ally and longtime New Hampshire resident Corey Lewandowski, who is serving as a Department of Homeland Security senior adviser, said days later he was considering running for governor against Ayotte.
There is some interest among Granite State Republican lawmakers in remapping, because New Hampshire has been using a court-approved congressional map since then-Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, vetoed plans the Legislature sent him in 2022. Democrats need to net three seats in next year’s midterms in order to win back control of the House, and the Trump team was hoping to secure one seat in a New Hampshire redraw.
Both of the districts are currently represented by Democrats, although the state’s open 1st District will likely be a battleground next November even without new lines.
State lawmakers say they would want buy-in from Ayotte, who isn’t budging.
The first-term governor has repeatedly rejected the idea of a mid-decade redraw, saying the “timing is off” and insisting the Trump team’s pressure tactics wouldn’t change her mind.
“We’re in the middle of the census, I don’t think the timing is right for redistricting,” Ayotte recently told local television station WMUR, adding that “the thing [Granite Staters are] talking to me about is not redistricting.”
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is known for being a firebrand when it comes to his conservative, small-government principles. He’s also known for being a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, despite taking issue with some of the president’s policies.
But Paul takes issue with being what he says is the only Republican willing to stand up to Trump and his latest moves which, according to Senator Paul, fly in the face of GOP principles and campaign promises.
Most recently, he was concerned over his Republican colleagues’ hesitation to confront Trump about his now-former nominee to lead Office of the Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia. Ingrassia withdrew from the Senate confirmation process earlier this week after POLITICO’s reporting on texts that showed him making racist and antisemitic remarks.
“I hear a lot of flack from Republicans and they want me to do it. They say, ‘Oh, well, you're not afraid of the president. You go tell him his nominee can't make it,’” says Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “I'm just tired of always being the whipping boy.”
In this week’s episode of The Conversation, Paul joins POLITICO’s Dasha Burns — just hours after he was snubbed from a presidential luncheon — to talk about this GOP fear of confronting Trump, support for House colleague Rep. Thomas Massie, the administration's latest foreign policy moves, the Epstein files and a “farmageddon” that may be on the horizon.
“If I'm given the choice of President Trump versus Harris or versus Biden, without question, I choose President Trump over and over again,” says Paul. But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit back and just say, ‘Oh, I'm leaving all my beliefs on the doorstep. I'm no longer going to be for free trade. I'm no longer going to be for balanced budgets. I'm no longer going to be opposed to killing people without trials, without naming them, without evidence.’ No, I have to remain who I am.”
Later in the show, Dasha speaks to epidemiologist and public health professor Katelyn Jetelina, the founder of the Substack “Your Local Epidemiologist." They discuss what it’s like being a health communicator in the time of MAHA and why she thinks public health is nearing "system collapse."
If you want more of The Conversation, check out the interviews with Senator Paul and Dr. Jetelina on YouTube and the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.
Graham Platner is shaking up his campaign amid a swirl of controversy, bringing in a longtime friend to function as his Maine Senate campaign’s new manager, hiring a compliance firm and sending non-disclosure agreements to staffers.
Kevin Brown — who became the campaign manager this week and whose past campaign work includes the presidential bids of Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama, though he has not worked in Maine — is only one of the changes. The campaign has also brought on an in-house attorney, as well as compliance firm Spruce Street Consulting, which has ties to a constellation of buzzy progressives including Zohran Mamdani.
Amid fallout from Platner’s controversial years-old social media posts, his campaign began sending non-disclosure agreements to staffers last week, according to his former top political director, Genevieve McDonald, who said she declined to sign one.
“The campaign offered me $15,000 to sign a NDA,” McDonald told POLITICO in an interview. “I did not accept the offer. I certainly could have used the money. I quit my job to work on Platner’s campaign, believing it was something different than it is.”
A statement from the campaign referred to the $15,000 offer as standard severance. A Platner campaign spokesperson said the team recently hired Spruce Street “to take over campaign compliance to institute standard practices that had yet to be put into place. Some of those standards had to be instituted retroactively but as a matter of course we do not require anyone previously involved in the campaign to do so. Genevieve McDonald was offered severance which is standard for all campaign employees and contractors.”
The moves to salvage a campaign months after its launch underscore how fast Platner took off and how imperiled he finds himself, in a crucial state for Democrats in their uphill quest to retake the Senate. Platner burst onto the scene with viral videos as a kind of progressive warrior poet, campaigning for Mainers’ “freedom to live a life of dignity and joy.” But his promising bid has been beset by negative stories about his past over the last week, shortly after Gov. Janet Mills, favored by national Democrats to take on Sen. Susan Collins, entered the primary.
Revelations of the staffing changes and non-disclosure agreements — which have not been previously reported — come as Platner’s campaign is in damage control. On Wednesday, the candidate confirmed to The Advocatethat his Reddit posts included “homophobic slurs, anti-LGBTQ+ jokes, and sexually explicit stories denigrating gay men.”
That follows Platner expressing regret over getting a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest 20 years ago, along with previously unearthed offensive Reddit posts, including one from 2013 downplaying sexual assault in the military and another since-deleted 2018 one suggesting violence is necessary to enact social change. Platner has apologized for the posts and said they do not represent his growth in recent years.
Brown, the new campaign manager, declined to comment on the record.
The non-disclosure agreement first circulated among the Senate Democratic hopeful’s campaign in the hours after he came under fire for those Reddit posts last week.
The paperwork — sent electronically by a campaign contractor Sunday to McDonald, who resigned two days earlier — was voided by the campaign at 7:04 p.m. Wednesday, several days after she had already resigned and hours after POLITICO requested comment from the campaign on its use of NDAs.
The NDA — titled "Graham for Maine NDA.pdf” — was sent by Victoria Perrone, a political compliance expert and Spruce Street’s president and founder. Peronne, reached by phone, confirmed Platner was a client but would not comment further.
McDonald said she understood the financial offer to be conditional on her signing the NDA. She provided a screenshot of a text message from Perrone suggesting Monday that if McDonald could "get it back to me before the end of the day, I can get your payments out the door."
McDonald said that Daniel Moraff, who was a consultant on Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn’s 2024 campaign, functioned as the de facto campaign manager prior to Brown’s arrival this week. In a brief phone call, Moraff said he was never officially Platner’s campaign manager.
McDonald resigned last week, citing Platner’s past posts.
“Either they didn't thoroughly vet him or they didn't think the things they found would be a problem,” McDonald said in an interview. “Either way, that was a poor calculus. You cannot say things like rural Mainers are ‘racist’ and ‘stupid’ or you're a radicalized communist at 37, play them off as 'you were a young man’ and remain a serious contender against Susan Collins. This was four years ago.”
A Platner campaign representative called McDonald a “disgruntled former employee” to the Bangor Daily News, before voiding her NDA offer.
It remains unclear whether the controversy surrounding Platner’s past will present a long-term drag on his campaign in this anything-goes era of politics for both parties.
A poll conducted over the past week — as some of Platner’s Reddit controversies were making news — and released Thursday by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found Platner leading Mills in a primary matchup, 58 percent to 24 percent among first choices for Maine’s ranked-choice voting system, with remaining voters preferring other candidates or undecided.
The poll was largely conducted after the first revelations about Platner’s social media history had emerged, but before news of his tattoo. It found both him and Mills with positive favorability numbers among likely Democratic primary voters, with Platner’s advantage driven by younger voters.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Four family members of a Republican running for governor in Illinois were killed in a Montana helicopter crash, his campaign said Thursday.
Killed in the crash Wednesday were the son and daughter-in-law of former state Sen. Darren Bailey, a Republican who lost the 2022 gubernatorial election in Illinois and is seeking his party’s nomination again in next year’s race.
Bailey’s son, Zachary, his wife, Kelsey, and their two young children, Vada Rose, 12, and Samuel, 7, died in the crash, his campaign said in a statement. The couple’s third child was not on the helicopter.
“Darren and Cindy are heartbroken by this unimaginable loss. They are finding comfort in their faith, their family, and the prayers of so many who love and care for them,” the statement said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that it was investigating a helicopter crash in eastern Montana near the town of Ekalaka. The sheriff’s office in Carter County said the helicopter went down southwest of the town early Wednesday evening.
Bailey, from the southern Illinois town of Xenia, announced this year that he is seeking the GOP’s nominee for governor in 2026. He lost to Gov. JB Pritzker in 2022 after serving single, two-year terms in both the Illinois House and Senate.
He unsuccessfully challenged five-term incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost in last year’s primary race for a district that covers much of the bottom one-third of Illinois.
Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi said in a statement that the party is grieving the tragic loss. “Please join us in keeping the Bailey family in our thoughts and prayers during this unimaginable time,” the statement said.
Some of Washington’s biggest lobbying firms raked in unprecedented amounts of cash last quarter. But it’s the upstart firms with ties to President Donald Trump or his administration that have been drowning in lobbying fees, lapping their more established rivals on K Street as Trump’s second term continues to scramble the hierarchy of the influence industry.
Ballard Partners led the charge with more than $25 million in lobbying revenues in the third quarter, shattering the firm’s previous record of $20.7 million the previous quarter. Clients flocked to the firm that once counted White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi as employees.
Ballard’s phenomenal growth — the firm is set to add 5,000 square feet of new office space in the coming weeks, despite previously having moved into larger offices in the last few years — is another indicator of a transformation of lobbying in Trump’s second term. The biggest winners aren’t the massive law and lobbying firms that have pulled together deep benches of bipartisan lobbyists with extensive policy expertise and ties to the Hill and party establishment.
Those carefully curated rosters, aimed at insulating firms from the whiplash of transitions in political power, are being supplanted in value by the consolidation of federal authority within the West Wing — and the select group of firms that might be able to get a foot in the door.
“The industry is in an adjustment year as lobbying needs have changed under the Trump administration in a way not normal for a ‘new’ President,” John Raffaelli, a longtime Democratic lobbyist and founder of the lobbying firm Capitol Counsel, wrote in an email.
Ballard is perhaps the biggest winner of all. The firm signed roughly three dozen new clients during the third quarter, including one of Brazil’s top business lobbies, the Swiss watchmaker Breitling, the city of Miami and the Port of Long Beach. It collected six-figure payments from over 80 clients, according to a POLITICO analysis of disclosures and reported holding three of the most lucrative lobbying contracts on K Street last quarter.
