Sen. Ted Cruz blasted fellow Republicans for failing to criticize Tucker Carlson, saying the conservative pundit has “spread a poison that is profoundly dangerous.”
“My colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrible, but a great many of them are frightened because he has one hell of a big megaphone,” Cruz (R-Texas) said Friday during a speech at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington.
Carlson upended the conservative movement after he hosted avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his podcast last week. The incident — and the subsequent backlash — overshadowed last weekend’s Republican Jewish Coalition annual summit and sparked internal turmoil at The Heritage Foundation, leading to the resignation of multiple staff members.
Cruz, a self-described “Christian Zionist,” was among the earliest and most forceful critics of Carlson and Fuentes’ podcast episode. At the RJC last week, he said he has “seen more antisemitism on the right” in the past six months “than I have in my entire life.”
“If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are [a] coward and you are complicit in that evil,” Cruz said.
But Cruz was more forceful Friday in criticizing fellow conservatives for not forcefully condemning Carlson.
“Fuentes and Tucker and the rest of that ilk have a right to say what they are saying,” Cruz said at the Federalist Society convention. “Every one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong.”
“It’s easy right now to denounce Fuentes,” Cruz added. “Are you willing to say Tucker’s name?"
Carlson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cruz, who sparred with Carlson in a feisty podcast episode in June, clarified that his complaint was not that Carlson platformed Fuentes, but that he didn’t push back on any of his antisemitic or bigoted claims. Among other things, Fuentes on the podcast claimed the “big challenge” to unifying America was “organized Jewry.”
“The last I checked, Tucker actually knows how to cross-examine,” Cruz said.
Democratic officials, strategists and activists are gathering in Washington on Friday for the first “Crooked Con,” hosted by the podcast juggernaut “Pod Save America,” which they are billing as the Conservative Political Action Committee, CPAC, “for the left.”
The lineup features several potential 2028 candidates, including Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and California Rep. Ro Khanna. Influencers Brian Tyler Cohen and Hasan Piker are getting top billing alongside Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Sarah McBride of Delaware.
“We wanted to create a place where we could have these conversations about what's happening on our side and the changes that we need to make,” said Shaniqua McClendon, vice president of political strategy at Vote Save America. “The right has been much better at doing that.”
The event is timed with the group’s launch of its campaign program ahead of the 2026 midterms. In details shared first with POLITICO, Vote Save America, the nonprofit affiliated with Pod Save America and Crooked Media, announced it will be seeding more than a half-dozen on-the-ground, grassroots organizations with $250,000. So far, the group said it has raised $1.5 million for the 2026 midterms.
McClendon said they’re focusing on building up Democratic infrastructure because “a lot of those organizations just stopped getting the funding that they had been getting previously” in 2023 and 2024, when President Donald Trump swept back into the White House and Republicans held their majorities in Congress.
Those funding gaps in 2024, “I do think it had an impact,” she added
“My hope is that we can start to really push donors to think differently about the way they invest,” she said. “In no way am I saying we shouldn't give candidates money … but I think we have to be more thoughtful about investing in the infrastructure that is here all the time, and not just around Election Day.”
Vote Save America started during Trump’s first term, raising $70 million for candidates and organizations since 2018. The group boasts an email list of 600,000 volunteers.
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.
Democrats still don’t have a leader to guide them out of the wilderness.
Seismic victories in a series of off-cycle elections on Tuesday showed the power of an energized liberal base all across the country — and teased at the potential for the Democratic Party to storm back to power. But those wins did not immediately crown a singular leader who can harness that energy.
There are still dozens of competitors for the throne.
The POLITICO Poll, conducted by Public First in the closing weeks of the election, found a complete lack of consensus among 2024 Kamala Harris voters on an open-ended question: Who do you consider to be the leader of the Democratic Party?
The top response was “I don’t know,” or some similar variation. It made up over one-fifth (21 percent) of responses. “Nobody” garnered an additional 11 percent.
Harris, the former vice president, was the highest person on the list and the only one in double-digits. But she was still named as the party leader by only 16 percent of the people who voted for her last year — a relatively small number given she is the party’s most recent presidential nominee, has made headlines with her book promotion and is considered a potential 2028 contender.
The rest of the top choices spanned an array of party stalwarts, including congressional leaders and former presidents. Few of them are widely considered to be among the 2028 contenders except Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was named by just 6 percent of Harris 2024 voters as the current party leader.
“This is where we are, guys,” said Lauren Harper Pope, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of WelcomePAC, which supports center-left candidates.
The party is divided “factionally and ideologically,” she said: “I couldn’t tell you who the leader of the Democratic Party is, either, and I work in Democratic politics.”
On Tuesday, a divided party that has spent a year licking its wounds in the wake of stunning losses in 2024 found new hope: Democrats romped in a series of statewide and downballot elections in blue and purple states, giving the party a much-needed boost a year after Trump returned to the White House and Republicans seized a governing trifecta in Washington.
In the marquee governors’ races, two moderates — Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill — cruised to convincing wins. In California, Newsom’s redistricting gambit paid off. Other lower-profile races across Georgia, Pennsylvania and Virginia showed convincing shifts for Democrats. And in New York City, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani dominated the mayoral election, sending flashing red lights for Republicans in Washington.
“It felt like we’re getting our footing back, in terms of politics,” said Lanae Erickson, vice president at the centrist-leaning Democratic think tank Third Way.
But those wins alone do not necessarily signal the rise of a new leader, she said: “That has not yet translated to people seeing clearly who they think is pointing the direction of the party.”
The difference could not be more stark between the two major parties: Among Republicans, everyone knows who is in charge.
Among last year’s Trump voters, 81 percent said he’s the party’s current leader. Only 6 percent said they don’t know who the leader is, and 2 percent said “nobody.”
The next top names after Trump were Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Vice President JD Vance, who garnered 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively.
An obvious explanation between the two major parties, of course, is that Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
“This is pretty standard for a party that is out of power,” said Jared Leopold, a strategist who previously worked for the Democratic Governors Association. Republicans had no clear leader before Trump emerged in 2016 and Democrats had none until Barack Obama emerged in 2008, Leopold noted.
“The party should be in a, ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ mold right now,” Leopold added. “Democrats were successful [Tuesday] as a big tent party running on affordability and against Donald Trump. That’s a two-piece equation that will be successful for us as we move toward 2028.”
SAN JUAN — Zohran Mamdani wants to be a new kind of leader for New York. But in his second day as mayor-elect, he embraced an old political tradition: partying in Puerto Rico.
New York’s Democrats — from state lawmakers to City Hall aides to union power brokers — decamp to San Juan every November for a long weekend of panels and receptions, schmoozing and dealmaking. With more than 4,000 attendees, the Somos conference doubles as the New York political world’s unofficial family reunion, and this year the family member with the newest and unlikeliest win was its biggest draw.
The 34-year-old democratic socialist, whose stunning victory upended the political order those insiders helped build, arrived at the Caribe Hilton hotel early Thursday evening to address a teeming crowd of hundreds that had been waiting for him on the oceanfront.
While Mamdani’s audience was different than the crowds he faced during his campaign rallies — a sea of Democratic power players, many of whom view politics as an industry above all else — his message wavered little.
“It is time for working people to be able to afford to live in the city that they call home,” Mamdani told the crowd. “When I look at these leaders, I see partners who are willing to do two things all at once, fight an authoritarian administration and deliver on an affordability crisis. No longer can we just do one. Now we must do both. “
There are many receptions to choose from at Somos, and Mamdani made a statement with his pick: an outdoor gathering co-hosted by District Council 37 — the city’s public employees union, which supported him in the election over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — and state Attorney General Letitia James, who also embraced the upstart’s candidacy.
“Courage, my friends, is contagious,” James said on stage. “And what we have in the next mayor of the city of New York, Zohran Mamdani, we've got a leader with this bold leadership, this bold vision, who will bring us all together, and we must recognize and support him and protect him each and every day.”
