President Donald Trump is unleashing his anger at Indiana Senate Republicans for not backing the GOP redistricting effort, posting his displeasure three times to Truth Social in the last 24 hours and calling President Pro Tempore Rod Bray a “Total RINO.”
“In the entire United States of America, Republican or Democrat, only Indiana “Republican” State Senator Rod Bray, a Complete and Total RINO, is opposed to redistricting for purposes of gaining additional Seats in Congress,” posted Trump on Monday afternoon, who has seen Republican lawmakers in four states now reject his mid-cycle redistricting scheme. In another Monday post, Trump said competitors were lining up to primary Bray.
Bray is not the only Republican in Indiana who doesn’t back redistricting. On Monday, Indiana state Sen. Blake Doriot of Goshen issued a statement saying that he was a Trump supporter but that he opposed redistricting.
"I have long been a Trump supporter, and I want President Trump to continue to be successful with a Republican-led House so he can continue fixing our woke colleges, fighting illegal immigration and crime, and encouraging us to speak about our great nation and be proud of who we are as Americans – not apologize for it,” Doriot said in a statement.
The news comes as Trump is set to issue a retributive endorsement as early as Monday against one of a handful Indiana Senate Republicans who opposes the White House’s mid-cycle redistricting plan.
Among the holdouts targeted by the White House: Republican state Sen. Jim Buck of Kokomo, who is facing a primary from Tipton County Commissioner Tracey Powell. Trump could back Powell Monday, according to a person familiar with his thinking speaking exclusively with POLITICO, following through on MAGA’s and White House allies' long-running threats to primary opponents of their mid-decade redistricting effort intended to protect their slim House majority in the midterms next year.
Trump posted on Truth Social Monday morning that he “will be strongly endorsing against any State Senator or House member from the Great State of Indiana that votes against the Republican Party, and our Nation, by not allowing for Redistricting for Congressional seats in the United States House of Representatives as every other State in our Nation is doing, Republican or Democrat.”
A spokesperson for Buck did not respond to a request for comment.
The White House is extending invitations to Indiana lawmakers for Oval Office visits. The latest invitation accepted is by State Sen. Scott Baldwin, who confirmed the invite in a phone interview.
Baldwin has already announced his support for redistricting.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s post came after Bray announced on Friday that the chamber will not convene in December to redraw maps, drawing Trump’s ire to and a threat to withdraw his support for Bray, State Sen. Greg Goode and Gov. Mike Braun. Goode was the victim of a swatting incident over the weekend.
Bray said his decision was influenced by the lack of votes supporting the measure, but Trump on Sunday argued that meant Braun was not doing enough to secure GOP support.
“Considering that Mike wouldn’t be Governor without me (Not even close!), is disappointing!” Trump said in a post to Truth Social. “Any Republican that votes against this important redistricting, potentially having an impact on America itself, should be PRIMARIED.”
Another member of the conservative Heritage Foundation has resigned following a video posted by the organization’s president defending Tucker Carlson’s interview with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
In a post to Facebook, board member Robert P. George said he can no longer remain part of the foundation without a “full retraction” of the video released last month by the organization’s president, Kevin Roberts.
“Although Kevin publicly apologized for some of what he said in the video, he could not offer a full retraction of its content. So, we reached an impasse,” George said.
Carlson’s interview with Fuentes — who has previously expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler — received widespread condemnation for antisemitism, and the aftermath has exposed fault lines among conservatives.
In his Oct. 30 video, Roberts denounced the "venomous coalition” criticizing both Fuentes and Carlson, adding that Carlson is a “close friend.” He said that though he disagrees with and even “abhors” things Fuentes said, he did not believe in “canceling” him or Carlson. On Sunday, President Donald Trump also defended Carlson, telling reporters “you can’t tell him who to interview.”
Fuentes, a well-known provocateur on the right, has previously said that “organized Jewry” is leading to the disappearance of white culture.
Roberts later said he “didn’t know much about this Fuentes guy,” and that his video script was written by an aide who has since resigned.
George on Monday said that Roberts is a “good man” who acknowledged a “serious mistake.”
“What divided us was a difference of opinion about what was required to rectify the mistake,” George added.
A spokesman for the Heritage Foundation confirmed George's resignation in a statement to POLITICO, thanking him for his service and calling him a "good man" before defending Roberts.
"Under the leadership of Dr. Roberts, Heritage remains resolute in building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish. We are strong, growing, and more determined than ever to fight for our Republic," the spokesman said.
George, the McCormick professor of jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, had been a Heritage trustee since 2019, according to the foundation’s website.
His resignation is one of several in light of Roberts' video, including at least five members of the foundation’s antisemitism task force, according to CBS News.
“I pray that Heritage’s research and advocacy will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is “created equal” and “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” George said.
An Indiana Senate Republican who President Donald Trump called out in a Truth Social post Sunday for not backing the White House’s plan to draw new congressional maps was later targeted by a swatting, according to local authorities.
Greg Goode, who Trump posted was a “RINO” he was “Very disappointed in” Sunday was targeted hours later by what Vigo County Sheriff Derek Fell called a “swatting” in a statement.
Despite Trump’s social media post insinuating otherwise, Goode has not publicly announced his position on redistricting.
Fell said that around 5 p.m. Sunday “an email was sent to the Terre Haute Police Department advising harm had been done to persons inside a home, located in southeastern Vigo County,” Fell said. “This information was immediately relayed to the Sheriffs Office, at which point deputies responded to the home, which was the home of Senator Greg Goode. Attempts were initially unsuccessful to raise anyone at the residence, but ultimately contact was made with persons inside the home.”
Fell added that Goode and others “were secure, safe, and unharmed. Investigation showed that this was a prank or false email (also known as ‘swatting’).”
In a statement, Goode said he and his family were "victims," and thanked Fell and Terre Haute Police Chief Kevin Barrett for their "professionalism."
The news comes as efforts to redistrict have ground to a halt in Indiana on Friday, after Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray refused to reconvene the chamber to redraw congressional maps in favor of Republicans.
The president threatened earlier Sunday that a list of Senate Republicans resistant to gerrymandering the state would be "released to the public later this afternoon," which so far seems to have not materialized by this evening.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.
Earlier this month, Goode held a town hall in Terre Haute on redistricting, and 71 people spoke out against it and nobody spoke for it.
On Tuesday, Indiana lawmakers are expected to convene at the Indiana Statehouse for organization day, a largely ceremonial and administrative event kicking off next year’s session. Already, pro-redistricting advocates have announced a statehouse rally calling for redistricting.
President Donald Trump has broken with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch long-time ally and prominent MAGA figure who has been at sharp odds with the White House on economic issues, foreign affairs and the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump called Greene a “ranting lunatic” and said he was withdrawing his support for her in a social media post late Friday.
“All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” Trump wrote in the Truth Social post.
The president continued to share several posts lambasting Taylor Greene on Truth Social into Friday night — including reposting comments that called the representative "a cheap political football," a "sellout" and another that said her "political future just ended," all in the span of a couple minutes.
The outburst marked a notable fissure in the MAGA coalition that vaulted Trump to office and has helped him carry out his agenda but has fractured in recent months, particularly over files related to Epstein.
Greene had been an unusually pointed critic of Trump, saying he should spend less time on overseas travel and foreign affairs and more addressing domestic issues such as the looming expiration of Obamacare subsidies that will cause health insurance for many to soar.
But Epstein appears to be the main factor in the breach. Greene and MAGA figures have long called for the government to release files from the investigation, something Trump had also appeared to support until he returned to office.
“It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” she said. “But really most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America who are fed up with foreign wars and foreign causes, are going broke trying to feed their families, and are losing hope of ever achieving the American dream.”
She added: “I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.”
Trump’s criticism of Greene comes at a politically fraught moment for Republicans, who are feeling squeamish after a crushing off-season election cycle in which Democrats swept all major races in part by messaging on the shutdown and affordability. Democrats are hoping this momentum will carry them into the midterms, when they hope to regain control of the House.
The president said that a viable Republican who runs against Greene — who he now sees as “Far Left” — in a primary election next year would receive his endorsement.
“I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day. I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics,” he said. “If the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support.”
Trump has used Truth Social to level similarly harsh attacks against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) who, like Greene, has skewered Trump and other Republican leaders by calling for the full release of the Epstein files and pushing to cut back presidential war powers. Last month, Trump encouraged Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal, to run against Massie during the primary elections next year, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) later said he would help Massie clinch a victory.
“Did Thomas Massie, sometimes referred to as Rand Paul Jr., because of the fact that he always votes against the Republican Party, get married already???” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Boy, that was quick! No wonder the Polls have him at less than an 8% chance of winning the Election. Anyway, have a great life Thomas and (?). His wife will soon find out that she’s stuck with a LOSER!”
INDIANAPOLIS — President Donald Trump’s effort to force mid-decade redistricting suffered a major setback Friday, after Indiana’s GOP state Senate leader declared the chamber will not convene in December to redraw maps.
In response, Trump's team has begun summoning Indiana lawmakers to meet with the president in the Oval Office as early as next week, according to two sources familiar with the request, including one who had fielded an invite over the phone Friday.