The runner-up last quarter was a decades-old mainstay of the D.C. lobbying world, but one that touts its own ties to the White House.
BGR Group, which employs Trump adviser David Urban and previously employed Transportation Secretary (and acting NASA Chief) Sean Duffy, reported $19.2 million in lobbying revenues in Q3 — up from $17.7 million in Q2 and $11.4 million a year ago.
“Every one of our policy practice areas has got something big going on,” said Loren Monroe, a principal at BGR. He pointed to the firm’s leading health care practice, whose clients include marquee drug lobbies, health systems, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, patient groups and providers.
The firm also represents top targets of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement, including pesticide companies and giant food conglomerates. It has signed up elite universities whose federal funding has been frozen, crypto firms looking for a light regulatory touch and defense companies seeking business.
BGR leapfrogged two of K Street’s more recent leaders, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which respectively took in $18.9 million and $16.3 million in lobbying revenue last quarter.
Another firm with close ties to the White House, Miller Strategies, jumped into the top five with $14.1 million last quarter, up from $2.9 million a year ago. Miller Strategies is led by Jeff Miller, a top GOP fundraiser who served as one of the finance chairs for Trump’s second inauguration.
When it comes to Trump’s impact on the lobbying industry, the rising tide has lifted most boats.
Brownstein’s third quarter earnings were still a firm record, and while Akin’s numbers were down slightly from the previous quarter, the firm had its best third quarter ever.
Across the top 20 firms by revenue, 14 shops saw their revenue rise by double digit percentages or more, according to the POLITICO analysis and numbers provided by the firms.
Of the top 20, only Forbes Tate Partners and Capitol Counsel saw their lobbying income decline compared to the same time a year ago — and those decreases were minuscule, coming in at 0.3 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively.
“I think for a traditional bipartisan shop we have managed this well,” said Raffaelli, whose firm reported a 2.3 percent increase in revenues compared to the second quarter.
Another Trump-linked firm that has capitalized is Continental Strategy, which was started in 2021 by former Trump administration official Carlos Trujillo. The firm’s lobbyists include former Trump campaign aides and former top aides to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Continental reported $8.3 million in lobbying fees in Q3, compared to nearly $400,000 during the same period last year.
A person familiar with the firm's thinking said that Continental hasn’t needed to do much outbound client prospecting to fuel its boom in business. New business has been driven more by referrals from existing clients, according to the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss business dynamics.
“Our growth isn’t driven by any specific policies or issues — it’s clients seeking us out for our reputation and the talent we have assembled,” Trujillo said in a statement.
Other firms that saw big increases are Checkmate Government Relations, which is led by Trump family friend Ches McDowell; Mercury Public Affairs, a bipartisan shop that’s been in D.C. for over two decades, but which was Wiles’ most recent K Street home before going into the administration; and Michael Best Strategies, which is led by Trump’s first White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.
The gold rush on K Street comes despite the fact that Trump signed the year’s shining legislative achievement — the reconciliation package permanently extending prized tax cuts, gutting clean energy incentives, slashing funding for safety net programs and unlocking billions of dollars for an immigration enforcement — just four days into the quarter.
The third quarter tends to be sleepier for lobbyists because the city clears out for the August recess. But any concerns about an end-of-summer slump did not come to pass.
“I said to someone the other day that if your lobbyist is telling you that nothing is happening in Washington because of the shutdown or because of gridlock or because of August recess … you are missing the forest for the trees,” Monroe quipped.
Efforts to shape how the megabill is implemented are now underway at the agency level. Beyond that, lobbyists repeatedly cited the frenetic pace of activity in the executive branch — on trade in particular — as one of the top drivers of business last quarter.
Brian Pomper, a partner at Akin, said that Trump’s trade policy “has prompted clients from virtually every industry to seek counsel” from the firm’s roster of trade lobbyists, which includes a top trade official from Trump’s first term along with former House Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady.
The firm has signed more than two dozen new clients this year to work on trade or tariff issues, disclosures show. They include steel giant Alcoa, Volvo North America, retailers Ralph Lauren and Tiffany & Co., Kimberly-Clark Corporation and Driscoll’s.
Tariffs were mentioned as a specific area of focus in 350 lobbying disclosures last quarter — triple the number of disclosures that listed tariff policy during the third quarter of 2024.
Even though the chaos that marked the initial rollout of Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs in the spring has died down somewhat, K Street will be glued to next month’s Supreme Court proceedings to determine whether Trump’s broad tariffs are illegal.
One lobbyist even went so far as to suggest that anxiety surrounding the tariff litigation has exceeded the uncertainty leading up to Trump’s unveiling of the tariffs, dubbed “Liberation Day” by the president.
Not even a government shutdown has managed to dampen lobbying activity.
Though it has snarled efforts to set up meetings for clients across the government, lobbyists are now working to tweak their game plans for convincing lawmakers to use their dwindling floor time to prioritize their clients’ top issues. There’s a whole host of issues vying for that time: appropriations, a defense reauthorization, tax extenders, technical corrections to the reconciliation bill, crypto regulations, health reforms, AI, permitting or another issue entirely.
“We need to look past the shutdown,” said Will Moschella, who co-leads Brownstein’s lobbying practice. “Because that ultimately is going to resolve itself.”
Indiana Senate Republicans say they do not have votes to pass mid-cycle redistricting despite a pressure campaign from the White House, according to a spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray – but President Donald Trump’s allies are still demanding the matter comes up for a vote in a special session.
“The votes aren’t there for redistricting,” said Molly Swigart, Bray’s spokesperson.
The news comes just days after Trump held a phone call with reluctant members of the caucus.
POLITICO spoke to four people close to the sensitive talks, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss the issue. Indiana state Senate Republicans’ latest move threatens to upend what has been a nationwide push from the White House to force red states to redraw maps ahead of the midterms.
Three of those people said Indiana Gov. Mike Braun was inclined to call a special session to redo the state’s maps— a move that could come as early as next week.
A spokesperson for Braun told POLITICO that the governor “is still having positive conversations with members of the legislature and is confident the majority of Indiana statehouse Republicans will support efforts to ensure fair representation in congress for every Hoosier.”
They said the White House conducted a dial-in poll of lawmakers that revealed the majority of Senate Republicans backed mid-cycle redistricting. But one of the Republicans cautioned that colleagues were confused by the instructions for the survey because the administration did not provide guidance on how to move forward.
Two of those Republicans briefed on the poll said the White House believed the poll showed the majority of the holdout caucus supports mid-cycle redistricting. But they said that Bray and his leadership team represent the majority of no-votes.
“If Bray would personally release his leadership to support this, there would be enough votes for this to pass,” one of those people said.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A person close to the White House, who was granted anonymity to discuss the pressure campaign, disputed that the votes weren't there.
The "White House has a private whip count from individual calls, expects it will have the votes as it already does in the House, and it expects it to be put up for a vote," the person said.
Indiana House Republicans are more broadly supportive of the plan after caucusing Tuesday, and emerged from those talks last night with enough votes to move forward with redistricting if a special session is called, according to a third Republican briefed on the matter.
Allies to the White House, such as Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), have warned control of the House rests on whether Indiana can produce two additional Republican-held congressional districts by re-doing the maps.
Trump allies, including Turning Point Action and the late Charlie Kirk, have threatened primaries for Hoosier holdouts who do not back Trump’s mid-cycle redistricting plan.
“Now the real fun begins,” Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former 2024 campaign manager, posted to X after POLITICO first reported news the state Senate said they did not have the votes.
Republicans have recruited a Sununu to run for Senate in New Hampshire after all.
Former Sen. John E. Sununu said Wednesday that he is running to reclaim the seat he held for a single term before Democrat Jeanne Shaheen ousted him in 2008. Shaheen is retiring next year.
“Maybe you’re surprised to hear that I’m running for the Senate again. I’m a bit surprised myself. Why would anyone subject themselves to everything going on there right now?” Sununu said in a launch video posted online Wednesday morning. “Well, somebody has to step up and lower the temperature. Somebody has to get things done.”
The scion of a prominent GOP political dynasty, Sununu, 61, likely gives Republicans their best chance of flipping the seat after his brother, former Gov. Chris Sununu, rejected the party’s recruitment efforts for another cycle.
John E. Sununu brings access to his family’s fundraising machine and boasts close relationships with members of Senate GOP leadership, including Majority Leader John Thune. National and state Republicans consider him a strong candidate. Early polls put him ahead in the GOP primary and show him as the most competitive Republican against the Democratic front-runner, Rep. Chris Pappas.
Sununu has been in talks with the White House about his campaign and will soon meet with President Donald Trump about it, POLITICO first reported. Trump’s endorsement would be critical in the GOP primary, even though the state’s broader electorate thrice rejected him for president.
But Sununu’s path to securing Trump’s nod — and the GOP nomination — is not clear.
Sununu has long opposed Trump, serving as a national co-chair of former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential campaign and backing former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley for president in 2024. He penned an op-ed lambasting Trump as a “loser” ahead of New Hampshire’s presidential primary last year (Trump went on to win by 11 points). He later derided Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies as “completely inappropriate” through his position with the Democracy Defense Project, a bipartisan group focused on restoring public trust in election security.
And Sununu faces another former senator, Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts before moving to New Hampshire and mounting an unsuccessful bid to unseat Shaheen in 2014. Brown was the president’s first-term ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa and is now seeking his own political comeback by positioning himself as the more Trump-aligned candidate in the race. Another GOP candidate, state Sen. Dan Innis, has already dropped his bid and backed Sununu. He’s called on Brown to do the same, but the former ambassador is battling on.
“Anyone who thinks that a never Trump, corporate lobbyist who hasn’t won an election in a quarter century will resonate with today’s GOP primary voters is living in a different universe,” Brown said in a statement.
Sununu, who is also the son of former Gov. and White House chief of staff John H. Sununu, served three terms in the House before defeating then-Gov. Shaheen to win his Senate seat in 2002.
He pledged in his launch video to focus on the economy and “making our lives more affordable.” He also called to “protect Medicare” and “really tackle our health care costs” as expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies take center stage in the government shutdown now spilling into a third week. WMUR was first to report on his official campaign launch.
Sununu starts with a polling advantage in the GOP primary. A University of New Hampshire survey from late September had him leading Brown 42 percent to 19 percent, with 28 percent undecided.