For Mamdani, the trip wasn’t just a celebration — it was a debut before the establishment he once ran against. Somos is where New York’s Democratic hierarchy gathers each year to gossip, broker deals and take the temperature of power. And now the mayor-elect was suddenly at the center of it all.
His presence posed a new question for both sides: Would Mamdani try to build bridges with the Democratic old guard — or keep his distance from the machine he’s long criticized? And would the party’s power brokers, wary but impressed, open the door to a mayor who preaches redistribution and quotes Eugene Debs?
For now, Mamdani is signaling coexistence rather than confrontation. He plans private meetings through the weekend but is steering clear of the bar circuit that defines much of Somos’ after-hours politicking — a cautious entrance for a figure still deciding how close to get to the city’s old power structure.
Still, Mamdani has been the talk of the conference since it kicked off Wednesday, and his arrival was eagerly awaited. “When’s my boyfriend getting in?” Rep. Nydia Velázquez joked Thursday morning in the hotel lobby.
When Mamdani attended the Somos conference for the first time in 2024, he didn’t get much attention — he was a newly announced mayoral candidate polling near zero percent. One year later, he was the belle of the ball, having to sneak in the side door because the lobby would have been too busy, and later escape droves of admirers who rushed under the barricades after his speech for a selfie.
Velázquez and James were among those who joined him for a brief press availability in a hotel conference room before he stepped out to the reception.
Mamdani said he was “looking forward to having a conversation with President Trump” — after the president said on Fox News “it would be more appropriate” for the mayor-elect to reach out to him, rather than the other way around.
He didn’t have a specific time planned, Mamdani said, but when they do talk, “it will be a conversation that will be geared towards serving New Yorkers across the five boroughs, New Yorkers who are currently being priced out of the most expensive city in the United States of America.”
Trump has threatened to pull federal funds from the city and send in troops if Mamdani won.
“If I were Speaker Johnson, I would also not focus on the disastrous results of what the Republican administration has delivered for Americans across this country,” he said. “It is time for us to show that politics can be more than the cruelty and the punishment we so often see coming out of Washington, D.C.”
And when asked about Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s plans to launch her campaign for governor Friday, Mamdani said she “typifies the exact kind of politics that has created so much despair across the city, across the state and across the country.”
But his focus wasn’t only on GOP leaders. Asked how bullish he is on his plan to get state government to raise taxes on New Yorkers making over $1 million to fund his proposals like free, universal child care, Mamdani reiterated that “the most important thing is to fund the agenda.” And if state Gov. Kathy Hochul remains opposed to raising taxes but has other means to raise revenue, “I'm open to them, because what I care most about is that we actually deliver on these things.”
Hochul herself spoke at the receptions before Mamdani and celebrated his victory as an exclamation mark to a set of wins Democrats delivered throughout the state on Tuesday.
But the governor — who initially kept Mamdani at arms length before putting out a carefully-worded endorsement — seemed keenly aware of their political differences.
“Our fight is not with each other,” the governor said. “It is with Republicans in Washington who are destroying our way of life, our democracy.”
Eleven days prior, she had appeared at a campaign rally with Mamdani for the first time, where his fans shouted down the more moderate governor’s speech with chants of “Tax the Rich!”
Even at the posh Somos gathering, the governor was subjected to those same calls, shouted from the crowd when she took the stage.
“I hear you, but I'm the type of person, the more you push me, the more I'm not going to do what you want,” she said. “So little lesson to all of our friends out there.”
Mamdani will stay in San Juan through Saturday morning. But he already got a taste of an island delicacy before coming to the hotel.
“I'm proud to report,” he said, “that in the few hours I've been here, I've already had some mofongo, and it was great.”
Helping propel Abigail Spanberger’s dominant win in the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday are dissatisfied rural voters who have supported Donald Trump.
Spanberger’s victory was largely driven by massive turnout in northern and eastern Virginia's urban areas. But she picked up support across the state’s deep-red central and western counties, where Trump’s tariffs have hit the manufacturing and agricultural industries especially hard. Even as her GOP opponent won most of those places, Spanberger posed the best performance by a statewide Democratic candidate in several cycles, according to a POLITICO analysis of voting data in the localities classified as “rural” by the federal government.
Rural voters are dissatisfied with economic conditions, including Trump’s erratic tariff threats that have impacted farmers throughout the country. The result was a rude awakening for some rural-state Republicans, who have long relied on large margins in these deep-red areas.
“Last night, honestly, was an awakening for a lot of folks,” said Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) Wednesday. “If you don't pick up on what really happened last night, the margin of victory … then I think you're living in a cave.”
Spanberger outperformed Kamala Harris’ margin in 48 of Virginia’s 52 rural localities. And according to exit polling, she won 46 percent of rural voters — an 8-point deficit to Republican rival Winsome Earle-Sears, and a 19-point swing from 2021 Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s 27-point disadvantage.
And she accomplished that after emphasizing Trump’s tariffs on the campaign trail.
Now national Democrats, feeling bullish after Tuesday’s big wins, are praising Spanberger’s performance in rural areas as a blueprint for the party in the upcoming midterms, when netting three seats will hand them control of the House.
“Last night’s results show Democrats can win back rural voters with a relentless focus on affordability,” said Eli Cousin, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on Wednesday. “The results are also a massive warning sign for House Republicans … who have made life harder for rural Americans by rubber stamping cost-spiking tariffs and voting to put rural hospitals and health clinics at risk of closure.”
Spanberger, the first woman elected governor in Virginia’s history, deviated from party orthodoxy by spending significant time campaigning in the deep-red rural pockets of the state, even as recently as last week. Her messaging there focused almost exclusively on the economic issues ailing rural America during the first nine months of the Trump administration, including the seismic impact of tariffs and the fallout on rural health care from Medicaid cuts.
“People are so tired about the chaos right now from the federal government,” said Roberta Thacker-Oliver, the rural caucus chair for Virginia Democrats. “She sent a message about the everyday things, about lowering costs for people.”
Democrats see Spanbergers’ strategy as a template for the 2026 midterms. As Republicans eye redrawing more favorable House districts across the country, an aggressive push Democrats are starting to challenge, the minority party’s chances at retaking control of Congress will increasingly rely on its ability to compete in rural districts.
Chris Sloan, political director for the Democratic Governors Association, attributed Spanberger’s win to “a relentless focus on the economy and affordability.”
“These are issues that resonated with voters everywhere,” he added, “and we took advantage of that.”
NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is facing a deeply skeptical business community that has long called the shots in New York. But don’t go looking for the moving vans just yet.
Kathy Wylde, the president of the business-backed Partnership for New York City, compared the relationship between her constituents and the mayor-elect to the seven stages of grief.
“We’re moving toward acceptance,” Wylde said.
Still, contingency plans are being prepared by some, even as the city’s wealthiest residents consider how to court the incoming mayor.
“Business people, smart business people, going into this are thinking, ‘Watch your ass, you’re in combat,’” said John Catsimatidis, a billionaire oil executive, grocery store tycoon and ally of President Donald Trump. “I talked to him once. He’s a young kid … He never ran anything. If he came in with a job application I wouldn’t hire him to run a supermarket.”
Catsimatidis, who unsuccessfully pressed Republican Curtis Sliwa to get out of the mayoral race to aid former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s bid, is weighing his business options.
“What I’m going to do is reduce my exposure to New York,” he said. “I have a lot of businesses in New York, I have a lot of assets in New York. Remember the old expression, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket?’”
Mamdani will take office on Jan. 1, leading a city of 8.5 million residents that serves as the world’s financial and media capital — a money powerhouse that many of the planet’s wealthiest people call home. Now, those same business leaders — long accustomed to sympathetic mayors from Michael Bloomberg to Eric Adams — are adjusting to a leader who promises to upend the city’s economic order.