"Over the last several months, Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state's congressional maps,” Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray said in a statement, after conducting a private test vote on Friday afternoon with his caucus. “Today, I'm announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene in December."
It’s a massive blow to the White House’s efforts to shore up a Republican House majority next year via redistricting, and comes from a state Trump easily won last November. It marks the fourth state where efforts have stalled despite pressure from Trump and his political team.
Bray’s announcement on Friday immediately incensed those in Trump’s orbit.
“Our party can no longer afford to harbor these gutless, self-serving traitors who stab us in the back while accomplishing absolutely nothing,” Trump ally Alex Bruesewitz said on X. “The entire MAGA movement will be mobilizing to Indiana to PRIMARY and OUST every last RINO blocking these essential reforms to RESCUE our nation, this will include the totally clueless and weak State Senate President.”
Vice President JD Vance traveled to Indiana several times and expended political capital on the Hoosier state effort, flying twice on Air Force Two here to court lawmakers, and he had welcomed Indiana lawmakers to the White House. Trump himself entertained Bray and state House Speaker Todd Huston in the Oval Office to discuss the matter in August.
Vance’s office did not immediately comment on the development.
And while Republican-backed efforts continue to stall across the country, Democrats are beginning to ramp up their efforts. After four GOP states redrew nine red-leaning seats — starting with Texas — California voters approved a ballot measure that could net Democrats five seats of their own. Virginia is poised to follow suit with two potential seats, and the party is ramping up its pressure on Maryland and Illinois.
It’s no sure thing yet — as some states are expected to move forward with redistricting in January — but the battle is looking increasingly likely to end in a draw.
GOP Gov. Mike Braun, who had called for a special session but cannot force a vote on the issue, called on the state’s Senate to “do the right thing and show up to vote for fair maps.”
“Hoosiers deserve to know where their elected officials stand on important issues,” Braun said in a statement.
One person close to the redistricting process, granted anonymity to discuss conversations that are not yet public, said that Bray’s description of the vote tally is not accurate.
“The House has the votes and the Senate is very close to having the votes,” the person said, adding that Bray “claims to be protecting his members, but the reality is that he’s hurting his members and the voters who elect them by betraying Republicans and lying to the public.”
Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) — whose seat was likely to be redrawn — hailed the decision on Friday.
“Prayer, people, and partnerships power change,” Carson said. “Hoosiers do things differently. We’re about collaboration, not division. We’re about independent thinking — not taking orders from Washington. I want to thank Senator Bray and all the Republican and Democratic members of the Indiana Statehouse who held firm on Hoosier values. This is a win for all of us."
Outside of Indiana, other GOP efforts are also struggling. In Kansas, Republican state House Speaker Dan Hawkins said earlier this month that his chamber does not have the two-thirds vote required to call a special session over Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. Hawkins responded to the disagreement in his caucus by stripping leadership posts from holdouts and has vowed to take the issue up during the January regular session.
Democrats are trying to blunt the Republican advantage on the widely popular no-tax-on-tips policy as both parties look to strengthen their appeal to the working class ahead of the midterms.
The most intense of these battles is unfolding in Nevada, where five percent of workers earn tips, about double the national rate. Republicans are looking to flip three of the state’s four congressional districts — which include some regions where the tourism and gambling economy dominates. They have already spent millions on ads targeting Nevada Democrats for voting against the GOP megabill that included the tax deduction for tipped workers, which was pushed by President Donald Trump.
"Everyone knows that that was a massively influential message by the president," said Robert Uithoven, a GOP strategist who is running the campaign of Lydia Dominguez, one of the Republicans vying for the party's nomination to take on Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.). Uithoven noted that Trump won Lee's district — which he said includes a large number of workers employed on the Vegas Strip — and carried the state.
Democrats, meanwhile, have blitzed through Las Vegas, Reno and the state’s other tourist hotspots, proclaiming that Republicans generated no such boon for tipped workers there.
“They’re going to see it, they’re going to feel it. They’re already feeling it,” Lee said in an interview with POLITICO. “It's a raw deal for tipped earners, because it's not permanent, and it's so much smaller than what the wealthiest Americans got out of that bill.”
The skirmishing comes as both parties look to control the narrative on the affordability of groceries, housing and other staples, along with the state of household incomes — issues expected to have outsized influence on next year’s midterms.
Moreover, Republicans are trying to better market the omnibus legislation they passed this summer, which hasn’t proven as popular as they hoped. They are zeroing in on individual portions of the megabill that are broadly appealing to working-class voters, and deductions for tipped workers could score the party much-needed political gains after a crushing off-year election defeat last week.
“Nevadans know who put more money back in their pockets, and it wasn’t the Democrat frauds who are trying to claim credit,” said Christian Martinez, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm. “Out of touch Democrats Steven Horsford, Dina Titus and Susie Lee can’t lie their way out of this one.”
Nevada Democrats bristle at Republicans’ characterization of them as followers — not leaders — on tax breaks for tipped workers. They note that the idea was a seminal part of their 2024 campaigns, and chastised their opponents for failing to back an alternative measure, which they said would have offered tipped workers more meaningful breaks, and the elimination of subminimum wages.
The bill fizzled out in Congress, which — according to Horsford, who drew up the measure — indicates the GOP’s efforts are disingenuous.
“My bill, the TIPS Act, does all the things that the tipped workers asked for because I asked them what they wanted included in the bill as I worked on it. That’s where the Republicans got their bill wrong from the beginning. They listened to one person, Donald Trump, and not the workers,” he said.
Titus, who has introduced legislation on the issue that would also raise the regular minimum wage, said: “Exempting tips from income taxes is only part of the solution to increasing the wages of tipped workers."
The Democrats' counteroffensive is part of a larger portrait Democrats have spent months drawing up in hopes of demonstrating that the GOP’s promise of beefier refund checks next filing season will be moot for the working class. They’ve pointed to several statistics: Over a third of tipped workersdo not make enough money to pay federal income taxes. Two in five tipped workersrely on Medicaid and other public assistance that the GOP has slashed or could let expire.
And they note that the tax break will lapse in three years unless Congress extends it, while the cuts to public benefits would be permanent.
“D.C. Republicans are giving temporary crumbs to working families,” said Lindsay Reilly, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House campaign arm. “Meanwhile, millions of families are at risk of losing their health care, hundreds of hospitals could close, and countless Americans could lose their jobs — all to pay for permanent tax cuts for billionaires.”
Nevada Democrats also say Trump’s coarse diplomatic relations with Canada have eroded the state’s tourism economy, which is heavily dependent on Canadian visitation, and squandered any windfalls the GOP tax deduction on tips could generate.
“When you have less tourism there, there’s less cars to park, there’s less rooms to clean, there’s less tables to serve,” said Lee, who represents Nevada’s third district, which includes southern Las Vegas. “That’s less tipped income.”
There’s perhaps no group more important for the parties to win over on the issue in Nevada than Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents the state’s hospitality workers. But in the union’s eyes, both sides are flailing.
In late October, the union sent a letter to Treasury and the IRS rebuking the limitations of the tax cut in the GOP megabill and asking for the same things Democrats have pushed for: a permanent extension of the tip tax deduction that would also cover automatic gratuities and eliminate the subminimum wage. Neither the agencies nor congressional Republicans have indicated they’re willing to offer concessions since then, to the union’s frustration, said Ted Pappageorge, its secretary-treasurer.
But that shouldn’t serve as a reprieve for House Democrats, even if they earned the union’s endorsement last year, he continued.
“There has to be a real fight with the Democratic Party about a message that is very clear that we are going to tackle the cost of living and support working class, kitchen table voters,” Pappageorge said. “We’ve been very clear, we’re going to talk to Republicans, Democrats and independents, and we’re going to run our own members because we don’t see Democrats focusing on working class issues in a way that is going to win in the midterms.”
In breaking ranks to end the federal government shutdown this week, Nevada’s two Democratic senators showcased the shifting politics of the once solidly blue state, home to a diverse, working-class population that relies heavily on tourism.
In the national battle for party expansion, Republicans have the edge in the Silver State.
Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen joined an octet of members in the Senate Democratic Caucus who backed ending the shutdown. Their home state politics made their gambit an electoral calculation and an economic necessity, even as it angered some Nevada Democrats, according to interviews with more than a dozen political strategists, staffers and elected officials in the state.
“Nevada isn't a blue state — it's a swing state with a Democratic lean and a Republican trend line,” said Mike Noble, a pollster who focuses on the Southwest. “Both senators are reading the room, and brinksmanship doesn't play well with the middle.”
The GOP advantage in Nevada has been building for several years. Republicans overtook Democrats in voter registration for the first time in nearly two decades this year, the result of a dedicated campaign from the Nevada Republican Party. Polls show GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo with a slight lead in his reelection bid, which will be one of the most competitive gubernatorial races next year. And Republicans are trying to flip Democrats’ three House seats in Nevada next year. In 2024, Donald Trump became the first Republican to win the state in 20 years, beating Kamala Harris by 3.1 points, while Rosen won reelection by just 1 point.
"Nevada has really tightened up," said Robert Uithoven, a GOP strategist from the state .