Early surveys also show him within striking distance of Pappas. The Democrat leads Sununu 49 percent to 43 percent in the UNH poll’s hypothetical general-election matchup; Pappas leads Brown by a wider margin of 52 percent to 37 percent. A survey from GOP-aligned co/efficient had Pappas leading Sununu by 3 percentage points and Brown by 10 points.
Alex Latcham, Senate Leadership Fund’s executive director, said in a statement that Sununu’s candidacy “instantly expands the Senate map and puts the Granite State in play for Republicans.”
His candidacy has also generated instant excitement in the Granite State. A group of prominent New Hampshire GOP donors and business leaders — including Phil Taub, Joe Faro, Al Letizio Jr., Nick Vailas and Kelly Cohen — will host a fundraiser for Sununu in Bedford on Nov. 3, POLITICO has learned first.
Still, Sununu could face challenges in his attempted comeback. While his family’s brand remains strong in New Hampshire, Sununu largely faded from elective politics after his 2008 defeat, ceding the spotlight to his younger brother. His post-congressional work on corporate boards has drawn him early fire from his opponents on both sides of the aisle. The state Democratic Party already has a website attacking Sununu for “selling out to corporations.” Pappas hammered Sununu for “cashing in … working for special interests” in a statement Wednesday responding to his launch.
And his past opposition to Trump could prove difficult to reconcile with the MAGA base, even though it could win him support among independents who can pull ballots in the GOP primary.
Sununu downplayed Trump’s importance in the Senate race in a WMUR interview last month, saying the contest “is going to be about New Hampshire.”
But Brown is working to weaponize Sununu’s repeated rejections of the president, even as he faces his own MAGA image problem after saying in 2021 that Trump “bears responsibility” for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
A person drove a vehicle into a gate outside the White House on Tuesday night, according to the Secret Service.
“At approximately 10:37 p.m., an individual drove a vehicle into the Secret Service vehicle gate located at 17th & E St, NW,” the Secret Service said on X.
The law enforcement agency, which is responsible for protecting the president, added the driver was “arrested & the vehicle was assessed and deemed safe.”
“Our investigation into the cause of this collision is ongoing,” the Secret Service said, without giving further details about the person arrested, the type of vehicle or a possible motive.
President Donald Trump was inside the White House at the time of the incident, the New York Times reported.
Democratic Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner expressed regret over getting a tattoo that appears similar to a Nazi symbol nearly two decades ago and plans to have it removed, his latest mea culpa after a week of damning headlines over resurfaced social media posts.
Platner’s campaign sought to front-run opposition research about his tattoo — which resembles a Nazi skull and crossbones — during an appearance on the liberal podcast Pod Save America on Monday, with his campaign sharing a video of him dancing shirtless. Platner said he had no idea of any Nazi link when he got the tattoo.
"It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,” Platner said in a statement to POLITICO on Tuesday. “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.”
Platner reiterated that he got the tattoo while out drinking with fellow Marines in Croatia, choosing the skull and crossbones off a wall at the tattoo parlor. He said the similarity to Nazi iconography never came up, including when he underwent physical exams mandated by the U.S. Army, which prohibits tattoos of identified hate symbols.
“In the nearly 20 years since, this hasn’t come up,” Platner said. “I enlisted in the Army which involved a full physical that examines tattoos for hate symbols. I also passed a full background check to receive a security clearance to join the Ambassador to Afghanistan’s security detail.”
Platner’s statement that he would get the tattoo removed came after questions were raised, including from a former top campaign staffer, about how he could have been unaware of the tattoo’s connotations.
“Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means,” Platner’s former political director, Genevieve McDonald, wrote on Facebook.
McDonald, a former Democratic state lawmaker, resigned from the campaign last week after revelations about Platner’s numerous controversial posts on Reddit.
Jewish Insider also reported on Tuesday that an acquaintance of Platner recalled him referring to the tattoo as “my Totenkopf,” though POLITICO has not independently verified the reporting.
“Totenkopf” is a German word typically referring to an image of a skull and crossbones. During the Nazi era, one form of the image was adopted by the Nazi police, leading to a lasting association with Nazism and continued use by white supremacists, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Platner’s campaign did not specifically answer whether he had ever used that term.
The tattoo revelation came after Platner apologized last week for a series of offensive Reddit posts, which he said came during a period in his life when he was disillusioned and disconnected from his community following his military service. Those include a 2013 post downplaying sexual assault in the military and a since-deleted 2018 post suggesting violence is necessary to enact social change. In a video last week, Platner, 41, said he regretted the comments and said they did not reflect the life he has now built.
Platner, previously a political unknown, has made a splash in Maine’s Senate race as several Democrats vie to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins. His candidacy led some Senate Democrats to question whether Gov. Janet Mills should enter the race at all — although she did earlier this month.
One of Platner’s strongest supporters on the Hill was not wavering on him on Tuesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who rallied with Platner in Maine last month and has endorsed his campaign, defended the oysterman when asked about the tattoo on Tuesday.
“Look, I understand this whole platoon — I don't know too much about it — got inebriated,” Sanders said. “He went through a dark period. He's not the only one in America who has gone through a dark period. People go through that, he has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made, and I'm confident that he's going to run a great campaign and that he's going to win.”
Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO.
Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to the chat.
“MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs,” Ingrassia wrote in January 2024, according to the chat.
“Jesus Christ,” one participant responded.
Using an Italian slur for Black people, Ingrassia wrote a month earlier in the group chat seen by POLITICO: “No moulignon holidays … From kwanza [sic] to mlk jr day to black history month to Juneteenth,” then added: “Every single one needs to be eviscerated.”
POLITICO interviewed two people in the chat and granted them anonymity after they expressed concerns about personal and professional repercussions. One retained the messages and showed the text chain in its entirety to POLITICO, which independently verified that the number listed on the chain belongs to Ingrassia. The person said he came forward because he wants “the government to be staffed with experienced people who are taken seriously.” The second person has since deleted the chain and didn’t recall specifics about it, but did confirm the discussions took place.
A lawyer for Ingrassia, Edward Andrew Paltzik, initially suggested that some of the texts were intended to be poking fun at liberals, though he didn’t confirm they were authentic.
“Looks like these texts could be manipulated or are being provided with material context omitted. However, arguendo, even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor making fun of the fact that liberals outlandishly and routinely call MAGA supporters ‘Nazis,’” he wrote in a statement.
“In reality, Mr. Ingrassia has incredible support from the Jewish community because Jews know that Mr. Ingrassia is the furthest thing from a Nazi.”
In a subsequent statement to POLITICO a few days later, Paltzik called out anonymous critics trying to hurt Ingrassia.
“In this age of AI, authentication of allegedly leaked messages, which could be outright falsehoods, doctored, or manipulated, or lacking critical context, is extremely difficult,” he said. “What is certain, though, is that there are individuals who cloak themselves in anonymity while executing their underhanded personal agendas to harm Mr. Ingrassia at all costs. We do not concede the authenticity of any of these purported messages.”
In May 2024, the group was bantering about a Trump campaign staffer who’d been hired in Georgia and was working on outreach to minority voters, when Ingrassia suggested she didn’t show enough deference to the Founding Fathers being white, according to the chat.
“Paul belongs in the Hitler Youth with Ubergruppenfuhrer Steve Bannon,” the first participant in the chat wrote, referring to the paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany and the Republican strategist. POLITICO is not naming the participants to protect the identity of those interviewed for this article.
“I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it,” Ingrassia responded, according to the chain. One of the people in the text group said in an interview that Ingrassia’s comment was not taken as a joke, and three participants pushed back against Ingrassia during the text exchange that day.
Referring to white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the “Live From America” show on the video-sharing platform Rumble, a second member of the group replied: “New LFA show coming starring Nick Fuentes & Paul Adolf Ingrassia.” To which Ingrassia wrote, “Lmao,” according to the group chat.
In a statement, LFA founder and president Jeremy Herrell said the show "despises Nick Fuentes” and has no connection to either Fuentes or Ingrassia, though Ingrassia previously appeared on the show. Herrell said the reference to LFA in the text chain is “probably some kind of joke.”
The existence of the messages comes as Ingrassia’s nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an agency that investigates federal employee whistleblower complaints and discrimination claims, among other sensitive work — is already in trouble. Earlier this month, POLITICO reported that Ingrassia, 30, has been the subject of an internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security, where he works as White House liaison, after a sexual harassment complaint was filed against him. The woman who filed the complaint later withdrew it and said there was no wrongdoing. Ingrassia’s attorney denied the allegations.
Spokespeople for the White House and DHS did not respond to requests for comment about the text messages.
Ingrassia made other racist remarks, according to the chain. In January 2024, he wrote of former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy: “Never trust a chinaman or Indian” and then added: “NEVER,” the texts show. Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, declined to comment.
A month later, discussing why some Republicans feel that Democrats make Black people into victims, the texts show Ingrassia remarked: “Blacks behave that way because that’s their natural state … You can’t change them.” He then added, according to the chat: “Proof: all of Africa is a shithole, and will always be that way.” (In his first term, Trump used the term “shithole countries” to describe some African nations and Haiti.)
The May 2024 discussion surrounding the “Nazi” remark turned serious as Ingrassia dug in.
Ingrassia at first remarked that the Georgia operative should “read a book (if she’s able to) on George Washington and America’s founding,” according to the chain.
“Paul you are coming across as a white nationalist which is beneficial to nobody,” a third participant in the chat replied.
When Ingrassia apparently said that “defending our founding isn’t ‘white nationalist,’” that participant pushed back, saying Ingrassia “reflexively went to saying whites built the country.”
“They did,” Ingrassia said, according to the chat.
That comment prompted the same participant to respond, “You’re gunna be in private practice one day this shit will be around forever brother.”
Ingrassia posted an image of paintings showing several Founding Fathers, including Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, into the chat. “We should celebrate white men and western civilization and I will never back down from that,” he wrote, according to the chain.
The third participant of the group criticized Ingrassia’s “white nationalist” tone then said he was coming across “with a tinge of racism.” The second participant then said he sounded like “a scumbag,” to which Ingrassia allegedly replied, “Nah it’s fine … Don’t be a boomer … I don’t mind being a scumbag from time to time,” the texts show.
In February 2024, Ingrassia wrote: “We need competent white men in positions of leadership. … The founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal … We need to reject that part of our heritage,” according to the text exchange.
Ingrassia’s apparent comments in the text chain echo some of his public statements and associations.