The mayor-elect wants permission from state officials to raise taxes on corporations and uber-rich New Yorkers to pay for his campaign promises like free child care and buses. His embrace of far-left democratic socialism supported by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders is anathema to the capitalists who have long wielded power in New York City.
The city’s monied class sank millions of dollars into super PACs in a futile effort to stop Mamdani’s insurgent candidacy, which was built on a populist appeal to voters outraged by the cost of living in a deeply expensive city. He did so with a volunteer army of thousands and millions of dollars in relatively modest donations.
Mamdani this week signaled he’s willing to talk with and work with some of the biggest of the biggest capitalists, name checking JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during Wednesday morning remarks.
“It is critically important that we start to embody a style of leadership that does not demand agreement across every single issue,” Mamdani said. “In order to even have a conversation, we need to be able to deliver for New Yorkers, and that means to meet New Yorkers, even those with whom we have any disagreements. So I look forward to having those kinds of meetings, be it with Jamie Dimon or be it with other business leaders.”
Business titans are counting on New York’s moderate Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, to block Mamdani from raising their taxes. And some met with him after he won the primary and others are seeking meetings now — determining whether the untested mayor-elect will be rigidly orthodox or open to compromise.
Wylde views Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani but is heading into her own tough reelection battle next year and wary of raising taxes, as a kind of fiscal firebreak.
The governor opposes hiking income and business taxes. Any deal to do so must be approved by the Democratic-dominated state Legislature and signed by Hochul.
“The governor has done a great job of reassuring the business community since the primary that she will not allow anything crazy on taxes and that she fully appreciates that New York has to stay competitive,” Wylde said.
People in real estate, meanwhile, have been comforted by Mamdani’s embrace of veteran City Hall hands like Maria Torres-Springer, who served three mayors, and respected city planning czar Dan Garodnick, who have worked well with the industry. Others have taken note of the mayor-elect’s increased attention to bringing down landlord costs as part of the equation for a multi-year rent freeze that was a pillar of his campaign platform.
“There isn’t going to be an exodus of people. There are definitely people that are going to leave, but I don’t think that’s going to be a trend — a Wall Street trend or a real estate trend — if in fact the city stays safe and prosperous,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, president and CEO of development firm MAG Partners and a member of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s leading trade group. “If he pays close attention to that, I think people will and should give him a chance.”
Even those who poured money into the unsuccessful efforts to stop Mamdani from winning are admitting he was onto something in a campaign that focused largely on cost of living issues facing New Yorkers.
Scott Rechler of RXR, a major developer, said in a statement Wednesday he’s “ready to work” with the mayor-elect. Rechler donated $250,000 to a pro-Cuomo super PAC in the Democratic primary, and reacted to Mamdani’s surprise win in June by expressing hope he could be beat in the general election.
Steven Roth, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, one of the city’s largest commercial landlords, also put money into a political action committee aimed at halting Mamdani. But, in an earnings call with investors hours before the polls closed Tuesday, he was sanguine. Roth said he was yet to see any pullback in demand for customers because of a Mamdani mayoralty.
“I'm an optimist and believe that everything will work out for the best,” Roth said.
Bill Ackman, the Trump ally and hedge fund titan who was one of the single largest donors in the mayoral race and opposed Mamdani, congratulated him on election night in a social media post.
“If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do,” he said.
In a follow up post, Ackman doubled down on the conciliatory tone. “Mamdani won a decisive election,” he wrote. “He is going to be our mayor for the next four years.”
Dimon, who reportedly reached out to Mamdani on Wednesday, did a sitdown interview with CNN alongside Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a lifelong Democrat who left the party and is running for Michigan governor as an independent. Asked if he could imagine himself doing a sitdown alongside Mamdani, Dimon said he would help someone if they wanted his help, but didn’t give a ringing endorsement.
“I’ve seen a lot of mayors, governors, political leaders — some grow into the job,” Dimon said. “And I’ve seen a lot who swell under the job, they never get around to it. They are so befuddled with politics and ideology. I’m hoping any mayor does what’s right to help the citizens of that city.”
Antonio Weiss, a Treasury official in the Obama administration and investor at the New York-based firm SSW Partners, said Mamdani is “substantive on policy yet open to learning more and to hearing additional perspectives.”
“Mamdani has made a serious effort to expand his coalition during the general election, and that has meant sitting down with people who don’t necessarily agree with him,” Weiss said.
The mayor-elect was a little-known state lawmaker when he launched his campaign and insiders didn’t know him like they knew the past several mayors who, despite widely different politics, were city hall veterans, like Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams.
One view is that Mamdani’s key platforms — free buses, freezing rent — were planting flags to show he’ll take bold steps but his ultimate policies will be more nuanced.
“What he’s signaling,” said Tom Wright, the head of the vaunted Regional Plan Association, “is he wants to fix the problem.”
In the lead-up to Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in New Jersey, some Democrats wondered if Mikie Sherrill could pull off the improbable: winning three consecutive terms for the party for the first time since 1961.
Sherrill said Wednesday in an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns on “The Conversation” podcast that she “never really felt too nervous about my ability to win this one.”
As early voting got underway, it became clear that it was “just a matter of how much we'd win by,” Sherrill said.
“The narrative was weird in the primary, and it was weird in the general, and I think some of that was because of how people felt from ’24, that there was still this kind of hangover from ’24 and how that race went,” she told POLITICO.
Sherrill speculated that some observers underestimated her campaign because it didn’t follow the model of “the traditional Democratic campaign” in New Jersey, where the legacy of machine politics looms large.
"Because we built this a different way, I think it wasn't as clear to people how we were doing it and how we were getting our votes out,” she said. “And I think that probably made some people nervous, but I would say that we invested a lot of time, energy and resources in a statewide field program, the likes of which have never been seen.”
Sherrill also said that her military background conveyed her "decisive” leadership style to voters, who she said trust her to deliver on promises like bringing down energy costs.
While she said she hasn’t yet spoken to President Donald Trump, the governor-elect told POLITICO that she’s intent on “clawing back as many resources into the state of New Jersey as possible.”
“I'm really hoping we can convince the administration, ‘hey, if you want to have a comeback in this economy, this is where you start and this is how you do it,’” she said.
Despite striking a message comfortably to the right of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Sherrill said she and her Democratic peers who saw electoral success across the board Tuesday have one thing in common: “This desire to make change that things aren't working for people.”
Listen to POLITICO's full conversation with Sherill on Friday's episode of “The Conversation."
A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
Battleground Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) — who has thwarted repeated GOP efforts to unseat him in a red district — will not seek reelection, writing in an op-ed Wednesday “that now is the right time to step away from elected office.”
Golden was facing both a primary challenge from his left and a strong challenge from former Maine GOP Gov. Paul LePage in the state’s 2nd District, which President Donald Trump won by about 10 points in 2024.
“I have never loved politics,” Golden wrote in the Bangor Daily News. “But I find purpose and meaning in service, and the Marine in me has been able to slog along through the many aspects of politics I dislike by focusing on the good work that Congress is capable of producing with patience and determination.”
“But after 11 years as a legislator, I have grown tired of the increasing incivility and plain nastiness that are now common from some elements of our American community — behavior that, too often, our political leaders exhibit themselves,” he continued.
Golden’s unexpected withdrawal from the race buoys the campaign of Matt Dunlap, the state auditor who jumped in the race last month and attacked Golden from the left, accusing the fourth-term lawmaker of voting too often with Republicans in Congress.
Prior to Dunlap’s campaign launch, Golden’s campaign released polling showing Dunlap trailing LePage by 10 points. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reportedly urged Dunlap not to challenge Golden — which the DCCC has not refuted.
Dunlap’s campaign rolled out a slate of dozens of endorsements last week, including one from a former state senator who was also listed as an endorser of Golden earlier this year.