Republicans and Democrats are fiercely courting Nevada’s working class. In 2024, Trump appealed to the state’s service, hospitality and construction industries with promises to end taxes on tips and overtime — both policies that were passed in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill.” And his campaign also made significant investment in reaching Latinos, who make up one in five registered voters.
Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping that the sluggish economy, GOP-backed health care cuts and aggressive deportations under Trump will help them win back anxious Nevadans.
“If you hear someone who is saying we are not going to tax your tips, that's compelling,” said Washoe County Commission Chair Alexis Hill, who is running in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. “That economic message is consistently what we need to drive home as Democrats and get away from that corporate message."
Nevada’s economy is tethered to the tourism industry, fueled by hourly wage hospitality workers. The state has seen a massive downturn in travel this year after major post-pandemic increases, which — coupled with a sharp drop-off in construction jobs — sparked concern among economists and local officials, who largely gauge the health of the local economy on its tourism industry.
The state’s heavy reliance on federal aid also makes it more susceptible to partisan swings. The freeze on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program resulting from the government shutdown hurt the 15 percent of Nevadans who receive SNAP benefits, among the highest shares of any state. And recent disruptions around air travel significantly affected flights coming and going from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. On Saturday, the airport recorded 198 flight delays.
Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of the politically influential Culinary Union, praised the two senators for “clearly fighting for working-class folks” but noted that now is the time to “get the government going and get the benefits moving.”
“At the end of the day, it's about who is going to be in the corner of working-class folks,” he said. “The Democrats' ship has been wandering the last few years, and the voters have been very clear about that.”
Both Cortez Masto and Rosen signaled they sided with Republicans on ending the shutdown because of its severe effects on workers. Cortez Masto, who also voted to end the shutdown over a month ago, defended her recent vote by citing the pinch felt by small businesses and other workers. Rosen, meanwhile, said she hit a breaking point in recent days as she saw the effect of “fully withholding SNAP benefits and gutting our tourism industry by grinding air travel to a halt.”
“How do you stay the course when people are rummaging through the trash for food because Donald Trump took away their SNAP benefits?” said one Rosen aide, granted anonymity to speak openly. “At some point, you’re hurting the people you’re trying to help by not putting an end to the Trump cruelty.”
Rosen is up for reelection in 2030; Cortez Masto in 2028.
Scott Gavorsky, the GOP Elko County chair, predicted the senators would have dealt with blowback from voters had they prolonged the shutdown, especially in areas that have trended to the right, like in the rural region he represents that helped Lombardo flip the governorship in 2022. “Memories are long out here,” he said.
But the pair is already facing backlash. Some Nevada Democrats voiced frustration with their decision to break from the caucus after Democrats stuck together for over a month.
Democratic State Assemblymember Selena La Rue Hatch said she’s heard from many constituents in her swing district in Washoe County, which encompasses Reno, over their “concern about whether we are actually putting the brakes on a reckless authoritarian administration.”
“I have heard overwhelming shock and dismay and concern that we have now given up the fight, and what are we getting out of it?” she said.
A Democratic state party strategist, granted anonymity to speak freely, called the agreement with Republicans to vote on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits at the heart of Democrats’ shutdown negotiations a bonus.
“At the end of the day it isn't focused on political tactics, it’s focused on ending this pain,” the strategist said.
The tourism-dependent state experienced the nation’s highest unemployment rates during the 2008 recession and 2020 pandemic shutdown, after it had become one of the fastest-growing economies in the nation from 1970 to 2008.
Trump’s 2015 ascent came just in time to exploit Nevadans’ lingering pessimism, said Andrew Woods, the director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Center for Business and Economic Research. Then, when Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak shut down Nevada’s casinos for 78 days during the 2020 pandemic, the state’s unemployment rate ballooned again, reaching 28 percent in April 2020.
“That sense of security was taken away,” Woods said. “It made the state purple.”
Republicans are making a big play in Nevada in next year’s midterms, hoping to flip three seats including the one held by Democrat Susie Lee, who represents many workers on the Las Vegas strip.
But Trump’s Nevada victory was fueled by economic dissatisfaction, and recent polling suggests Nevadans aren’t much more satisfied now. In an October poll from Noble Predictive Insights, 50 percent of respondents said the state is worse now than it was four years ago, and just 24 percent said it is better. Their top issues were affordable housing and inflation.
“The electorate is definitely more driven by economic anxiety than ideology these days,” said Mike Noble, the pollster.
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.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D–Mass.) is not one to shy away from criticism of his own party. He made waves in the past when he insisted that the Democrats’ approach to dialogue on transgender issues was stifling. Moulton has also been vocal about the need for generational change in an aging Washington.
This time, the Massachusetts congressman is speaking out about the deal that ended the longest government shutdown in history and how Senate Democrats missed an opportunity to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
“If Republicans were somehow gaining advantage here, if the polling was shifting in their favor, if they had done well in the elections last week, then I might say, ’Okay, I get it. It doesn't seem like this strategy is working, so let's give up,’” Moulton said. “But Schumer has just snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”
Moulton is a veteran who served four tours in Iraq as a Marine Corps infantry officer. He’s also challenging Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey for his seat in the 2026 midterms — a feat that former Rep. Joe Kennedy III attempted and lost in 2020.
“Senator Markey is a good guy,” says Moulton. “He served the country for half a century. I mean, he's been in office longer than I've been alive. He and I agree on many of the issues. He says the right things, he has great press releases, but how much has he actually gotten done?”
In this week’s episode of The Conversation, Moulton talks with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns about how he believes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is failing his party, why age needs to be a major consideration for lawmakers and how Senate Democrats could have done more to guarantee access to affordable health care.
Plus, POLITICO’s Senior Congressional Editor Mike DeBonis joins Dasha to discuss how the shutdown finally came to an end, which party ended up better off afterwards and how this event may shape Congress in the year to come.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated when former Rep. Joe Kennedy III has run against Sen. Ed Markey. It was in 2020. This report also previously misstated former Rep. Joe Kennedy III's title. He is a former congressman.
House lawmakers released more than 20,000 pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday — and they include communications between the convicted sex offender and high-profile individuals in politics, media, Hollywood and foreign affairs.
One email shows Epstein communicating with a former White House counsel. Some showed offensive emails between Epstein and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Another offers insight into Epstein’s offer to help Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon.
The documents, a small batch released by Democrats and a larger one released by Republicans, also shed light on the disgraced financier’s private musings about Trump and to what extent Trump may have known about his criminal conduct.
The Trump administration pushed back on allegations of wrongdoing Wednesday, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt alleging Democrats “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.” Trump, in a social media post, also accused Democrats of “trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects.”
Here are some of the most stunning revelations from the latest trove of documents.
Epstein and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers
Epstein’s inbox features several appearances by Larry Summers, a prominent economist who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
In one exchange, Summers shares snippets from a 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia, including a quip that the “general view” among Saudi officials was that “Donald is a clown, increasingly dangerous on foreign policy.”
In another email, Summers remarks that “I observed that half of the IQ In world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
“I’m trying to figure why American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank,” Summers added before directing Epstein: “DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Summers has attracted scrutiny for his rhetoric about women in the past, including a 2005 speech in which he cited a controversial theory that has been used to suppose that men are more prone to extremely high or low IQs than women as one reason women are underrepresented in science and engineering. The backlash generated by the speech contributed to Summers’ decision to step down as president of Harvard University in 2006.
A representative for Summers did not respond to a request for comment about the exchange.
Michael Wolff’s advice
In a series of emails dating back 10 years, Epstein discussed his predicament and his ties to Trump with author and journalist Michael Wolff.
Wolff on several occasions offered advice to Epstein regarding how he might best publicly navigate his relationship with Trump, who at the time was in the midst of his 2016 presidential campaign
In a 2015 email, Wolff offers advice on what to do if Trump was asked about his relationship with Epstein. Specifically, Epstein asked Wolff how Trump would respond to such a question.
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff wrote of Trump in a 2015 email. “If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.”
In a 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein wrote that “Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. [O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
The message appears to reference Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted Epstein co-conspirator currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for crimes connected to Epstein.
The following year, Epstein and several associates received word that Reuters was readying a story about a lawsuit filed against the disgraced financier and Trump over an alleged sexual assault from 1994.
“Well, I guess if there's anybody who can wave thus [sic] away, it's Donald," Wolff wrote. "Let me know if there's anything I can do."
Wolff’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Epstein and former White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler
Epstein’s inbox also features repeated appearances by another member of the Obama administration: former White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler.
In a 2018 exchange, Ruemmler — then a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins — discusses the criminal case against former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who admitted to conspiring with Trump to pay porn star Stormy Daniels hush money during a New York criminal investigation.
In one of the messages, Epstein exclaims: “you see, i know how dirty donald is. my guess is that non lawyers ny biz people have no idea. what it means to have your fixer flip.”
In a separate exchange, Ruemmler shared her apparent disdain for the people of New Jersey during an email about a planned road trip to New York.