Ingrassia has had ties to Fuentes and Andrew Tate, a far-right influencer who has been charged in Britain with rape and human trafficking, which he denies. One month after he apparently made the “Nazi” comment in the group chat, Ingrassia attended a rally for Fuentes, though he later claimed that he didn’t know who had organized the event and soon left. Fuentes did not respond to a request for comment.
In March 2023, he said that education should focus on helping “elevating the high IQ section of your demographics, so you know, basically young men, straight White men.” And in December 2023, Ingrassia declared on X: “Exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage.”
The person in the group chat who shared the messages, who has known Ingrassia for several years and met him through Republican political circles, said that Ingrassia’s personality changed in recent years as he went from a young law student interested in conservative politics to an “extreme ego-driven” Trump loyalist. The person said the shift began after Ingrassia, a Cornell Law School graduate, started working as a law clerk for the firm representing Tate and appeared several times on the “War Room” podcast with Bannon, who did not respond to a request for comment.
“He was too young and too inexperienced to deal with the fame,” the person said. “It was like giving an 18-year-old $10 million and saying, ‘Have at it, kid.’”
Periodically during the text chain, the group nudged Ingrassia to tone down his rhetoric, especially if he wanted to work in a future Trump administration, according to the person.
“Very influential people were trying to give him advice on how to be, and he threw that advice right back at them and basically said, ‘Fuck you. Look at me. I can write a Substack and get it posted by the president,’” the person said. “‘Who are you to talk to me?’”
Soon after the May 2024 text exchange, the group chat disbanded. People were tired of Ingrassia’s rhetoric, according to the chat participant who provided the messages to POLITICO.
“I will not be posting on this thread going forward,” the first participant said that day. Referring to Ingrassia, the person added: “There are enemies in this group. Please take my name out of this thread.”
Run For Something, a progressive candidate recruitment organization, is pitching major donors on a $50 million, five-year effort to expand Democrats’ footprint in battleground and red states outside the Blue Wall — an ambitious plan for a party that’s lost ground with voters across the country.
In a donor memo shared first with POLITICO, the organization paints a dire picture for Democrats if they don’t invest in red-leaning states, and details plans to support independent candidates for the first time next year.
The memo outlines a strategy for recruiting, training and electing Gen Z and millennial candidates in a dozen states, with an eye toward increasing Democratic turnout and expanding the party’s path to 270 electoral votes. But Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — which comprise the so-called Blue Wall that served as the backbone of the Democratic Party’s victories for decades — are not on the list.
“The core Blue Wall states, which Democrats have invested in for years, are not sufficient,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something. “We cannot keep hyper-targeting our work to only places that are seen as competitive right now. We have to prepare, not just for the likely fall of the Voting Rights Act, and the current round of redistricting, but what comes after in 2032. That’s why we have to expand the map.”
Litman’s group will also endorse “values-aligned” independent candidates for the first time in 2026, a recognition that in some states and districts, the “Democratic brand isn’t just bruised, but toxic,” the memo reads.
The organization raises concerns about Democrats' chances of winning the White House and retaking control of Congress: The 2030 census projections show Democrats losing seats in blue states, due to population loss, and Republicans gaining them — with 70 percent of all down-ballot races left uncontested. That challenge is all the more urgent for Democrats as red states seek to redraw their congressional map to pad their midterm margins. And the Supreme Court is considering a case that could weaken the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which could wipe away majority-minority districts, often represented by Democrats, across the South.
Litman is urging Democrats to double down on recruiting and training candidates in battleground states, including Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia, while reinvesting in long-abandoned states, like Utah, Nebraska, Iowa, Idaho, Texas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Based on population growth and demographic changes in these states, “these are going to open up more opportunities” for Democrats, she said.
“We should, of course, continue fighting for Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but if we continue to be short-termist in our deep engagement, if we don’t start building political infrastructure elsewhere, we will reach a point in 2032 where we’re starting at zero,” Litman said. “If we don’t do the work in 2026 through to 2032, then turning Texas into a battleground won’t even be an option.”
She also argued that in states without much Democratic representation, “where there is no candidate recruitment, where there is no talent building for local operatives, minimal political infrastructure,” there’s an opening to “shift the brand” if “we field candidates who are vetted, with local ties, authentic.”
“We only find those people by getting them to run for city council and school board,” Litman said.
Litman co-founded Run For Something after President Donald Trump’s first victory to build up Democrats’ bench for local races. The group focused on training and recruiting candidates for non-congressional races, including legislative, city council and county commission seats.
Over the last decade, Run For Something has helped 1,500 candidates win in 49 states and raised nearly $50 million.
Its memo argues how legislative candidates can deliver "reverse coattails" when a down-ballot candidate drives turnout to lift the top of the ticket.
One example came in Ohio's 2024 Senate race: a Run For Something-backed candidate flipped a state House seat in Franklin County, even as then-Sen. Sherrod Brown lost ground there. The organization called that "an indication that the RFS recruitment model finds the candidates that reflect their communities. ... In addition to driving turnout locally, good downballot candidates can be some of the best community verifiers for top of ticket/statewide races."
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct that Brown did not lose Franklin County in 2024.
A trove of bigoted messages between members of the Young Republicans is deepening a sharp rift among state groups across the country, further fracturing an organization that has been beset with internal discord and infighting for years.
Young Republicans chapters across the country were divided on how to respond to the texts — with some groups staying silent and others immediately denouncing the Telegram group chat revealed by POLITICO that contained racist, homophobic and antisemitic epithets.
Much of the conflict on how to respond to the texts stems from an August election over who would lead the Young Republican National Federation, the umbrella group for all the state chapters known commonly as Young Republicans.
The election essentially split Young Republicans into two groups: On one side was Hayden Padgett, a Texas Republican and current chair of the Young Republican National Federation who was running for reelection. On the other side was Peter Giunta, who led an insurgent group within the Young Republicans and who previously clashed with Padgett, in part because he challenged Padgett to be chair of the national federation in the August election. Giunta ultimately lost the election.
Giunta, however, was one of the members on the leaked text chain and had posted offensive messages, including “I love Hitler” and “If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word.” Giunta and other members of the group chat also repeatedly used homophobic slurs to refer to Padgett, with Arizona Young Republicans Chair Luke Mosiman at one point writing “RAPE HAYDEN.”
Giunta, who apologized for the texts, did not respond to a request for comment, and Mosiman declined to comment.
After POLITICO revealed the chats, Young Republican leaders in 23 state groups who supported Padgett’s reelection bid quickly released statements condemning the leaked text messages. Several used the statements as an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to Padgett: Leaders in Missouri, Alaska and Wisconsin, for example, noted in their statements that they opposed Giunta’s attempt to unseat Padgett in August.
By contrast, many of the state groups that previously supported Giunta were silent in the aftermath of the leak, with the exception of a handful of states including Illinois and Georgia that denounced the texts. Several also appeared to have deleted social media posts expressing support for Giunta’s campaign.
One group that endorsed Giunta and his platform over the summer, the Arizona Young Republican Federation, lambasted what it called “mob-style condemnation driven by political opportunism or personal agendas.”
“While certain voices within our movement have been quick to condemn, many of these same individuals have overlooked or ignored deeply concerning rhetoric and actions on the political left–including public celebrations of the tragic death of Charlie Kirk and Jay Jones, calling for the death of family,” the group said in a statement.
The Arizona group, led by Mosiman, also condemned the rhetoric from the Telegram chat but raised concerns about their “authenticity and context.”
The group also used the controversy as an opportunity to take a swipe at Padgett and YRNF leadership, calling out “a troubling disregard for unity and due process” from national leaders who they said failed to communicate with state leaders before releasing its statement.
When asked about criticism against his leadership, Padgett told POLITICO that any claims of division within the organization are “baseless” while calling on Democrats to condemn violent rhetoric from members of their party.
“The YRNF unequivocally condemned the leaked messages in the Politico article—full stop,” he said. “Outside of those in the sticks, every state and local Young Republican chapter stands united.”
The fight over how to respond to the text scandal ultimately exposes the deep fissures within the Young Republican National Federation, which has around 14,000 members who have historically helped the Republican Party run its ground game during elections. Past chairs include longtime Trump ally Roger Stone as well as members of Congress.
One state chair, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics, said they were surprised some YRNF leaders were “not as strong in condemning the remarks” but hoped the organization could move forward as a united group.
California Young Republicans Immediate Past President Ariana Assenmacher, who was Giunta’s running mate in the August election, said in an interview she was surprised by the rhetoric used in the messages and had no knowledge of nor involvement in the group chat.
“I think it’s a very isolated event, and it’s frustrating to see something that is a very small chat being pushed as representation for Young Republicans across the country, which is obviously not the case,” Assenmacher said.
Young Republicans leaders from more than three dozen states did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment or declined to comment.
YRNF has seen bitter clashes between warring factions since Padgett was elected in 2023, when the opposing slate garnered less than one-fifth of the vote. But Giunta’s campaign this year picked up significant traction among state leaders disillusioned with the incumbent leadership, winning 47 percent of the vote in August’s national leadership election.
Another state chair, who was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution, said they were not surprised by the maliciousness of the messages but added that they had “never heard anything like that from the people I am friends with.”
“I don’t like attacking our own,” they said. “We spend a lot of time fighting amongst ourselves. The August election was extremely controversial, and there were personal attacks from both sides, very very unkind stuff.”
The state chair added that YRNF has been plagued by division in recent years and that they were “absolutely sure there’s extremely unkind things” in the messages of Giunta’s opponents.
Valerie McDonnell, the youngest state legislator in New Hampshire who stepped down as a Young Republican national committeewoman in August, said she was appalled by the “repeated terrible language about other members.”
“It wasn't just a one-off comment. It was, I believe, over a span of six months, just repeated terrible language about other members,” she said. “This just was beyond belief to see the extent of this.”
Still, the second state chair worried that ongoing divisions in the organization following the August leadership election could hamper the organization’s value to the GOP in the 2026 midterm elections.
“These are the meanest people I have ever met in my life,” the person said of their Young Republicans colleagues. “I love this organization so much, and it meant so much to me in my early- and mid-20s, and it is just different. These kids are not the same. I think they’ve grown up in politics only seeing how Trump treats people and they think that’s how you treat people.”
Samuel Benson, Faith Wardwell and Jason Beeferman contributed to this report.
CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker turned heads this week when his campaign disclosed he won $1.4 million gambling last year. Though the billionaire Democrat doesn’t frequent Las Vegas casinos as much as he once did, the windfall is a reminder of his high-stakes past.