In a social media statement, Dunlap praised Golden’s tenure in Congress.
“I want to thank Jared Golden for his military service and years in public office,” he wrote on X. “We may have disagreed on issues, but I believe he is a good person, husband, and father.
Golden said he was motivated to step away from public life in part due to the rise in political violence around the country — pointing to the killing of Charlie Kirk, the attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump, the attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the killing of Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman.
“These have made me reconsider the experiences of my own family, including all of us sitting in a hotel room on Thanksgiving last year after yet another threat against our home,” Golden wrote. “There have been enough of those over the years to demand my attention.”
Golden called for open and competitive primaries in both parties while condemning both LePage and Dunlap as “a far cry from being standard bearers of the generations that will inherit the legacy of today’s Congress.” He added that he believed he would win if he decided to stay in the race, but dreaded the responsibility of returning to Congress.
“I don’t fear losing. What has become apparent to me is that I now dread the prospect of winning,” he wrote. “Simply put, what I could accomplish in this increasingly unproductive Congress pales in comparison to what I could do in that time as a husband, a father and a son.”
The announcement took Democrats on Capitol Hill by surprise. Many of Golden’s colleagues believed he would run for re-election despite the primary challenge.
“I sincerely commend Jared for all the work he has done for Mainers, from lowering costs to protecting lobstermen’s jobs and fighting for veterans,” DCCC chair Rep. Suzan DelBene said in a statement. “His efforts to revitalize the Blue Dog Coalition have helped to grow our party, and his willingness to cross the aisle and find bipartisan solutions was deservedly rewarded time and time again by his constituents who continued to re-elect him despite bruising campaigns.”
With Golden out of the race, Republicans are expressing confidence the GOP will flip his seat in next year’s midterms.
“Serial flip-flopper Jared Golden’s exit from Congress says it all: He’s turned his back on Mainers for years and now his chickens are coming home to roost,” NRCC spokesperson Maureen O’Toole said in a statement. “He, nor any other Democrat, has a path to victory in ME-02 and Republicans will flip this seat red in 2026.”
“Congressman Jared Golden is out after two public polls from the UNH Survey Center and other polls showed him losing Maine’s second congressional district to former Governor Paul LePage in Maine,” Brent Littlefield, a LePage campaign strategist, wrote on social media. “Team LePage is committed to helping bring stronger representation and more prosperity to the people of Maine.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the government shutdown played a “big role” in Democrats’ victories Tuesday night and urged Republicans to kill the Senate filibuster to quickly restore federal funding.
“If you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans,” Trump said during a breakfast with Senate Republicans at the White House. “Last night, it was not expected to be a victory, it was very Democrat areas. I don't think it was good for Republicans. I don't think it was good for anybody. We had an interesting evening and learned a lot."
He cited outside pollsters who have attributed the GOP losses to the fact that Trump wasn’t on the ballot, depressing turnout among the MAGA base. “I don't know about that but I was honored that they said that,” he added.
Trump used his candid autopsy of the election results to urge Republicans to kill the Senate filibuster to quickly reopen the government and then enact their agenda, including a national voter ID requirement.
He acknowledged that it’s an unlikely proposition as most Senate Republicans oppose the move but warned that he believes Democrats will do so the next time they’re in power.
“It’s possible you’re not going to do that, and I’m going to go by your wishes,” he said. “You’re very smart people. But I think it’s a tremendous mistake. It would be a tragic mistake, actually.”
On Wednesday, the shutdown stretched into its longest in U.S. history, with the previous 35-day shutdown set during Trump’s first term in 2019. Republican and Democratic lawmakers are locked in a stalemate.
Democrats on Tuesday won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and a high-profile mayoral race in New York City in which Trump endorsed two of the losing candidates. Complicating Trump’s newfound focus on a swift end to the shutdown, the romp only further ratcheted up pressure on Democratic senators who are signaling they could be ready to end the record-breaking government shutdown to hold the line until they secure an extension to Affordable Care Act subsidies.
“Republicans aren't the ones asking for anything, so for them it's a choice between changing the rules or helping Dems find an offramp,” Liam Donovan, a veteran GOP strategist, told POLITICO. “Last night's result theoretically allows Democrats to declare victory and end this on their own terms, but success makes choreography of any resolution that much trickier.”
Northern Virginia counties with large concentrations of federal workers shifted toward Democrats. Over a fifth of voters in CNN’s Virginia exit poll said someone in their household was a federal worker or contractor; of those, 63 percent supported Democrat Abigail Spanberger.
Progressive advocacy groups, Democratic strategists and some of the party’s Senate hopefuls immediately seized on the results as a spine-stiffener for the senators.
“It would be moronic for congressional Democrats to cave after voters said hell no to Trump and his creation of economic pain for Americans. Trump should honor the will of the people and fold,” Adam Green, who co-founded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Tuesday night.
A Senate Democratic aide, granted anonymity to discuss caucus deliberations, said “it’s hard for anyone to argue the message from voters is ‘please cave ASAP’ to Trump.” The pressure “will be enormous for moderates to hold the line.”
“This should send a chill down the spines of congressional Republicans and make them realize they need to come to the table if they have any hope of changing the political tides,” Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said.
For Democrats, Tuesday night felt like 2017 all over again.
All across the country, Democrats won big, from the marquee races to the down-ballot contests. Counties that had shifted right a year ago veered back to the left, and the suburbs that powered Democrats’ massive wins in the first Trump administration came roaring back. Exit polls even showed Democrats improved their margins with non-college educated voters.
The strength of the wins hints at Democrats’ appetite to take on Trump as he ends his first year in office and voters’ concerns about cost of living.
Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.
But they also started to overperform in special elections, hinting that the tide was turning. And on Tuesday, their first big electoral test of the second Trump era, they didn’t just match the wins from eight years ago that had been a harbinger of a blue wave in the 2018 midterms — in several key races, they exceeded them.
“Virginians and voters spoke loud and clear that they're pissed off at the Trump administration,” Christina Freundlich, a Democratic strategist who worked on the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race. “Democrats came out in record numbers, and this is a foreshadow of what we're going to see next year.”
Democrats rode the traditional, party-out-of-power tailwinds, reenergizing their own base by pushing back on Trump’s second-term policies that have alarmed liberals. Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s messaging on the stagnant economy and affordability crisis helped their party bounce back in its first political test of the second Trump era — and by margins that even surprised some Democrats.
“After brutal losses, like 2024 and 2016, it is hard to trust polling … and your gut of what should happen historically. You can't trust it,” said Stephanie Schriock, a Democratic strategist who formerly led EMILY’s List, a progressive group that elects women. “But everything, the internal polling, the organizations on the ground, the No Kings and Indivisible movement, the energy, it was all there.”
During Trump’s last midterm cycle in 2018, Democrats picked up 40 House seats — and Spanberger and Sherrill were part of that wave.
In Virginia, whose odd-year state elections are often seen as a bellwether ahead of midterms and presidential elections, Democrats flipped at least 13 seats in the House of Delegates. In the attorney general race, Democrat Jay Jones won by at least six points, overperforming expectations even as controversy mired his campaign’s final stretch, following revelations of violent text messages. Across the state, virtually every county shifted blue from former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 performance.
Spanberger’s double-digit victory was powered by a familiar set of voters: While she did better than Democrats from the past decade just about everywhere, her strongest gains were in suburban and exurban Virginia, including Loudoun County. Those are some of the same areas that powered Democrats’ resistance to Trump during his first term, but had drifted toward the GOP during President Joe Biden’s tenure.
In Prince William County, a wealthy enclave outside Washington, Democrat Ralph Northam won by 23 points in 2017; last year, Harris’ margin fell to under 18 points there. Spanberger won it by a whopping nearly 34 points.