“Think I am going to drive,” she wrote. “I will then stop to pee and get gas at a rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike, will observe all of the people there who are at least 100 pounds overweight, will have a mild panic attack as a result of the observation, and will then decide that I am not eating another bite of food for the rest of my life out of fear that I will end up like one of these people.”
Ruemmler did not respond to a request for comment. She is now the chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs, which declined to comment.
Epstein and Peter Thiel
In one 2018 exchange, Epstein asks PayPal founder Peter Thiel — an ally of Vice President JD Vance — if he was enjoying Los Angeles. Epstein also complimented Thiel on his “trump exaggerations, not lies.”
“Can’t complain thus far…,” Thiel answered, to which Epstein replied, “Dec visit me Caribbean."
Epstein’s private island near St. Thomas in the Caribbean has long been the subject of speculation about which possible conspirators may have visited the island, which Epstein allegedly used to conceal his criminal behavior.
A spokesperson for Thiel said he never visited the island.
Epstein and Steve Bannon
In several of Epstein’s exchanges with business associates and friends, he boasts of his relationships to powerful figures in media, technology and foreign affairs.
In a 2018 exchange with Bannon, Epstein says “there are many leaders of countries we can organize for you to have one on ones” with if Bannon agreed to spend eight to 10 days in Europe.
“If you are going to play here, you’ll have to spend time, europe by remote doesn’t work,” Epstein wrote.
A representative for Bannon declined to comment.
Epstein and the Kremlin
Epstein apparently leaned on his foreign policy connections in at least one instance: in the lead-up to Trump’s 2018 bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Epstein suggested that Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s longtime foreign minister, seek his insights on Trump.
“I think you might suggest to putin that lavrov can get insight on talking to me,” Epstein wrote in an email to Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway who was leading the Council of Europe at the time.
During the exchange, Epstein said he had already spoken with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, about Trump before Churkin died in 2017.
“Churkin was great,” Epstein wrote. “He understood trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple.”
The Russian embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
Epstein and celebrities
The rotating cast of characters Epstein turned to for advice apparently also included the family of disgraced filmmaker Woody Allen.
In one email, Epstein shared a news article about James Woolsey, who led the CIA during the Clinton administration, joining Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as an adviser with Soon-Yi Previn — Allen’s wife and the adopted daughter of actress Mia Farrow, whom Allen had a relationship with.
Previn replied that “Woody said it didn’t mean anything.”
Previn and Allen could not be reached for comment about the exchange.
Epstein and a well-known publicist
In 2011, Epstein wrote to Peggy Siegal, a prominent publicist who has worked in elite New York and Hollywood circles, with an ask: Could she reach out to media mogul Ariana Huffington to enlist her help in clearing his name?
In the exchange, Epstein and Siegal discuss “the girl who accused Prince Andrew” — an apparent reference to the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers who sued Prince Andrew in 2021 alleging he sexually assaulted her on several occasions. The prince was stripped of his titles and is now identified as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He has long denied any accusations of sexual wrongdoing.
In one message, Epstein writes that Huffington — the co-founder of the Huffington Post, now HuffPost — “should champion the dangers of false allegations” and “send a reporter or reporters to investigate” Giuffre.
Epstein wrote of the idea: “the palace would love it, the girl in the photo, was nothing more than a telephone answerer,, she was never 15, according to her version she worked for trump, first at that age, at MAra lago.”
Siegal offered to send the message to Huffington on her own behalf if Epstein fixed the grammar in his message, although Huffington, who left HuffPost in 2016, told POLITICO she "was never contacted and never sent a reporter."
“It was a moronic request, and he constantly tried to embroil innocent people into the fantasy of his life," Siegal told POLITICO. "It’s beyond comprehension that I would call Arianna and get involved in this."
A spokesperson for HuffPost also said that "After reaching out to current and former staff, to the best of our knowledge, no talk of this coverage ever made it to HuffPost."
Epstein and controversial artist Andres Serrano
While several of the emails released Wednesday call attention to Epstein’s apparent ties to Trump, in one conversation, he appears to express doubt about supporting the then-candidate’s presidential campaign.
In the exchange from October 2016, Epstein discusses the election with artist Andres Serrano, whose controversial 1987 photograph “Piss Christ” — depicting a crucifix submerged in urine — attracted widespread condemnation.
Epstein wrote to Serrano that there was “no good choice” in the election, to which Serrano replied “I was prepared to vote against Trump for all the right reasons but I'm so disgusted by the outrage over ‘grab them by the pussy’ that I may give him my sympathy vote.” Serrano was referencing the widely known Access Hollywood tape of Trump bragging about sexually abusing women.
“I'm sure Bill C said things, too,” Serrano added, in an apparent reference to former President Bill Clinton.
Serrano did not respond to a request for comment about the emails. Clinton has previously denied having a close relationship with Epstein and through spokespeople said he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
Gregory Svirnovskiy, Cheyanne M. Daniels, Kyle Cheney, Josh Gerstein and Erica Orden contributed to this report.
CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect that Mia Farrow and Woody Allen were not officially married.
Behind closed doors on Wednesday, a Nevada Democrat implored her House colleagues to “stop pissing on each other and start pissing on” Republicans over the shutdown deal, according to two people familiar with her remarks.
The decision by eight Senate Democrats to give Republicans the necessary votes to reopen the federal government this week, without definitive concessions on health care costs, has inflamed divisions within a party that for years has been reeling from internal feuds. Now, Democratic strategists are warning the latest fight is distracting from the party’s mission of pummeling the GOP ahead of the pivotal midterms next year.
Nearly every Democrat running for the Senate condemned the deal and more than a half-dozen House Democrats called for the party to dump Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. House frontliners and prominent progressives piled on. Democrats popped off on cable news interviews, in direct-to-camera videos on social media and on podcasts, venting about how their party caved. They even started fundraising off the intraparty feud.
But all that fury is threatening to rebound on them, some Democrats said.
“We didn’t love the deal either, but that doesn’t mean we think Democrats should be out shooting at each other over this,” said Matt Bennett, president of Third Way, a centrist think tank. “We need to keep the focus on where this belongs: Trump and Republicans having taken away health care from millions. Internecine warfare among Democrats is bonkers and should stop.”
Or, as another Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, put it: “The circular firing squad is not helpful.”
The House Democratic campaign arm weighed in, too, begging its members “to hold vulnerable Republicans … accountable” for the government shutdown in a memo circulated on Monday.
The internal dispute over how and when to end the longest government shutdown lays bare the deep divisions coursing through the party’s primaries across the country. Some Democrats, usually the younger ones, want to aggressively fight President Donald Trump’s agenda, reflecting the intense pressure from an enraged base. Yet other, more establishment-minded Democrats, don’t think “standing up to Donald Trump” worked, as Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said during an MSNBC interview Monday.
But there’s a risk, some Democratic strategists warned, in “los[ing] focus on the central health care issue and who’s to blame, which is the Republicans,” said Mark Longabaugh, a veteran consultant who was a top strategist for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. “From a political standpoint, Democrats have to return their focus [to Republicans] no matter how angry they may be with a betrayal of eight senators.”
The pressure for party unity is high, as deadlines loom for the next round of political battles: In December, Democrats are seeking a vote to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies that faces an uncertain path through the GOP-controlled Congress. In January, they’ll confront another government funding deadline.
It all comes at a perilous moment for Democrats, who are suffering from historically poor approval numbers that haven’t recovered much from their electoral wipeout last year. Democrats were jubilant about last week’s off-year victories across the country, positing that their candidates’ overperformance in two gubernatorial races indicates deep dissatisfaction with Republicans that will carry into the midterms. Public polling, too, consistently showed Republicans shouldering more of the blame for the shutdown than Democrats.
“Yet, now, here we are again, with Democrats in disarray,” said Jim Manley, a longtime Senate aide to then-Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Republicans are reveling in Democrats’ latest civil war, while warning it could end quickly and refocus the spotlight onto the GOP over one of its weaker electoral issues. Democrats held the advantage in a recent KFF poll that asked which party voters trust to handle the high cost of health insurance. Only one-third of voters in an AP-NORC poll released this week approve of Trump’s handling of health care.
“Their very messy family fight may complicate primaries and the future of the party, but it does not provide cover for the GOP on health care,” GOP strategist Matthew Bartlett said.
Democrats whiffed their first shot at unifying on Monday, but the ongoing furor over their party’s defectors — and Schumer’s inability to control them — threatened to overpower Democrats’ attacks on the GOP after Republicans blocked Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-Wis.) effort to force a vote on a one-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies. They’ll have another opportunity as House Democrats launch their own effort to force a vote on an extension through a procedural maneuver that would require some Republican support to reach the floor.
“People are focused on the deal right now and there wasn’t a lot of advance hubbub around the Baldwin test vote,” Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said. “By the time there is a vote in December, presumably there will be some more attention around that.”
The intraparty pile-on speaks to the political forces shaping the competitive primaries Democrats are facing in critical Senate and House races. At a time when the base is clamoring for more fighters, no one wants to be caught on the wrong side of the ropes.
“This is a downstream effect of primaries because it incentivizes talking about people who generally share your values but you differ on tactics or strategy, and explaining why they’re wrong. I don’t think that makes us more at risk,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of the progressive candidate training group Run For Something. “I think working through it, then voters making a decision, makes us stronger in the end.”