Pritzker has been a blackjack player for more than two decades, long before he entered public office. “He’s a whale in Vegas,” said a businessperson who’s known Pritzker for years and was granted anonymity to speak freely.
“I was incredibly lucky,” Pritzker told reporters Thursday when asked about the big win. “You have to be, to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere.”
Luck might be underselling it.
In Chicago’s business community, Pritzker has long been known for his affinity for cards. A poker book has been seen on the shelf of his Chicago office, and he’s been spotted sidling up to a table while traveling.
That interest in poker goes beyond the personal. Pritzker teamed up with Jim Gray, who founded OptionsXpress, to start the Chicago Poker Challenge, a high-profile charity tournament that raised millions for the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, which Pritzker also helped establish.
Though Pritzker no longer plays in the event, its reputation is legendary. It was once held at the exclusive Casino Club that sits in the shadow of the John Hancock Building, not far from Pritzker’s residence.
The guest list has included an impressive roster of Chicago’s elite, including Citadel’s Ken Griffin, billionaire entrepreneur and ComPsych founder Rich Chaifetz, and OptionsXpress Holdings founder Gray. Even poker pro Phil Hellmuth Jr. has been a regular attendee.
“He is a very thoughtful player,” Ariel Capital Management founder and Democratic donor John Rogers Jr. said of Pritzker. “He has a very good understanding of the game’s nuances. He is really comfortable around a poker table. He’s always one of the better players at these tournaments.”
According to the joint federal return filed with first lady MK Pritzker, the couple reported nearly $10.7 million in adjusted gross income for 2024 — more than triple the $2.8 million they reported the previous year. The haul included $4.2 million in capital gains, nearly $3.9 million in dividends, more than $800,000 in interest income — and the $1.425 million windfall from gambling.
Pritzker, who said he is donating his winnings to charity, said the casino payout came during a vacation in Las Vegas with his wife. He didn’t say the game or the venue he played, nor could he recall what hand he played to get the big win.
While the governor’s casino winnings have generated headlines, they’re just a sliver of a much larger financial picture. Pritzker is an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune and has an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion, according to Forbes. Pritzker does not take a salary as governor and has placed his assets in a blind trust to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
A person close to Pritzker said the governor hasn’t frequented Vegas much since he was elected governor. And given 2024 is the first noted filing of any gambling winnings — the law says you don’t have to report losses — that seems true.
Pritzker no longer holds any direct casino investments. Before his first election in 2018, he had a small stake in Elgin’s Grand Victoria Casino through a company he had invested in.
Meanwhile, gambling options in Illinois have expanded under his administration. In 2019, he approved legislation legalizing sports betting, allowed for construction of six new casinos and increased the number of slot machines available in bars and restaurants — all aimed at generating revenue to support a $45 billion infrastructure improvement initiative.
Now seeking a third term as governor, Pritzker’s political ambitions may extend even further, with speculation about a potential 2028 presidential run.
Asked whether his love of gambling could be a liability in running for office, Pritzker said, “I think people know when I got elected, and have known for some time, that I've been very fortunate in my life.”
The nationwide “No Kings” protest movement is back for round two — and after avoiding Washington during the summer, protesters descended on the nation’s capital Saturday amid an 18-day government shutdown that has no end in sight.
The demonstrations are part of the second national day of action, organized by dozens of liberal advocacy groups to protest what they call “authoritarian power grabs” on the part of President Donald Trump.
Organizers said they expected the more than 2,600 events across all 50 states to surpass the more than 5 million people who attended the first wave of “No Kings” rallies in June. The marches come amid heightened criticism from Republicans about this weekend’s rallies.
“They might try to paint this weekend's events as something dangerous to our society, but the reality is there is nothing unlawful or unsafe about organizing and attending peaceful protests,” said Deirdre Schifeling of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It's the most patriotic and American thing you can do, and we have a 250-year-old history of disagreeing in public.”
Amid the heightened tensions of the shutdown, Republicans have repeatedly sought to vilify the planned protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other leading Republicans have referred to the protests as a “hate America rally” and sought to tie it to Hamas and antifa. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also announced Thursday that he would be sending members of the state’s National Guard — as well as state troopers, Texas Rangers and Department of Public Safety personnel — to Austin on Saturday in response to the planned demonstrations.
In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Trump said “some people say [Democrats] want to delay” ending the government shutdown because of the rallies.
Organizers and Democratic politicians remain undeterred by the response, though. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), who was set to appear at rallies in his district, said Democrats were intentionally trying to paint Saturday's rallies in fundamentally patriotic terms in response to Republicans' attacks.
"We knew they’d try to do what they’re now doing," he told POLITICO Playbook. "So we thought it was really important to make clear that there’s literally nothing more patriotic and more American than exercising your First Amendment rights when you disagree with the direction of your country.”
Ryan said he and other members of Congress with a background in the military and national security now talk regularly to chart a response as “Trump has ratcheted up the politicization of the military.”
Leah Greenberg, progressive advocacy organization Indivisible co-executive director, called it “part of a broader effort to create a permission structure to crack down" on peaceful protests.
“They are panicking and they are flailing and they are searching for anything — literally anything — to distract from their own governing failures,” Greenberg said of Republicans at a press conference. “And in their desperation, they have decided to go with smearing millions of Americans who are coming out to peacefully, joyfully assert our rights.”
The first wave of rallies that took place on June 14 — the same day as Trump’s military parade in Washington, which coincided with the army’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 79th birthday — were overwhelmingly peaceful, and organizers said then that they intentionally avoided a counterprotest in Washington to avoid the military parade.
The events went off almost entirely without incident, save for one notable exception of volunteer rally “peacekeepers” shooting and killing a bystander at a Utah march because they believed another man with a gun was about to fire on the crowd.
Republicans’ efforts to demonize the rally comes amid a White House push to target left-leaning nonprofits perceived as hostile to the administration’s agenda.
At an early rally, about 150 people have gathered at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to protest the dismissal of thousands of federal employees.
“People are hurting and some people are dying because of the actions of President Trump,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who pointed toward the Trump administration’s disruption of clinical cancer trials. “Part of having a healthy America is making sure we protect our democracy and our rights. That is a healthy America.”
As NIH employees who were speaking urged crowd members to sign petitions to protect university research, protesters raised their signs in agreement: “Enough is enough,” they shouted back.
Unlike the June protests, the Saturday slate of events also included a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Organizers said Saturday that over 200,000 people participated in D.C. When asked for comment ahead of Saturday’s rallies, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded: “Who cares?”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the first speakers at the demonstration in Washington, earlier this week criticized the push as an effort to “suppress turnout.”
“They’re showing us how much they hate free speech,” he said in a Wednesday social media video. “The rhetoric has ramped up from Republican leaders in the last few days.”
The speaker list in D.C. also included Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Karen Attiah, a former Washington Post columnist who was fired last month after attracting criticism for several social media posts in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.
Several of the speakers at the Washington rally focused their remarks on the Trump administration's attempts to ramp up immigration enforcement and deploy military troops into American cities.
Sanders capped off the rally with an impassioned address about the series of dangers he said Trump posed to democracy, decrying the president's attacks on the media and higher education and his attempts to prosecute his political enemies.
The senator also lambasted Republicans for supporting Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which could contribute to more than 10 million people losing health care coverage, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
"When he was sworn in as the nation's first president, George Washington called this attempt at self-government 'an experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.' My fellow Americans, in an unprecedented way, that experiment is now in danger," Sanders said.
Graham Platner is trying to move on from the divisive online posts that threaten to derail his insurgent candidacy for Senate.
The Maine business owner seeking the seat now held by GOP Sen. Susan Collins released a video Friday offering a lengthy explanation and expressing regret for Reddit comments that endorsed political violence, minimized rape in the military and disparaged police.
Platner said his online views were a reflection of his mental state following his return from military service in Afghanistan, and that his views have since evolved.
“When I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, I stayed in the Army for another year. I got out in 2012. Some of the worst comments I made, the things that I'm — I think are least defensible, that I wouldn't even try to defend, come from that time,” he said in the video message. “When I got out, I still had the crude humor, the dark, dark feelings, the offensive language that really was a hallmark — hallmark of the infantry when I was in it.”
Platner’s social media posts, including messages from as recently as 2021, have gained widespread media attention in recent days.
POLITICO reported Platner suggested political violence is necessary to affect social change in a 2018 post. The Washington Post reported Platner downplayed concerns about sexual assault in posts from 2013. CNN reported he labeled all White Americans in rural areas as racist and stupid in one 2020 post and said all cops are “bastards” in a 2021 post. The Bangor Daily News reported Platner asked why Black people “don’t tip” in a 2013 post.
The Reddit posts were deleted prior to announcing his campaign. Platner acknowledged making the posts and has apologized for them.
Platner said in his video statement that he stopped posting on Reddit “around 2020 or 2021” when he returned to Maine.
“I went from thinking that people were bad to knowing that people are good. I went from thinking that there was no hope to having nothing but hope — a hope that is rooted in the fact that it was in my community, here in Sullivan, Maine, that I got to come home and build a nice life,” he said.
Platner, who’s been endorsed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, is hoping to defeat Senate Democrats’ preferred candidate Gov. Janet Mills and win the party’s nomination in Democrats’ best opportunity to pick up a Senate seat in the midterms.
Republicans quickly dismissed Platner’s video apology.
“Five minutes in which Graham Platner blames HIS FELLOW SERVICEMEN for things he said,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said in a social media post.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misstated that Susan Collins is a GOP representative. She is a senator.
NEW YORK — The Vermont state senator involved in the hate-filled Young Republican group chat uncovered by POLITICO announced his resignation Friday.
Sam Douglass, a state lawmaker who represented an area near the Canadian border, said in a statement that “if my Governor asks me to do something, I will act, because I believe in what he’s trying to do,” referring to Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott’s call for Douglass to step down.
Douglass was the only elected official in the group chat, though four others worked for elected officials at the time the messages were being sent. Those officials include New York’s state senate minority leader and the Kansas attorney general. One member of the chat worked in President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration.
“I know that this decision will upset many, and delight others, but in this political climate I must keep my family safe,” Douglass said, adding that his resignation will be effective Monday at noon. “Since the story broke, I have reached out to the majority of my Jewish and BIPOC friends and colleagues to ensure that they can be honest and upfront with me, and I know that as a young person I have a duty to set a good example for others.”