And while slightly less dramatic, Spanberger’s strong showing in southeast Virginia could provide hope for Democrats aiming to flip districts held by GOP Reps. Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman next year, even before potential changes from a redistricting push to help make that effort easier.
“The mood music is the same soundtrack,” Ian Russell, a Democratic strategist who focuses on House races, said of the comparison to 2018. “A deeply unpopular president, the same one, and a lot of Americans are very concerned about key issues like health care costs spiking.”
In the top races — the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the New York mayoral — all Democrats cleared 50 percent support. The trio of candidates represent both ends of the Democratic spectrum: democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and traditional moderates Spanberger and Sherill. Republicans are already salivating over the change to turn Mamdani into a boogeyman and tie him to more moderate Democrats across the country.
But Democrats argued “the throughline on all of these races was: talk about affordability,” said David Hogg, a Democratic activist who co-founded Leaders We Deserve, a group focused on electing young people.
“Tomorrow, there are going to be a lot of mischaracterizations and bad faith arguments about how every single policy Zohran ran on here should and will be applied across the country,” Hogg said. “Even if the policies aren't transferrable [among states], what is transferrable are the tactics, listening to voters and not giving bullshit talking points..”
Democrats’ are still battling a damaged brand, according to NBC News’ exit pollthat showed that more voters in Virginia, New Jersey and California hold unfavorable views of the Democratic Party than favorable ones. But the Tuesday elections could inject new energy and focus into a party that has been without for much of the year.
Republicans, already feeling the traditional midterm headwinds, warned Tuesday’s results could portend serious challenges next year. That’s particularly acute without Trump on the ballot, as one national Republican consultant said, because “you get all the damage with none of the benefits.”
Another GOP strategist, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the biggest challenge will be figuring out how to turn out low-propensity Trump voters next year. The most troubling sign for Republicans out of Tuesday’s results were Georgia Democrats’ flips of the two statewide seats in a sleepy Public Service Commission race, the strategist added.
The state’s Senate race next year is almost certain to be among the biggest of the cycle, with Republicans looking to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
"The one thing that would worry me, besides making sure you hold the House, is looking at how Democrats were able to fire up their base in some of these local elections in Georgia,” the strategist said.
NEW YORK — The common theme that emerged from Democrats’ trio of wins in New York, New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday was affordability.
For all their ideological differences, Zohran Mamdani, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger found a shared language that aims at the heart of President Donald Trump’s populism: the high cost of everyday life.
Their wins suggest a recalibration of Democratic politics — from moral crusades to kitchen-table math.
Heading into the 2026 midterms, that formula will be hard to ignore. Democrats now have proof that campaigns grounded in affordability and competence can still unite the party’s fractious coalition — from democratic socialists in the nation’s biggest city to centrists in its quintessential suburbs.
“In a big-tent party like this, we're going to have lots of different ideas, lots of different ways to accomplish the same goal, and that's where we're unified,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in an interview ahead of Election Day. “What is Zohran Mamdani, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger running on that’s similar? Affordability.”
The message wasn’t flashy — and it wasn’t new. But in a political landscape that’s been dominated by culture-war battles and Trump’s omnipresence, Democrats found traction by talking about rent, utilities and groceries instead of ideology.
Mamdani’s three main mayoral campaign pledges were simple: Freeze the rent for two million New Yorkers. Fast and free buses. Childcare for all.
The promises from the state assemblymember appealed to a broad swath of New Yorkers. Exorbitant daycare costs are an issue that even some Republicans, like Ivanka Trump, have talked about in recent years but that remains a burden for even well-to-do parents.
While Sherrill, a Democratic member of Congress, often talked about abortion rights in her campaign for governor of New Jersey, it was far from the most prominent issue. Her closing message largely relied on her plan to drive down utility costs — and blaming Trump for wreaking havoc on the economy.
A key plank of her “it’s the economy stupid” campaign turn was promising to declare a state of emergency and freeze utility rates when she takes office. Some progressives weren’t happy that she wasn’t talking more about immigration — an issue that another member of the New Jersey congressional delegation is now being prosecuted after taking on — but it didn’t matter.
Garden State Democrats knew that Trump drew in some of their core voters — Black and Hispanic voters — with promises about the economy during the 2024 campaign. But Sherrill bet that she could bring them back into the fold by pointing out how he hasn’t delivered.
Spanberger — a congressional Democrat like Sherrill — also resisted any temptation to center her Virginia gubernatorial campaign on the latest controversies from the White House and instead stuck to an economic message, specifically the cost of life for Virginians. Exit polls showed that was the top issue for voters by a wide margin, followed by health care.
The question now is whether Democrats can sustain that balance once governing — and inflation, housing costs and Trump’s shadow — put it to the test.
In their victory speeches, the trio hewed closely to their campaign messages.
In Brooklyn, Mamdani said that his election was a "mandate for a city you can afford.”
Though Sherrill closed her victory speech in East Brunswick by echoing the language of the “No Kings” protests, much of her speech was focused on New Jersey’s motto — “Liberty and Prosperity.”
“Liberty alone is not enough if the government makes it impossible for you to feed your family, to get a good education or to get a good job,” Sherrill said.
In Richmond, Spanberger said voters “chose leadership that will focus relentlessly on what matters most: lowering costs, keeping our communities safe and strengthening our economy for every Virginian.”
Former President Barack Obama, who campaigned this weekend for Sherrill and Spanberger, said during his New Jersey stop that people voted for Trump and Republicans “because they were, understandably, frustrated with inflation and high gas prices and the difficulty of affording a home, and they were worried about their children’s futures.”
“Now, nine months later, you’ve got to ask yourself, has any of that gotten better?” Obama asked.
Voters seem to think not.
Daniel Hanand Liz Crampton contributed to this report.
Jay Jones, the Democrats’ scandal-plagued attorney general nominee who sparked a Republican-led backlash over violent text messages, secured victory in what turned into a high-profile race in Virginia’s statewide electoral contests Tuesday.
Spurred largely by anti-Donald Trump sentiments among voters, Jones defeated Republican Jason Miyares, the incumbent in the race who the GOP put much of its political capital in protecting. Republicans hoped the public outrage over Jones’ 2022 texts — where he detailed the hypothetical killing of a GOP lawmaker — would be enough to all but disqualify him from winning the post.
"To everyone who didn’t give up on this campaign: I say thank you," Jones said Tuesday night. “I will protect our jobs, our health care and our economy from Donald Trump’s attacks.”
Jones had been leading Miyares in polling as the final month of campaigning approached. But the contest took a dramatic turn after the National Review reported that Jones sent to a colleague three years ago a series of texts that included “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head” — a reference to then-Virginia GOP House Speaker Todd Gilbert. The comments were quickly condemned by the party, but the scandal broke after Virginia’s 45-day early voting period began, leaving the party little recourse but to keep him on the ticket rather than ask him to step aside.
Republicans used Jones to attack Spanberger and openly questioned whether she could effectively lead the state if she was unwilling to speak out forcefully and call for a down-ballot candidate to end his bid. She condemned Jones’ text messages as “abhorrent” but refused to rescind her endorsement. Jones later expressed regret for sending the texts.
That left Jones, who makes history as Virginia’s first Black attorney general, to fend for himself. While some Democrats embraced him in the final days of the campaign including both Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine at a get-out-the-vote rally in Norfolk — the event’s headliners, Spanberger and former President Barack Obama, made no mention of him at all.
Miyares, who has ties to Trump’s former co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, took advantage of his incumbency and lapped Jones in fundraising. He gave Republicans hope, even before the scandal, that he could be the party’s best chance at blocking Democrats attempts at a clean sweep of the top statewide offices.
“As much as I love Abigail, the most important position this year is the attorney general's race,” said Del. Joshua Cole, a Democrat in Virginia’s General Assembly. “In Trump's America, we need a Democratic attorney general, and the Republicans know that. That’s why they [pulled] out all the stops” for Miyares.