But there appear to be limits to Democrats’ self-destruction.
Inside the Capitol, Schumer is not facing a serious threat to his leadership post at the moment, though confidence in his stewardship has taken another hit within the caucus, according to a Senate Democratic aide granted anonymity to describe internal conversations. Even Sanders, who has endorsed several of the Senate candidates most outspoken against the caucus, admitted this week that Democrats do not have a replacement.
“I understand the frustration of the base and members, but we can’t spend all our time attacking each other,” Manley said. “I’m hoping Democrats can return to the health care debate and put Republicans on their back foot.”
Rahm Emanuel believes Americans are being presented a “binary choice” between “defund the police” and President Donald Trump’s National Guard push.
So he’s offering an alternative.
As Democrats grapple with how to cut into one of Republicans’ core issues in the midterm elections next year, the former Chicago mayor plans to lay out his own approach to public safety at an event with police leaders in Washington on Wednesday. He plans to call for pairing community policing methods with tough-on-major-crime tactics and youth interventions. He said his strategy can be a model for cities and for fellow Democrats to combat the electoral narrative that they are weak on crime.
“Democrats a) should not be scared of it and b) should be proactive about what their agenda is,” Emanuel said in an interview Monday previewing his remarks.
A political operative who’s served three presidents and across levels of government, Emanuel is attempting to position himself at the forefront of his party’s conversation on how to tackle public safety as he weighs a White House bid in 2028. He told POLITICO he doesn’t have a “hard timeline” for that decision.
Emanuel will present his strategy at the University of Chicago Crime Lab’s Policing Leadership Academy event honoring graduates on Wednesday.
His approach includes combining more training in community policing with “tough action against hardened criminals and gang members,” as well as with youth programs like the mentoring initiatives he undertook as mayor. He also wants more enforcement of gun laws and efforts to intensify them.
He distilled his public-safety pitch into a slogan that harkens back to his time leading Chicago: “More cops on the beat, and getting kids, guns and gangs off the street.”
As mayor, Emanuel grappled with a surge in homicides and shootings, with the city reporting its deadliest year in two decades in 2016. Crime rates across major categories — murders, shootings, robberies and burglaries — declined over the next two years, which the city’s police department attributed to strengthened community partnerships and technological investments. And Emanuel poured millions in expanding youth mentoring and summer job programs to keep kids off the streets, initiatives that remain a point of pride.
Emanuel drew national headlines for tangling with Trump over crime and immigration during the president’s first term. He would face stiff competition in that lane if he ran for the White House in 2028 — Democratic governors like Illinois’ JB Pritzker are fighting Trump’s National Guard incursions into their major cities.
Emanuel expressed opposition to Trump’s efforts to flood blue bastions with Guard troops and federal immigration officers, part of a two-pronged crackdown the president is pushing to boost Republicans in the midterms. Trump claims it has reduced crime. Several states and cities have sued over his Guard deployments to somesuccess, with Illinois and Chicago currently battling the Trump administration before the Supreme Court.
Asked if there was anything effective about Trump’s strategy, Emanuel pointed to a “thread of positive” — that concentrating troops in one area of a city could give local law enforcement the ability to focus elsewhere.
But he stressed he was “not endorsing” that use of the Guard. “It’s a horrible idea to parachute in 100 to 200 people for a short duration of time who have no sense of a community or no sense of what policing is,” he said. “All the money you’re spending on the National Guard could be used to train 500 [local] officers.”
As Trump works to exploit public safety concerns in the midterms, Emanuel said Democrats have to get “comfortable” talking about crime. Democrats are broadly urging their party to go on the offense on the issue, bolstered by private polling that shows a mix of attacks on Republicans and showing steps Democrats are taking to reduce crime can swing voters in their direction.
Emanuel said Democrats should stop crouching behind falling crime statistics that don’t match voters’ perceptions. “Nobody can be complacent or comforted by a statistic,” he added.
He also repeatedly derided the “defund” slogan that criminal justice reformers and progressives popularized in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd but that Democrats have since abandoned. The rallying cry for police reform quickly became an anchor for the party as the GOP successfully argued against its absolutism. Since then, Democrats have worked to distance themselves from it, with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed scrubbing his social media of mentions of it and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani backing away from his past embrace of it.
Republicans are nevertheless seizing on it as they work to make Mamdani their midterms foil and hammer Democrats as soft on crime. But Emanuel argued they won’t be able to make the association stick to candidates broadly after Mamdani moved away from the mantra.
Emanuel will have to contend with his own past on public safety as he contemplates a political comeback, a record that includes helping pass Clinton’s controversial 1994 crime bill and his bungled handling of Laquan McDonald’s murder in 2014.
Emanuel said he bears “responsibility” for how he handled McDonald’s case. He has forged a “very strong relationship” with McDonald’s great uncle, Chicago pastor Marvin Hunter, who supported Emanuel as ambassador to Japan during the Biden administration. The two keep in regular contact.
He also pointed to his 2021 Senate confirmation hearing, when he acknowledged he had underestimated the “distrust” of law enforcement among Black Chicagoans and failed to do enough to address it.
“The problems were deeper, farther and more ingrained than I fully appreciated. That’s on me,” Emanuel said Monday. “But I was determined to make the changes.”
Maine Democrat Jordan Wood is dropping out of the Senate race to instead run for the newly vacant 2nd congressional district, he said in an interview this week, teeing up a fight to maintain Democratic control of the battleground seat.
Wood had pressed ahead in Maine’s Senate race, even as the primary rapidly evolved into a two-person race between Graham Platner and Gov. Janet Mills. But after Rep. Jared Golden’s (D-Maine) unexpected retirement from Congress, Wood said the high stakes race in northern Maine poses a more dire contest for Democrats to prove they can maintain their power.
“‘What do we do in this moment of crisis for our country and our state in democracy?’ That is what called me into the Senate race,” Wood said in an interview. “With Jared not running, it leaves open one of the most competitive House races in the entire country, and so I’m stepping up to take that on, because I believe we must.”
Republicans have clamored to regain control of the increasingly red district — which President Donald Trump won by 10 points in 2024 — and celebrated Golden’s withdrawal as a slam dunk for the GOP.
“What I hear from voters across the state is an anger and a frustration at a broken politics, and less directed at a single person but a political establishment,” he said. “Voters are really looking for candidates that are putting forward a vision of the future that they can believe in and that is addressing the biggest issues that they face in life.”
Wood declined to endorse in the Senate race following his withdrawal but said he’d “support whoever the Democratic nominee is.”
Wood — who said he currently lives about 20 miles outside of the district but grew up in the area — said he and his husband are in the process of moving within the district’s boundaries. He noted that he held town halls in all 11 counties of the 2nd District during his Senate run and heard directly from many would-be constituents.
He argued his campaign reached voters not by focusing on Trump but instead speaking to the “failure” of representatives across the aisle in addressing affordability and the cost of living — issues he says are “not all just Donald Trump’s fault.”
Wood will bring fundraising heft to the race. He’s raked in more than $3 million since launching his Senate campaign in late April — roughly half of which came in the last quarter — though that includes a $250,000 loan, according to his filings with the Federal Election Commission. He started the final three months of the year with $920,000 in his campaign coffers, which he can now roll over to his House campaign.
On the Republican side, two-term former Gov. Paul LePage had raised roughly $916,000 through the end of September and started the final three months of the year with $716,000 in cash on hand.
Wood joins former Golden primary challenger Matt Dunlap, the state auditor, who pledged to stay in the race after Golden’s exit.
Woods' entrance is unlikely to end the DCCC’s ongoing search for a candidate, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Wood said that he had “been in communication” with the DCCC and “let them know our plans” but declined to provide details on the conversations.
Another potential entrant into the race is current gubernatorial candidate and former state Senate President Troy Jackson, who last week left the door open to a run.
“I'm really flattered by everyone reaching out and I get why,” Jackson said in a statement. “I've won multiple times in a district that voted for Trump by talking directly to rural working class voters from across the political spectrum about how to make Maine more affordable for them.”
One other name to watch: Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis, who was once mulling a Senate bid. A Francis ally told the Bangor Daily News last week that he was considering a run in ME-02.
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.
Latino voters, who swung toward President Donald Trump in 2024, boomeranged back to Democrats last week, signaling the fraying of his coalition less than one year into his second term.
Few places across the country epitomize that swing like New Jersey’s Passaic County, a densely populated, geographically diverse region where Latinos comprise a plurality. Voters there supported Trump by a narrow margin in 2024, only to back Democratic Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill by double-digits last week. Union City, which is the most Latino city in the state, swung 47 points toward Democrats. And Sherrill seized the Trump-supporting 9th Congressional District, home to a large Latino population, by around 19 points.
In Virginia, the other state with a gubernatorial contest last week, the two most heavily Latino cities swung toward Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger by more than 15 points each.
And in California, support for a Democratic-backed ballot measure exceeded Kamala Harris’ share by roughly 12 points in Imperial County, where Latino residents make up 77 percent of the population. That marks the biggest swing of any county in the state.