His lengthy statement also cites hateful messages he received from others in his state since the story broke.
Douglass’ resignation comes as at least six others in the chat are out of jobs since POLITICO began reporting on the exchanges. He served as the chair of Vermont’s Young Republicans organization.
In one portion of the chat, Douglass refers to an Indian woman as someone who “just didn’t bathe often.” In another instance, Brianna Douglass, Sam’s wife and the Vermont Young Republican’s national committee member, says her husband may have erred by “expecting the Jew to be honest.”
The Vermont state lawmaker initially resisted strident calls to resign from top state Republican leaders — including Scott and the GOP conferences in the state’s House and Senate.
One day after POLITICO published its initial story about the Telegram group, Douglass apologized for the chat, saying “I am weighing all my options.”
Douglass was a first-year lawmaker and said Friday he was proud to pass his first bill on agriculture and begin his work to reform the state’s welfare system.
“I will continue to do what I have done my entire life, the very reasons why I was elected; I will help others in my community, be active, foster communication, and look out for others,” he said.
President Donald Trump phoned into a private Indiana Senate Republican caucus meeting Friday, pressing reluctant Hoosier lawmakers to undertake mid-cycle redistricting, according to two people briefed on the call who were granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation.
The call — which was Trump’s first-known call with rank-and-file Indiana state lawmakers on the matter following an August Oval Office meeting with state House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray — punctuated an intense period of national lobbying on redistricting.
It follows a new push by late MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action this week to ramp up pressure on Indiana lawmakers who oppose mid-cycle redistricting. The New York Times first reported details of the call.
Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a close White House ally, has warned that control of the House of Representatives could ride on whether the state can produce additional Republican-held congressional districts by reopening the maps.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun is supportive of calling a special session to do so, likely next month, but has not wanted to strong-arm the legislature into convening in Indianapolis.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The call also comes on the heels of Vice President JD Vance’s second visit to the Hoosier State to make the case to lawmakers last week. Allies of the White House’s efforts described that meeting as productive but not “a slam dunk.”
The Indiana Conservation Voters, a liberal environmental-focused group, has put six figures behind television ads opposing mid-cycle redistricting and set to play this weekend during this weekend’s Colts, Indiana University and Notre Dame games.
Ken Martin has been almost everywhere since he became the chair of the Democratic National Committee, attempting to put out fires for a party in the wilderness as he has hopscotched some 33 states over the last eight months.
Just this week, Martin quietly shuttled from Indianapolis, where Indiana Republicans are weighing mid-cycle redistricting at the demand of President Donald Trump, to Washington for the Supreme Court’s oral arguments of Louisiana v. Callais — which could weaken the Voting Rights Act and further set Democrats back — to Pittsburgh, where he campaigned for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention races.
“Most people think I've got the shittiest job in America, but I feel like I've got the best job in America,” Martin said.
But he also didn’t mince words about the challenges and drama that it has brought to his life.
“There’s not a day that I don’t go home wanting to pull my hair out, because it’s a tough job,” Martin said.
With Election Day looming next month, New Jersey’s gubernatorial matchup is making Martin nervous these days — and where he’s headed this weekend.
In a wide-ranging interview while he was in Pittsburgh, Martin spoke with POLITICO to preview the party’s prospects in New Jersey and Virginia, where Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger are trying to secure the governor’s mansions, and discuss Democrats’ efforts to defend House seats from Republican-led gerrymandering attempts.
“New Jersey is the best place, probably, for Donald Trump to actually stop the Democratic momentum — or at least minimize the Democratic momentum that we’ve seen throughout this year,” Martin said, pointing to what he cites as his party’s overperformance in nearly four dozen special elections since Trump’s inauguration. “We've overperformed on that to the tune of, on average, about 16 percentage points, which is a historic overperformance. And so, you know, they’re looking to blunt our momentum somewhere.”
Despite touting his party’s performance under Trump’s second presidency, Martin declined to handicap whether Sherrill needed to match or beat former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 6-point margin in the New Jersey last November.
“I don't care if we overperform or underperform,” Martin said. “What I care about is making sure we win. At the end of the day, we know that the Republicans are feeling very bullish about their chances in New Jersey for a whole host of reasons, right? Jack Ciattarelli lost to Phil Murphy by 3 points four years ago. In the Harris race last year, they significantly shrunk the presidential margin there. And New Jersey has a history of electing Republican governors, combined with the fact that they haven't ever elected a Democrat to a third term, right, at least in the last 50 years.”
Indeed, Republicans are feeling bullish here due to Trump’s inroads in the state last year — particularly in areas with large Black and Hispanic populations — and the increase in registered Republicans since Ciattarelli’s 2021 bid for governor, when he lost by an unexpectedly small margin. Should Sherrill win — which some Democrats acknowledge will be challenging — the party will be reading the tea leaves to see how she performed in these areas where Democrats lost ground last year.
Martin, though, said that if the election were held today, “certainly, I feel like both Mikie and Abigail would win handedly, but we've got three weeks left.”
Martin is also pushing for Democrats in some blue states to mount their own redistricting efforts to counter Republicans’ aggressive push to redraw maps in red states across the country, led by Trump and Vice President JD Vance. But he acknowledged that his party’s hands are tied in more ways than others.
“Every Democrat that I’ve talked to, including our governors, they all understand how imperative it is that we stand up to this, again, unconstitutional power grab by the Republicans,” Martin said. He insisted that Democrats “believe in good government” and are committed to “fair and free elections.”
“We believe in putting, you know, safeguards in place to prevent exactly what we're seeing around the country, and as a result, in many states, including in states like Illinois and other states that are controlled by Democrats, it's much harder for them to actually do what the Republicans are doing in those Republican-controlled states,” Martin said. “So I don't begrudge anyone for not being able to do it.”
In addition to the gubernatorial matchups in Virginia and New Jersey, the other major race that has garnered national attention is for attorney general in Virginia, where Democratic candidate Jay Jones has landed in hot water after his use of violent rhetoric in a text message was revealed. The incident has animated the gubernatorial race and become a cudgel wielded by the White House.
Martin granted that Jones made “reckless and unacceptable” comments and pointed out that he has apologized. But he didn’t go out of his way to defend Jones.
“Virginia voters are the ones that will have to make this decision, and each race is their own,” Martin said. “Virginians will make a final decision on who they want to be their next attorney general.” Still, Martin said he believes Jones will win.
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani smiled his way through a two-hour debate where Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa tried to land punches on the front-runner.
Few of those hits had much of an impact against Mamdani, who effectively pressed his affordability platform without making any significant mistakes. Cuomo needed a moment that he didn’t get. Mamdani had a largely pain-free night.
Here are five takeaways from the first of two general election debates:
Mamdani was smooth
The young assemblymember reminded debate viewers why a 33-year-old democratic socialist is on the cusp of becoming mayor of New York City — he’s a great communicator.
With a double-digit lead in every poll, all Mamdani really needed was not to collapse. He succeeded — and avoided any major missteps. Some Republicans seized on his awkward moment declining to endorse Gov. Kathy Hochul’s reelection, even though she took a big political risk by backing his candidacy… but that’s not exactly going to cost Mamdani the race.
At times, he might have been too smooth — he’s practiced lines on topics like affordability and Israel so many times you can almost see him going into autopilot.
Clinical Cuomo struggled
Cuomo needed a breakout moment against Mamdani. He’s stuck in second place in polls, and even with Mayor Eric Adams suspending his campaign, the ex-governor has not been able to surpass the front-running Democratic nominee.
The debate underscored the key problem facing Cuomo who’s running as an independent after losing in an upset to Mamdani in June. In his long career, Cuomo has never successfully run a campaign as the underdog. His sole electoral loss came 23 years ago against Carl McCall. Every election since, Cuomo was the clear favorite.
Cuomo spoke from the podium with a dry recitation of facts. Mamdani appeared well prepared for the ex-governor’s attacks, many of which — like the Queens assemblymember’s past criticism of Barack Obama — were recycled from the primary campaign. That criticism didn’t work then, and it isn’t clear why Cuomo would think it could work now in a general election.
Curtis talked up Trump
One of the quirks of this race is the candidate with the deepest experience with President Donald Trump is Cuomo, who has known him for decades. Mamdani has never met the president. Sliwa, the Republican nominee, has the most strained relationship.
Trump has scoffed at his party’s candidate to lead his hometown as not ready for primetime. The president derisively noted that Sliwa lives with a lot of cats in a small apartment.
Yet it was Sliwa who pledged to have a working relationship with the president, who has tried to exert his will over this deep blue city. The Guardian Angels founder said it wouldn’t be productive to work against Trump or try to be a tough guy with the president.
This stance serves multiple purposes. Cuomo is trying to steal Sliwa’s Republican supporters, and Sliwa needs MAGA New Yorkers to stay in the fold. Sliwa also likely knows Cuomo and Mamdani won’t go out on a similar limb since they can’t afford to lose Democratic voters who loathe Trump.
When you’re explaining…
The former governor spent much of the evening explaining. And explaining. And explaining some more.
Cuomo had to parry attacks on his decade-long record as the state’s chief executive when it came to funding for homeless people and mental health programs. He repeatedly pushed back when Mamdani or Sliwa referenced the sexual harassment scandal that drove him from office, once again denying any wrongdoing.
Those digressions cost him precious time to prosecute the case against Mamdani.
Mamdani’s clear weaknesses
The otherwise strong night by Mamdani had the effect of highlighting his weaknesses on public safety and Israel.
He struggled when talking about his plans for making changes to the Civilian Complaint Review Board — almost sounding like a Wikipedia entry when describing the panel’s job of assessing police misconduct. Mamdani was also on his backfoot when being attacked by Cuomo over embracing the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
As strong as Mamdani can be on affordability and cost-of-living concerns that are so important to New Yorkers, he still has vulnerabilities on other issues where Cuomo is strongest.
Graham Platner, who is running as an insurgent Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, once suggested in online posts that violence is a necessary means to achieving social change — comments now drawing scrutiny in an era of increased political violence.
Platner, 41, a former Marine and combat veteran who now raises oysters, made the statements on Reddit in 2018, long before he emerged as a serious candidate to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the midterms.
If people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” he wrote in one since-deleted post. In another, he said that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”
CNN first reported Thursday on Platner’s participation on the subreddit r/SocialistRA, alongside other Reddit forums where he called himself a “communist” and said that “all” police are bastards. All of the posts have been deleted.