But the text messages weren’t the only issue Republicans hit Jones with. He also faced renewed criticism over a years-old reckless driving charge where he 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. Jones reportedly completed some of those community service hours while working at his own political action committee, giving Miyares and his Republican allies more material to paint Jones as being “above the law.”
Jones’ texting scandal had the potential to drag down other Democrats. During an interview on “Next Question with Katie Couric” last month Spanberger lamented having to repeatedly answer questions about Jones.
“The fact that I have to spend even a moment's time talking about somebody else's text messages from years ago, rather than what I want to do as governor, is something that I am deeply unhappy about,” Spanberger said on the podcast. Weeks prior during the lone gubernatorial debate, Spanberger said about Jones texts: “The voters now have the information, and it is up to voters to make an individual choice based on this information.”
Trump also sought to tie Spanberger to Jones.
“Radical Left Lunatic, Jay Jones, who is running against Jason Miyares, the GREAT Attorney General in Virginia, made SICK and DEMENTED jokes…” the president wrote in a Truth Social post, giving his full endorsement to Miyares. “Abigail Spanberger, who is running for Governor, is weak and ineffective, and refuses to acknowledge what this Lunatic has done,” he wrote in early October.
While Republicans zeroed in on the Jones texts in the closing stretch, calling the attorney general race a “referendum on decency," some Democrats pushed back on that line of attack before Tuesday night.
“Show me one of them that stood up and chastised Donald Trump about January 6, about saying that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody,” said Susan Swecker, a Democratic National Committee member and former chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia last week. “Don't be coming over to my party and lecturing me about something that our nominee for attorney general did.”
Jones’ texting scandal, along with Maine Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner coming under attack for previous social media posts, provides fresh challenges to DNC Chair Ken Martin.
He acknowledged in an interview with POLITICO Sunday evening that improving vetting of candidates in the future is something the party will have to evaluate.
“It's not up to the DNC and to the party a chair to decide what's disqualifying or not,” Martin said. “We all are gonna have to do a much better job of vetting our candidates as we move forward.”
Donald Trump has been uncharacteristically distant from some of this year’s highest-profile races, going as far as bolstering a flailing Democrat in his hometown mayor’s contest while never uttering the name of Virginia’s Republican candidate for governor.
The endorser-in-chief has mostly avoided the marquee gubernatorial races across the Potomac in Virginia or in New Jersey, where he spends summer weekends golfing at his Bedminster club. He hasn’t set foot in either state for one of his signature campaign rallies. His muted approach is a departure from his usual impulse to throw himself into races across the country, and a sign he tacitly acknowledges Democrats’ relative strength in the first major election since he reassumed the White House.
Off-year elections prove an early assessment of each party’s standing heading into the following year’s midterms, when the tide generally turns from the party occupying the White House.
At times, Trump has seemed most interested in the mayoral race in his native New York City — a far less competitive race that democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani appears poised to win.
While the president has yet to mention Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears by name, and only recently waded back into the New Jersey governor's race to reiterate his support for the GOP contender, in New York City, he all but endorsed Andrew Cuomo — a Democrat forced to run as an independent after losing the primary. Trump warned in a Monday night Truth Social post of Mamdani and disparaging Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.
And in California, where voters will decide on a ballot measure allowing Democrats to redraw congressional maps, Trump has not catalyzed any major effort to counteract Gov. Gavin Newsom’s well-funded campaign — even as the White House aggressively pushes redistricting in red states across the country.
“The president has the ability to drive people out like we've never seen in American political history, both for him and against him,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist. “But right now he is not on the ballot, so I think the enthusiasm to go out for his supporters might be a little less, whereas the opposition is equal, if not even more engaged.”
Trump, who readily muses about wanting to pick winners and over the last few days has endorsed dozens of Republicans, understands the potential positive impact of his explicit backing and often wields that power. Perhaps more saliently, he seems to know where his support can do more harm than help. In these two blue–but-GOP-curious states, Trump has toed that line — and likely will continue to until the polls close.
“My take is that those are blue states. It is only interesting when they occasionally have a streak of red,” Bartlett said of Virginia and New Jersey. “So, I just think those should not be in play, maybe ever, certainly now with Trump in the White House.”
In New Jersey, Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who trails Democrat Mikie Sherrill by single digits, has the awkward task of embracing the president’s support to consolidate the right without alienating a fairly moderate statewide electorate.
“Jack Ciattarelli is a WINNER, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement – HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump wrote in a mid-May social media post ahead of the primary. Ciattarelli, who was once critical of Trump, rocketed to the nomination the following month.
In the general election, he’s taken a different tack.
Ciattarelli has in some ways fashioned himself as a MAGA-style Republican, participating in a rally on the Jersey Shore with prominent Trump surrogates. Only one notable attendee was missing: Trump.
"You need to max out the Trump coalition as much as you possibly can, but also don't ignore voters who don't give Trump the time of the day," said Jesse Hunt, a former communications director for the Republican Governors Association. "You may need to have voters with negative opinions of Trump to cross over for Jack."
Democrats have used nearly every opportunity to remind voters of Ciattarelli's alliance with Trump, pointing to a comment he made in a recent debate in which he awarded Trump an "A" rating.
Trump reentered the fray last month on Ciattarelli’s behalf, reiterating his endorsement in another social media post, and hosted an October telerally urging New Jerseyans to reject Sherrill. The White House announced a second telerally for Ciattarelli on the eve of the election. Even then, the Ciattarelli campaign did not publicly advise the president would be dialing into the Garden State.
“Now that you have Trump in the White House, New Jersey will continue to be ‘Blue Jersey,’ I would expect,” Bartlett said.
In Virginia, another high-profile race is soon to be decided and Trump has notably kept his distance.
Earle-Sears, the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, has struggled to accrue momentum in her race to succeed Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Polling averages consistently show her trailing Democrat Abigail Spanberger in the blue-leaning state. She’s shaken up her campaign staff to improve her lagging fundraising and electoral prospects, and local Republicans have voiced concerns about the strength of her candidacy.
Trump never endorsed Earle-Sears by name, merely telling reporters aboard Air Force One on Oct. 20: "Well, I think the Republican candidate is very good and I think she should win because the Democrat candidate's a disaster."
One person close to the White House, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the president’s positioning, said, “If she had made it more of a race, it would’ve gotten more attention from him.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the president’s 2025 election strategy.
But Republicans haven’t lost all hope in Virginia.
Trump has made note of their strongest statewide down-ballot candidate, Attorney General Jason Miayres, who appears to have a shot at keeping his seat following a leaked text thread showing rival Democrat Jay Jones musing about shooting political adversaries. Recent polls show the two locked in a tight race.
Knocking Jones in a Truth Social post, Trump called Miyares “a GREAT Attorney General” who has his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”
He also held a separate, last-minute telerally for the Republican slate Monday night — only advised by the White House.
For now, Trump seems to be more focused on elections beyond 2025 — and even the 2026 midterms. He’s mentioned Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his potential successors in the next presidential election. He went as far as suggesting that the two would make an “unstoppable” ticket.
As for himself: “I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad.”
Former President George W. Bush paid tribute to his late vice president, Dick Cheney, on Tuesday, calling him “a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence, and seriousness of purpose to every position he held.”
“Dick was a calm and steady presence in the White House amid great national challenges,” Bush wrote. “I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best. He held to his convictions and prioritized the freedom and security of the American people.”
And even though the pair’s relationship was strained toward the end of their time in the White House — due in large part to Bush’s refusal to pardon Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby — the former president hailed Cheney as “among the finest public servants of his generation.”
“For those two terms in office, and throughout his remarkable career, Dick Cheney’s service always reflected credit on the country he loved,” Bush wrote.