Just one year after Trump soared to victory with 48 percent of the Latino vote nationally, these results demonstrate that Republicans have yet to cement them into their coalition. Democrats, feeling emboldened after an epic shellacking last year, have been predicting Latinos would turn on the GOP out of dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of the economy.
Not unlike Trump in 2024, Democrats were able to capitalize on those cost-of-living concerns to lure voters this year, proving correct a series of polls that portended this trend. It is giving the beleaguered party new optimism about their chances of taking back the House in next year's midterms, as many of the districts up for grabs have substantial Latino populations.
“There was a lot of conversation heading out of the last election about a monolithic realignment, and I think it missed the fact that Trump is a unique beast who was able to persuade Latinos that he has their interests at heart,” said Tory Gavito, president of progressive donor network Way to Win. “In the last 11 months, he's done everything but think about Latinos’ interests.”
Democrats’ success with Latinos during this off-cycle election may not necessarily translate to races across the country in 2026, when the minority party will fight to retake control of Congress. And Latino voters in Florida and South Texas are likely to vote differently from those in New Jersey or California.
Further muddling the midterm picture is the Trump question. The president successfully turned out low-propensity Latino voters, some of whom may be more likely to participate in a midterm race than an odd-year election, especially if Trump decides to play a role in next year’s showdown.
So Republicans, who have made a big bet on majority-Latino districts in order to keep their majority next year, have some cause for hope amid an otherwise brutal Election Day for them. While GOP candidates underperformed Trump with Latinos last week, they still put up better numbers than the Republicans of a decade ago (in New Jersey in 2017 for example, Republicans won just 17 percent of the Latino vote, compared to roughly a third this time). And Tuesday’s elections also gave the GOP a new foil in New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, whom they think can further tarnish Democrats’ standing with Latino voters across the country who oppose socialism. (Mamdani won 58 percent of the vote in election districts where Latinos made up the largest share of the population, according to data compiled by The City.)
The day after the election, the National Republican Congressional Committee launched Spanish-language ads in 11 swingy congressional districts decrying the “socialist” soon-to-be New York City mayor as “the future that Democrats want” and warning voters their city could be next.
“Democrats have ignored Hispanic communities over the past nine years while millions of working families rejected their radical, socialist agenda,” Christian Martinez, the NRCC’s national Hispanic press secretary, said in a statement. “Republicans will continue to earn the support of Hispanic voters because we are working to deliver opportunity, security, and a better life.”
Democrats largely credited their messaging on affordability and blaming Trump for not following through on his economic campaign promises for their rebound with Latino voters.
“Latinos are rejecting Republicans’ broken promises of lower costs and a strong economy,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Bridget Gonzalez said in a statement last week. “Groceries, utilities, and health care are unaffordable and that’s why Latinos will help Democrats take back control of the House next November.”
In California, the Prop 50 campaign to bolster Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting push leaned heavily on immigration in its messaging, using imagery of ICE and Border Patrol raids to argue Trump’s power must be checked. The campaign’s Spanish-language ads focused predominantly on the immigration crackdown, with cursory mention of Trump’s tariffs.
“The Latino revolt was economic and personal — Trump hit their wallets with tariffs and our communities with raids,” said Juan Rodriguez, a senior strategist for Newsom. “From California to races across the country, the message for 2026 couldn’t be clearer.”
A lot could change with the state of the economy that could either bolster or weaken their message. And some are cautioning Democrats not to get too comfortable with last week's results — and not to rely strictly on affordability messaging.
“This doesn't mean that Democrats have it in the bag,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigration reform group, who added that she hopes to see Democrats message more on immigration in addition to the economy during the midterms. “We’ve seen it before — there's a lot of distrust of Democrats on immigration issues because of promises that have been made.”
“They have a lot to vote against,” she continued. “The challenge for Democrats is giving them something to vote for.”
In New Jersey, Sherrill’s victory looms large over the state’s 9th congressional district, a plurality-Latino seat that encompasses parts of Bergen and Passaic counties. Sherrill won both by double digits, a major swing after Trump flipped Passaic and lost Bergen by just 3 points in 2024. Republicans are targeting the district’s first-term representative, Democrat Nellie Pou, largely because Trump won the seat in 2024.
But ticket-splitting in the district’s further down-ballot races may demonstrate that Democrats’ work isn’t done there. In Hawthorne, a borough where Latinos make up around one-quarter of the population, preliminary results show Sherrill won but incumbent Republicans prevailed in mayoral and council races.
Carlos Cruz, a Republican strategist who worked on a super PAC backing Sherrill’s opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, said that last year’s election was a “referendum” on leadership in Washington and the economy, and people cast a ballot this year for the same reasons.
“There were people who voted for the president who wanted to see more,” Cruz said. “For Democrats to overreact and say ‘Nellie is safe now’ is fundamentally misreading this year's elections.”
Morghan Cyr, Pou’s campaign manager, said that the results “solidified one thing for Democrats above all: Latino communities are key to success across the board.”
“Early, intentional investment in and engagement with these communities is essential to Democrats taking back the House in 2026,” Cyr said in a statement last week. “The progress that was made this week is good, but we have to keep building on it.”
A Utah judge on Monday rejected a Republican-passed redistricting plan that created two more-competitive districts in the state — a win for Democrats who thought the map did not go far enough.
In denying the new map, the judge put in place one of two options offered by plaintiffs that creates a solidly-Democratic district that covers Salt Lake City, giving the party its second win in the redistricting wars that have swept the nation ahead of the midterms.
In her ruling, issued minutes before a midnight deadline, Judge Dianna Gibson said the Republican map “fails to abide by and conform with the requirements” of a 2018 voter-approved ballot measure that created nonpartisan redistricting standards for the state Legislature.
The Utah case centers around a voter-approved measure against partisan gerrymandering in the state passed in 2018, one that Republicans are collecting signatures to undo.
Utah is just one piece in the broader redistricting puzzle. Already, Republicans have drawn nine favorable districts in four states, with others on the horizon. Democrats got their first win in the battle last week, when California voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that could net the party five more seats.
Several Utah Democrats are inching toward entering the race. Former Rep. Ben McAdams is expected to announce his candidacy soon, according to three people with direct knowledge of his thinking. He has already garnered support from Welcome PAC, a national group which backs more moderate candidates over progressives.
A Democrat has not represented Utah in Congress since 2021, when McAdams left office.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated the number of Utah Democrats who have served in Congress.
Democratic Reps. Steny Hoyer and Jamie Raskin are inserting themselves into the state’s redistricting fight, escalating pressure on state lawmakers and the senate president to take up the mid-decade redrawing of congressional lines ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The two prominent Maryland Democrats sent a four-page letter to the entire Maryland General Assembly Monday, where they framed their endorsement of redrawing the state’s maps as a way to rebuff the president’s "authoritarian attack on democratic elections and voting rights” while casting the fight as an “ethical moral and political imperative" to act.
That nationwide effort has been stymied in Maryland, where the state’s Senate president, Bill Ferguson, has rejected the push to change maps in the state.
“We write today to applaud the governor’s redistricting initiative and urge you to move forward to explore what we can do as a state to help prevent the imminent disaster of President Trump determining the results of the 2026 congressional elections through aggressive mid-decade gerrymandering and therefore clinching control of the U.S. House of Representatives before a single vote is even cast,” the lawmakers write.
The letter comes a week after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) announced the creation of a redistricting advisory commission that is expected to solicit feedback from Marylanders on whether the state should move forward with redrawing maps. Democrats dominate the state’s congressional delegation and if the party is successful in redrawing the maps it could only pick up a single seat — currently occupied by Republican Rep. Andy Harris, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus.
While the state’s top Democrats, including Moore and Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones, are all on board with exploring redistricting, Ferguson has remained a holdout.
Two weeks ago Ferguson sent his own letter to dozens of state lawmakers bucking his party and outlining why the Maryland Senate would not take up the effort. Part of his rationale was that the Maryland Supreme Court is packed with several justices appointed by Moore’s successor, former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. He suggests that not only raises the possibility that any new maps that give Democrats an 8-0 advantage could be struck down, but it could trigger a loss of Democratic seats in the state, something he referred to as “the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic.”
Ferguson’s office acknowledged it had received the letter but did not comment. The Baltimore Sun was the first to report on the letter.
Moore, a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, said in an appearance on CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday that Maryland should not stand on the sidelines as other states, especially Republican-led states, jump into redistricting.
“If other states are going to have this process and go through this- go through this journey of identifying whether or not they have fair maps in a mid-decade cycle, then so should Maryland,” Moore said. “I'm just not sure why we should be playing by a different set of rules than Texas, or than Florida, or than Ohio or all these other places.”
There’s been pressure mounting on Maryland to move for weeks, and Ferguson is seen as the party’s biggest impediment to moving forward. Democrats’ resounding victories last week in Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial races, as well as the overwhelming passage of a ballot initiative passed by California voters to redraw state lines to pick up five liberal-leaning seats to counteract a similar move in Texas to net five Republican-leaning seats, is ramping up the urgency to act.
Hoyer and Raskin’s letter calls Ferguson out by name and attempts to undercut some of his reasons for hesitating on moving forward.