The posts, which were removed three months ago shortly before Platner launched his Senate bid, were obtained by POLITICO and verified using an archive of deleted Reddit comments and by cross-checking other posts by the same user that mentioned biographical details consistent with the candidate’s life.
The posts suggest far deeper ties with socialist groups than were previously known. When he announced in August that he would challenge Collins, Platner said he rejects the label “liberal” but was also running on several progressive tenets – including universal health care and restricted arms sales to Israel. He has hired the Democratic strategist Morris Katz, who also works with Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist running for New York City mayor as a Democrat.
In a statement to POLITICO, Platner did not dispute his authorship of the posts but disavowed their violent rhetoric.
“As I told CNN, I was fucking around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die,” Platner said. “I made dumb jokes and picked fights. But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired shitposter.”
Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, recently joined the crowded race as the establishment favorite for the key midterm election. The revelations may cast a shadow over the meteoric rise of the tattooed oyster farmer in the state.
The existence of the graphic posts comes amid a spiral of actual political violence and violent rhetoric including by Virginia Democratic Attorney General candidate Jay Jones who suggested the former Republican House speaker should get “two bullets to the head.” Jones has since apologized for the texts.
Like the Jones’ exchange, which was from 2022, Platner must now contend with the yearsold posts. They include one from September 2018, when he responded to a Reddit user concerned about what their roommate would say if they purchased their first AR-15. Platner, under the username “P-Hustle,” replied: “Tell them that if they expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.”
The reddit thread r/SocialistRA, which describes itself as the “Socialist Redditor Rifle Association,” says it is unaffiliated with the Socialist Rifle Association, a left-wing group that advocates for gun rights.
In a July 2018 post on the same subreddit, Platner said that he “agreed” with a 1914 quote from former socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs that workers should arm themselves unless they are “willing to be forced into abject slavery.”
Platner cited Debs, who ran for president from prison, as an example to counter the notion that the 2nd Amendment only gained salience in the 1970s.
“That’s why this poster and the Debs quote that follows above should be shared far and wide. An armed working class is a requirement for economic justice,” Platner said.
There are dozens instances of Platner engaging with posts on the subreddit r/SocialistRA, which is self-described as the “Socialist Redditor Rifle Association.”
In another since-deleted post from Sept. 2018, this time on the r/politics subreddit, Platner, again using the username “P-Hustle,” wrote: "Get Armed, Get Organized. The Other Side Sure As Hell Is,” in response to a story about a Democratic candidate in Colorado whose truck was shot at with her inside.
Platner, an Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran and political newcomer, said in his campaign launch video that he is “not fooled by this fake charade of Collins’ deliberations and moderation.” He has leaned into his status as a novice, earning the attention of younger Democrats and progressives. He also recently won the endorsement of three influential labor unions including the United Auto Workers.
His posts about arming the working class and fighting fascism take on heightened scrutiny in the era of increased hostilities and concerns over political violence.
Jones, has faced widespread backlash over the 2022 text messages that included a vow to “piss on the graves” of Republican opponents in addition to the violent remarks about former Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert.
Jones again apologized for the texts, which were first reported by the National Review, during a Thursday debate and said, “I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry.”
RICHMOND, Virginia — Jay Jones, the Democratic Virginia attorney general hopeful whose violence-themed text messages triggered a nationwide GOP backlash, said during a Thursday debate that his messages should not disqualify him from being elected as the state’s top law enforcement official.
“I'm ashamed, I'm embarrassed and I'm sorry,” Jones said Thursday in what will be the only televised debate with incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, who he characterized as a “willing cheerleader” of President Donald Trump.
Jones, again apologized for his 2022 texts that were first reported by the National Review. In the messages, he opined that former Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert should get “two bullets to the head” and separately that he would urinate on the graves of some state GOP delegates after they died.
In his first extensive comments about the texts, Jones sought to explain his actions as something that he’s already been held accountable for, including by leaders of his party. Jones also said the stakes were too high for Virginia to focus on his past mistakes, and suggested Miyares was playing politics by focusing on his past statements — but not on language by Republicans.
Miyares condemned Jones’ texts and accused the Democrat of being unfit to serve as Virginia’s top lawyer, adding, “Jay Jones is a criminal first, victim last politician.”
“Jay Jones has not had the experience or the judgment to serve as the top prosecutor,” he continued. “We have seen a window to who Jay Jones is and what he thinks that people disagree with him.”
Miyares also slammed Jones for believing laws don’t apply to him — a reference to a recent Richmond Times-Dispatch report reporting that Jones was caught driving 116 mph in a 70 mph zone and struck a deal to forgo jail time by paying a fine and performing community service. He completed some of those hours while working at his own political action committee, the Times-Dispatch also reported.
Jones told the audience he “completed the terms of the community service as outlined and approved” by county officials at that time.
Republicans across the country, including President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, have condemned Jones over the texts and attacked Democrats for supporting him. Republicans have been especially critical of Jones’ violent rhetoric in the aftermath of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed in September while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Vance in particularspent several days this week attempting to pivot criticism over bigoted messages in a Young Republicans group chat to Jones and his texting scandal. Writing on X Thursday, Vance stated: “A friend shared these truly disturbing messages from a Young Republican group chat. The group’s leader ‘genuinely’ calls for murdering the children of his political opponents. Oh wait, actually this is from Jay Jones, the Democrat running for Attorney General in Virginia.”
Miyares attacked Jones over the texts throughout the debate, underscoring Republicans’ view that it will be a galvanizing issue for voters in the closing stretch of the campaign. He also criticized Jones over the Democrats’ limited courtroom experience.
Jones countered by returning to Trump, emphasizing that a change was necessary for Virginia to adequately fight back against the president and his policies. He noted that Virginia is on the verge of enshrining a constitutional right to abortion in the state, and should it pass, Virginia needs an attorney general who will protect that right.
Neither candidate, who previously served together in the Virginia legislature, strayed far from their prepared talking points and they avoided talking over each other during the roughly 70-minute debate.
Heading into the debate, Democrats were hopeful they could exploit their party’s anger toward Trumps, his handling of the economy and the ongoing federal government shutdown to win the statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general — which are currently held by Republicans.
But Jones’ text messaging scandal is putting that in jeopardy.
Miyares, who is seeking a second term, is looking to capitalize on some Democrats’ unease over Jones by releasing an ad released this week encouraging Spanberger voters to split their tickets and “say no to Jay Jones.”
Chris LaCavita, the former co-manager of Trump's 2024 campaign, posted on X ahead of the debate: “This is what a smart campaign does” in response to the Miyares ad.
Republican strategists in the state said they have been far more impressed by Miyares’ campaign compared to Earle-Sears at the top of the ticket, whose campaign was plagued by tepid fundraising and staffing shake ups. Trump seems to agree as Miyares is the only of the three statewide GOP candidates that’s received his endorsement.
Jones, a former Virginia state lawmaker, is the son of prominent judges in the state, and had been seen as a potential future governor of the state prior to the unearthing of the texts. Democrats view him as the best candidate to push back against the Trump administration, who they argue has done irrevocable damage to the state, in particular with firings of the federal workforce by the Department of Government Efficiency, which disproportionately impact voters in the northern Virginia suburbs outside the nation’s capital.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the state’s National Guard to Austin ahead of this weekend’s planned No Kings rally in the Texas capital, he announced Thursday, as top Republicans around the country vilify the protests as Antifa-linked and led by the radical flank of the Democratic Party.
“Violence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas," Abbott said in a statement Thursday. “Today, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard to deploy all necessary law enforcement officials and resources to ensure the safety of Austin residents."
In addition to the National Guard, Abbott is surging Texas Rangers, state troopers and Department of Public Safety personnel to Austin, whom he said would be “supported by aircraft and other tactical assets.”
His announcement was sharply criticized by Democrats. “Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he's one of them,” Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu said in a statement.
More than 2,600 No Kings protests are set to occur across the country on Saturday, according to organizers, including on the National Mall in Washington and in Austin. Its organizers include the ACLU, College Democrats of America and the campaign finance group End Citizens United. The first wave of No Kings protests in June was overwhelmingly peaceful and went on almost entirely without incident.
Abbott’s deployments come as Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, decry the planned protests as “hate America” gatherings, involving radical “pro-Hamas” elements, that have pressured otherwise amenable Senate Democrats to refrain from signing onto Republicans' continuing resolution to end the government shutdown.
Democrats, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who is set to speak at Saturday’s D.C. rally, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, criticized the Republican rhetoric and encouraged disaffected Americans to attend the rallies.
“In two days, be a part of the largest peaceful protest in modern American history,” Clinton wrote on X. “Join No Kings this Saturday at an event near you to push back on Trump's power grabs and make it clear—we don't do monarchs here.”
Conservative influencer Candace Owens has been denied entry into Australia after the country’s High Court on Wednesday sided with the government and ruled she could "incite discord” among communities.
While the Australian Constitution does not explicitly protect free speech, High Court Justices Stephen Gageler, Michelle Gordon and Robert Beech-Jones jointly ruled that implied freedom of political communication “is not a ‘personal right,’ is not unlimited and is not absolute.”
The court’s unanimous decision added that the country’s Migration Act — which covers temporary and permanent visas — protects the Australian community from visitors who would "stir up or encourage dissension or strife on political matters.”
“Ms Owens Farmer's submissions should be emphatically rejected,” High Court Justice James Edelman said in a separate judgment. Farmer is Owens’ married name.
As part of the High Court’s ruling, Owens has been ordered to pay the government’s court costs.
A representative for Owens did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Owens originally applied for a visa to enter Australia in November 2024 as part of a speaking tour. But Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke rejected her application through the character requirements under the Migration Act. Owens then petitioned the country’s High Court, arguing that the law was unconstitutional because it infringed upon implied freedom of political communication.
In his decision, Burke said Owens had made "extremist and inflammatory comments towards Muslim, Black, Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities which generate controversy and hatred."
“In the current environment where the Australian community is experiencing heightened community tensions, as per the advice of Australia's security apparatus, I find that there is a risk that Ms Farmer's controversial views will amplify grievances among communities and lead to increased hostility and violent or radical action,” Burke said at the time.
Neither Burke nor Australia’s Department of Home Affairs immediately responded to requests for comment.