One key Republican who has remained conspicuously silent in the hours since Cheney’s death was announced is President Donald Trump. Cheney’s twilight in American politics was marked by his opposition to the president.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he said in 2022 campaign advertisement for his daughter, Liz Cheney, another Trump foil. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.”
But many Republicans, even some who backed Trump in the aftermath of his failed bid to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, offered their condolences.
“Vice President Cheney dedicated his life to serving our nation,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a key Trump ally, said in a post on X. “He was known for his love of his family and his country. Ann and I are praying for the Cheney family and all who knew him during this time.”
Their stand saw the Cheneys effectively run out of GOP politics, with Trump winning the general election last November and continuing to reshape the party in his image in the months since returning to the Oval Office.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But other key Republicans paid their respects Tuesday.
“As our nation mourns the loss of former Vice President Dick Cheney, we honor his devotion to serving our nation,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), the fourth-ranking House Republican, said on X. “My prayers are with the Cheney family during this difficult time.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement that Cheney, who grew up in Casper, Wyoming, would be remembered as “a towering figure who helped guide the course of history” in the state.
“From high school football star to White House Chief of Staff, Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President, Dick’s career has few peers in American life,” Barrasso wrote. “His unflinching leadership shaped many of the biggest moments in domestic and U.S. foreign policy for decades.”
Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is pushing to redraw the state’s congressional maps, announcing on Tuesday the creation of a commission that will propose new lines ahead of the 2026 midterms.
It sets up a clash between the two Democratic leaders in a blue-leaning state where any effort to redraw the map will net a single seat, given that Maryland Democrats already dominate the state’s congressional delegation with seven of its eight U.S House seats. It also comes as Democrats are ramping up their efforts to change maps to match President Donald Trump’s moves to redistrict red-leaning states to net additional seats for Republicans.
“My commitment has been clear from day one — we will explore every avenue possible to make sure Maryland has fair and representative maps,” Moore said in a statement Tuesday. “This commission will ensure the people are heard..”
The commission will be chaired by Maryland Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a close ally of Moore’s who he helped get elected to the Senate last year. Moore’s other appointees include Brian Frosh, the state’s former Democratic attorney general who served under former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, and Ray Morriss, the nonpartisan mayor of the city of Cumberland.
The other appointees of the commission include Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones, who has been public about her intent to launch a redistricting push, and Ferguson “or designee.”
In a statement, Ferguson suggested he is open to Marylanders hearing opposing concerns and that following through on a redistricting push could backfire on Democrats and “unintentionally give Donald Trump one or two additional Congressional seats.”
Maryland’s Supreme Court leans conservative with five of the seven justices being appointed by former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, underscoring Ferguson’s concern that future legal battles changing newly created maps may ultimately be detrimental to Democrats.
Moore, considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, is itching for Maryland to enter the national mid-decade redistricting fight that touched off earlier this year when Trump urged the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature to redraw districts to pick up five seats that favor Republicans ahead of next year's midterms.
Moore himself has characterized what Trump is doing as “nothing more than political redlining,” a reference to the discriminatory housing practice that kept Black Americans out of predominantly white neighborhoods by denying them mortgages.
Ferguson, who is white, in his letter last week also made a racial argument against moving to redraw state lines. He said Maryland, which has a governor, House speaker and attorney general who are all Black, has long fought against racial gerrymandering that was aimed at “diluting” the Black vote. It would be “hypocritical to say that it is abhorrent to tactically shift voters based on race, but not to do so based on party affiliation,” he wrote.
In California on Tuesday, voters take up a ballot measure, Proposition 50, the mid-decade gerrymander that is being led by Gov. Gavin Newsom. If it passes as expected, it would offset the GOP pickups that the Texas redistricting effort created.
Results from The POLITICO Poll for the Nov. 3, 2025 story "America is bracing for political violence — and a significant portion think it’s sometimes OK"
President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from New York City in a last-ditch effort to drive the city’s voters to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and prevent Zohran Mamdani from winning Tuesday’s election.
Trump wrote in a social media post “it is highly unlikely” he will allow the city to receive federal funding beyond “the very minimum as required” if voters elect Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, while advocating for Cuomo, who is running as an independent.
The statement marked a more forceful endorsement of Cuomo by Trump, who said in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday he would like to see Cuomo defeat Mamdani.
“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!,” Trump wrote.
Trump also urged people not to vote for Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate in the race, arguing that it amounted to supporting Mamdani.
Trump, who praised Cuomo’s “record of success,” offered his most unequivocal backing for the former governor in the race’s final hours. His complimentary posture toward Cuomo marks a shift from the “60 Minutes” interview, in which he framed the race as a choice “between a bad Democrat and a Communist,” adding that he would pick “the bad Democrat all the time.”
Cuomo sought to distance himself from Trump’s backhanded commendation while campaigning on Monday, repeatedly insisting to reporters that Trump did not endorse him. Mamdani’s campaign seized on the “60 Minutes” interview, painting his comments as a full-throated endorsement.
Cuomo has sought to position his campaign to win the support of Trump supporters in New York City. He privately told donors in August he’s counting on Trump to tell voters to support him over Sliwa as part of their shared goal of defeating Mamdani. The New York Times reported in August that Trump and Cuomo discussed the mayoral race in a phone call.
It’s not immediately clear the extent to which Trump could hamstring New York City’s funding if he does withhold federal dollars. But over $100 billion in federal funding flows through New York City via state and city allocations as well as disbursements to health care providers and other public entities.
Conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro blasted Tucker Carlson on Monday, calling him “the most virulent super-spreader of vile ideas in America," adding fuel to an incident that sparked a staff shakeup at the Heritage Institute.
In an episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show” released Monday, Shapiro criticized Carlson’s podcast episode with Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes, saying Carlson failed to push back on Fuentes’ bigotry.
“The issue here isn't that Tucker Carlson had Nick Fuentes on his show last week. He has every right to do that, of course,” Shapiro said. “The issue here is that Tucker Carlson decided to normalize and fluff Nick Fuentes and that the Heritage Foundation then decided to robustly defend that performance.”
Carlson declined to comment when contacted Monday.
Shapiro’s critique is the latest crack in a conservative movement splintering over Carlson’s inflammatory interview with Fuentes. The interview, which aired last week, was laced with antisemitic references and sparked division within the Republican Party over whether the discussion should be allowed or condemned. On the podcast, Fuentes praised Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and claimed the “big challenge” to unifying the country was “organized Jewry.” Carlson, a former Fox News host who retains a large following, said Republican Israel supporters suffer from a “brain virus.”
Shapiro pushed back on Roberts’ characterization. “It is not cancellation to draw moral lines between viewpoints,” Shapiro said. “In fact, we used to call that one of the key aspects of conservatism.”
The incident sparked internal changes at the Heritage Foundation. Ryan Neuhaus, Roberts' former chief of staff, resigned from the conservative think tank Monday, a Heritage spokesperson confirmed. Neuhaus had reposted statements defending Roberts' statement on X.
"[Neuhaus] is a good man, we appreciate his service, and we have no doubt he will serve the movement in another capacity," the spokesperson said. The Hill first reported on his resignation.
Carlson’s interview with Fuentes came on the heels of other high-profile incidents of antisemitism on the political right. Last month, a nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel withdrew his nomination after bragging of his “Nazi streak” in a text message; days earlier, POLITICO reported on a leaked group chat of Young Republicans who praised Hitler and joked about the Holocaust. The same week, a Nazi symbol was discovered hanging in a GOP congressional office.
Shapiro, a prominent conservative podcaster who hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump and Senate GOP candidates during the 2024 cycle, warned that a “splinter faction” of white supremacists is being "facilitated and normalized” into the Republican Party’s mainstream, aided by Carlson.
“The main agent in that normalization is Tucker Carlson, who is an intellectual coward, a dishonest interlocutor, and a terrible friend,” Shapiro said.