“While Senator Ferguson is obviously right that there is an element of uncertainty in all litigation, there are some well-established doctrines that courts follow out of deference to the legislature’s constitutional power over redistricting,” the lawmakers write. “Chief among these is the principle that, when a court strikes down a newly enacted map as unlawful, the legislature must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to remedy the violation.”
The letter also appears to be aimed at pressuring Ferguson by energizing some of the state lawmakers that he leads, possibly ramping up the stakes they could move against him.
“We don’t need to remind you that Marylanders have paid a heavy price during the first year of the second Trump Administration,” they write, listing off items including 15,000 federal employees that have been fired since Trump returned to power and thousands more workers and federal contractors that have been furloughed since the shutdown began more than a month ago.
The memo also asks state lawmakers three questions they should answer as to whether they deem the redistricting fight as imminent. “Are we in the fight of our lives to defend American democracy and freedom and our Constitution, Bill of Rights and rule of law?... is it an ethical, moral and political imperative to use every lawful means at our disposal to fight back…: can we successfully and lawfully redistrict to respond to these GOP assaults?”
To all three questions, Raskin and Hoyer write, “We believe the answer is yes.”
Senate Democrats’ embrace of a shutdown deal that doesn’t guarantee extended health care subsidies is already an electoral issue.
Nearly every major Democratic Senate candidate panned the deal, from Texas hopeful Colin Allred, a former member of Congress, deriding it as a “joke” to Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton condemning it as a “complete betrayal of the American people.” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), the party’s most vulnerable incumbent in 2026, voted against advancing it, as did several senators eyeing a 2028 White House bid.
“Pathetic,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X. “This is not a deal — it’s an empty promise,” Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois said. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called it a “bad deal.”
The Sunday agreement even caused a familial dispute: Stefany Shaheen, who is running in a crowded Democratic primary for an open House seat in New Hampshire, said she couldn’t support a deal that failed to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Her mother, retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, was one of the lead Democratic negotiators of the deal.
Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, who is running to replace Jeanne Shaheen, creating the very opening her daughter is vying to fill, also rejected it in a statement Monday.
After looking to make soaring health care costs an albatross for Republicans in the midterms, Democrats’ deal to reopen the government after 40 days without language extending the expiring insurance subsidies delivered a blow to their base. The result was so fraught, even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) opposed it amid intense criticism for allowing eight members of the Democratic caucus to side with Republicans.
Now it’s creating a litmus test for candidates in competitive midterm races next year, as Democrats fight to retake the Senate — a tough task they feel better about after routing Republicans in last week’s off-cycle elections throughout the country. They’d need to net four seats in order to seize control of the upper chamber.
“The infighting over the deal will fade quickly and by the time we get closer to the midterms, it’s very clear that Democrats will aggressively prosecute the case against Republicans on health care,” said Matt Bennett of the centrist think tank Third Way. “They will say Republicans yanked lifesaving money away from millions of Americans to fund tax cuts for the rich. And that will have the benefit of being true.”
Thirty-three Senate seats are up for grabs next year and Democrats are making a serious play for holding or flipping at least a dozen of them. A quartet of candidates vying for open seats — Graham Platner in Maine, Mallory McMorrow in Michigan and Zach Wahls and Nathan Sage in Iowa — reiterated their opposition to Schumer’s leadership as news of the deal spread.
“Chuck Schumer failed in his job yet again,” Platner said in a video on X. “We need to elect leaders who want to fight. … Call your senators and tell them Chuck Schumer can no longer be leader. Call your congressman and tell them that they cannot vote for this when it comes to them.”
In Michigan’s three-way primary, each candidate panned the deal, representing the ideologically vast opposition within a party otherwise mired in internal dispute.
“This is a bad deal,” McMorrow said in a video late Sunday, adding that “the old way of doing things is not working.” Abdul El-Sayed slammed the “shit” agreement and castigated Democrats for giving up their leverage “when we actually can force [Republicans] to the table” after their electoral losses last week. Rep. Haley Stevens said the deal “doesn’t work for Michigan” and that she’s “going to need a whole lot more than empty promises that we’re going to lower costs.” She did not say how she’d vote on the measure in the House. Stevens’ team confirmed she would vote against the measure in the House.
Senate Democrats’ capitulation opened an off-ramp to the record-breaking government shutdown that has snarled air travel and led to missed paychecks and lapsed food assistance. The agreement now advancing through the Senate would fund some agencies and programs for the full fiscal year and extend others until Jan. 30, 2026. It also promises Democrats a December floor vote on extending the expiring Obamacare subsidies, though it’s uncertain to pass the GOP-controlled chamber and Speaker Mike Johnson won’t promise to bring up such a vote in the House.
But in cutting a deal, Senate Democrats infuriated a party reinvigorated by its off-year electoral blowout, sparking accusations that the party again squandered its only leverage in the Republican-led Congress — and ensuring Schumer’s leadership will remain a touchstone in competitive Senate races.
They cited the financial pain the prolonged federal funding lapse was inflicting on their constituents. They cast the pending floor vote on the tax credits as a win for Democrats. And they touted other concessions they secured, like the rehiring of federal workers laid off during the shutdown.
“This bill is not perfect, but it takes important steps to reduce their shutdown’s hurt,” Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat who is retiring next year, said Sunday.
The Democrats vying to replace him disagree. Stratton, who’s previously called for new Senate leadership, cast Democrats’ cave as “a complete betrayal of the American people.” Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly both said the outcome failed to help millions of people whose health care premiums are set to skyrocket.
Across the Senate map, opposition spanned Schumer’s handpicked recruits — who’ve been largely silent about the shutdown — to the insurgents who’ve called for his ouster.
“This is a bad deal for Ohioans,” former Sen. Sherrod Brown said in a statement. Maine Gov. Janet Mills panned “the promise of a vote [on the subsidies] that won’t go anywhere.” Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper — Democrats’ best chance for flipping a Senate seat and the last major candidate to weigh in on the deal — said in a statement that “any deal that lets health care costs continue to skyrocket is unacceptable.
Sage slammed the Senate Democrats who “caved and accomplished nothing.” Jordan Wood, another Democrat running in Maine, said “America needs an opposition party willing to fight for them.” Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said in a video, “we deserve so much more than this bullshit.” Hours later, she was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who voted against the deal.
“If people believe this is a ‘deal,’ I have a bridge to sell you,” said Flanagan’s rival, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), adding that she’s a “no” when the measure comes up for a vote in the House. “I’m not going to put 24 million Americans at risk of losing their health care.”
Senate Democrats who brokered the spending deal argued Sunday that they had succeeded in hanging rising health care costs on Republicans’ necks heading into the midterms.
“If Republicans want to join us in lowering costs for working families, they have the perfect opportunity,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) said Sunday at the Capitol. “If they do choose not to come to the table, they can own the disastrous premium increases.”
Democrats continued to target their own.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who was elected the next governor of New Jersey in last week’s blue wave, denounced the deal as “malpractice.” Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s incoming mayor who Schumer declined to endorse, said the compromise and anyone who supports it “should be rejected.”
Anger toward Senate Democrats also appears to be fueling the party’s recruitment efforts. Run for Something, a progressive candidate recruitment organization, saw double the number of signups over seven hours Sunday night — as the shutdown deal moved through the Senate — than over the same time period last Tuesday night as Democrats won elections across the country, according to co-founder Amanda Litman. The group saw 838 signups Sunday night versus 417 on election night.
The political blast radius is extending to Schumer, who is up for reelection in 2028.
Some progressive Democrats and advocacy groups called for his ouster as leader, blaming him for failing to keep his caucus in line even as he voted against the deal he said didn’t address the “health care crisis” and vowed to “keep fighting.”
Schumer “is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a potential 2028er, blasted out on X. On Monday, Khanna turned that push into a pitch to pad his supporter list.
The Sunrise Movement called for Schumer to step aside. Justice Democrats urged voters to reject the eight Senate Democrats who allowed the funding patch to proceed.
“I don’t think the Democrats leading this surrender effort understand the trust they are shattering in their own voting coalition,” Andrew O’Neill, the national advocacy director for Indivisible, warned Sunday night.
Schumer voted against the bill because it does “nothing” to address a “health care crisis” he called “devastating.” He pledged to “keep fighting.”
As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, too, vowed to fight on, O’Neill called for his caucus to follow suit. Several said Sunday that they would.
Adam Wren and Elena Schneider contributed to this report.
In Virginia, it’s Republicans’ turn to be lost in the wilderness, and they’re spreading blame for their drubbing.
Many say lackluster gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears was deeply flawed and didn’t focus enough on the economy. Some accuse popular GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin of failing to use more of his war chest to boost candidates. Others complain that the state party failed to employ an aggressive strategy — and a group of county party chairs is considering calling for the resignation of the Virginia Republican Party chair.
Basically, they blame everyone but President Donald Trump.
“They just smoked us. I mean, gosh, they wiped us off the map,” said Tim Anderson, a Republican who lost a House of Delegates race in the battleground Virginia Beach. “It's going to take four years to rebuild what happened on Tuesday.”