This is the second prominent American to have their Australian visa revoked. In July, the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, had his visa revoked over concerns he promoted Nazi ideology in his song "Heil Hitler.”
NEW YORK — Two more members of a Young Republican group chat strewn with racist epithets and hateful jokes stepped down from their jobs Tuesday after POLITICO published an exclusive report on the Telegram exchanges.
Peter Giunta’s time working with New York Assemblymember Mike Reilly “has ended,” the Republican lawmaker said. Giunta served as chair of the New York State Young Republicans when the chat took place. Joseph Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for that group, is no longer an employee of the New York State Unified Court System, a courts spokesperson confirmed.
Another chat member, Vermont state Sen. Sam Douglass, faced mounting calls for his resignation as well, including from the state’s Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, and Douglass’ fellow Republican lawmakers, who called his statements “deeply disturbing.”
POLITICO’s in-depth look into how one group of Young Republicans spoke privately was met Tuesday with widespread condemnation in New York, Washington and beyond. The members of the chat — 2,900 pages of which were leaked and reviewed by POLITICO — called Black people monkeys, repeatedly used slurs for gay, Black, Latino and Asian people, and jokingly celebrated Adolf Hitler.
In a bipartisan outcry, members of Congress and other political leaders from around the country said they were appalled by the contents of the group chat. The board of directors of the National Young Republicans said every member of the chat “must immediately resign” their state organization.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor, described the chat as “revolting” and “disgusting.”
“If this report is accurate, every single Republican leader from President Trump on down … ought to condemn these comments swiftly and unequivocally,” Schumer said.
Vice President JD Vance had a different view and broke with Republicans who broadly condemned the comments within the chat.
On X on Tuesday night, Vance drew attention to Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general Jay Jones, who texted a colleague about shooting the then-Republican House speaker and wishing harm on his children.
“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vance wrote with a screenshot of the text exchange. “I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”
The fallout over the Telegram group chat comes after two others in the slur-laced private exchanges saw their job statuses change before the article even published. William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair at the time of the chat, is “no longer employed” at Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach’s office. Bobby Walker, who was chair of the New York State Young Republicans as of Tuesday, will not be brought onto New York congressional candidate Peter Oberacker’s campaign as originally planned.
Maligno and Douglass did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In separate statements, both Giunta and Walker apologized for the messages they wrote in the chat but questioned whether they had been altered or taken out of context. They also attempted to blame the release of their chat on the New York Young Republican Club, a political group that operates at the city level and which is often at odds with the state group.
“I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans,” Giunta said. “These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me in what appears to be a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club.”
Walker struck a similar tone.
“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologize,” he said. “It’s troubling that private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm, and the circumstances raise real questions about accuracy and motive but none of that excuses the language. This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust.”
Wax declined POLITICO’s request for comment.
New York Republican leaders, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt and state party chair Ed Cox, had preemptively denounced the chat as POLITICO reported out the story.
“We are appalled by the vile and inexcusable language revealed in the Politico article published today. Such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents,” the National Young Republicans group said Tuesday in a statement posted on X.
New York Democrats piled on after the conversations became public.
“Take them out of the party, take away their official roles, stop using them as campaign advisers. There needs to be consequences. This bullshit has to stop,” Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted an image of POLITICO’s article on Instagram and wrote: “These are sick people. Every single one of these racists and antisemites must be publicly exposed and held accountable.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, quoted from the article — “Monkeys” “Watermelon people” “1488” — and added on X, “But when we say white supremacy is thriving on the right, they call us reactionary… Give me a break. The future of the Republican Party proudly embraces bigotry that belongs in the past, and every American needs to recognize how dangerous that is.”
Rep. Grace Meng, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said in a statement that “their willingness to engage in such vile rhetoric behind closed doors speaks volumes to their character and the tone set by our nation’s leaders.”
POLITICO’s reporting on the thousands of messages shared among a dozen Young Republican club members between January and August also reverberated Tuesday in one of the country’s most contentious congressional battlegrounds.
The Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC shared photos of Giunta and Walker with vulnerable New York GOP Rep. Mike Lawler at local GOP events. And some of Lawler’s Democratic challengers, including Beth Davidson, Cait Conley and Mike Sacks, amplified the connection between the New York Republicans.
Lawler, who represents the suburbs north of New York City, disavowed the chat members and called for their resignations.
“The deeply offensive and hateful comments reportedly made in a private chat among members of the New York State Young Republicans are disgusting,” his spokesperson Ciro Riccardi said in a statement. “They should resign from any leadership position immediately and reflect on how far they have strayed from basic human respect and decency.”
Ahead of next year’s midterms, the union- and Democrat-backed Battleground New York PAC ramped up the pressure on the state’s GOP representatives.
“These racist, antisemitic, and disgusting texts need to be disavowed, full stop, by New York Republicans,” the group’s spokesperson Andrew Grossman said. “Then, New York Republicans need to come clean about the rot within their party that even led to this moment.”
Gov. Janet Mills’ entrance into the Maine Senate primary on Tuesday reignited the familiar progressive-versus-establishment battle lines. A three-way clash in Michigan has exposed the ongoing divisions within the party over Israel-Gaza. And a wave of generational challenges to elderly House members have flared across the country.
Democratic primaries — already crowded, often messy and frequently retreading well-worn ideological fault lines within the party — are finally taking shape as top candidates jump in and filing deadlines approach.
Who wins these primary races will give early clues for how the party might emerge from the political wilderness in the wake of 2024 losses, as it looks to retake levers of power in Washington next fall. But they also present challenges for Democratic Party officials, often looking to control the primary process by pushing their preferred candidates and avoiding expensive intra-party clashes.
Mills, for example, was heavily recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to enter the race, but she’ll now face well-funded primary opponent Graham Platner, an oyster farmer with the backing of Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“The Democratic Party is undergoing a robust discussion with itself about how to win again. That means a lot of viewpoints, a lot of energy — and a lot of candidates,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic strategist who served as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s political director in 2016. “Candidates will have to prove whether their views, profiles and approach fit their districts or states. This process will be messy and unpredictable but is often unavoidable.”
POLITICO compiled a list of the top Democratic primaries that will offer clues for how the party moves forward.
Maine Senate primary
Hours after Mills joined the race, her campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee formed a joint fundraising committee, making it clear who Washington Democrats prefer and providing a resource boon.
But it’s not clear whether the two-time governor’s establishment connections will help her in the primary — a familiar challenge in Democratic primaries.
Platner, who is in his early 40s and backed by a constellation of younger, progressive organizations, has already raised $4 million for his bid — a large sum for a first-time candidate. Jordan Wood, a 36-year-old former congressional aide whose campaign said he’s raised $3 million, is also running. Dan Kleban, a co-founder of the Maine Beer Company, dropped out on Tuesday and endorsed Mills.
Platner previewed some of the attack lines against Mills in The New York Times, saying that “going with someone who is very much of the establishment, going with someone who is very much of the party that has built the world we live in now, I think that runs a massive risk.”
There are also generational themes underpinning the race, as Mills, who is 77, is the oldest candidate in the race and would be the oldest freshman senator should she win. She has said that she only planned to serve one term, should she be elected.
Michigan Senate primary
The United States’ role in Israel is poised to take center stage again in the Michigan Senate race, where a trio of candidates, all with differing stances on the issue, are competing to replace retiring Michigan Sen. Gary Peters in a crucial battleground.
Earlier this month, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow called the conflict in Gaza a genocide, joining Abdul El-Sayed, a former Michigan health official, who has taken an even firmer stance against Israel’s actions. McMorrow’s comments represent not only the Democratic Party’s evolving views on Israel, but also how candidates hope to use the issue to differentiate themselves within the primary.
In contrast, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) is backed by AIPAC, the pro-Israel group. AIPAC’s super PAC already dropped millions to boost Stevens in 2022, when she beat then-Rep. Andy Levin in a member-on-member primary. Democrats in the state expect AIPAC to spend heavily on behalf of Stevens again, which could also test Democratic primary voters’ willingness to accept big money interventions.
The state, home to a significant Arab-American population, saw the rise of the “uncommitted” movement to pressure then-President Joe Biden to take a stronger stance against Israel last year amid the war.
Tennessee’s 9th District primary
A handful of young, insurgent candidates have popped up across the country, challenging older, tenured House members, whom they have deemed generationally out-of-step in standing up to President Donald Trump.
Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, the “Tennessee Three” member who announced his primary bid against 10-term Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) last week, best represents this dynamic. Pearson, who is 30, instantly picked up support from David Hogg’s group, Leaders We Deserve, which pledged to spend $1 million against the 76-year-old Cohen.
The complaints are often stylistic rather than ideological, which could shed new light on primary voters’ preferences ahead of the 2028 presidential primary.
California gubernatorial primary
Voters in the biggest blue state, in picking its next governor, will confront what matters more: A candidate focused on standing up to Trump or dealing with the state’s non-Trump-related problems.
But, so far, there is no clear frontrunner answering that question. Former Rep. Katie Porter, who lost a 2022 bid for Senate, held a slight polling advantage before a recent contentious interview went viral. But several other Democrats are vying for a spot: former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former state comptroller Betty Yee and state superintendent Tony Thurmond.
And other high-profile candidates may still enter the race. Los Angeles businessman and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso is often name-checked, as is Sen. Alex Padilla. It’s not clear if either will ultimately make the jump.
Another dynamic for Democrats could come in the general election, should the Republican candidates, Riverside County sheriff Chad Bianco and Fox News personality Steve Hilton, get locked out. If it’s a Democrat-versus-Democrat in November 2026, voters can deliver an even more clear answer on what it means to be a California Democrat, particularly on issues around crime and housing.
New York’s 17th District primary
This upstate New York district is one of only three House districts Kamala Harris won in 2024 that’s also held by a Republican, making it one of the most tantalizing pickup opportunities for Democrats in 2026. National Democrats are closely watching who might emerge from the unsurprisingly crowded primary, where eight candidates have jumped in to take on Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) — with party leaders betting that more moderate candidates would be enticing to swing district voters.
Cait Conley, a former National Security Council official, and Beth Davidson, a Rockland County legislator, were both mentioned by national Democrats as potential swing seat stars, should they emerge from the primary.
“In 2018 Democratic primaries set the stage to win the House, [and] moderates with records of service won the day,” said Dan Sena, who served as the DCCC’s executive director in 2018. “One of the big questions for 2026 will be if the Democrats can again replicate that strategy and success.”
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