At the annual Republican Jewish Coalition annual leadership summit last weekend, top GOP Jews attempted to distance Carlson from the GOP mainstream. Matt Brooks, CEO of the RJC, told reporters that antisemitism is “a very small, limited problem in our party,” and attendees waved printed placards that read, “TUCKER IS NOT MAGA.”
Shapiro, who is Jewish, warned that the GOP is “being eaten by its radicals.”
“The left followed its radicals to electoral hell,” Shapiro said. “Apparently, many on the right wish to do the same.”
A red-state Democrat is inching toward a Senate run as Kansas' Republican-controlled legislature debates drawing her out of a seat.
Rep. Sharice Davids met with Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) last week to talk through the logistics of a Senate campaign and garner advice from a lawmaker who’s transitioned from the lower chamber to the upper one, according to one person with knowledge of the conversation. Schiff is a vice-chair for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 2026 cycle.
Republicans in the Kansas state Senate eye redrawing Davids’ district to make it more friendly to Republicans, as part of a nationwide push to deliver a more favorable 2026 House map for the GOP. Across the country, Republicans are looking at drawing up to 19 new House seats — an aggressive push Democrats are starting to challenge ahead of the midterms.
Kansas legislators are scheduled to meet in a special session later this week to take up redistricting. But a sufficient number of members of the Kansas State House of Representatives have yet to offer their support to the effort, some of them criticizing the precedent mid-decade redistricting would set.
Davids, the lone Democrat in Kansas’ congressional delegation, represents much of the Kansas City metro area. She entered the House in 2019.
“If [Kansas Republicans] continue forward on this path, and they’re successful in this, at this point, all I can say is that every option is on the table, including a statewide run,” she said in a press conference last month.
Sen. Roger Marshall (K-Kansas) is the incumbent up for reelection in 2026.
In a press release last week, Davids’ office called the redistricting effort a “power grab” and said she “remains focused on representing [Kansans] in whatever capacity best allows her to do so.”
Spokespeople for Davids and Schiff did not respond to requests for comment.
A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
President Donald Trump endorsed more than 50 Republicans on Sunday night — but didn’t specifically name Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears ahead of Tuesday’s critical elections.
In dozens of social media posts, the president threw his support behind both first time hopefuls and those seeking reelection, including Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Earle-Sears, facing off against Democrat Abigail Spanberger, was not mentioned by name among the 53 endorsements Trump issued Sunday.
The president, however, made clear that he hopes voters cast their ballots for the Republican candidates in Virginia and in New Jersey, where Jack Ciattarelli is in a heated battle against Mikie Sherrill for the governor’s mansion. Trump endorsed Ciattarelli in October.
“Why would anyone vote for New Jersey and Virginia Gubernatorial Candidates, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, when they want transgender for everybody, men playing in women’s sports, High Crime, and the most expensive Energy prices almost anywhere in the World?” Trump said in one post. “VOTE REPUBLICAN for massive Energy Cost reductions, large scale Tax Cuts, and basic Common Sense!”
Trump has hedged around an official endorsement for Earle-Sears, telling reporters last monththat the “Republican candidate” in Virginia should win “because the Democrat candidate is a disaster." Last week, the president joined the term-limited Gov. Glenn Youngkin for a virtual rally for the entire Virginia Republican ticket.
Most Americans expect political violence to keep growing in the United States and believe that it is likely a political candidate will be assassinated in the next few years.
Widespread pessimism about political violence is a rare, grim point of consensus in a country riven by political and cultural divisions.
A majority of Americans, 55 percent, expect political violence to increase, according to a new poll from POLITICO and Public First. That figure underscores just how much the spate of attacks — from the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this year to the attempts on President Donald Trump’s life in 2024 — have rattled the nation.
It’s a view held by majorities of Americans all across lines like gender, age, party affiliation and level of education, though Democrats and older voters expressed particular concern.
Perhaps most troubling, a significant minority of the population — 24 percent — believes that there are some instances where violence is justified.
There was little partisan divide in that belief, but a strong generational one: Younger Americans were significantly more likely than older ones to say violence can be justified. More than one in three Americans under the age of 45 agreed with that belief.
While political violence can take many forms, more than half of Americans say that it is very or somewhat likely that a political candidate gets assassinated in the next five years, according to the exclusive survey. That view cuts across party lines, with agreement from 51 percent of last year’s Trump voters and 53 percent of Americans who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor who has studied political violence for the last three decades, is no longer warning that the country is on the brink of a violent age, as he did as recently as five months ago.
“We're not on the brink of it, we're firmly in the grip of it,” Pape told POLITICO, saying the country is now in an era of “violent populism.”
The POLITICO Poll, conducted after Kirk’s assassination, suggests Americans are rattled by the environment of heightened political violence — and that most still reject it: about two thirds, 64 percent, say political violence is never justified.
Still, a small but significant portion of the population, 24 percent, say that there are some instances where violence is justified.
“What's happening is public support for political violence is growing in the mainstream, it's not a fringe thing, and the more it grows, the more it seems acceptable to volatile people,” Pape said.
There have been a series of high-profile attacks and threats against members of both parties, across the country and at all levels of government, in recent years.
In addition to Kirk’s killing and the attempts on Trump’s life, there was the gruesome attack targeting former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that left her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a fractured skull in 2022; the assassination plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that same year; the plan to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020; and the firebombing at Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence earlier this year.
In June, former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in their home by a man impersonating a police officer in an attack that Gov. Tim Walz (D) called “politically motivated.” The man accused of killing Hortman and her husband was indicted on federal murder charges. His case is still pending.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are also increasingly concerned over the rising culture of violence. Last year, U.S. Capitol Police investigated nearly 10,000 “concerning statements” and threats against members, their families and staff. Just two weeks ago, a man was arrested and charged with making a “credible death threat” against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Local officials have also faced elevated attacks and hostilities — including insults, harassment and threats — according to a survey from CivicPulse and Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative earlier this year.
That can have damaging effects for democracy, said Shannon Hiller, executive director of the non-partisan Princeton project: “When people aren't willing to run because of the climate of hostility, that impacts who's ultimately representing us.”
While most Americans believe violence will increase, the survey also found some gaps in opinion that revealed some groups hold darker views than others.
Democrats, for example, are more likely than Republicans to say that violence will increase.
That difference may reflect at least in part a broader sense of pessimism about the nation’s future among Democrats. Surveys — including The POLITICO Poll — have found that Democrats have more negative views than Republicans since Trump’s return to office, reversing the trend from when former President Joe Biden was in office.
Americans who hold negative views about major institutions, including the U.S. presidency, are particularly likely to say that violence is likely to increase. Among Americans who hold a very negative view of the presidency, for example, 76 percent believe violence will increase, while only 15 percent believe it will decrease.
The data suggest that the extreme partisanship that has come to dominate the current era of politics has in many ways shaped Americans’ feelings on violence.
Forty-one percent of Americans say they feel hesitant to share their political views in public, and they are significantly more likely than others to expect politically motivated violence to increase — 68 percent, compared with 47 percent of those who feel comfortable sharing their political views.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted in September asked an open-ended question about the reasons for political violence over the last several years, and Americans’ most common answers were grounded in partisanship. More than a quarter of Democrats, 28 percent, mentioned Trump’s rhetoric, the MAGA movement or conservatives as a reason, while 16 percent of Republicans cited the rhetoric of Democrats and liberals.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, lawmakers on both sides urged Americans to engage with each other, even when they disagree.
“We can always point the finger at the other side,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) said at a press conference after authorities apprehended Kirk’s alleged killer. “At some point we have to find an off-ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse.”
But even the act of engaging with others who hold different views is difficult in a bitterly divided nation: 41 percent of Americans say they don’t have a close friend who votes for a different party than them.
Login
lead image
lead image