Anderson, who was elected to the House in 2021, said Earle-Sears’ lack of a “motivational message that excited voters to get off the couch” doomed Republicans running at every level, who were already facing political headwinds caused by DOGE-inflicted federal job losses, along with the government shutdown.
It’s a warning sign for Republicans across the nation ahead of the 2026 races, especially without Trump atop the ballot. The GOP lost decisively Tuesday in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia, including in some reliably red areas — a shellacking that signals problems for the party as Democrats turn out in droves against Trump and his policies. Democrats are simultaneously trying to move past their own intraparty turmoil and continue hammering America’s affordability problem.
“The economy was the No. 1 issue,” said former Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, a Republican. “And having people talking about trans rights and the like isn't what was moving the needle. [The message] needed to address the economy at this point, and I think the administration and Republican Congress need to give that focus to get this midterm under control.”
In the final weeks of the campaign, Earle-Sears blanketed the airwaves with ads characterizing Spanberger as being for “they/them”, echoing messaging from Trump’s 2024 campaign.
A spokesperson for Earle-Sears did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Virginia Republicans were already bracing for a tough November, given that the state’s off-year elections are traditionally a repudiation of the party in power in Washington and Trump lost Virginia by five points in 2024. Their predicament worsened when the president levied global tariffs, hurting rural areas of Virginia that rely on manufacturing and agriculture. Add to that cuts to the state’s federal workforce under the Department of Government Efficiency and the longest shutdown in U.S. history, and the party’s situation became dire.
“The majority of Virginia voters don’t like the president, and many of them have a visceral hatred for him and his governing style,” said DJ Jordan, a GOP strategist referring to Democratic voters who served as chief of staff for Jason Miyares, the attorney general who lost to a scandal-clad Democrat on Tuesday. Jordan was referring to Democratic voters.
Republicans are still unwilling to criticize Trump or his policies, but some conceded that the Democratic base was energized in opposition to the president.
“The state is a blue state, and the fact that we were running while Republicans are in the White House, history shows that that is not a recipe for success,” said a Republican strategist who was involved in the races and was granted anonymity to speak freely.
But Tuesday’s results dealt a deeper blow to the party than anticipated. Earle-Sears, who lagged in fundraising and never earned Trump’s direct endorsement, lost to Abigail Spanberger by 15 points, the largest victory by a Democrat in Virginia in decades and a bigger margin than most polls predicted. Though he fell short of victory, Miyares — the party’s best hope at pulling off an upset — brought in some ticket-splitters after Democrat Jay Jones was dragged down by a texting scandal.
“This blew past our worst case scenario of everything,” said a Republican who worked on some of the races.
In perhaps the biggest setback for the party’s long-term future, the GOP lost 13 seats in the House of Delegates, putting Democrats on a glide path to enact their agenda in Richmond — including mid-cycle redistricting to counter Trump’s push to make congressional maps more favorable to Republicans. Five of those state seats won by Democrats went for Trump in 2024, a sign of dissatisfaction among some Republican voters.
“They should have seen this coming,” said Loudoun County GOP Chair Scott Pio, who believes the party should have focused more on converting new voters than simply turning out the base. “Their strategy was quite ineffective and it shows. Now Virginia is a terribly blue state.”
Loudoun County is often considered an exurban swing county in the state.
Some Republicans’ ire extended to Youngkin, who enjoys high favorability and is prohibited by state law from seeking a consecutive term. One GOP strategist predicted that any hopes the governor has to run for president in 2028 will likely suffer because of the widespread losses.
“It’s wholly inaccurate that the governor did not spend his time, energy and significant resources on these races,” said Justin Discigil, a top Youngkin adviser.
Another cited early warning signs, like lack of a ground game and insufficient outreach to rural voters, who make up the party’s base.
“Everyone will want to blame Winsome. That's fine, if that's how they want to publicly spin,” one of the strategists said. “Everyone needs to take a serious look and realize that that is not at all the full story. The full story is we were too excited on our own brand and forgot to run a campaign up and down the ballot.”
Other Republicans dismiss any criticism that Youngkin did not do enough for the GOP ticket. He made multiple appearances on behalf of the candidates and donated close to $750,000 to Earle-Sears and $140,000 to Miyares, along with $100,000 to John Reid,the lieutenant governor whom he called on to drop out of the race over lewd photos posted online allegedly linked to him.
Pio, the Loudoun County Party chair, blamed a muddled strategy in rebuke of the state party chair, whom he is pushing to resign.
“They want to play the get out the vote game on Election Day and don't want to convert new voters,” Pio said.
Mark Peake, the chair of the Republican Party of Virginia, responded that it's not the job of the state party to set campaign strategy or run individual races — rather its purpose is to provide infrastructure, like data.
“A unit chair complaining that RPV didn't do enough to win the election — it's kind of like an offensive line coach complaining about the head coach not scoring enough points,” he said. Peake, who came into his role in April, said he has no intention of resigning.
Despite the sniping, Republicans are banking on Democrats pursuing a progressive agenda in Richmond that will alienate moderate voters.
“We can go on offense now — we can absolutely smack them upside the head every day,” said a Republican involved with the House races. “They caught the car and let's see what they do with it."
President Donald Trump’s supporters are willing to take a financial hit in order to support his policies, according to a new poll from POLITICO and Public First.
Democrats are also willing to shoulder economic pain to oppose Trump — though they’re not willing to go as far as Republicans.
In a polling experiment, POLITICO and Public First modeled how Trump can shape voters’ opinions of legislation that would cost or save them money. The typical Trump supporter would overlook having to pay about $65 more per month in taxes to back their leader, while anti-Trump voters would forego about $33 in savings if it meant opposing Trump’s agenda.
The findings demonstrate the role of partisanship in shaping public opinion about policy, and they reveal a dynamic that observers have long noted: The loyalty of Trump’s base, and the dedication of his opposition, sometimes seem to overpower voters’ apparent self-interest. Eventually, however, partisans on both sides had their limits.
Questions of economic burden and partisan loyalty were at the forefront of U.S. politics this week, with voters across several states repudiating Trump and his party and electing Democrats by enormous margins. Many of the Democratic winners, including in New Jersey and Virginia, campaigned on voters’ anger about the high cost of essentials such as energy prices, housing and health care.
The POLITICO Poll results are a reminder that — while many of Trump’s supporters have a reputation for intense loyalty — they also have a breaking point. And Tuesday’s election results suggest that despite Republican voters’ willingness to pay a literal price for Trump’s policies, the Trump agenda to date may have pushed voters too far.
The poll sought to measure just how much Trump’s stances on potential legislation affected voters’ views.
The polling experiment was designed to solve a common problem with issue polling: There is often a gap between voters’ views on something when they initially hear about it, and how they feel about that same issue once it becomes politicized. Poll respondents may say they support a particular policy, but feel differently if a politician they like comes out against it.
“One of the main challenges pollsters face is how to poll something after a politician has announced it. By that point, it can be impossible to separate genuine support for the policy, from support for the politician, from support for the arguments being made for and against it,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First. “To counter this, we cut out all the substance of the announcement, and looked just at how quantifiable impacts and statements of partisan support cancel each other out.”
Respondents were given a choice between two hypothetical bills. They were described not in terms of specific policies, but in terms of effects: The impact on their personal income taxes, the number of jobs in their state and the price of a dozen eggs.
Survey respondents were also told whether Trump, Republican lawmakers and Democratic lawmakers supported or opposed each bill.
After giving several variations of bills to thousands of survey respondents, we had tens of thousands of data points on voters’ preferences — enough to model out how respondents’ support for the hypothetical legislation was influenced by the approval of Trump and lawmakers.
The results were clear: There’s a real Trump endorsement effect on support for a bill.
The median Trump voter would choose a bill that would cost them $65 in monthly taxes if Trump also favored it, over a bill that saved them on taxes but did not have Trump’s support.
The trend was similar with other metrics. Trump voters were also willing to back bills that resulted in up to about 2,000 lost jobs in their state or a $1.14 increase in egg prices, provided that Trump was supportive.
For 2024 Trump voters, the president’s support was uniquely powerful. Republican lawmakers’ endorsement also had an impact with those voters, but it had less than half the power of Trump’s. Controlling for Trump’s support, GOP respondents were only willing to accept a $27 monthly tax increase for a bill backed by Republican lawmakers.
And Trump voters did not care what Democratic lawmakers thought of a bill; Democrats’ support for a bill did not move Trump voters’ positions in any statistically significant way.
Voters who had cast their ballots for former Vice President Harris in 2024 had the opposite response.
The median Harris voter would give up tax breaks to oppose Trump’s agenda, only favoring a bill backed by Trump if it decreased their monthly taxes by $33 or more.
Those Democratic voters were also willing to miss out on the creation of more than 1,000 jobs in their states, or a 40-cent cut in the price of a dozen eggs, because of Trump’s support for a bill.
Harris voters, on the other hand, were amenable to Democratic-backed legislation that increased their taxes by $61, compared to an alternative bill that did not have Democratic support. For Trump voters, the effect of Democratic lawmakers supporting a bill was not statistically significant.
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?"
When asked for comment, Carlson replied: “Poor Ted.”
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.”
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